Senor Parrot’s Perch

Each spring My wife fills the deck with flowers. We enjoy their beauty until the fall frosts kill them off. But we’re not the only ones. Bees are everywhere, flying about from flower to flower in the hunt for more pollen. Hundreds of bees. We’ve never been bothered by them and they’ve never seemed bothered by us. It’s a happy coexistence.

Bees, specificly Honey Bees, are the subject of Jay Hosler’s  graphic novel Clan Apis. Taking the graphic novel approach, author Jay Hosler encapsulated the life cycle of honey bees within a coming of age story and found an interesting and effective way to teach kids about the ecology of honey bees. Hosler’s approach is to imagine a hive, or clan, of honey bees endowed with human motivations, through them telling the amazing story of the Honey Bee. The illustration is excellent, lively, and entertaining. I’ve included a few panels from the book that I snagged from Hosler’s website for you to see.

It’s surprising how much actual detail and information Hosler conveys through this method, while keeping the interest in the story high. Beginning with a young larva and it’s older sister, Hosler details in clear and interesting detail the growth cycle and social lives of bees. As the young larva, Nyuki, grows into a young bee she absolutely buzzes with questions. Her older sister, Dvorah, is always there explaining to her the ways of bees and their jobs and duties.

 

Like a child eager to grow up, Nyuki is eager to find her own way, against the advice of her older sister, landing herself in the middle of dangerous straits. This opens the doorway to explain the environment that the bees find themselves in. Older sister Dvorah, along with a friend or two, guide Nyuki through each stage of life, passing along a trove of interesting information about the lives and ecology of honey bees along the way.

I’m not sure when this book was first published. The author’s website has different dates, ranging from 1998, 1999 and 2000, and my copy says it was printed in 2000. So it doesn’t include information about the current die-offs of the North American honey bee population, but that’s not a drawback for value of this text. In a classroom setting, the interest and sympathy for bees this book would generate would serve to motivate some interesting discussions about Colony Collapse Disorder, which is destroying large numbers of bees in the U.S.

Ascribing human-like motivation to animals and their evolutionary development is a common approach to scientific story-telling. It’s also one of my pet peeves. It’s a method scientists use to demonstrate the rationality of evolution – why nature takes the course that has led us to our current state. You might call it a Will to Evolve, and this is pure nonsense from a evolutionary science perspective. This is certainly the case with Hosler’s Clan Apis. He can be forgiven in this instance because he is in fact telling a fictional story, carefully constructed with science tossed in, and the story is meant to motivate an interest in the material. All of this he does very well.

I don’t recall exactly why I grabbed Dinosaur Scientist: Careers Digging Up the Past by Tom Holmes from the Library. I had stopped by the new books section on my way out and saw this book, looked at the cover, thought it looked cool, and took it home. It wasn’t until I read the full title, the part about careers, that I said a silent ‘Oh, no!’ I shouldn’t have said it. I was just a page or two into the first chapter before I was hooked. Now that I finished it, I’m giving it strong recommendations.

Dinosaur Scientist is one of the rare and excellent science books describing what scientists do at a level that elementary and middle-schoolers can become engaged with. Holmes approach is to present 6 top paleontologists and describe their careers through short bio pieces, each making up a chapter. Along the way he explains the cool science, adventures and discoveries that each of these scientists has made, and how they solved the problems that they encountered. He shows how multi-faceted they are in their skills and backgrounds and the paths they took to becoming paleontologists.

The author has a personal interest in the subject and, it seems, considerable experience, as well. This shows throughout the book. He isn’t just relating facts and activities, but he exposes the interesting personalities of each scientist and bits about their science that are most engaging, that is, the very things that draw a person into a scientific field.

And there is the career component of this book. Each scientist expresses in their own words how they prepared themselves and what they found most useful to know. In this day and age, it’s common for college students to have no idea what they would like to do with their lives even when they’ve reached their junior and senior years in college. They have no vision and they have no valuable guidance. Books such as Dinosaur Scientist are excellent resources to help our kids choose a career path and begin planning to achieve their dreams.

The author, Thom Holmes, has a web page and a paleo-blog. He has a short bio here. He’s written about 20 books on dinosaurs, evolution and other prehistoric life.

