Creativity – Page 2 – Booktalking #kidlit

The Dinosaurs Are Having a Party!

The Dinosaurs Are Having a Party!
by Gareth P. Jones (Author) and Garry Parsons (Illustrator)

Booktalk: The dinosaurs are having a party but things get out of hand and when the boy tries to leave, T-Rex gives chase!

Snippet:
The dinosaurs are having a party.
It starts precisely at three.
But I’m a boy not a dinosaur,
So I’m pleased they’ve invited me.

STEM + the Arts = STEAM

STEAM DIY Activity

Make your own dinosaur “fossils” with small toys and Plaster of Paris.

This week’s Poetry Friday Round-up is hosted by Carol’s Corner.

Don’t Think About The Purple Elephants

Don’t Think About The Purple Elephants
by Susan Whelan (Author) and Gwynneth Jones (Illustrator)

Booktalk: Sometimes Sophie worries — not during the day when she is busy with family and friends, but at night when everything is calm and quiet. Her family all try to help, but somehow they just make her worries worse.

Until her mother thinks of a new approach … that might just involve an elephant or two! But wait, don’t think about purple elephants, whatever you do!

Snippet:
“How silly,” thought Sophie, but when she lay down, closed her eyes and tried not the think about purple elephants.

Straight away a friendly purple elephant appeared in her mind.

STEM + the Arts = STEAM

STEAM DIY Activity

Make an Elephant Mask.

The Mosquito Brothers

The Mosquito Brothers
by Griffin Ondaatje (Author) and Erica Salcedo (Illustrator)

Booktalk: After he nearly drowns in a parking-lot puddle, Dinnn Needles is fearful of many things, including flying.

Snippet:
On quiet afternoon, as the family sat next to their puddle under a cloudless sky, Dinnn heard a dragonfly flying overhead. It made an awful sound as it went past.
Dinnn watched the faces of his mother and father closely. They were terrified.

STEM + the Arts = STEAM

STEAM DIY Activity

Use pipe cleaners and beads to make this Colorful Mosquito.

The Big Ideas of Buster Bickles

The Big Ideas of Buster Bickles
by Dave Wasson (Author, Illustrator)

Booktalk: Buster Bickles’s big ideas are always getting him into trouble. But when Buster gets to test the newly invented What-if Machine, anything Buster imagines becomes reality…

Snippet:
From the moment he woke up,
Buster Buster Bickles was full of big ideas.

“Hey, Mom, Look! I’m a flesh-eating robot!”

“Mom, look out!
Laundry Monster!”

“Hey, Mom!
EGGS-ray vision!”

STEM + the Arts = STEAM

STEAM DIY Activity

Try The What-if Machine online and create some silly scenarios to write and illustrate.

Key Discoveries in Engineering and Design

Key Discoveries in Engineering and Design (Science Discovery Timelines)
by Christine Zuchora-Walske (Author)

Booktalk: What smaller scientific discoveries led up to major breakthroughs such as the assembly line, computers, or the Internet? Who first proposed ideas to solve problems? And how did the solutions change over time? Trace the history of key discoveries in engineering and design with timelines and find out the facts.

Snippet:
Many thousands of years ago, people tasked with raising stone structures faced a problem. How could they make openings, such as windows and doorways, in their structures without weakening them? How could they create roofs and ceilings that would support their own weight and any weight above them? Openings were important for light, ventilation, movement, and defense. Roofs and ceilings, of course, provided shelter for people and objects housed in the space below. But roofs or windows with open space beneath them ran the risk of caving in.

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

#kidlit Link of the Day:
See how the Pre-K to grade 3 students at Usher Collier-Heights Elementary School in Atlanta, GA solved their STEM Friday engineering and design problem in “the final STEM Friday challenge for the fall season.”

Goody Gumdrops with Ed Emberley

#kidlit Book of the Day: Goody Gumdrops with Ed Emberley from two little birds

Goody Gumdrops with Ed Emberley
by Ed Emberley (Author, Illustrator)

Booktalk: Need something to take to the restaurant to keep the little ones busy on Mother’s Day? A black pen or marker, even a pencil, is all you need to enjoy these fun drawing pads. The thick sturdy cardboard back turns this art pad into a small lap desk. Ready, set, draw!

Snippet:

I Can Make That!: Fantastic Crafts for Kids

I Can Make That!: Fantastic Crafts for Kids
by Mary Wallace (Author)

Booktalk: FIVE books in one! The Costumes, Puppets, Nature Crafts, Toys, and Games books are now in a single updated volume…just in time for summer fun! Children as young as four years old can take common household items and easy-to-obtain natural materials like twigs and turn them into costumes, puppets, toys, games, and more. Step-by-step instructions and photographs keep things simple and easy to understand, making this book perfect for home, school, library, camp, or even daycare.

Snippet:
Superheroes

Wonderful Wizard

Nonfiction Monday

It’s Nonfiction Monday!

Pinkalicious Cupcake Cookbook

Pinkalicious Cupcake Cookbook
by Victoria Kann (Author, Illustrator)

Booktalk: Cupcakes galore!
Now you can make all your cupcakes Pinkalicious cupcakes. The Pinkalicious Cupcake Cookbook features more than twenty cupcakes straight from the pinkatastic world of Pinkalicious.

Snippet:
All of the cupcakes in this book need a flat top to facilitate the frosting and decorating and sometimes for balancing one cupcake on top of another. When using a cupcakes baked from a cake mix, slice off the rounded top of the cupcake with a paring knife.

See how to follow these directions in this 40 second Pinkalicious book trailer

Nonfiction Monday

It’s Nonfiction Monday!

Baby Born

My Book of the Week

Baby Born
by Anastasia Suen (Author) and Chih-Wei Chang (Illustrator)

Booktalk: “The soothing verse follows a year in the life of a newborn…”
~Kirkus Reviews

Snippet:
Baby born
in winter’s sleep
snowflakes fall
snuggle deep

See inside this board book!

Also available in Spanish

For toddler time:
Craft: Make a baby in a blanket (just like the book cover!)
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Picture Book of the Day

Uh-Oh!
by Mary Newell DePalma (Author, Illustrator)

Booktalk: The word in the title is the only word in this almost wordless book about a small dinosaur who keeps getting himself into trouble. (A perfect “I love you no matter what” book for Valentine’s Day today!)

Snippet: Uh-Oh!
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Chapter Book of the Day

Little Wings #1: Willa Bean’s Cloud Dreams
by Cecilia Galante (Author) and Kristi Valiant (Illustrator)
112 pages

Booktalk: Most cupids have soft straight hair, rosy cheeks, and silky white wings. Not Willa Bean! She has a crazy mess of hair, a million-bajillion freckles, and bright purple wings with silver tips. And lately those bright purple wings with silver tips have been giving Willa Bean an awful lot of problems. They won’t fly!

Snippet: Harper was going to help Wllla Bean in a very special way.

She was going to teach Willa Bean how to get those purple wings with the silvers tips of hers to behave.

Because there was no way, nohow, nope-ity, nope, nope, nope, that Willa Bean was going to start at the Cupid Academy tomorrow without being able to fly.
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Literary Links

Elana Roth Opens Red Tree Literary (via GalleyCat)

A bathtub made of books? (via @quirkbooks)

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My NEW chapter book is Save the Best for Last, Abby (All-Star Cheerleaders)

November 8, 2011

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My NEW picture book is Road Work Ahead (Viking)