Non-fiction | 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!

3X World Champ: The Kickboxer’s Wild Journey to Redemption

Men don’t read. I know that’s a gross generalization, but for every guy that reads a book there are probably three or four women that do the same thing, except the guys would brag about having just ‘read a book’. Guys are certainly more attracted to certain writers, like Stephen King, Brad Thor or other authors with last names of Marvel superheroes. 3X World Champ doesn’t have any of those things, yet guys will love this book and their wives will even borrow the book from them and read it before they can.

3X World Champ is non-fiction about a World-Champion kick boxer gone drug runner, to prison inmate and business entrepreneur set in the 80s.

Memoir, auto-biography, discarded script for Miami Vice,

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

In Their Own Words, Lebron James and Taylor Swift is for the fans….mostly

Fan is short for fanatic. Taylor Swift’s fans are very passionate. Donald Trump’s fans are very passionate also. Lebron James has been playing basketball for decades and has legions of fans. Fan is something that’s used passively and meant as more of a way to build a tribe of like-minded people. People who support certain politicians, as well as, musical artists or celebrities can be fanatical. Fanatical is the adjective form of the word and is applied in more of a negative way for those who take their support of things to illogical extremes. Lebron James In His Own Words Young Reader Edition and Taylor Swift In Her Own Words Young Reader Edition are two different books from the In Their Own Words book series aimed at young readers. Both of these books are for young fans of each personality whose traits range from fan to fanatic.

Swift and James back again…,in seperate books for fans of either

Skybound!, a non-fiction, entrepreneurial illustrated book is easy to love

Why do we read? There’s a poster in a class that I’m teaching now that lists Great Reasons to Read. Yeah, that list might seem passé or obligatory, but for a group of high school students who would sooner watch paint dry, so long as it’s on their cell phone, they need to be reminded as to what reading can do for their ever-growing brains. Skybound! Starring Mary Myers as Carlotta, Daredevil Aeronaut and Scientist check off every one of the things listed on that list, if such a list exists for elementary school ages. Spoiler alert: that list exists and it’s the same one that’s in the high school class; it’s just that young audiences like elementary school readers need to have it presented with a little more panache, enthusiasm, and show.

Skybound! is the sort of illustrated book that is easy to love. The story is loaded with action, unbelievable exploits, descriptive text and non-fiction thrills.

Solid Gold was much more than a comeback

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