For storytime, a trio of "school" themed books featuring music or noisemaking. For the summer reading program, a visit from Miss Frizzle, who also read Max Found Two Sticks during her fantastic science-filled program.
Storytime:
Violet's Music
Angela Johnson, illustrated by Laura Huliska-Beith
ISBN: 0803727402
Violet lives breathes dances walks sings and exudes music - which is fine, and generally satisfying, but there's no one else at school who really understands her passion. They all have their own different passions. So Violet starts to look for her people, and when she finds some others who REALLY dig music, they all validate her previous passion and vague loneliness, and then happily start up a band.
Music Class Today!
David Weinstone, illustrated by Vin Vogel
ISBN: 9780374341311
A boisterous music class is kept on a gentle schedule by a bearded teacher, while a shy/introverted/sensitive child hovers around the edges, unsure about all this noise and commotion, until they gather their courage and happily join in the fun. Very short, but very inclusive and positive look at a classroom setting.
Ruby Sings the Blues
Niki Daly
ISBN: 1582349959
I've used this one before, because I love Ruby, with her volume control permanently set to HIGH. She's just excited and happy and wants to be heard, which drives everyone at school and home absolutely bonkers, until someone suggests music lessons, and Ruby discovers Jazz and Blues, and puts her BIG voice to excellent (and finally appreciated) use.
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Showing posts with label science. Show all posts
Thursday, June 28, 2018
Saturday, April 30, 2016
New Arrival: Picture Book Biography: Solving the Puzzle Under the Sea, Robert Burleigh & Raúl Colón
Solving the Puzzle Under the Sea: Marie Tharp Maps the Ocean Floor
Robert Burleigh, illustrated by Raúl Colón
ISBN: 9781481416009
Read April 28, 2016
This is another lovely biography of an early scientist who happens to be a woman. Marie Tharp gets very little recognition now, but her passion to map out the ocean floor using sonar soundings and depth markers played a key part in forcing scientists to accept the theory of continental drift, by using the ridges and valleys on the ocean floors to prove that there really are continental plates bumping up against each other.Not bad for someone who got told there weren't any openings for file clerks (she was applying for the position as staff scientist) and got left behind on ocean voyages because women were bad luck on ships.Colón's illustrations are consistently gorgeous, and his depictions of Marie at different times throughout her life are lovely to see progress.
Robert Burleigh, illustrated by Raúl Colón
ISBN: 9781481416009
Read April 28, 2016
This is another lovely biography of an early scientist who happens to be a woman. Marie Tharp gets very little recognition now, but her passion to map out the ocean floor using sonar soundings and depth markers played a key part in forcing scientists to accept the theory of continental drift, by using the ridges and valleys on the ocean floors to prove that there really are continental plates bumping up against each other.Not bad for someone who got told there weren't any openings for file clerks (she was applying for the position as staff scientist) and got left behind on ocean voyages because women were bad luck on ships.Colón's illustrations are consistently gorgeous, and his depictions of Marie at different times throughout her life are lovely to see progress.
Friday, November 7, 2014
New Arrivals! Nonfiction Picture Book: Plastic Ahoy! Investigating the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
This was a new arrival to my library today, and it's an excellent nonfiction science-inspired book, very like The Dolphins of Shark Bay, only this time focused more on much smaller life-forms.
Plastic Ahoy! Investigating the Great Pacific Garbage Patch
Patricia Newman, photographs by Annie Crawley
ISBN: 9781467712835
Read November 6, 2014
We follow a trio of (women) graduate students on their scientific mission to the Pacific Garbage Patch, each with their own specific purpose, experiments, and scientific focus, and after being introduced to the mechanics of the ship and the scientific method, and to the Garbage Patch itself, we follow along with each student as she explains how she got interested in oceanography, how she became interested in the Garbage Patch, what her experiments are meant to show, and how she's collecting and storing evidence to further her research. In a really excellent dedication to academic reality, the text doesn't shy away from one girl who does her research, then upon return home, takes her work in a different direction, and doesn't follow up on her Garbage Patch findings at all.
The illustrations are magnificent, and the photos are all scrupulously identified and placed in context. The overall book focuses on the science being done, with the environmental-clean-up message relegated to the end. There are extensive Source Notes, a lovely Glossary, and Index, and a page full of varied Further Reading suggestions.
Excellent and interesting nonfiction read that really goes into surprising depth and detail on a specific mission and trio of experimental research.
Tuesday, September 30, 2014
Nonfiction: Stuff Matters, Mark Miodownik
These treatises on stuff and materials and interesting items or snapshots in time are called "microhistories" and I have to admit that they're really one of the only nonfiction that I actually look for to read. I'm not alone - they're hugely popular. This one should be a lovely addition to the library's collection.
