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Oliver’s Great Big Universe: Volcanoes Are Hot!, laughs a lot with STEM sense

Wimpy Kid is one of the 500-pound gorillas in children’s literature. It’s one of those book series that young readers feel they should read because their siblings read it, or because they’ve seen one of the dozens of entries in their library. Oliver’s Great Big Universe is cut from the same cloth as Wimpy Kid. Volcanoes Are Hot! is the second entry in this series and has placed STEM fun in the place of Wimpy Kid’s family antics. Yes, STEM-fun is a thing. Fart jokes are a natural crossover to volcanology and students avoiding bullies or hall monitors are essentially recreating Pangea on a localized scale. Oliver’s Great Big Universe: Volcanoes Are Hot! has the same degree of laughs as its simian cousin, in addition to the comic-style art and succinct text that keeps young readers locked in.

Oliver’s Great Big Universe: Volcanoes Are Hot! is a hoot. It’s a funny graphic novel/kidlit in the spirit of Wimpy Kid, but has you laughing along to STEM facts that their older siblings don’t know.

Locked in, while you can probably infer its definition, means that students focus and concentrate on the thing in front of them. They can be locked in on the study materials, locked in while they’re playing basketball or locked in to the book that they didn’t think that they’d enjoy reading. Upper elementary and middle school students will be locked in when they’re reading Oliver’s Great Big Universe: Volcanoes Are Hot!.

18 pages into the book we discover that Oliver’s friend, Sven, threw up at lunch because he ate too much cobbler, which he absolutely loves. The art shows a gaggle of students lining up to give him their cobbler, which evolves into an eating competition of sorts with the elementary school cafeteria egging him on with chants of “eat it, eat.” He’s looking sort of purple and is pushed into the puke aspect of the Venn Diagram when a classmate offers him a pickle that supposedly calms the stomach. Just like the volcano that has too much magma and pressure under it, Sven blows chunks and forever stains his formative years.

Thankfully middle school is just around the corner and incidents like that are quickly forgotten by this fickle age group. Alas, it’s not, and Olliver and Sven are forced to do other things to change their peer’s perception and hopefully put that puke into the memory hole. What brought on Olliver’s interest in volcanoes was his aunt, who appears very early in the book as a cavewoman. That’s the way she appears to him, but it’s just his active imagination because she is a volcanologist who has just spent 500 days living in a cave.

Volcanoes Are Hot is the book version of short-attention-span theater. It effortlessly entertains ages eight and up who had previously, and perhaps unconsciously, sworn off reading anything scientific for the sole purpose of entertainment. Some of those kids might have intentionally said that being the ‘smart one’ wasn’t possible or they simply bought into the fallacy that it’s cool not to be intelligent. This is for them, as well as, the kids who realize that it’s the people who don’t play the fool that will reap the rewards.

The joke-to-page ratio is something that we calculate in kidlit books. If there are multiple laughs on one page then the joke-to-page ratio is high and provides numerous reasons for young readers to stay with it. Volcanoes Are Hot! has a high joke-to-page ratio, as well as, incorporating science metaphors, STEM facts, and genuine laughs on every page. The bar for this graphic novel-eque book is high and it launches itself over each increment with aplomb. On some of the pages, the illustrations provide the laughter while others rely on its succinct and age-appropriate text to garner the giggles. When Oliver tries digging a hole to use the bathroom he realizes that it’s more challenging than expected. This causes him to “be pooped, as in tired, not like I pooped in my pants. Although honestly, it could have gone either way.” When you add some great cartoon illustrations next the already funny or ironic text it makes the book like butter to that movie popcorn that was already tasty.

There will be some elementary and middle school readers who would enjoy Oliver’s Great Big Universe: Volcanoes Are Hot!, but they’ll presume that because it’s educational that it possibly can’t be entertaining. It’s a pity that some readers will think that, because it’s not. This makes STEM accessible for those who might be scared of it, provides a humor tract for grin-less scientists, proves again the graphic novel-adverse adults that the genre is worth embracing, and gives kids a watercooler book that will up their science grade if they allow it to.

