Chef Academy
by Steve Martin (Author) and Hannah Bone (Illustrator)
Booktalk: Enroll at Chef Academy to learn a number of skills needed to become a world-class chef; discover how to make food look and taste delicious, what it takes to be a successful leader, and much more. You’ll also find a poster, a game, stickers, and even instructions for creating a chef’s hat of your own!
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It’s STEM Friday! (STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)
96 pages; ages 7 – 10. HMH Books for Young Readers, 2018
I’m a sucker for field guides. The more, the merrier. This one is a bit different than the others, though. For one thing, this field guide focuses on only one animal – and a mammal, at that. Plus, it highlights superpowers.
Who knew beavers have superpowers? Obviously Rachel Poloquin – and she gets right to them early in the book For example, beavers have chainsaw teeth! They have the incredible scuba head. They have paws of power. These powers – and more – make beavers true Wetlands Warriors!
But first: an announcement from our sponsor, the rodent family. Beavers, it turns out, have lots of relatives – from mice to porcupines. One thing they all have in common: ever-growing teeth. Beaver’s teeth are three inches long!. That’s what makes them super. And powerful.
For each superpower, Rachel gives us the low-down. For example, the super unstoppable fur. It might not stop a speeding bullet, but it can stop rain, snow, sleet… if it stopped dark of night, beavers would make perfect mail-deliverers. If you count the number of hairs in a square inch (and apparently scientists have done this), beavers have 100,000 hairs. You have only 1,000 hairs per square inch on your head.
Beavers are amazing architects, building dams and lodges that withstand the test of time. If you want to learn how to build a dam, Rachel offers step-by-step directions. Also instructions for how to build your own underwater lodge. All you need are teeth like chainsaws, paws of power, and a place to build.
There are tons of fun sidebars, facts and maps, and the occasional quiz (with answers, of course). Plus a final section highlighting how beavers help create wetlands. In fact, scientists are thinking of putting beavers to work as a watershed management tool, restoring wetlands in dry areas.
Head over to Archimedes Notebook for some cool links to how beavers are used in watershed management, and also another animal book review.
It’s STEM Friday! (STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)
Better late than never, at Wrapped in Foil today we have two children’s picture books about deep sea exploration.
In Flying Deep by Michelle Cusolito and illustrated by Nicole Wong, the reader is taken on a day-long ride in the submersible Alvin to the bottom of the ocean. Find out what you might see, how you might feel, even what you might eat and drink while cramped inside a three-person exploration craft. It is so real, you will want to stand up and stretch when you are done.
The digital illustrations stay in the cool color plate and are appropriately dark in the deepest depths. The underwater creatures are beautifully drawn and detailed. Some of the spreads fill the pages lengthwise, giving even more sense of traveling down beneath the water.
Flying Deep is a wonderful adventure in book form. Climb in and explore the ocean depths today!
Years before the Alvin submersible, two men decided they wanted to be the first to explore the deepest ocean. In Otis and Will Discover the Deep: The Record-Setting Dive of the Bathysphere by Barb Rosenstock and illustrated by Katherine Roy, readers learn that Otis Barton and Will Beebe designed a round metal ball they called a bathysphere to carry them far beneath the water. Because they were the first, they bravely faced the many dangers to successfully explore areas that no one had seen before and see sights no one could have imagined.
Katherine Roy’s watercolors are playful and full of action. The climax of the book, when the two reach the lowest point, is a surprising two-gatefold spread.
Otis and Will Discover the Deep is a suspenseful tribute to two brave men. It will appeal to budding marine biologists and engineers alike. Dive into a copy today.
Booktalk: Did you know that Christopher Columbus set out on his most famous voyage in search not of the new world, but cinnamon? Or that rich people in the Middle Ages served flaming peacocks and spun sugar castles to their lucky dinner party guests? Did you ever wonder why M&Ms were invented? (Hint: That candy coating isn’t just for decoration!) The quest for food has inspired all kinds of adventures and misadventures around the world, and this book explores the wildest and wackiest of them all, from prehistoric times through modern day. Stats and fast food facts are featured throughout, along with 30 original recipes, each specific to a particular time and place.
