Author: Anastasia Suen

From her studio in Northern California, developmental editor Anastasia Suen reads, writes, and edits books for creators of all ages.
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Footprints Across the Planet

Footprints Across the Planet
by Jennifer Swanson (Author)
@ Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound

Booktalk: Every footprint–from the physical to the digital and the permanent to the fleeting–leaves a mark on Earth telling a story of the past, the present, or the future. What type of imprint will YOU leave?

Snippet:

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

The author, Jennifer Swanson, is one of my former students.
Copyright © 2022 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.

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The Art of Clean Code

The Art of Clean Code: Best Practices to Eliminate Complexity and Simplify Your Life
by Christian Mayer (Author)
@ Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound

Booktalk: Learn eight principles to simplify your code and become a more effective (and successful) programmer with real-world examples:

  • Concentrate on the important stuff with the 80/20 principle — focus on the 20% of your code that matters most
  • Avoid coding in isolation: create a minimum viable product to get early feedback
  • Write code cleanly and simply to eliminate clutter
  • Avoid premature optimization that risks over-complicating code
  • Balance your goals, capacity, and feedback to achieve the productive state of Flow
  • Apply the Do One Thing Well philosophy to vastly improve functionality
  • Design efficient user interfaces with the Less is More principle
  • Tie your new skills together into one unifying principle: Focus

Snippet: Large companies like International Business Machines Corporation (IBM), Microsoft, and Apple employ the Pareto principle to build faster, more user-friendly computers by channeling their focus on the vital few; that is, by repeatedly optimizing the 20 percent of the code that was executed most often by the average user. Not all code is created equal. A minority of code has a dominating impact on the user experience, while much of the code has little impact. You might double-click the File Explorer icon multiple times per day, but you seldom change the access rights of a file. The 80/20 principle tells you where to focus your optimization efforts!

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

Copyright © 2022 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.

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Thank You, Corals

Thank You, Corals (Animals We Can’t Live Without)
by Emma Huddleston (Author)
@ Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound

Booktalk: Why do we need corals? Find out in this book from the Animals We Can’t Live Without series! Meet different coral species and see how they help their environments. Learn about their role in the food web and how their actions benefit animals.

Snippet:

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

Copyright © 2022 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.

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How to Teach Grown-Ups About Pluto

How to Teach Grown-Ups About Pluto: The cutting-edge space science of the solar system
by Dean Regas (Author) and Aaron Blecha (Illustrator)
@ Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound

Booktalk: Pluto has not been a planet since 2006. But this tiny world still inspires people of all ages while sparking controversy. In this delightfully witty book, astronomer Dean Regas teaches you how to educate your grown-up about the cutting-edge science of space, most crucially the reason why Pluto is NOT a planet anymore. Delving into the history of space discoveries, the key players who have helped our understanding of the universe (including the 11-year-old girl who named Pluto in the first place), and the ever-changing nature of science, this book will equip every reader with the tools they need to bring their grown-ups fully up to speed, and to sneak in as many amazing astronomical facts as possible. And there’s a handy quiz at the end so that you can check your grown-up has been paying attention!

Snippet:

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

Copyright © 2022 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.

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Parts of a Whole

Parts of a Whole
by Magda Gargulakova (Author) and Federico Bonifacini (Illustrator)
@ Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound

Booktalk: You may be surprised to learn how many individual parts make up the things around us. Do you know all the things that go into alphabet soup, a sandpit or a clock? Can you imagine how lovely all the parts look when sorted and arranged side by side? You can’t? An inquisitive cat called Ada will show you what makes up lots of ordinary and special things and places.

Snippet:

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

Copyright © 2022 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.

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I See the Sea

I See the Sea
by Julia Groves (Author / Illustrator)
@ Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound

Booktalk: What will you see in the sea? Explore the ocean in this picture book with a die-cut hole on each page. Facts about each animal and how you can help our endangered oceans can be found in the back of the book.

Snippet: I SEE a serene swimmer, alone in vast oceans.

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

Copyright © 2022 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.

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How Does Solar Energy Work?

How Does Solar Energy Work?
by Jennifer Swanson (Author) and Glen Mullaly (Illustrator)
@ Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound

Booktalk: Find out what solar energy is and how it is harnessed and used. Discover the history of this technology as well as need for solar power and how it could change our world.

Snippet:

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

Copyright © 2022 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.

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How to Build a Human: In Seven Evolutionary Steps

How to Build a Human: In Seven Evolutionary Steps
by Pamela S. Turner (Author) and John Gurche (Illustrator)
@ Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound

Booktalk: The epic story of human evolution in seven big steps! Find out how, when, and why did we:

1. stand up,
2. smash rocks,
3. get swelled heads,
4. take a hike,
5. invent barbecue,
6. start talking (and never shut up), and
7. become storytellers?

Snippet:
A NOTE ON RACE
The modern concept of race is relatively recent. It is tied to efforts by early European scientists and naturalists to arrange life on a religiously inspired ladder with a Christian God at the top, followed by angels, then white people, with other races just a step above monkeys and apes. These racial concepts were closely tied to a wave of European colonialism that began in the sixteenth century.

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

Copyright © 2022 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.