Books | Page 20 of 81

Drawing Outdoors, aims for STEM but hits the wrong stream

Artistic freedom is at the intersection of Why Am I Creating This Street and Who Is This For Lane. Drawing Outdoors is an illustrated book about a fabulous teacher at a rural school and her very creative students. The pupils gather in the remote single-room house from a variety of trails that snake across the piedmont area. It’s a special day because the kids are told that their lessons will be outside. They’re going to explore, draw things in nature, imagine shapes and expand their horizons. Drawing Outdoors will appeal to lots of elementary-aged students, but there’s one elephant that’s presented early in the book that will water down most of the fun. You’re in for a time if you miss this because the kids won’t, and once they see it you’ll lose all control of the classroom, and the grand message of the book will be lost.

The goal of Drawing Outdoors is creative art interpretation, it succeeds in that, but has an illustration that some won’t be able to get past.

You’re in trouble with some kids if they read this

Mutts: Walking Home, comfort comic strip food for everyone, anytime

It’s a beautiful autumn day and I’m sitting outside reading Mutts and it’s awesome. One could change every word of that previous sentence, except for ‘Mutts and it’s awesome.’, to something different and it would still be true. It’s a stormy, winter’s day and I’m in bed, under the covers reading Mutts, and it’s awesome. See, it still works. Seasonal comparisons are needed in those sentences because Mutts: Coming Home features Early running on a trail with his human. The leaves on the trees are becoming bright orange to dark yellow and are just about to succumb to gravity. It’s there where they’ll be crunched by walkers, and dogs and will complete the food chain with worms using them to produce compost.

Mutts: Walking Home compiles the tour de force dog and cat comic strip genius that’s as great as it ever was.

Consistant brilliance that’s new and classic

Land of Giants nails the scope and size of dinosaurs for elementary

The potato chip and cat video complex is strong with this one. That’s the line of reasoning that states that it’s difficult, to near impossible to engage in just one of them. Land of Giants jumps into that fray with just as much glee as the sour cream and onion potato chips or the kittens being jerk video that was in your stream earlier. Everyone loves dinosaurs, while that may sound like a scrapped tv pilot from CBS circa the late 90s, it’s more akin to the fact that people love big lizards and the concept of how massive they actually were.

Land of Giants is an illustrated book with bite-sized facts on dinosaurs that nails the size comparison that elementary kids want.

Let the size of these giant lizard boggle your mind

Anglerfish The Seadevil of the Deep, fun STEM for one and all

Fish aren’t inherently evil or bad. However, if you were to pose the question of what’s the evilest fish of them all then the Anglerfish would surely be in that mix. If nothing else, then that glowing light that’s on the end of the fishing rod on their head would qualify them by some people’s classification. If you didn’t know what an Anglerfish was before, then that description certainly painted exactly which fish we’re talking about. Anglerfish, The Seadevil of the Deep is an illustrated book by Elaine M. Alexander with illustrations by Fiona Fogg. This is on the STEM side of illustrated books and presents this mysterious fish in a way that will entertain, make kids curious, and drop little nuggets of knowledge that they’ll gleefully share with their friends.

Anglerfish: The Seadevil of the Deep is an illustrated book that examines a mysterious creature and makes it an unlikely hero.

C’mon in, the water’s fine

The Most Haunted House in America is illustrated ghostly mayhem

A surprise in your illustrated books is OK. You comic book fans know what I’m talking about. The cover doesn’t exactly match the content inside or has text that infers something that might be direr. The Most Haunted House in America is an illustrated book that follows that comic book playbook to the letter. This is a beautifully illustrated book with art that drags you in with the skeleton hands that you’ll quickly see once you open it.

The Most Haunted House in America, an illustrated book on the most famous house in America and the residents that never left.

Come for the lead, stay for art that sucks you in

Bodies, Brains & Boogers, makes human health fun for ages 8 and up

Pick a page, any page from Bodies, Brains & Boogers and it’s something that will interest or intrigue ages eight and up. And, while you may not want to tell those ages this, they’ll also learn something from every page, yes, even you older middle school readers. Do you have Demodex, how much collagen is in your brain, how fast are synapses and so many more are questions that will be posed to elementary school students. The takeaway and question for parents, educators, and that wily eight-year-old audience is this, is Bodies, Brains & Boogers a book that they’ll want to read?

Bodies, Brains & Boogers is the approachable, fun way that ages 8 and up can learn about their bodies with humor and gross, interesting facts.

Science made fun, and slightly disgusting for ages 8 and up

Windswept is a fairy tale that those non-fairy tale reading mglit fans will dig

An anthology doesn’t always have to be allegorical. Windswept is a fantasy book that combines elements of those two categories into something that also crosses over in fables and fairy tales. To add to the trippy attitude of the book it has the all-seeing eye that’s firmly placed below a tree. And this is before you know anything about the plot, which is about children being literally swept away by the winds, never to be seen again.

Windswept is a book that blends little-known Scandinavian elements to create age-appropriate dread for the fairy tale reluctant set.

Not all fairies have wands or sing songs

Dear Wild Child adds up to more than meets the artsy eye

The cover of Dear Wild Child immediately catches your attention. It’s the silhouette of a young girl whose long hair is whishing in the wind. Inside her head’s outline are the shapes of a forest in the grip of autumn’s peak with cabin shapes that are inlaid where her eyes, nose, and mouth should be. It’s a nature person’s Picasso, with just a hint of mystery-and that’s just the cover. Once you open Dear Wild Child and start reading it you’ll find a story about nature, family, and loss. This illustrated book also has a curve that readers aren’t expecting.

Dear Wild Child is an illustrated book with gorgeous art that sublimely and optimistically teaches about loss and overcoming it.

Coping, family and destruction, but guised in a happy package