Children's book reviews, all age comic books, Kidlit, mglit, movies, entertainment and parenting
Be Yourself and Other Bad Advice is a very helpful, readable, relatable book with a bit of a subtitle problem. Problem might not be the most accurate word. Limiting comes to mind, but specific could also be used, and specific isn’t bad per se. A Teen Girl’s Guide to Unlearning the Rules is the subtitle and immediately identifies the book’s target audience. That subtitle will almost certainly rule out all but the most read-hearty boys.
The United States of America is 250? I vaguely remember the 200th anniversary and the Bi-centennial train that made its way across the country.Brain Quest Presidents Smart Cards is released the same year as its 250th and is a surprisingly fun and engaging way to test your knowledge about the U. S. Presidents. I say ‘surprising’ because presidential facts doesn’t take up much, if any space in my wheelhouse. It’s an area that I’ve never purposely sought out information on, despite many U.S. history classes that certainly put a couple of facts in my hippocampus.
The 80s were chaotic, riddled with bad fashion that people thought was cool, produced some fabulous music, and is entertaining legions of teens nowadays. For the record ‘nowadays’ is possibly the oldest sounding word in the English language and is usually followed up with ‘back in my day’. Dead Flip is mglit that is all but served up with a heaping serving of Raisin Bran, featuring the iconic dancing raisins from 1989. It’s a fun book that today’s tweens and lower teens will enjoy because of the accurate 80s and 90’s shoutouts, as well as, the age-appropriate scares and drama.
That’s a bold claim, isn’t it? Actually, any book that has ‘ultimate’ in its title is aiming high or asking for trouble. The Ultimate Biography of Earth is a graphic novel that meets that metric, as long as you’re willing to walk down a certain STEM path. And that path is 100% STEM, The Ultimate Biography of Earth is by Nick Lund with illustrations by Jason Ford and is solidly aimed at those middle elementary through middle-middle school students who want to make the history of Earth fun.
When elementary school students get into the third grade they’ll start writing reports on basic subjects. It’s more than likely that those reports will center on an animal that probably has an unusual name or disgusting characteristic. Unfortunately for the students, they all can’t do their report on the Rainbow Dung Vampire Beetle. While it might be for the teacher’s sanity, they’ll limit the number of students that can do reports on a certain thing. Fandex Kids, Facts That Fit in Your Hand covers 49 main examples of a subject on one sturdy piece of cardboard.
The other day I saw a sticker on a car that said, “Baby up in this witch”, except it didn’t say witch. What an odd sticker, I thought. Would that parent be comfortable with their middle elementary-aged reading the sticker that’s on their car to other kids or adults? Thus, because I’m positing those thoughts one could quickly deduce that I was not a fan of using asterisks in the place of curse words. Mind you, I’m no puritan, I just want to have one conversation with my kids and not have to interpret, or hear them sound like a surly college student before they actually get there.
The vast majority of people muddle on purpose or accidentally, twist their day-to-day communication. Sometimes it’s quite innocuous, it’s those other times when people or organizations leave things unsaid or pepper their language with certain phrases that make things opaque. An Illustrated Book of Loaded Language is a book that looks at euphemisms, spin, bias, or things that are not said in arguments, in order to persuade people. It’s a very smart book that logic-based people will love reading. The subtitle is Learn To Hear What’s Left Unsaid, and if you can hear the opinions or direction that a conversation is trying to lead you in then this book will speak to you.
Our 9YO is still trying to figure out who he is. He knows what he doesn’t like and is constantly trying to figure out a shortcut to get to the things or characteristics that he does want to emulate. That is a work in progress as any parent or educator can attest to. Be The Dragon, 9 Keys to Unlocking Your Inner Magic seeks to help those kids aged eight and up ask and answer questions that might direct them to figure things out a little bit.
Copy Protected by Chetan's WP-Copyprotect.
Facebook
Twitter
Youtube