If You Love Dolphins, You Could Be…
by May Nakamura (Author) and Natalie Kwee (Illustrator)
Booktalk: Do you love dolphins and the ocean? Then you could be a marine biologist, an aquatic veterinarian, or an underwater filmmaker! Learn about these careers and more in this Level 2 beginning reader!
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It’s STEM Friday! (STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)
Copyright © 2019 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.
The Apollo Missions for Kids: The People and Engineering Behind the Race to the Moon, with 21 Activities
By Jerome Pohlen
160 pages; ages 9 and up
Chicago Review Press, 2019
This was the summer of SPACE – celebrating the historic spaceflight that landed the first two people on the moon (July 20, 1969). Getting people to the moon took money and man-power. It took teamwork! More than 400,000 people worked on the Apollo project, in factories and offices spread over 46 states, writes Jerome Pohlen.
Mostly, it took vision – the vision of President John F. Kennedy who, in 1961 declared the goal of landing a man on the moon within the span of a decade. At the time, the US space program was in its infancy; just 20 days earlier the first astronaut had been launched – a 15-minute flight up and back without even time to orbit the earth. Landing a human on the moon would be a challenge.
This book takes us into Mission Control and into space with the Gemini and Apollo projects. We get a close-up view of astronaut training, engineering problems, and the test of human endurance that early missions demanded. There were tragedies – the Apollo One crew was killed in a fire on the Launchpad during a test – and triumphs as the scientists, engineers, and astronauts worked toward their goal of safely landing on the moon and returning to Earth.
What I like about this book: The writing is engaging, like reading a story well told, and supported by plenty of sidebars. The book opens with a timeline that begins with 1926 – when Robert Goddard launched his first liquid-fueled rocket – to 1979 when Skylab fell to Earth. Sidebars provide additional details about the Saturn V rocket, how capsules “surf” through the atmosphere, moonsuit details, as well as offer short bios of software engineer Margaret Hamilton and “computer” Katherine Johnson (who calculated flight trajectories).
Twenty-one activities range from designing your own mission patch to figuring out your moon-weight, orbital mechanics, making “space food”, and more.
It’s STEM Friday! (STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)
Copyright © 2019 Sue Heavenrich All Rights Reserved.
Ocean: Secrets of the Deep
by Sabrina Weiss (Author) and Giulia De Amicis (Illustrator)
Booktalk: From clown fish to killer whales and sunlit coral reefs to smoking deep sea vents, welcome to our great global ocean! Discover menacing sharks, playful dolphins, clownfish, penguins, turtles, whales, shimmering jellyfish, gargantuan giant squid, and more . . .
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It’s STEM Friday! (STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and
Mathematics)
Copyright © 2019 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.
Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11
by Brian Floca (Author / Illustrator)
Booktalk: Now with eight additional pages of brand-new art and more in-depth information about the historic moon landing, here is the flight of Apollo 11 . . .
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It’s STEM Friday! (STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)
Copyright © 2019 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.
Trees: A Rooted History
by Piotr Socha (Author / Illustrator), Wojciech Grajkowski (Author), and Anna Burgess (Translator)
Booktalk: Go beyond the basics and explore the important roles trees play in our ecosystem, take an up-close-and-personal look at the parts of trees (from roots to leaves), and unpack the cultural impact of trees from classification systems (like family trees) to art forms (like bonsai trees). Part botany, part history, part cultural anthropology!
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It’s STEM Friday! (STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)
Copyright © 2019 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.
Saturday July 20, 2019 is the 50th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 Lunar Landing. To celebrate, let’s check out a new middle grade book Luna: The Science and Stories of Our Moon by David A. Aguilar.
Beginning with how the moon is thought to have come about and how the moon compares with Earth, Aguilar then takes the reader on a ride through other moons, as well as moon myths and hoaxes, before settling down for a detailed discussion of moon features. Perfect for the lunar landing anniversary is a section about what the Apollo astronauts discovered.
The pluses: The book is filled with fantastic illustrations by David A. Agulilar. Also there are three hands-on activities in the back: making a 3D model of lunar craters with Plaster of Paris, using a small telescope to explore the moon, and directions for drawing the moon.
Luna is arriving on shelves just as interest in the moon and lunar landings is peaking. Explore a copy today!
For more, see our full review at Wrapped in Foil blog, as well as Anastasia Suen’s Apollo 11 Quick Tips post.
