Daddy Mojo used to teach. Being an ex educator he’s interested in many things about education, such as teaching policies, best practices and bureaucracy.
Suddenly everyone’s a school teacher, and I mean that in the highest form of a compliment. With most school age children at home doing virtual learning to some degree; it’s a great time for some complementary classroom instructors. Macmillan Publishers, home to some of our favorite children’s authors is having MacKids Streaming Schoolhouse from April 27-30 at 1:00 PM ET. The lessons will include art, science, social studies, language arts and your instructors will be best-selling authors.
Educational illustrated books get a bad rap. When readers get to a certain age they feel that books with too many pictures are babyish. The exceptions to those books are graphic novels, which are more mature in their eyes. Everest, The Remarkable Story of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Nogay is an illustrated book in name only. In reality, the content, intelligence, details, information and length put this more in league with a graphic novel, albeit one that’s bigger in size than a standard comic book.
The Only Woman In The Photo is a book title that really baits the hook. Why was she the only woman in the photo? In this #MeToo era it conjures up all manner of scheming or wily characters that are lurking in or out of the picture frame. In reality, The Only Woman In The Photo has a much larger and impactful scope. This is the story of Frances Perkins, a woman whose work we come across daily due to the time she spent working in the White House.
I firmly believe that kids honestly want to learn. So far as the content, there are those things that they need to learn and those things that they want to learn. In middle school when kids start to earnestly learn about WW II they’re faced with the quandary of studying a horrifying period of human history, yet actually wanting to do it. Teaching or educating kids about this period of time is tricky too because there are so many angles that an author could approach it. Spies, Lies and Disguise, The Daring Tricks and Deeds That Won World War II by Jennifer Swanson with illustrations by Kevin O’Malley is an excellent supplemental text to those kids who already know the basics of WW II and want to learn more.
Imagine that Billy from The Family Circus was all grown up and has become an engineer. From time to time he still reverts back to his habit of drawing where he’s visited around the neighborhood. Machines In Motion, by Tom Jackson with illustrations by Chris Mould has moments that will remind cartoon fans of his exploits, but at a much more educational level. Think of a vehicle that moves people and it’s covered in this book to some extent. It’s a big, over sized book that will grab upper elementary through middle school readers by the hand and make them want to learn about transportation.
Brilliant Maps for Curious Minds, 100 New Ways to See the World by Ian Wright is an unexpected time suck in the best of all possible ways. For example, I’ve never actively thought about those countries or territories that have smaller populations than greater Tokyo. I have also never thought about how the ratio of heavy metal bands per 100 thousand people. Regarding the later query, those in Scandinavia-especially Finland, love some metal, whereas a metal group in central Africa would have a tough time finding an audience. Some of the maps in Brilliant Maps for Curious Minds are serious, some are trivial, but for curious people 10 and up they’ll all be fascinating.
It would be deceiving to describe the KIBO Robot Kit as easy. Initially I compared it to the literary equivalent of a board book in that it’s geared towards younger users. KIBO Robot Kits are geared to a similar age as their book brethren, except their goal is much more in the STEAM camp. We’ve played with numerous “kid coding” toys and KIBO Robot Kits are easily the best-and most immersive for what they’re trying to accomplish. It is incredibly simple to use, has almost no learning curve and can challenge the older children for whom the robot is intended for.
Graphic novels can be so much more than entertaining and fun to read. They can be educational!! Really, they can be and they’re so much more than what some parents, educators or kids might think that they are. The Earth Before Us series from Amulet Books is a great example of how much and how different a graphic novel can be. Mammal Takeover! is the third book in this entertaining and educational series that is about old school Earth.
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