Book of the Day

There is a trend, not new surely, but recently built to unavoidable proportions, of attempting to attract readers – particularly boys – to nonfiction titles but exploiting the strangest, most disgusting, and scatalogical topics possible. Of course, this strategy has been demonstrably successful, so who are we to argue? Besides, I often find myself intrigued by the weird information these authors manage to dig up. Did you know, for example, that larval tortoise beetles have little forks on the ends of their butts where feces collects, creating a shield from birds and other predators? The author of the book Bug Butts shares this, and many other fascinating facts, with readers.

The term “butt” is used repeatedly throughout the book, and while “anus” or “abdomen” or “alimentary canal” could probably have substituted in several cases, the butt theme manages to serve the duel purpose of attracting giggling readers and unifying several activities involving different parts of the insect hind end.

While the information is wrapped in a purposefully sensational package, the facts remain the same, and children will walk away knowing quite a bit about insects. Sometimes the gross factor outweighs the information factor, but never overwhelmingly. Despite outward appearances, it actually is an educational title.

When It’s Six O’Clock in San Francisco: A trip through time zones. Yep, the title pretty much says it all. But, as is so often case, it’s the journey, not the destination, that counts.

In San Francisco an African American boy named Jared is waking up at six o’clock. At the same time, on the other side of the continent, it’s 9 am and a girl in Montreal is worried about being late for school. We travel from Chile to England, from South Africa to Pakistan, from China to Australia and back the United States as time zones from all over the world are investigated.

The end papers include a map showing all of the world’s time zones and highlighting the cities featured in the more story-oriented section of the book. In addition, there is a brief explanation of time zones. A quick note that the seasons in the north and south hemispheres are opposite to one another explains why some scenes are set in the summer while others feature snow.

Although this is probably a book best used with more in depth explanations, or used with young children as a first introduction, rather than as a stand-alone comprehensive look at time zones, it very adequately fulfills this role, and will doubtless be the first look at this subject many children experience.

Really, all I have to do is say this book is about vomit and half the people reading this will stop right there and run to the library because they’re already sold, and the other half will stop and move quickly on to another website.

Despite its disgusting premise, the book is actually fairly informative. Kids are endlessly fascinated by bodily functions, and this book will help to explain the processes and reasons behind vomiting. Why do we get nauseous? Why does the sight and smell of someone else throwing up make us want to throw up too? All of these questions and more are answered.

The format of the book is solid, though not exceptional. The many pictures of slightly ill-looking children will be appealing, but the captions generally have little or nothing to do with the nearby body of text. Vocabulary words are defined in a side box on the same page and then again later in a glossary, a decision I think is fabulous. Many kids are too impatient to run to the glossary whenever a new word comes up, but at the same time other kids might not remember in the next chapter what a word meant and want to look it up. This way you have the best of both worlds.

One of the more surprising chapters in the new book NurtureShock is the evidence that children inherently notice the races of the people around them and, when left to their own devices, make the conclusion that people who look most like themselves are best. It is therefore vital to a racially tolerant society that discussions about race begin at a very young age. Almost as if in answer to this new focus on young children and skin tone comes the newly published book Shades of People.

Featuring full-color photos of small children of every conceivable skin color, the book makes explicit that skin is “just our covering” and that “you can’t tell what someone is like from the color of their skin”. The book then talks about how even in the same family different members can have different shades of skin, and that in the park, at school, and at the playground you can see lots of people with lots of different skin tones. The pictures dominate each page. Some pictures are of a single child, others of children playing together, both in multi-racial and single-race groups. All of the pictures are engaging and will appeal to small children who are often fascinated by other pictures of babies and children. The text is simple enough to use with toddlers, while it will make a perfect jumping off point for discussion with older children.

You’re watching a horror movie when suddenly giant spiders leap onto the screen. They’re larger than a car and about to eat our heroes! So why aren’t we plagued with such monstrosities in the real world? Just the Right Size: Why Big Animals are Big and Little Animals are Little is here to tell us why.

Using clear, direct language that breaks complex ideas into simpler concepts that kids can readily understand and comprehend, the book does an excellent job of conveying the information. Each page, and each concept, is accompanied by cartoons illustrating the text. Some of the cartoons are equal parts humorous and informational, others lean in one direction or the other.

The topic is fascinating, and will appeal to children (and most likely their parents) who are interested in science. There is an index and glossary, though no bibliography. Although this is a short book, and there are areas that could have used a bit more explanation, for the most part it packs a whallop of an informational punch.

Technically, this is a picture book, not a nonfiction book. But it’s teaching the alphabet, and it has gorgeous pictures of animals, complete with interesting facts, so I’m going to let it slide and just call it nonfiction.

