Books | Page 41 of 81

A Giant Mess, a confidence-building, kid’s first graphic novel for K-1

Getting emerging readers to actually read is a delicate mix of content and confidence. They will know how to read sight words, but getting them to read aloud is key towards their understanding and making the bridge to early chapter books. All of this is further complicated by what’s in the book. If there are too many words it could intimidate some readers. If there aren’t enough pictures then the books might not be engaging enough. I Like to Read Comics is an imprint from Holiday House Publishing that delivers the comic book feels in a contained story that’s on par for emerging readers. A Giant Mess is a hard-back book that nails all of those points to the floor in a story that’s big, manic, and just what the doctor ordered for kindergarten kids through first grade.

A Giant Mess is a double-meaning term that’s also a great short form graphic novel for K-1.

a picture laden graphic novel for K-1

Invented by Animals, a fabulously illustrated biomimicry STEM jam for 7+

In a middle-elementary class recently I went over the fascinating story about wall crawlers. It’s an amazing and true tale about entrepreneurship, luck, and not giving up. The technology might not be directly created from animals, but its hypnotic appeal sure was inspired by them. The closest parallel to that toy in Invented By Animals are the pages on the tree frog. The presentation in the book will immediately appeal to those middle-elementary readers. The vocabulary might be a bit much for them, but those fourth, and especially those fifth-grade readers will have a field day with this book. Invented By Animals will also introduce the fabulous new word, biomimicry, a term that they’ll learn a lot more about in their STEM classes in the coming years.

Invented By Animals, a very intelligent illustrated book on biomimicry, animal adaptations and STEM that 7 and up will want to read.

The nexus of smart and simple, in a biomimicry blanket

No Reading Allowed, a fun look at homonyms for ages 7 and up

Homonyms and homophones are evil, foul words that use the English language as their playing field. I watch as some of my ESL students twist and turn their minds in order to grapple with the fact that know or no and new and knew can exist in the same language universe. Having words that sound the same, but are spelled differently, yet pronounced the same, and have different meanings is a trick that’s exclusive to the English language. I thought that too, but homonyms are in fact, evil foul words that exist in every language. No Reading Allowed, The Worst Read-Aloud Book.

Bee not afraid of these fowl words

Round, it’s all around us and that’s the point of the book

What is art? It’s a challenging term to define but you know it when you see it. Round is an illustrated book that confused me at first. The irony of a very simple illustrated book making me scratch my head was not lost by my inner critic. From the get-go, Round is beautiful and has gorgeous illustrations of various things found in nature that are well, round. However, much like art doesn’t have just one definition, round can also have several shades of its shape.

Round, yes, yes it is

Baby Montessori Boxed Set is cranium food for new people

Montessori. Just the mere mention of it can confuse, intimidate and equally raise or repel parents to their education line in the sand. We think of Montessori as a way of teaching in a way that lets kids find the answer, lets them think more on their own, or uses different methods to engage the students. For example, I teach at a public school, but my methods are ‘Montessori-esque’, in that I’ll let the students dangle on the fishing line of education for a while before I give them the answer. It’s better to teach kids how to get to the answer than to just provide them with it. Those new or expecting parents who want to inspire newborns through crawlers with various concepts should check out Baby Montessori Boxes Set.

Baby Montessori Boxed Set uses disparate colors, hard lines and simple images to create cranium food for new people.

A board book by any other name, yet with more Rorschach

Dr. Fauci, an illustrated book with background and keeps it straight

Let’s start this out by saying Dr. Fauci, How A Boy From Brooklyn Became America’s Doctor has nuggets that both the left and right will use for their talking points. In actuality, this is an illustrated book that plays it straight down the middle and it’s a shame that some people see absolutely everything through a political prism. Due to COVID, Fauci is of course a household name. Our nine-year-old, who has never seen a nightly newscast, knew who Dr. Fauci is during the height of the pandemic. This is a book that inspires curiosity and wants young readers to ask questions, which is something that everybody should agree on, right?

Dr. Fauci How A Boy From Brooklyn Became America’s Doctor is an illustrated book that shows the life of a young kid who grew up to become the medical face of COVID

Doctor, doctor, gimmie the news

The Stuff Between the Stars, dazzling non-fiction STEM in story and art

Grey matter and dark matter walk into a bar. The bartender looks at them and asks, “what’s the matter?”. Dark says, “I’m not attracted to anybody”. It’s worth noting that I know absolutely nothing about dark matter and didn’t even know that it was an actual thing before I read The Stuff Between the Stars. The Stuff Between the Stars: How Vera Rubin Discovered Most of the Universe, is an excellent example of an intelligent, illustrated book that treats its young audience with respect and isn’t afraid to broach big-scale ideas. It does this and accomplishes what an illustrated book should do, which is to entertain young readers. As a healthy aside, those rare illustrated books will tell them something new and make them curious about the bigger picture.

The Stuff Between the Stars is the story of Vera Rubin and works on any measurement for a great illustrated book.

Vera Rubin saw dark matter and gave it a name

The Leak, mixed results for journo girls who are in 6th grade

The Leak is a graphic novel that centers around a tween girl and four issues that are central to her life. There are boys (actually one in particular), her family, her hobby-which is writing and creating her newsletter, and midnight black sludge that she finds near the lake that she goes fishing at. It’s written by Kate Reed Petty with illustrations by Andrea Bell. The graphic novel is interesting because it has a laser tight appeal to a certain age range due to several characteristics.

The Leak is a graphic novel with good intentions, but has a conflict between its content and appearance.

For lower middle school readers