March 2022 - Page 11 of 16

MEGA-COOL MEGAFAUNA series
by Anastasia Suen (Author)

Booktalk: My MEGA-COOL MEGAFAUNA series came out during the pandemic and now all four books are online as e-books. Hooray! Click the links under each title to find them at your library.

@ Hoopla | Overdrive | WorldCat

These middle grade expository books are written in prose, but I’ve been writing STEM poetry for years, so that’s what I did for this author visit mini-comic.

In the What is your favorite BIG animal? mini-comic, I’ve written two pocket poems about two of the creatures in the MEGA-COOL MEGAFAUNA Creatures of Today book. Each pocket poem is based on two facts from the book.

What will the third poem be? That’s up to you–and your students! Write two facts about your favorite BIG animal on page 6 and write a pocket poem using those facts on page 7. Then draw your animal on page 8.

Sylvia and Janet are hosting Poetry Friday at Poetry for Children

It’s STEM Friday! (STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)

New from Here
by Kelly Yang (Author)
@ Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound

Booktalk: When the coronavirus hits Hong Kong, ten-year-old Knox Wei-Evans’s mom makes the last-minute decision to move him and his siblings back to California, where they think they will be safe. Suddenly, Knox has two days to prepare for an international move–and for leaving his dad, who has to stay for work.

At his new school in California, Knox struggles with being the new kid. His classmates think that because he’s from Asia, he must have brought over the virus. At home, Mom just got fired and is panicking over the loss of health insurance, and Dad doesn’t even know when he’ll see them again, since the flights have been cancelled. And everyone struggles with Knox’s blurting-things-out problem.

As racism skyrockets during COVID-19, Knox tries to stand up to hate, while finding his place in his new country. Can you belong if you’re feared; can you protect if you’re new? And how do you keep a family together when you’re oceans apart? Sometimes when the world is spinning out of control, the best way to get through it is to embrace our own lovable uniqueness.

Snippet:

Listen to the author read an excerpt from the book.