Oliver’s Great Big Universe: Volcanoes Are Hot! is by Jorge Cham and is available on Amulet Books, an imprint of Abrams Books.

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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

Lucy! How Lucille Ball Did it All, illustrated, can-do fun in any era

Author Amy Guglielmo and Jacqueline Tourville have a niche in children’s publishing that speaks to the white spaces in illustration. The blank spaces in illustrations can bring about as much power as the colored parts. A page full of color might seem like more, but it can be overwhelming and is too much. The two authors have paired up two times prior to Lucy! How Lucille Ball Did It All, and while each bok is different, they have strands that bind their quality and maintain their level of interest among elementary and lower-middle school readers. This is all the more surprising because the duo has written non-fiction books on women that typically have flown under the pop culture radar.

Lucy! How Lucille Ball Did It All is an illustrated book for ages 5-11 that transcends black & white television.

In How To Build A Hug they wrote about Autism expert, Dr. Temple Grandin. Pocketful of Colors: The Magical World of Mary Blair, Disney Artist Extraordinaire, told the story about a woman whose work people know, but few outside of the Disney-fandom could readily talk about or reference. With Lucy! How Lucille Ball Did It All, the two are partnered again with the Brigette Barrager, the illustrator that did the wonderful work on Pocketful. This trio work well together, or more accurately, Barrager’s style of art flows very well with the minimalist, yet detailed story they’ve created.

In both books, the subjects could’ve had a much more in-depth look at their lives or accomplishments. Lucy! is predomately about the very early years of Lucille Ball. When she was very young her father died and she lived with her relatives, who did not agree with her constant tomfoolery. This led her to play by herself most of the time. When her mother returned from working in a different city, it allowed Ball to see how much of her she could become.

She performed in local plays, school functions or any activity that let Lucille be the funny person she wanted to become. Her mother saw the passion Lucille put forth, as well as, the local success she had, so she scrounged up the money to send her to acting school in New York City. When Lucille got there she saw that she had the drive, but that because she wasn’t a singer, dancer or dramatic person her ability to make people laugh was going to be challenging. She jumped at any opportunity to get in front of audiences and continued slogging it away. Lucile kept at it, honed her slapstick skills with Buster Keaton and was there when movies started being filmed in Technicolor.

This led to her coloring her hair bright red, which yielded more bit parts in 60 movies over ten years. Unfortunately, this was the same serious stuff that paid bills, but wasn’t the funny money that she knew was in her blood. That fruit happened when she signed on to be a funny housewife in a radio comedy show, My Favorite Husband. It was taped in front of a live audience, which scratched the itch she had for making people laugh and became a very successful show. As television was a new medium it was logical that this be translated to the small screen and the rest of Lucille Ball, I Love Lucy, Desi Arnaz, and the legend that she wrought is history.

I remember watching I Love Lucy I as a kid. I’ve seen snippets of the show as I wrote this review, which is one reason it took me so long to do. One highlight begets another highlight and so on, the show still holds up today and its humor translates to modern audiences. The only thing that will preclude it from being enjoyed by elementary or middle school audiences to the same degree is the fact that it’s in black & white, and much of the humor is based around relationships. There are still some hilarious physical gags and mistaken identity bits that don’t require any age limit to watch and enjoy.

Lucy! sets up the events and time period that lead up to her iconic television show. The story of never giving up, working hard for what you want and having the patience to see it through are characteristics that anyone can benefit from. You could easily imagine anyone who has trained hard for something, but had to wait decades until it was their time to go on stage, perform the operation, walk in space or do whatever had led them to that point. It’s resilience 101, a trait that some kids need lots more of and Lucy! is just the entertaining kind of book that they’ll enjoy reading and just might learn something from.

Lucy! How Lucille Ball Did It All is by Amy Guglielmo and Jacqueline Tourville with illustrations by Brigette Barrager and is available on Abrams Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Abrams Books.

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The below was not in the I Love Lucy show, it might not even be about Lucille Ball, but it’s a great song from a criminally underrated band.