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It’s STEM Friday! (STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)
Maggie, Alaska’s Last Elephant
by Jennifer Keats Curtis; illus. by Phyllis Saroff
32 pages; ages 4-9
Arbordale, 2018
Like us, elephants need family and friends. Otherwise they grow lonely. This award-winning book opens with Annabelle, and Asian elephant and Maggie, an African elephant who lived in a zoo in Alaska. They were good friends. When Annabelle died, Maggie seemed lost. She was so lonely that she adopted a tire. The keepers tried everything to keep her active and engaged, but Maggie seemed to fade. Eventually, they decided she needed to go somewhere else, where she could live with other elephants.
What I like about this book: Author Jennifer Keats Curtis is a wonderful storyteller. She weaves in a lot of elephant behavior as she introduces Maggie and her story. She shows zookeepers creating enrichment opportunities for Maggie, in an effort to keep her brain and senses engaged throughout her day. And when they realize it’s time for her to go, they have another problem to solve: how do you move an 8,000-pound animal thousands of miles?
I also like the back matter, which includes more information about elephant herds, how zoos keep elephants healthy and happy, and a fun Q&A with a keeper.
Head over to Archimedes Notebook for another elephant book and some Beyond-the-Book activities.
It’s STEM Friday! (STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)
Booktalk: Nineteen poems in a variety of verse forms with accompanying science notes take readers on a decomposer safari through the “brown food web,” from bacteria through tardigrades and on to rove beetle predators with other busy recyclers in-between. Glossary, hands-on investigations, and resources are included in the back matter.
Just Like Us! Fish
by Bridget Heos; illus. by David Clark
32 pages; ages 4-7
HMH Books for Young Readers, 2018
People walk on land and need air to breathe. Fish, on the other hand, have fins and spend their whole lives underwater. So how could we be anything alike?
Bridget Heos gives us the inside scoop. She reveals secrets of breathing underwater, and tricks of hunting for food. We learn how to hide from predators and how to make friends with fierce fish.
What I like about this book: It’s fun! Between Bridget’s zany section headings (Peanut Butter and Jellyfish) and David Clark’s cartoony illustrations, we learn lots of stuff about fish and their underwater neighbors. We meet clown fish, sunfish, and cleaner wrasses. What I like about David’s illustrations is the way he combines his cartoon fish with photos of real fish. And of course there’s Back Matter – a glossary, and some web articles and books for curious icthyologists-in-training.
Head over to Archimedes Notebook to check out a book on sharks, and some Beyond-the-Book activities.
It’s STEM Friday! (STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)
Some authors have all the luck. Maxwell Eaton III had not only one, but three books nominated for a 2018 Cybils award. Maybe it helps that they are a series.
In The Truth About Dolphins, readers learn how dolphins are different from fish and discover some of the different kinds of dolphins, like the spinner dolphin and the Atlantic white-sided dolphin. Did you know there are more than 40 species?
The back matter wraps up some more facts, like the differences between porpoises and dolphins and how long a dolphin can stay underwater. There are also lists of tucuxi-sized books and orca-sized books (isn’t that cute?)
Don’t know what a tucuxi or ocra are? Then you should read The Truth About Dolphins!
This book features three bears, but not the ones from Goldlilocks. Instead they are the brown bear, black bear, and polar bear.
Learn about where the bears live and what they eat (there’s a cute running joke about the fact they eat rodents). Other topics include hibernation and threats to bears.
I thought the bear safety page that explains how you should behave if you encounter a bear was a good idea. You shouldn’t run seems sensible, but I didn’t know that you shouldn’t try to climb a tree either.
Don’t know what you should do if you encounter a bear? Check out The Truth About Bears.
If I had to pick a favorite of the three, it would be this one. The text compares and contrasts the two species of hippo, common and pygmy. Because there are only two kinds, the author was able to pack in more information about them.
Do you know whether hippos can swim? Don’t guess, because the answer will surprise you. Find out by reading The Truth About Hippos.
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Talking about inherited family traits is a given whenever families gather. Traits are analyzed and compared across the generations with photos and family stories. Prepare students for text-to-self connection of their own inherited family traits during the winter break with these new animal books.
Booktalk: Return to the prehistoric era in this poetry collection that’s organized chronologically by epoch and discover a host of creatures both novel and familiar, from the mysterious trilobite to the famed T. rex.
Maggie, Alaska’s Last Elephant
Just Like Us! Fish