 

How to Clone a Sheep

By Hazel Richardson

Illustrated by Andy Cooke

Kids love science when it’s served up on their level and written in a lively, humorous style. That’s exactly what you get with How to Clone a Sheep by Hazel Richardson and Illustrated by Andy Cooke. This fun little book is a first-rate introduction to genetics, DNA and cloning aimed at kids in about the 4th through 8th grades. The book also has some activities that are easy and educational.

How to Clone a Sheep covers the basics. Beginning by explaining what exactly are clones, DNA and genes, the book approaches the subject from a historical perspective, explaining historical thought about the inheritance of traits and how these ideas were either confirmed or rejected. Finally, it explains the science and methodology employed to produce Dolly, the famous cloned sheep. There is quite a bit of interesting historical information provided, as well. Richardson’s description of the race among scientists to discover the secrets of DNA is especially amusing, and it gives us an inside perspective on scientific research.

I think that adults would enjoy reading this along with their kids. In fact, it was my 6th grader who found this book and passed it along to me after reading it herself. She insisted I’d love it and she was right. The explanations are simplified and accompanied by terrific cartoonish drawings that perfectly illustrate the text.

The Nexi Robot

(Norwood House Press, 2010)

By Toney Allman

The Nexi Robot (Great Idea) by Toney Allman will fascinate you from beginning to end. It relates the quest of MIT robotics professor Cynthia Breazeal to build a social robot, one that learns like a person does and that interacts with people in a social way. Much different than tool and task oriented robots that dominate the robotics field, social robots are designed to learn from people and interact with people, understanding and showing emotions.

Video introduction to Nexi:

Author Toney Allman does a great job of making these complicated ideas understandable and stimulating. Sometimes the author struggles to keep the writing simple all the way through. At times the level is appropriate for a skilled 2nd grade reader, but overall we’re looking at a book aimed at 3rd and 4th graders and up. The format follows a younger reader level, but don’t let kids be put off. They’ll be rewarded with an excellent story about scientific inquiry that is sure to spur their imaginations and help shape their career and educational choices. I recommend this book for any school or public library or for a kid interested in robotics or engineering.

Here is a “Robots to the Rescue”, a short video kids might enjoy staring Nexi and another flying robot. At the end, you’ll see that Nexi looks like it could use a good dose of Visine as it blinks away the smokey sting from its eyes.

Courtesy of NASA

In some crowds science has a bad reputation. These people folks find it dull, or poorly written. It’s a reputation not at all deserved, yet sometimes the writing of science books can leave a bit to be desired. That’s why it’s great news when we learn about the best of the best science books available. So when I saw that The School Library Journal had posted the list of finalists for the American Association for the Advancement of Science Best Science Books for Children and Young Adults, I was excited.

There are three categories: Children’s Science Picture Books, Middle Grades Science Books, and Young Adult Science Books. Today I’ll highlight the nominees for the Children’s Science Picture Books.

Children’s Science Picture Books

Living Sunlight: How Plants Bring the Earth to Life

(Blue Sky Press, 2009)

By Molly Bang and Penny Chisholm

Illustrated by Molly Bang

This might have been called “My first book of Photosynthesis”, Living Sunlight: How Plants Bring the Earth to Life, Molly Bang and Penny Chisholm explain how plants transform sunlight into energy and life giving food for everything on the planet. The illustrations are colorful and support the simple text. It’s almost magic when an author can explain such a complex web of interaction within a children’s picture book.

Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11

(Atheneum, 2009)

By Brian Floca

Author and illustrator Brian Floca lets us ride along with the Apollo 11 crew as they journey from earth to the moon and back. The illustrations in Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11 have a fantastic sense of scale to them. The story is exiting and full of interesting details that bring this historic and inspiring journey to life.

Redwoods

(Roaring Brook, 2009)

By Jason Chin

Redwoods by Jason Chin is a bit reminiscent of Flotsam, a visual fantasy by David Weiner, as it follows a boy who finds a book about the giant redwood trees just before riding the train. As he reads the simple text of the book, the dinosaurs and other things appear in the train window behind him showing what was happening in the world during the lifespan of the spectacular trees. In one of the illustrations a young girl is seen. Later, when the boy puts down the book we see that girl finding the book and beginning to read it herself.