Name That Thing!, the center of quiz, fun and daydream illustrated book

Any book that sounds like a failed show on Netflix or has a page on “how to use this book” in it, can’t be entertaining, it’s probably needlessly complex or not interesting for young readers. Note: I prefer using the term young readers, as opposed to children or students because the latter will imply to them that it’s studious and not fun, while the former infers that they’re young and might not know certain things. Name That Thing! is a puzzle book that’s smarter than most elementary school ages, has a presentation that’s agreeable to anyone and information that runs the gamut from general trivia to world flags and food from around the world. With any luck, Netflix is working on a game show with the same premise.

Name That Thing! is a picture quiz book that ranges from trivial knowledge to STEM facts for ages seven and up.

quiz, reference, rainy day fun lazy book

The Mighty Bite: Walrus Brawl as the Mall!, absurd so good

That song from Mellencamp is so overplayed in the summer. Is it that terrestrial radio plays certain songs more during that time of year, or are you simply listening to the radio more? In other news, have you ever not had something because the other thing you consumed from that entity was so good? We eat at a pizza place like that. Their pizza is so great, but I’m hesitant to order other things off the menu out of fear that it wouldn’t measure up to the thing I already like from them. Nathan Hale has a pizza place, it’s called Hazardous Tales. They’re a series of non-fiction graphic novels that makes American history entertaining and allows upper-elementary through high school and older the chance to actually enjoy learning through reading. When I first saw The Mighty Bite from Nathan Hale I immediately knew it was from his kitchen, but I didn’t try any of it. The Mighty Bite: Walrus Brawl at the Mall! is the second entry in this series and proves that you need to try new things on the menu. Not only is Walrus Brawl at the Mall! a great graphic novel for fans of Hazardous Tales, it enters the all-age graphic novel smackdown and lays competition to Investigators and Dog Man.

The Mighty Bite: Walrus Brawl at the Mall! is the second in this graphic novel series that adds its name to the must-read club for ages 8 and up.

Extemporaneously speaking

The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror Ominous Omnibus Vol. 3-ageless, subversive

Subversive is a fabulous adjective isn’t it? In the case of The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror Ominous Omnibus Vol. 3: Fiendish Fables of Devilish Delicacies it’s playful subversion twice removed. The source material is an older television show that produces a silly, surreal, violent, edgy, and relevant Halloween special that produced a different story, in the same vein, for its comic book. The result is an omnibus of some of the most creative, absurd, varied, chaotic, and entertaining graphic novel madness that you’ll experience, that is, if you’re a fan of The Simpsons.

The Simpsons Treehouse of Horror Ominous Omnibus Vol. 3 is a collection of stories from the comic books that have stood the test of time.

The cover glows in the dark, and its content is just as great

Uncle Sam: Special Election Edition, a searing, timeless graphic novel

There’s something special about a book being out of print for a while. The classic animated Disney films used to go “in the vault” and then had a big hoop-de-do when they could be viewed again. Uncle Sam: Special Election Edition was out of print for over a decade. The only way to get your hands on it was to find the original two-issue comic book miniseries from 1997 or the graphic novel that followed its release. The 2024 presidential election is nigh and Uncle Sam: Special Election Edition is as pointed and aware as it was when it was originally released. It’s a beautiful, paranoid fever dream of a graphic novel that sears its way through the political spectrum leaving both sides wondering what went wrong with modern America.

Uncle Sam: Special Election Edition is a reissued, timeless, relevant graphic novel that’s just as powerful, now as it was in 1997.

Wow. A graphic novel that commands your attention.

Dead Girls Walking is YA horror that fails to kill

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before, good marketing and not judging a book by its cover walk into a bar. Marketing assures the book that the issues impacting its wider enjoyment will be mitigated by the niche appeal and box-checking demographics. After all, an mglit book whose main character is going to a queer, horror-obsessed overnight camp for girls is ripe for crossover appeal. Toss in the fact that the author is a Black queer horror writer who is inspired by the culture’s relation to the supernatural. Alas, this is where I need to stop all but the most devout readers who read books by their sense of obligation, as opposed to their overall enjoyment, and put forth that this is not the horror book that the masses are looking for.

Dead Girls Walking has sick seeds of YA horror, but it’s too dramatic up front and too manic and directionless in the second half.

Keep running, from this book