Copyright © 2019 Roberta Gibson All Rights Reserved.
Marty’s Mission: An Apollo 11 Story
by Judy Young (Author) and David Miles (Illustrator)
Booktalk: It’s 1969 and Marty’s family lives on the U.S. island of Guam, where his father manages the NASA tracking station. It’s important work and never more so than during the Apollo 11 space mission, where the tracking station relays signals back and forth between the astronauts and Mission Control in Houston, Texas. Along with the rest of the world, Marty listens to every mission update, including the historic landing on the moon and astronaut Neil Armstrong’s first steps. But during Apollo 11’s return to Earth, something goes wrong. There is a problem with the tracking station’s antenna during the final hours of the mission. The problem must be resolved–the antenna is the only way Mission Control can communicate with the astronauts before Apollo 11 splashes down. Marty finds himself playing a key role in helping bring the craft safely back to Earth. Based on actual events
Snippet: “Why do you need me?” Marty asked.
“We think it’s a bearing, but we don’t have time to take the antenna apart and replace it,” Dad said.
“What’s a bearing?” Marty asked.
“A ring with metal balls encased inside, like this.” Dad took a bearing from a box and showed it to Marty. “The balls have to roll for the antenna to move, but they’re stuck. We hope if we pack the bearing with grease, it will work again. Trouble is, our arms are too big to reach inside. Do you think you can do it?”
It’s STEM Friday! (STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)
Copyright © 2019 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.
Dogs in Space
by Vix Southgate (Author) and Iris Deppe (Illustrator)
Booktalk: Meet Belka and Strelka, two stray dogs from Moscow who, in1960, became the first animals to orbit Earth and return home safely.
Snippet:
It’s STEM Friday! (STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)
Copyright © 2019 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.
Scampers Thinks Like a Scientist
by Mike Allegra (Author) and Elizabeth Zechel (Illustrator)
Booktalk: Scampers is no ordinary mouse. She’s curious. She asks questions. And she experiments. In short, she thinks like a scientist! Her friend Nibbles, reluctantly joins her as they set out to discover the truth about the owl in the garden.
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BONUS! Download the Activity Guides
It’s STEM Friday! (STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)
Copyright © 2019 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.
June is Orca Awareness Month and, at the end of May, Orca scientists celebrated the birth of a new calf to the J-pod off the coast of British Columbia, Canada. So the perfect time to share this book (that had found a great hibernation space at the bottom of my book basket!).
The Orca Scientists (Scientists in the Field Series)
by Kim Perez Valice; photos by Andy Comins
80 pages; ages 10 – 12
HMH Books for Young Readers, 2018
In the early 1970’s Dr. Mike Bigg, a marine mammal scientist, pioneered a method of photo identification for orcas. He found that the dorsal fin “saddle patch” for each whale was unique, like fingerprint in humans. And that allowed him to follow individual whales and their pods.
Today, Ken Balcomb and other whale researchers use those techniques as they continue the research on resident and transient orcas off the coast of Washington state and southern Canada. Ken is the founder and principal investigator for the Center for Whale Research at Friday Harbor. From May through October, he and other scientists keep track of who’s swimming with whom.
Despite their name of “killer whales”, over his 40 years of observing Ken’s never seen any of his whales kill anything other than the fish they eat. And they eat a lot – about 5% of their body weight in fish each day. Unfortunately, a decreasing fish population creates problems for the whales. They have to travel greater distances to find food, and that means less time for socializing, playing, and resting.
What I like about this book: Reading this book is the next best thing to being in a boat with the whale scientists. We really get to know some of the personalities and lifestyles of the orcas. We get side ring seats to a mother whale teaching her calf how to hunt. Hint: it’s similar to how mother cats teach their kittens.
We learn about other environmental issues that put orcas (and whales in general) at risk – such as the pollution. And we get a close-up view of scientists taking blubber samples to determine levels of PCBs and DDY. Unfortunately, even banned chemicals remain in the environment for a long time.
There are great sidebars that help explain things like why orcas are black and white, and the Samish naming ceremony for the whales.
There’s a great chapter about Tucker, the detection dog who works with the whale scientists. Tucker’s job: to locate whale scat.
There are a lot of unanswered questions, but it’s not too late to make a difference. Check out the Orca Network and Whale Research Center for more information.
It’s STEM Friday! (STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)
Copyright © 2019 Sue Heavenrich All Rights Reserved.
