Education | Daddy Mojo

Rube Goldberg’s Big Book: STEM Fun for Young Builders

For a children’s concept that’s seemingly so simple, it took me years to understand it. In theory I should love Rube Goldberg. I love books and the idea of engineering, tinkering with things, plus what’s not to love about Rube Goldberg? It’s like steam punk. You’ve rig up everyday objects and arrange them so that their energy will make an impact on something, like opening a door or squeezing toothpaste out of the tube. It’s a simple act made needlessly, but entertainingly, complex. Rube Goldberg’s Big Book of Building solves the issue that I had with the process on the very first page.

It took Rube Goldberg’s Big Book of Building to finally get it through to me how it works. This oversized, reference book is funny and loaded with can-do, simple machines for all ages.

It’s rubetactular and done with things that already have in the house

Like No Other, illustrated animal book magic for elementary school

Ask an upper-elementary student to do a report on something and they’ll pick the strangest, creepiest, most uncommon one in the book. They might determine who they’ll research by how gross their name is, how ugly they are or how remote their habitat is, thus Brazilian Spitting Death Spider Monkeys of the word unite. Like No Other: Earth’s Coolest One-Of-A-Kind Creatures is an illustrated book for middle-elementary ages through lower-middle school that’s mostly creepy and not too much common.

Like No Other, an illustrated book on strange animals who are the last ones in their family tree uses art and oddity to succeed.

The power of strange animals…..for the win!

Nothing: The Illustrated Take on John Cage’s Silent Composition

Prior to Nothing I had not heard of it. The concept of doing nothing, like laying on the sofa watching sub-par movies of listlessly waiting for something to do has long passed us by, having coincidentally happened when we had our first child 15 years ago. In this case, Nothing: John Cage and 4’33” is an illustrated book about a composer and one of his most unique pieces. It was a composition that lasted for four minutes and thirty-three seconds and was completely silent.

Nothing: John Cage and 4’33” is an illustrated book about an avant guarde composition that, given the chance, makes young readers think.

Nothing, and everything

The Other Side of Tomorrow: A Graphic Novel Review

Are hyper-realistic graphic novels a genre? I don’t think they are, but The Other Side of Tomorrow is a graphic novel that wields a mighty hammer in knocking at the doors of book classification. It’s realistic fiction, but is so realistic, both in the manner in which the illustrations are done, and the taut nature of the story that you’ll pinch yourself in gratitude that it’s not happening to you. This is a graphic novel that entertains via drama, age-appropriate political intrigue, familial love and armchair travel. Moreover, The Other Side of Tomorrow manages to tell its story alongside one of the greatest geographic areas and humanitarian crises that middle school kids never learn about, North Korea.

The Other Side of Tomorrow is a realistic fiction graphic novel whose potentially heavy topic is buoyed by the art, presentation and pacing of the story.

A graphic novel as art, entertainment and discussion

Butt or Face? How Humorous Books Attract Kids

How to engage young readers? You can mention something slightly inappropriate like a butt. You can make age-appropriate jokes that are a little bit rude. You can involve pictures of animals, early elementary-age readers love animals. You can ask questions. Who doesn’t like to answer a question? It’s a reflexive action like catching a ball when one is thrown to you. Butt or Face? Revenge of the Butts, the target demographic might also call it Butt or Face #2 and are also lining up to see Butt or Face #3, as long as they get to say the name of the book aloud in class.

Butt or Face? Revenge of the Butts combines the curious and the gross in an age-appropriate nature book that makes them laugh and learn.

Butt or Face? Volume 2, pun to the patootie

Black Lives: Celebrating Scientists in Graphic Form

Whenever I substitute for a math or music class I run the students through a basic critical thinking question. What are the two universal languages that can be understood anywhere you go? On average one, maybe two students in a class of 28 will respond with music and math. Some might say “science” and while that’s not the desired response, it does illustrate the room’s temperature. Black Lives: Great Minds of Science is a graphic novel highlighting nine scientists from various fields. As a vehicle for information it grabs your attention and speaks to upper-elementary and mglit readers in a way that motivates reluctant ones.

Those reluctant readers, you know, the kids who secretly want to read, but have bought into the group-think, lemming-like fallacy that reading somehow makes you less cool. To those students I would posit this simple question, is it cool to earn more money, or less money? Yeah, money doesn’t make you happy, it’s just a tool, I know that. But if you’re going to fix or build something you need the correct tool and sometimes, if it’s a bigger job, you need more tools or the job becomes infinitely more challenging. Great Minds of Science is created for those reluctant readers.

Black Lives: Great Minds of Science is a non-fiction graphic novel that profiles nine STEM scientists for ages 9-13.

sCIENCE, stem AND GRAPHIC NOVEL PRESENTATION

The Inventor’s Workshop, STEM-fun for potato chip and cat video kids

The potato chip and cat video test is gauging whether or not a kid will want to read a book based on just one page. Because, much like a potato chip or a cat video, you can’t eat or watch just one. Some might relate better to the M&M or slice of pizza test, but the latter is far too large for repeated snacking, isn’t it? The Inventor’s Workshop: How People and Machines Transformed Each Other is a wonderful book that crosses through reference material, a loose time travelling narrative, countless blurbs of digestible information and detailed illustrations that channel a search for a lanky, bespectacled, poofy-haired, Brit who is hiding in plain sight.

The Inventor’s Workshop is a fun, easy-to-read illustrated book about inventors, their inventions, and how they’ve morphed over time.

Resistence is futile

Amazing Abe, an illustrated book that’s more than niche history

Not Lincoln, Abraham Cahan, nonetheless amazing, but not as well known as the stovepipe-hat-wearing President of the United States. Amazing Abe: How Abraham Cahan’s Newspaper Gave a Voice to Jewish Immigrants could be a tough sell to elementary age audiences. It could be, but it overcomes the non-fiction, biography resistance to unknown figures that those ages have by making the book accessible in its brief text that highlights enough of Cahan’s interesting life to make kids want to care. Amazing Abe also detailed art, but not so much so that it looks real, it’s right in the area encompassing the kind that clever kids want to see in their illustrated books.

It follows the template for making unknown figures interesting