What Bluebirds Do

(Boyds Mills, 2009)

By Pamela F. Kirby

What Bluebirds Do by Pamela F. Kirby highlights a year in the life of bluebirds in beautiful photos. It’s simple text should be readable by many early readers. Following a pair of bluebirds who have nested in her backyard, Kirby captures their daily life, including their raising of five young bluebird chicks. School Library Journal compared this book to The Red-Eyed Tree Frog by Nic Bishop.

The Snake Scientist (Scientists in the Field)
By Sy Montgomery
Photos by Nic Bishop

Bob Mason is a snake scientist. Every year he travels to Manitoba, Canada to study the red-sided garter snakes that mass in amazing numbers about 100 miles north of Winnipeg. By the time the book was written, he had spent 15 years studying these snakes. Along the way he’s made some pretty amazing discoveries about snakes, including how they use their super-sniffing tongues – they smell with their tongues, to follow pheromone trails that lead them where they are going.

The book is a very enjoyable read, aimed at kids at about 5th grade and up. Author Sy Montgomery does a good job of describing the entire milieu of the research in a way that is easy to understand. He also poses questions like a scientist, which is the first step in designing experiments that give reliable results.

Nic Bishop photographed the book. He’s well known for his nature photography and he’s written or collaborated in a number of good books. In The Snake Scientist he found more folks happy to hold snakes than I thought possible. If you’re creeped out by the slithering serpents, then the photographs may spoil the pleasure of reading this book. But if you’re the type who is ready for anything, especially if its a photograph of someone else with a snake, and not yourself, you’ll enjoy this informative venture into science.

Pelican’s Catch (Smithsonian Oceanic Collection)

By Janet Halfmann,

Illustrated by Bob Dacey and Debra Bandelin

Pelican’s Catch (Smithsonian Oceanic Collection) traces a single day in the life of a young brown pelican. Having just learned to fly, the 11-week old pelican awakens and joins a group of pelicans that are flying overhead on their way to catch their breakfast. Brown Pelican still has a lot to learn, diving over and over into the clear blue ocean that surrounds the mangrove tree island where it lives before it gains its first catch.

Along the way, Halfmann depicts the life of a brown pelican very well. She has written this nonfiction book in a story format which allows her to show the bird’s habitat, social life, physical characteristics and behavior withinin the interesting narrative arc of a single day. The facts about the bird aren’t presented as scientific data, but rather as the features and elements of this bird and its environment.

The illustrations by Bob Dacey and Debra Bandelin are superb. The birds soar and dive with so much life and drama. And the final page is enough to make you quit your job and move to Puerto Rico. Say- I do have a friend from Puerto Rico. I’ve met some of his family that live there. Maybe, just maybe, I could do a bit of couch surfing until I can find a job on a boat down there.

I first learned about this book through a review on someone’s blog. I really don’t recall whose it was, but it may have been this review over at The Well Read Child. It does look familiar. I checked out some of the other spots that review science and nonfiction regularly and found this excellent interview with author Janet Halfmann over at Lori Calabrese’s blog Lori Calabrese Writes! I was unfamiliar with Janet Halfmann before reading this book. But now, after reading Lori’s interview with her, I’m looking for more of Janet Halfmann’s books.

Bubble Homes and Fish Farts by Fiona Bayrock
Illustrated by Carolyn Conahan
ISBN 9781570916694

On the strength of several reviews a couple months ago, I went out and got Bubble Homes and Fish Farts by Fiona Bayrock and Illustrated by Carolyn Conahan. I read it through quickly and found it quite good. I thought it would be over the head of my 6-year old, but I also thought that this book may help turn her into a junior naturalist. We learn a lot looking at the world around us and books like Bubble Homes and Fish Farts help us know what to look for and how to look. In particular, this book helps explain how animals use bubbles to survive and thrive in their environment.