Children love animals. This is a largely undisputed fact. Children also need to (eventually) learn the alphabet. So why not combine the two? Andrew Zuckerman has taken his phenomenal photographs from his coffee-table sized book Creature and paired them with letters to create a visually stunning abecedarian. A pair of upper and lower case letters appears in stark black against a white background. On the opposite page is a closeup of an animal, also against a white background. Turn the page and there is another image of the animal, this time with a label. Most of the time there is a direct animal/letter correlation, other times the letter stands for a group (such as insect or nocturnal.)

The photographs used are stunning (have I mentioned that already?) Older children who have already long since mastered their letters will likely be intrigued simply by the pictures. Placing the animals against a white background, rather than within their usual habitat means that one can focus entirely on the animal instead of being distracted by the environment. A tour de force.

The Scientists in the Field series of nonfiction books profiles actual scientists doing hands-on work, with explanations of the science as well as biographies on how the individual scientist came to his or her career. This particular volume focuses on scientists whose work brings them to “perilous places” – namely the eye of a hurricane, the depths of a cave, and the top of a redwood tree.

The photography in the book is excellently done, and displayed to best effect. Despite the large number of pictures, the book is intended for older elementary or middle school readers, with a lot of in-depth text with tons of information about the topic at hand. A separate “Quick Questions” section at the end of each profile gives concise answers to the sorts of questions kids might ask, such as “have you ever been seriously injured?” or “what do you eat?”

There is a glossary of terms at the end of the book, divided into three sections based on the three scientific fields covered in the book. Sources are cited, based mostly on personal interviews with the book’s subjects. A list of recommended books to read for further information is also included.

A sure-to-be-intriguing mix of scientific facts ladled out with an edge of danger, the book puts equal weight on the science as well as on the adventure. While the exotic factor of scaling enormous trees or flying into gale force winds is used as a draw, the authors also emphasize the fact that the profiled individuals are doing it all in the name of science, and the more mundane scientific actions, such as growing microbes in a petri dish or tallying up statistics are also presented as a fun part of the job.

Fake vomit, short sheets, and ex-lax brownies: what could be more fun? This book devotes itself to pranks and mischief of all kinds, with detailed instructions, recipes and suggestions for how to become a world-class mischief maker.

I liked that this book encouraged pranksters to think big. Why be a run-of-the-mill practical joker when, with a little more effort and creativity you can become a legend? Sure, there are lots of standard, almost traditional, practical jokes included here, but so are a lot of other, more clever ideas, along with a repeated encouragement to improvise and improve upon the concepts mentioned here.

Also to like: the prankster’s code, which matter-of-factly states that no prankster worth his or her salt is going to do something that could potentially damage another person, or even do permanent damage to property. As the book points out, very reasonably, if you get hurt then your pranking career is over, and if someone else gets hurt then not only is your career over, but you’re in tons of trouble. The same goes for property damage: adults are willing to chuckle and shake their heads over non-damaging pranks – particularly if they’re clever – but the minute that an adult has to pay to have something mended or replaced, then you are in Trouble with a capital T. I’ve seen other prank-type books that tried to get this message across and simply sounded like a preachy adult. This book manages to get the tone just right, so that becoming a safe joker simply makes more sense than risking possible harm. Even the ex-lax joke I mentioned in the first paragraph is really just making people think you’ve used ex-lax, not actually incorporating over-the-counter drugs into food.

Any aspiring practical jokers absolutely need to get their hands on this book, which is chock-full of useful suggestions and ingenious plans.

The scene (literally) is set: it’s 1783 and the new American nation is struggling to come to terms with the Articles of Confederation. A bold decision is made: the Articles will be junked completely in favor of a new Constitution. But what powers will the Constitution grant, and how will thirteen very different states ever manage to agree?

This book is set up as if it were a school play, complete with audience members. The states are represented by children dressed up in state costumes. (It is only as I was writing this that I suddenly realized that the girl playing New Jersey has a flowerpot on her head to represent the Garden State. Clever.) The students re-enact and reinterpret the major changes enacted by the Constitution, as well as the difficulties and compromises required to write the document.

Many people tend to forget that the Constitution was not our original governing document. This extremely child-friendly book provides an engaging and dynamic look at a subject that could easily be quite dry. Most pages feature an unknown narrator make a statement of fact about the government or situation, at which point the “states” talk to each other with word bubbles to add information or explain their thinking or objections. I am often suspicious of books that try to cartoonize history. This book manages to be that rare beast that is able to pull off excellent cartoonwork with interesting text to create an overall package that is both appealing to children and educational.