Indy Cars
by Kate Riggs (Author)
Booktalk: A kindergarten-level introduction to Indy cars, covering their speed, drivers, role in racing sports, and such defining features as their wings.
Snippet: Indy cars are fast cars.
They race on oval tracks. They race on roads.
Play the Hot Wheels Pit Race Off Take game online.
It’s STEM Friday! (STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)
Copyright © 2015 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.
Whoosh!: A Watery World of Wonderful Creatures
by Marilyn Baillie (Author) and Susan Mitchell (Illustrator)
Booktalk: A wonderful, whimsical exploration of various animals in the water and the ways in which children can, and do, mimic them! Each spread features an animal in a watery scene opposite a child mimicking the animal’s activity in some way. From splashing like a dolphin to fishing like a heron, from snoozing like an alligator to hiding like a clownfish, the echoing images bring to life the real ways that animals behave — and reveal how there’s a little bit of animal in all of us. The book closes with a “Guess What?” section that provides brief and quirky facts about the animals featured throughout.
Snippet:
I’m a river otter pup. My mom pulls me into the chilly water for my first swimming lesson. Patiently, she teaches me to paddle and dive. Look at me float!
Jump in the WATER and Join the Fun!
Read the rebus at the back of the book and try all of the ways to get up and move, such as scuttling like a crab or waddling like a penguin.
It’s STEM Friday! (STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)
Copyright © 2015 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.
Moví la mano / I Moved My Hand
by Jorge Luján (Author), Mandana Sadat (Illustrator), and Elisa Amado (Translator)
Booktalk: When a little girl moves her hand, she changes the world as she discovers it. As she moves her known world she discovers her own power and creates everything anew.
Snippet:
Moví la mano y encontré un coco.
I moved my hand and I found a coconut.
Agité el coco y encontré un lago.
I shook the coconut and I found a lake.
STEAM DIY Activity
Make a Moon Painting.
This week’s Poetry Friday Round-up is hosted by Reflections on the Teche.
Copyright © 2015 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.
Look and See: A What’s-Not-the-Same-Game
by Bill Kontzias (Author)
Booktalk: An innovative interactive puzzle book. Eye-catching photographs of toys, trinkets, and more present spot-the-difference puzzles that support early learning skills.
Snippet:
How to Play
Look at the first pictures,
Look at the second picture.
In the second picture, 1 thing is new,
1 thing is gone, and 6 things are moved.
Find the differences. The answers are
at the back of the book.
STEAM DIY Activity
Try it yourself with A spot-the-difference poster activity. Then make a puzzle of your own and test your friends!
Copyright © 2015 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.
Ferret Fun in the Sun
by Karen Rostoker-Gruber (Author) and Paul Rátz de Tagyos (Illustrator)
Booktalk: Fudge and Einstein are a ferret duo. They’re going on a vacation adventure out west, to Arizona. Fudge doesn’t want to go. He likes to relax. Einstein likes action and can’t wait for their trip. But when they get to the ranch, Fudge experiences the biggest adventure of his life. Maybe trying new things isn’t so bad after all…
Snippet:
The back cover gives you a taste of this fun picture book comic:
STEAM DIY Activity
Make a fun pets comic online with Pixton.
Copyright © 2015 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.
It’s a Seashell Day
by Dianne Ochiltree (Author) and Elliot Kreloff (Illustrator)
Booktalk: Sunny-as-a-summer-sky rhymes chronicle a mother and son sharing a day of sand digging, seashell collecting, and seashore exploring. (See the seashell facts in the back of the book.)
Snippet:
I rush down the path, over the dune.
Salty breeze blows. We’ll be there soon!
STEAM DIY Activity
Try this Sand Art project.
This week’s Poetry Friday Round-up is hosted by iWrite in Maine.
Copyright © 2015 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.
Party In A Book: Spots, Dots, and Stripes
by Rebecca Emberley (Author, Illustrator)
Booktalk: Everything you need to throw a party! DIY: Hundreds of perforated paper pieces, easy to assemble in dozens of ways to create your perfect party. Simply punch out the shapes desired, add some glue and string and you can make garlands, cupcake toppers, tray covers, chains, gift wrap, invitations, labels, tags, boxes, and much more.
Snippet:
It’s Nonfiction Monday!
Copyright © 2015 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.
Air Show
by Anastasia Suen (Author) and Cecco Mariniello (Illustrator)
Booktalk: Cougars, Panthers, Camels, and Mosquitos. What do these animals have in common? Their names identify the historic airplanes that take flight at this spectacular air show event. In simple, poetic words and skillfully rendered illustrations, Anastasia Suen and Cecco Mariniello introduce the world of flight to children.
Snippet:
Author’s Note:
Thanks to StarWalk KidsMedia, my picture book Air Show is now an e-book and it has come out just in time for the July PopUp Library! Hooray! (During the the month of July all children can read as many books as they want for free!) Later in the year, narration will be added to the e-book.
