Month: October 2019

Posted on

Crazy Contraptions

Crazy Contraptions: Build Rube Goldberg Machines that Swoop, Spin, Stack, and Swivel with Hands-On Engineering Activities
by Laura Perdew (Author) and Micah Rauch (Illustrator)

Booktalk: Young engineers are invited to invent, design, create, and play as they make their own Rube Goldberg machines using the engineering design process and lots of imagination!

Try these hands-on engineering projects!

  • Turn on a CD player
  • Screw a lid on a jar
  • Pop a balloon
  • Make a zipline
  • Make a balloon car
  • Build a catapult

Snippet:


Nonfiction Monday

It’s Nonfiction Monday!

Copyright © 2019 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

Voices: The Final Hours of Joan of Arc

Voices: The Final Hours of Joan of Arc
by David Elliott (Author)

Booktalk: Before Joan of Arc became a saint, she was a girl inspired. This biography told through medieval poetic forms and in the voices of the people and objects in Joan of Arc’s life, (including her family and even the trees, clothes, cows, and candles of her childhood) explores timely issues such as gender, misogyny, and the peril of speaking truth to power. Excerpts from the trials are also included. Some poems, like the one below, are displayed as concrete poems in the shape of the object that is speaking.

Snippet:

A 2019 Cybils Poetry nominee

Nonfiction Monday

It’s Nonfiction Monday!

Copyright © 2019 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

SHOUT

SHOUT
by Laurie Halse Anderson (Author)

Booktalk: When she was thirteen years old, Laurie Halse Anderson was a shy, bookish girl who was raped by a boy she trusted. In this free verse memoir (and call to action), she tells the story she’s never shared publicly before — her life from then to now.

Snippet:
But that boy who raped me
on the rocks by the creek
got drunk and lay down
on a dark night to play
chicken with the devil
and he lost.

I begged my father
to take me to the funeral. I lied
and said that boy was my friend.

He looked at me sharply,
my ice-eyed father
my gentle-hearted father, he heard
something in my voice
but after one searing glance, he shut
down the inquiry
wrote the note
got me out
of school and walked with me
to the graveside on
a gray September day cut by winter’s
promise in the wind.

My father kept his arm
around my shoulders, while I cried
so hard I turned myself inside
out, so grateful IT was gone
and it was over.

I did not know
that the haunting
had just begun.

A 2019 Cybils Poetry nominee

Nonfiction Monday

It’s Nonfiction Monday!

Copyright © 2019 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

The Big Book of Birds by Yuval Zommer

At Wrapped in Foil blog today we are highlighting The Big Book of Birds by Yuval Zommer.

This book has many of the same features as other books in the series.  The big size and the complex, engaging illustrations are the same.  The playfulness is the same. There’s also a challenge to search for and find a object, this time an egg, throughout the illustrations.  Those sort of games can bring a young reader back to a book again and again.

The text is interesting and informative. The overviews, such as a spread about bird migration, mix well with zoomed-in discussions of specific types of birds, such as parrots or owls.

Even the back matter is oversized. It includes the answers to the search-and-find, a fun glossary, and a huge index.

The Big Book of Birds is the type of book that begs to be shared. Grab a copy, find a quiet corner, and spend time with a young reader delving into each and every page.  They will be glad you did.

Copyright © 2019 Roberta Gibson All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

I’m Trying to Love Math

It’s about fear, it’s about math, it’s incredibly funny, it’s I’m Trying to Love Math by Bethany Barton.

For those who feel that math must have been developed by aliens, it seems appropriate that a space alien comes to Earth to help young readers figure out how math might be useful. It is soon apparent there’s math in cooking, in nature, in navigation, and even in music. Math shows up in a lot of things people love.

Bethany Barton combines pen and ink with digital software to create lighthearted illustrations. Some of the illustrations are even interactive, involving book shaking or holding an ice cream spoon (you have to get the book to figure that one out).

I’m Trying to Love Math is for young people who aren’t sure why they need to study math. The book will help them discover how useful math is for everyday life. Realizing why something is important is often the first step to learning.

Pick up and shake a copy today!

First posted at Wrapped in Foil Blog.

Copyright © 2019 Roberta Gibson All Rights Reserved.

Posted on

Space Adventurer: Bonnie Dunbar, Astronaut

Space Adventurer: Bonnie Dunbar, Astronaut
by Andi Diehn (Author) and Katie Mazeika (Illustrator)

Booktalk: When Bonnie Dunbar spotted Sputnik traveling across the sky from where she stood on her family’s farm, she knew that’s what she wanted to do when she got older, but it wasn’t easy. From planting crops and driving the tractor on her family’s homestead to devouring all the books she possibly could to applying to NASA three times, Bonnie refused to give up! All her hard work and passion for science led her to a job that launched her into the stars as an astronaut.

Snippet:


Nonfiction Monday

It’s Nonfiction Monday!

Copyright © 2019 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.