Elementary school | Page 10 of 20

Ten-Word Tiny Tales to Inspire and Unsettle is curiously amazing

Start with a hook. If it’s a great hook then I won’t change the channel. If it’s a lame hook then you’re quickly going somewhere else. When I teach creative writing I use that analogy and the students completely understand it. Ten-Word Tiny Tales to Inspire and Unsettle is exactly what the title says it is. It’s a handful of stories, more accurately opening lines from stories that haven’t been told, that open up unlimited potential as to what they could become. Being that they are only ten words they have the capacity to be understood by children, yet some of the words and concepts are very dreamy, abstract, or nonsensical. It’s a very curious book indeed.

Ten-Word Tiny Tales: To Inspire and Unsettle is a children’s book that lays kindling at the base of imagination for any age.

For young kids to ponder over or older kids to inspire writing possibilities

Wonders of the Night Sky, an intelligent illustrated book, for the masses

Effective illustrated books have the potential for more purpose than telling simple stories. Granted, that is where most illustrated or picture books reside, but some of them live in a vein diagram world with more intersections. Wonders of the Night Sky is an illustrated book that has its fingers in the figurative pie of several circles and acts as a lushly illustrated reference book or a highly detailed illustrated book, just to mention two of them. One could also marvel at Wonders of the Night Sky just for its artwork as you appreciate the thousand shades of blue that are deftly mixed with the blackness of outer space. It also might make you gaze up at the night sky a bit more, especially if you’re in a more rural area, and are able to see more of the limitless palette of darkness that are interspersed with lights of different color.

Wonders of the Night Sky is an illustrated book that’s super smart, but not intimidatingly so, for elementary school and up on the vastness of the night sky view.

Space, it’s a great book with oodles of curious facts for kids.

It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown timeless board book excellence

To borrow from another classic, seasonal story, you’d really have to be a Grinch not to like Peanuts, It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. Yeah, there are umpteen Peanuts books out there for children and if they figured out a way to harvest the hair off of Charlie Brown’s bald head then people would probably still buy it. Just a quick glance at the other Halloween books available from Linus and the gang reveals, The Great Pumpkin Returns, Countdown to Halloween, and Happy Halloween, Charlie Brown!. So, with all of those books in the Peanut-sphere, what could possibly make It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown worth getting?

It’s the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown is now released in a hardcover, oversized keepsake book and it’s as great as you hope it is.

The force is strong with this one

Wonders of the Night Sky, an intelligent illustrated book, for the masses

Effective illustrated books have the potential for more purpose than telling simple stories. Granted, that is where most illustrated or picture books reside, but some of them live in a vein diagram world with more intersections. Wonders of the Night Sky is an illustrated book that has its fingers in the figurative pie of several circles and acts as a lushly illustrated reference book or a highly detailed illustrated book, just to mention two of them. One could also marvel at Wonders of the Night Sky just for its artwork as you appreciate the thousand shades of blue that are deftly mixed with the blackness of outer space. It also might make you gaze up at the night sky a bit more, especially if you’re in a more rural area, and are able to see more of the limitless palette of darkness that are interspersed with lights of a different color.

Stardate: let’s get more kids into astronomy and Stem

The Girl Who Heard the Music, a tale of two stories that needed to be halved

The story within The Girl Who Heard the Music is interesting. It’s about a piano prodigy who lived on a remote island. It’s also about a massive trash problem that the island is constantly dealing with from its tourists and the water surrounding it. It’s also about a school that was built from tens of thousands of bottles and cans. There’s a lot happening in The Girl Who Heard the Music and somewhere in the book is an inspiring story, if you manage to isolate that aspect of it.

The Girl Who Heard the Music is a well meaning non-fiction book with one story thread too many.

Less if more, this book isn’t less

The Together Tree, a message illustrated book that knows where it lives

There are certain illustrated books that hammer down into a select age range so efficiently that they’re the Zillow of suspect real estate areas. If you decide on a house that’s just one block down from another it could mean that your dream house has turned into a den of depreciation. The Together Tree is a very cute illustrated book that has its footprint firmly situated in the pre-k through first-grade market. Should any second graders enter the orbit of The Together Tree their “baby book” radar will immediately go off.

The Together Tree is an illustrated book with an anti-bullying message that does so softly for pre-k and kindergarten audiences.

A message book that doesn’t feel like a message book

The Forest Keeper, is non-fiction that’s tough to believe and inspiring to ponder

While his name might not be on the tip of your tongue, you know the story of Jadav Payeng. He’s the Indian teenager who in 1979, started planting seeds on an abandoned, arid, desolate riverbank where nothing had ever grown before. Every day he returned to the area to plant new seeds and water the existing ones. Over time his trees turned into a thicket and then a forest, which eventually attracted insects, then the birds that consume (or live symbiotically with) them. The Forest Keeper is an illustrated book that tells this story in a manner that makes this stranger-than-fiction story grounded and very much in a matter-of-fact.

The Forest Keeper: The True Story of Jadav Payeng, about how he saw a need, did repetitive, seemingly frustrating actions, and planted a new eco-system.

Non-fiction can’t be empowering? Hold my bamboo shoots

A Dollar’s Grand Dream, a fun money allegory that works on two levels

Kids love money. It’s not that they’re greedy Thurston Howell wannabe millionaires, rather, it’s more that they want to be lazy, do-nothing social media influencers who make dopey videos and get paid according to insane Markle-esque levels. A child’s curiosity about money and its power is natural. A Dollar’s Grand Dream felt familiar when I first looked at this illustrated book. Ah-this is similar to the book on pennies that I liked. While I disdain the fact that the penny, as a currency, is still a thing, the book itself was quite charming. This book follows that same template, but because it’s about a dollar, it has more weight, carries more interest, and is a better book because of it.

A Dollar’s Grand Dream is an illustrated book that brings the silly, but also cashes in on humor, a great story and our natural curiosity about money.

Money, puns, jokes and fun in an illustrated book on dollar bills