Air Show was my first book and although it has been out of print for many years, it is a book that is close to my heart. My father’s parents built P-51 Mustangs during World War II. Yes, my grandmother was a Rosie the Riveter lady! (When you read the book, look for my grandparent’s plane on page 11. Mustangs leap . . .)
STEAM DIY Activity
Design and test your own plane with the online Paper Airplane Creator.
Counting down the hours to the opening of the FREE #PopUpLibrary. Every child can read for the entire month of July! pic.twitter.com/DvNiGa1DtP
— StarWalk Kids Media (@StarWalkKids) June 30, 2015
Copyright © 2015 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.
Benny Goodman and Teddy Wilson: Taking the Stage As the First Black-and-White Jazz Band in History
by Lesa Cline-Ransome (Author) and James E. Ransome (Illustrator)
Booktalk: Brought together by the love of jazz, Teddy Wilson and Benny Goodman broke the color barrier in entertainment when they formed the Benny Goodman Trio with Gene Krupa and helped create the style of music known as swing.
Snippet:
Chicago’s West Side Colt’s Electric Park, 1922:
Pop boom pop boom
Above Benny,
the Fourth of July exploded
One hundred colors, loud,
live and hot
In front of him, the jazz band
clarinet, piano, drums
pop boom pop boom
Benny sat, toe tapping,
fingers snapping,
listening
STEAM DIY Activity
Click on a date on the Interactive Timeline to journey back in time and discover how jazz became America’s music.
It’s Nonfiction Monday!
Copyright © 2015 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.
Red Light, Green Light e-book
by Anastasia Suen (Author) and Ken Wilson-Max (Illustrator)
Booktalk: Roll into one little boy’s make-believe traffic world, filled with flashing lights, zooming cars, whirring helicopters, and racing fire engines. He’s turned records into rotaries, shoe boxes and books into highway ramps, crayons into lane markers, and dandelions into trees. It’s a world where imagination rules and creativity abounds.
Snippet:
Red light, stop.
Green light, go.
Cars and trucks
drive to and fro.
Author’s Note:
It’s the 10th anniversary of my picture book, Red Light, Green Light and the e-book has just been updated! Hooray!
Here’s the short version of the long story…
I sold this book in 1999 and it came out in 2005. It was on the final Gulliver Books list and then that imprint of Harcourt was closed. A few years later, Harcourt was sold and then the company that bought them, Houghton Mifflin, went into bankruptcy. After the new Houghton Mifflin Harcourt came out on the other side, they re-organized several times.
In the middle of all this change, Red Light, Green Light was converted to an e-book. It was still the early days of e-books and I’m sorry to say that the conversion was not a success. There were extra words on top of the art and the art itself moved up and down as you “turned” the pages. But all of the people that I worked with on this book were long gone, so my efforts to get the e-book fixed went nowhere for a long time. In May I tried again and a very friendly customer service representative said she would talk to her manager…and it worked! On June 1st an email came saying that the book was being remade. Three weeks later, the e-book files were updated on Amazon, Google Play, and iTunes!
For me, this is a summer book because of driver’s ed. That’s when my two teens took it (and so did I, lo-o-o-o-ng ago.) I wrote this book because of the 100 hours of required driving practice. I was sitting on the passenger’s side of the car pressing my foot on that imaginary brake at each intersection…making my new drivers crazy! (Mom!!!) The book dedication reads: “For my two new drivers, it feels like just minutes ago that you were driving toy cars.”
STEAM DIY Activity
Make my Traffic Light Necklace Craft.
Materials:
red, green, and yellow yarn
black construction paper
red, green, and yellow dots (I used 3/4″ dots from Office Depot)
scissors
glue stick
Directions (before the kids arrive):
1) Cut the yarn in to 36″ lengths.
2) Gather the yarn into triple strands (one red, one yellow and one green for each child.)
3) Cut the black construction paper in strips. (I used 9×12″ paper so I cut the 12″ side into 2″ strips. Each strip was the 2″ wide and 9″ long.
4) Fold each black strip in half to make a tent. (Now it’s 2″ wide and 4 1/2″ tall.)
Directions (after the kids arrive):
5) Put the yarn inside the black paper “tent” and center it so approximately 18″ of yarn extends out on each side.
6) Rub glue on the inside of the tent. Then press the paper tight so the glue holds.
7) Place a green dot, a yellow dot, and a green dot on the black paper. Green is Go! Yellow is Slow! Red is Stop! Now you have a traffic light!
8) Tie the ends of the yarn into a bow. Now put the bow over the child’s head. It’s a traffic light necklace!
This week’s Poetry Friday Round-up is hosted by Mainely Write.
Copyright © 2015 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.