My family spends a lot of time exploring a local lake in kayaks or sailboats and we enjoy looking for cool stuff. My 6-year old has an old root beer bottle with a cap that she uses to collect her lake specimens, usually weeds and other floating stuff. She’s already beginning to look closely at nature. As we read through the book last night I spent time talking about what we might find in the lake that’s making those bubbles we see from time to time. Now, we have even more things to look for now. I then reminded her of the spittlebugs inside the foamy bubbles on many of the plants in the neighborhood that we look at while walking the dog. All this was fun for her and made a connection in her mind.

Along the way in this book, I did learn about fish FaRTs, that is, Fast Repetitive Ticks. Herring, at night, swallow air and pass it out the other end, possibly using this to communicate amongst themselves in the dark ocean waters. There’s an experiment for you – how do you test the communication theory? I remember when I was young, and way up north in the frigid taconite country of Hibbing, Minnesota. In winter we’d all be outside shivering and talking excitedly but never hear a word that another was saying. Our words froze up in our breath and fell onto the snow covered playground with hushed clunks. We’d pick a few of our frozen conversations up and take them inside, where they’d thaw out and produce a random, nonsense conversation as our words escaped their frosty prisons. Maybe herring farts will be like that. We just need to pop the bubbles to hear what they’re saying. I can see a research grant proposal here! Stranger ones have been funded.

Its raining today. The kids are home sick, too. They’ll want to get on the computer and play Webkinz or something like that, or they’ll want to watch TV all day. All brain rot, really. They’ll be bored and drive my wife crazy. They need an activity, and a fun one, and why not a brain building one?

Cool Gravity Activities: Fun Science Projects About Balance by James Hopwood is full of fun, simple, and thought provoking science activities. Beginning with some basic instruction on scientific method, the book sets some rules for the activities. Really, they’re hints on what to look for, and set the stage for kids to learn.

Second, there is a two page layout of things the kids can find around the house to use in their experiments. Maybe a hockey stick, or a rake, or a ruler or thread. Get some eggs, metal forks and wooden popsicle sticks. A few more things and you’re ready. I’d skip on the bathroom plunger, though. Yuck! Maybe a kid’s garden shovel, or something like that.

Now to the activities. Each has pointers on what to look for, instructions on performing the experiment, an explanation of the science behind the activity, and a practical application for real life. There’s quick projects like balancing a plunger, or a more suitable substitute, making tops from oddly shaped pieces of paper, or how an uncooked egg spins compared to a hard-boiled egg. Some of these will be fun for your kids to use to show off to their friends. Try balancing two forks and a popsicle stick on one finger!

None of the experiments takes too long and each incorporates writing data and findings in a journal. This writing part is critical. Scientists write down everything and then misplace it. Engineers know where they put everything. If you kid loses his or her notes, you know they’ll be a scientist. If they tidy them up, file them alphabetically and cross-reference them, they’ll be librarians. But if they just keep them organized on a bookshelf, they’ll be engineers.

For the most part, engineering is applied science. What makes engineering so fascinating is the context of how science is applied to solve problems and to do practical things. A lot of non-engineering  jobs use applied science, as well. Steve Wolf’s fun, informative, and fascinating book, The Secret Science Behind Movie Stunts and Special Effects is all about how he uses science to create special effects for movies and TV. It’s this Hollywood context that makes the book so fun and adds the “Cool” factor often needed to make a kid want to learn more and study harder so that he or she can do this sort of cool stuff, too.

This book isn’t some dumbed-down effort to coax kids to try science, because. Wolf jumps right in, using the example of setting off an explosion, to get started talking meaningfully about the several states of matter and chemical reactions, providing excellent working definitions and examples every time. He works forwards and backwards in his examples, beginning with something he might do on a set, stepping back to explain scientific principals involved, and then moving forward again to show other ways these principals are harnessed to create other special effects. He has an extensive glossary of terms at the end with additional supplemental material.

The book is well written, explaining fundamental scientific principals in clear and accessible language, making this book suitable for kids in middle school and up. It should appeal to all, but I bet that it hooks a lot more boys than girls. I’d recommend trying to get this into the hands of any bright kid who’s just not motivated to study science.  It has fun illustrations showing lots of the special tools and gear that special effects people use and how their special effects are pulled off.

Wolf has a website called, naturally, scienceinthemovies.com, that supports his book and the presentations he makes. He has videos of presentations and lots of links to science sites, grouped by topics.