Education | Page 4 of 40

Plague-Busters! uses humor, quip-ridden text and art to make STEM fun

There is a difference between a good book and a fun book. Good books don’t necessarily have to be fun and those fun books don’t always have to be good, in a literary or personal sense. You may read some tawdry summer beach love book about teenage vampires or romantic solo vacations to the edge of the world and they are 100% your jam, and others might not view them as good, but they sure are fun. Plague-Busters! Medicine’s Battles with History’s Deadliest Diseases is a fun book that’s laden with dozens of illustrations and snappy text that makes the world’s low points accessible, without watering down their scale.

Plague-Busters! Is an entry gate, heavily illustrated, entertaining chapter book with humor and science on the planet’s deadliest diseases.

Dancing rodents among the bulbous infection, c’mon in

Big Ideas from History: A History of the World For You, critical think 101

The problem with history textbooks is that they don’t put things into a conversational tone that makes kids curious. They do have photographs and illustrations but the text blurbs are usually quite short and just like Jack Webb or J. Jonah Jameson, they list just the facts. Sometimes they follow up every other page with a thinking activity or series of questions that students will leave blank or fill out with incomplete sentences when asked to answer them by the teacher. Big Ideas from History is an intelligent reference book that looks at integral chapters in history, like evolution, the start of religion, the ends of civilizations, science, and many more big concept issues.

Big Ideas from History: A History of the World for You examines world history from the perspective of facts, opinions, and curiosity.

Don’t fear books that make you think or ask big questions

A Curious Collection of Dangerous Creatures, fun learning you don’t expect

I love books like A Curious Collection of Dangerous Creatures, An Illustrated Encyclopedia. It’s an entertaining reference book with dozens of critters that I hope to never encounter and that students are intrigued by. This is the sort of book that will hook mid to upper-elementary school students who have caught the ‘animal bug’ and need to do those first essays. As a saving grace to those educators who have to read or listen to those essays, A Curious Collection of Dangerous Creatures has multiple dozens of them that they haven’t heard of before. The odds of having your educator’s eyes gloss over because you’ve heard about the Brazilian Death Beetle one too many times.

A Curious Collection of Dangerous Creatures: An Illustrated Encyclopedia is a fun, fresh take on the critters that stoke the imaginations of kids aged 8 and up.

reference books need not be borning nor cookie cutter

The Presidents Decoded, a fun, no-nonsense look at the White House

In my office, I’ve got a very small shelf that I affectionately call the best books that I never reviewed. Why didn’t I review them? Sometimes my schedule just got too busy, the new release got to be not so new or I just completely forgot. The Constitution Decoded: A Guide to the Document That Shapes Our Nation by Katie Kennedy is one of the books on that shelf. This is a reference book that presents the Constitution of the United States of America in a way that makes it entertaining and teachable, without diluting the content or presenting it in an intimidating manner. The Presidents Decoded: A Guide to the Leaders Who Shaped Our Nation is cut from the same cloth and delivers similar, but not an identical level of enjoyment.

The Presidents Decoded looks at every U.S. President through number 46 in an entertaining, apolitical way that’ll attract kids aged eight and up.

Nevermind the education, it can be

El Dia Del Agua, un libro para estudiantes aprendiendo Espanol

When learning another language, full immersion is the absolute best way to do so, if that’s an option. Depending on your age it certainly can be more confusing, but the results will happen quicker, once your brain stops trying to fight the process. This is where children’s books in a second language can be a very important learning tool. El Dia Del Agua is an illustrated book that exemplifies that fact. It’s 100% in Spanish and provides Spanish language learners the opportunity to practice their pronunciation, inferential clues, and grammar.

El Dia Del Agua opens the window for learning Spanish through an illustrated book that doubles as a world view on other cultures.

An illustrated book for spanish speakers, a language helper for those studying it

Please Don’t Bite Me!, smart text and timeless art serves up insects right

There are some books and some publishers that are impossible to resist for elementary school readers. These are the types of books that operate like a friendly, education-based Venus Flytrap. Kids will open the book to any page, be curious or entertained about what they see, and then thumb forward or backward to dig into more of the book. The book’s title, Please Don’t Bite Me! also entices kids to open it up. Instead of asking a question, it posits something in the form of a statement. What could be biting me? It’ll probably hurt, I sure hope this thing doesn’t bite me. Is this biting thing something that’s poisonous?

Please Don’t Bite Me! is a brilliant combination of enticing, timeless visuals with non-fiction text that engages ages 7-10, without grossing them out or dumbing it down.

Nature is timeless, the art is classic

Meet the Megafauna!, massive gatefolds with big critters

The biggest and smallest are the population of most elementary school essays. Meet the Megafauna! is the sort of illustrated book that feeds the soul of elementary school students that attracted to extremes. Most of the time it will be boys who want to read about the biggest, extinct creature and then proceed to do a three-minute report on them to class. There are other ways for educators to use Meet the Megafauna!, but they do require a bit more panache.

Meet the Megafauna! uses great art and gatefolds to remind elementary ages that big creatures are cool, they don’t have to be dinosaurs and can have relatives among us today.

Big animals are cool and don’t have to be dinosaurs to qualify

What’s Wild Outside Your Door?, mature, nature illustrated 411 for 8 and up

I taught fifth-grade science for a bit one year and the content in What’s Wild Outside Your Door? is cut from the same cloth as many of those lessons. There’s a paragraph about the food web. That particular paragraph is exactly on the level as to what fifth-graders will learn about it. When you, or your young student are looking at What’s Wild Outside Your Door? the 500-pound gorilla that you might be subconsciously thinking about is Nat Geo Kids. All of those books, as well as, this book are non-fiction books that also have their circular feet in the vein diagram of reference books. This book is by Peter Wohlleben, who has written several other children’s non-fiction, reference books that operate on a different plane than their more well-known counterparts. So what is the difference?

What’s Wild Outside Your Door? is non-fiction nature for smart, curious kids that want to learn more about the living things around town.

Smart kids will get it. Be smart kids, get it.