Stuff Matters
Mark Miodownik
ISBN: 9780544236042
Read September 27, 2014
Miodownik starts with a traumatic childhood experience - getting slashed across the back by a homemade razor knife weilded by a would-be-mugger - and uses that as his starting point for his fascination with materials sciences and with the properties of the natural and built environments we surround ourselves with.
Each chapter deals with a different material, although the chapters themselves are named for a property that the author associates with that material (minor quibble: it would have made it easier to reference and cross-check if he'd included both association and metal)
For reference, the chapters are:
Indomitable (Steel)
Trusted (Paper)
Fundamental (Concrete)
Delicious (Chocolate)
Marvelous (Aerogels)
Imaginative (Plastics, specifically collodion)
Invisible (Glass)
Unbreakable (Carbon/Graphite/graphene/Diamond/Carbon-fiber/nanotubes)
Refined (Porcelain)
Immortal (Bio-materials and "cyborg" parts)
Synthesis (Materials Science 101)
Miodownik has a fun and breezy writing style, his examples are delightful, and the chapters are just long enough to get his point and his fascination (obsession?) across without being belabored. It's obvious that he's English, but that's a bonus for me, and doesn't impact on the universal nature of scientific and material interest. I finished this slim collection off with the hope that it sells well and the author enjoyed the writing process, so that perhaps there will be a sequel!
Stuff Matters
Mark Miodownik
ISBN: 9780544236042
Read September 27, 2014
Miodownik starts with a traumatic childhood experience - getting slashed across the back by a homemade razor knife weilded by a would-be-mugger - and uses that as his starting point for his fascination with materials sciences and with the properties of the natural and built environments we surround ourselves with.
Each chapter deals with a different material, although the chapters themselves are named for a property that the author associates with that material (minor quibble: it would have made it easier to reference and cross-check if he'd included both association and metal)
For reference, the chapters are:
Indomitable (Steel)
Trusted (Paper)
Fundamental (Concrete)
Delicious (Chocolate)
Marvelous (Aerogels)
Imaginative (Plastics, specifically collodion)
Invisible (Glass)
Unbreakable (Carbon/Graphite/graphene/Diamond/Carbon-fiber/nanotubes)
Refined (Porcelain)
Immortal (Bio-materials and "cyborg" parts)
Synthesis (Materials Science 101)
Miodownik has a fun and breezy writing style, his examples are delightful, and the chapters are just long enough to get his point and his fascination (obsession?) across without being belabored. It's obvious that he's English, but that's a bonus for me, and doesn't impact on the universal nature of scientific and material interest. I finished this slim collection off with the hope that it sells well and the author enjoyed the writing process, so that perhaps there will be a sequel!
Monday, September 8, 2014
Nonfiction: what if? by Randall Munroe of xkcd
What If? Serious Scientific Answers to Absurd Hypothetical Questions
Randall Munroe
ISBN: 9780544272996
Read Sept 6, 2014.
This was an awesome tour of applied sciences. From the standard "what if the sun went out?" to the specific "what if I went swimmng in a spent-nuclear-fuel pool?" to the obviously very concerning (sooo many questions about lightning strikes!) we get researched, fact-based answers (and some cartoons and bonus snarking) that reveals the usually pretty terrible things that would happen in most of our daydreaming "what if" scenarios.
Damn good writing, explaining, and selecting interesting questions to deal with. Including the un-answered "Weird (and Worrying) Questions" was brilliant.
My favorite probably is the detailed and gruesome explanation of why the periodic table is not at all like pokemon.
Randall Munroe
ISBN: 9780544272996
Read Sept 6, 2014.
This was an awesome tour of applied sciences. From the standard "what if the sun went out?" to the specific "what if I went swimmng in a spent-nuclear-fuel pool?" to the obviously very concerning (sooo many questions about lightning strikes!) we get researched, fact-based answers (and some cartoons and bonus snarking) that reveals the usually pretty terrible things that would happen in most of our daydreaming "what if" scenarios.
Damn good writing, explaining, and selecting interesting questions to deal with. Including the un-answered "Weird (and Worrying) Questions" was brilliant.
My favorite probably is the detailed and gruesome explanation of why the periodic table is not at all like pokemon.
Friday, September 5, 2014
Nonfiction: Unruly Places, Alastair Bonnett
Unruly Places: lost spaces, secret cities, and other inscrutable geographies
Alastair Bonnett
ISBN: 9780544101579
Finished Sept 4, 2014.
