Senor Parrot's Perch

Pluto and its moon, Charon

So, what’s all this about Pluto not a planet? I know it’s old news, now, but still, it seemed so unfair to me. And look at all the stuff I thought I knew and now I don’t. I guess I’m not as smart as I thought. My fragile self-esteem is taking a beating.

But wait! There’s help out there. For those of us who like being smart, we have the library and bookstores to turn to, and an abundance of good books are out there to both smarten and cheer us up.

This all started about a started for me about a month ago. I was driving to work after dropping my kids off at school and listening to our local public radio station. The host was interviewing the astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson, the author of the the book The Pluto Files. Tyson was one of the proponents for dropping Pluto from the pantheon of the planets and he told the story of the discoveries and thinking that went into the fatal vote. It was quite interesting and and the decision was well reasoned.

That got me thinking. I wanted to know more.

My first stop was the library and I found a great bunch of books varying in targeted age levels.

The first of these, 11 Planets: A New View of the Solar System, by David Aguilar, was excellent. Aimed at kids probably 3rd grade through middle school, this very well written and beautifully illustrated book proceeded through the solar system, starting with how we believe it formed, then the talked about the sun, and then tracked through each planet, their moons, meteors and asteroids.

Hey, did this book say 11 planets? Yup, it did! That’s two up from nine, and I thought we had lost one and had dropped to eight! It actually turns out that rather than declassify Pluto from planet status, we just declared a new classification of planet: Dwarf Planets, and we added Ceres, which dwells in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, and the incredibly distant dwarf planet Eris, navigating around the sun in the Kuiper Belt, beyond Pluto.

More than just adding Dwarf Planets to the list, the entire solar system is reclassified to take advantage of what we know about the planets, so In fact we have three classes of planets, based on their similarities and differences:

• Terrestrial: Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars. These are primarily made of of rocks.
• Gas Giants: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. These are great planets made up of frozen gases with our a surface or ground to walk on.
• Dwarfs: Ceres, Pluto, and Eris. These are small planets, not round and covered in frozen ice. There is even some thought that Charon, Pluto’s largest moon, may itself be a dwarf planet. The two are locked into an orbit around each other and could easily be thought of as double-dwarf planets. There’s food for more thought! And these thoughts are covered more in the next book I write about.

11 Planets: A New View of the Solar System is a first-rate science book for kids. I recommend it. I’d really like to hear about more great science books for kids.

Book: 11 Planets: A New View of the Solar System
Author: David Aquilar
ISBN-13: 978-1426302367

Yesterday, the American Institute of Physics (AIP) announced it’s 2008 Science Writing Awards. In its children’s category they presented their award to Sneeze! by Alexandra Siy and Dennis Kunkel.

Sneeze, aimed at the mid to later elementary grade student, follows nine kids and their sneezes, using each as a way to illustrate what is happening and why, using a great mix of photography and illustration. The microscopic photography, from what I’ve been able to view over the internet, looks just fascinating.

“Fascinating” is often the key to generating a kid’s interest in science. They learn from adults and disinterested teachers very early that brain work is yucky, no fun at all. But when someone points to the keyhole into the locked room of science and technology, and lets kids peer inside, they quickly discover a world of endless fascination. Sneeze! is the right sort of keyhole into the realm of science.

Sneeze is published by Charlesbridge (2008).

The Children’s Book Review has a nice, short review of Kenny & theDragon by Tony DiTerlizi. Tony was part of the team that gave us The Spiderwick Chronicles. He’s an outstanding illustrator, and as usual, his illustrations by themselves are worth the price of admission. Two good examples are posted in their review just to prove it.

In Kenny & the Dragon, he’s written and illustrated the story of a young rabbit named Kenny who meets and befriends a dragon who is recently arrived in the neighborhood. �Soon, he finds, he may need to save him, too, through some very imaginitive and resourceful thinking.�

This is the key point I most liked in their review: �

Kenny is such a courageous character, that I am sure any young reader would idol him. And believe me, you want your child to idolize him because Kenny has the biggest thirst for knowledge, learning and books. Tony DiTerlizzi, known infamously for�The Spiderwick Chronicles, has told this captivating story with such ease that it’s hard to put down – even for reluctant readers! It’s a great book to read together with your children, everyone will be smiling – especially at the end.

I just love books like this.

Simon Bloom is returning soon in his second book titled Simon Bloom: The Octopus Effect I’ve been anticipating this sequel to Simon Bloom: Gravity Keeper by author Michael Reisman every since I finished the first. Amazon shows it to be available this coming June 11, 2009. I like that.

From JacketFlap, and probably the publisher, but the publisher doesn’t� have a link for the book yet:

In Simon Bloom, The Gravity Keeper, Simon Bloom and his friends used the Book of Physics to narrowly defeat villainess Sirabetta. Now Simon’s nemesis, stuck as a helpless thirteen-year-old, wants revenge. In this exciting sequel, Simon and company must enter the mysterious undersea realm of the Order of Biology to find Sirabetta before she can restore her powers. Aided by old allies and some new ones, the kids struggle with fi erce beasts, dangerous enemies, and their own evolving abilities. Blending humor, suspense, and science, and throwing new octopus powers into the mix, Michael Reisman brings us another outstandingly original adventure.

If you’re not familiar with Simon Bloom, you’re missing out on a fabulous read. Here’s my review of Simon Bloom: The Gravity Keeper.