This book wasn't exactly what I was expecting. Based on the blurb and the cover, it seemed to promise more of an urban exploration sort of vibe, very down to earth, lots of pictures of abandoned buildings and secretly trespassing into areas forgotten by most. The sort of story where parkour as a celebration of space is treated non-ironically.
Instead, we have this odd little tome of a book, full of scholarly meanderings and callbacks to ancient theories of philosophy and college flirtations with the benefits of anarchy, and wild geographic rambles from the garbage vortex (not exactly what I would think of as a "place" in sense that the cover promised) to political enclaves to cruiseships to the rise and fall of Sealand, to the "marginal spaces" that children claim for their own imaginative play.
So, it wasn't what I expected, but it was an interesting read. I wasn't (perhaps because I wasn't expecting it) really fond of the overly pedantic professorial tone - I felt I was being talked down to a bit, or like listening to that one relative who goes on forever about the deep and meaningful concepts that he learned in school and life.
On the other hand, I was introduced to a variety of places that I would not ever have otherwise known about, and while some were not very historically or universally interesting (Did the highway median really deserve a place in the book? And the "dogging" site? Was that necessary?) there were lots of places where a urban explorer or a parkour maniac would never think to visit and talk about.
So, overall verdict: a bit ponderous (especially given the smallish size and lots of page breaks) but an interesting travelogue to the strange and overlooked places of the world, with a hefty side order of philosophy and thoughts on human nature and preferences.
Alastair Bonnett
ISBN: 9780544101579
Finished Sept 4, 2014.
This book wasn't exactly what I was expecting. Based on the blurb and the cover, it seemed to promise more of an urban exploration sort of vibe, very down to earth, lots of pictures of abandoned buildings and secretly trespassing into areas forgotten by most. The sort of story where parkour as a celebration of space is treated non-ironically.
Instead, we have this odd little tome of a book, full of scholarly meanderings and callbacks to ancient theories of philosophy and college flirtations with the benefits of anarchy, and wild geographic rambles from the garbage vortex (not exactly what I would think of as a "place" in sense that the cover promised) to political enclaves to cruiseships to the rise and fall of Sealand, to the "marginal spaces" that children claim for their own imaginative play.
So, it wasn't what I expected, but it was an interesting read. I wasn't (perhaps because I wasn't expecting it) really fond of the overly pedantic professorial tone - I felt I was being talked down to a bit, or like listening to that one relative who goes on forever about the deep and meaningful concepts that he learned in school and life.
On the other hand, I was introduced to a variety of places that I would not ever have otherwise known about, and while some were not very historically or universally interesting (Did the highway median really deserve a place in the book? And the "dogging" site? Was that necessary?) there were lots of places where a urban explorer or a parkour maniac would never think to visit and talk about.
So, overall verdict: a bit ponderous (especially given the smallish size and lots of page breaks) but an interesting travelogue to the strange and overlooked places of the world, with a hefty side order of philosophy and thoughts on human nature and preferences.
Friday, July 5, 2013
A Natural History of Dragons: A Memoir of Lady Trent, Marie Brennan
A Natural History of Dragons: A Memoir of Lady Trent
Marie Brennan
978-0765331960
Alternate-Europe Fantasy of Manners/Exploration
This was an amazing book. I sincerely hope that "Lady Trent" continues to document her adventures in the pursuit of scientific advances on the subject of dragons (and that she does NOT continue to suffer the same losses *sniffle* in said pursuit).
Absolutely pitch perfect. The sparklings, the early adventures, the strictures of society, the culture shock, the descriptions and events, the DRAGONS... marvelous.
The ONLY slight objection I have is that the pace picks up ALARMINGLY in the last 5th, moving nearly instantly from businesslike mystery investigation to a disturbingly brisk "chase/resolution/flash-forward/sequel teaser/THE-END" *pant-pant.* Considering the important events occuring in said time-period, I felt a bit at a loss to absorb and process each event before being rushed along to the next.
Marie Brennan
978-0765331960
Alternate-Europe Fantasy of Manners/Exploration
This was an amazing book. I sincerely hope that "Lady Trent" continues to document her adventures in the pursuit of scientific advances on the subject of dragons (and that she does NOT continue to suffer the same losses *sniffle* in said pursuit).
Absolutely pitch perfect. The sparklings, the early adventures, the strictures of society, the culture shock, the descriptions and events, the DRAGONS... marvelous.
The ONLY slight objection I have is that the pace picks up ALARMINGLY in the last 5th, moving nearly instantly from businesslike mystery investigation to a disturbingly brisk "chase/resolution/flash-forward/sequel teaser/THE-END" *pant-pant.* Considering the important events occuring in said time-period, I felt a bit at a loss to absorb and process each event before being rushed along to the next.
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