Leveled by an Earthquake!

Leveled by an Earthquake!

By Adam Reingold

Bearport Publishers, 2010

ISBN #978-1-936087-53-2

Nonfiction

Grades 3-6

“A School Disappears

            Seconds later, Anning felt the ground shake from several more tremors. When the nearby mountains shook, a huge amount of loose earth began to slide toward the school. Within seconds, the buidling was buried completely. Anning and her schoolmates were trapped under the great weight of cracked concrete floor and broken walls. Some could not move. Other could barely breathe. ‘We have to keep going so we can get thorough this,’ said one classmate.”

Beichuan, China, was wiped off the landscape during the great Sichuan earthquake of 2008. The quake registered a magnitude 8.0 on the Richter scale. Introduced from the point of view from a 16 year old girl who survived the collapsed school, the book explains earthquakes from a personal experience to the physical aspects of how a quake happens. Earthquake safety and the ring of fire are discussed as well and the book concludes with what happens after the quake. In the case of Beichuan, the city was rebuilt but in a different location.

This book is one in a series of Disaster Survivors by Bearport and includes additional information about famous earthquakes, earthquake safety, a glossary, bibliography, an index, and more reading.

The timely appearance of the book following the disastrous Haiti earthquake should pique interest among readers.  The information is good and well-explained, as Bearport does, and the newly introduced vocabulary is bolded within the text. My only concern is the cover image, which shows a close-up of a young Chinese man and a glimpse of the earthquake damage in the background, rather than a child, which could make the book less appealing to elementary age readers. However, the subject is compelling enough to look inside and the reader should be pleased.

Activity 1

Research the fault that lies under Haiti and locate it on a map. Explain why Haiti was vulnerable to having an earthquake. 

Activity 2

Research the different kinds of faults.

This site has good animated examples.

Activity 3

Look up your state and see how earthquake prone it might be.

Kid-friendly earthquake information

Locate recent earthquakes on this map.

Good geological animations

National Science Standards: properties of earth materials; changes in the earth

Book provided by publisher

A Desert Food Chain

A Desert Food Chain

A Who Eats What Adventure in North America

By Rebecca Hogue Wojahn and Donald Wojahn

Lerner, 2009

ISBN #978-0-8225-7501-6

NF

Grades 3-6

“As the sun goes down, the Sonoran Desert comes to life. All day, most of the animals shielded themselves from the broiling sun in tunnels, burrows, and dens. Some huddled in arroyos—streambeds that hold a smidge more shade than the rest of the desert. As the air temperature drops, the hot ground starts to cool. And the desert animals creep out to explore their prickly landscape of cactus and brush. Daytime flowers close their blooms, but nighttime flowers spread their petals to welcome visitors.”

Another fascinating parade of organisms marches across the pages in this desert version of the Follow That Food Chain series by Lerner. Elf owls, suguaro cactus, chuckwallas, pallid bats, roadrunners, rattlers, pinacate beetles, centipedes fill the spaces as consumers and producers, allowing the reader to chose the direction the food chain takes—and finding the end in a variety of ways. Along the way, the book provides a fascinating look at the individuals comprising the chain. Set in the desert southwest of the United States, the Sonoran Desert provides an abundance of life in the arid, seemingly lifeless land.

Bright photos and sections of text make the book fun and engaging, while back matter includes additional information about desert plants and animals, an index, glossary, and for further information sections.

Activity 1

Organisms living in a desert environment must be well-suited for arid life. Choose one of the organisms and research the specific adaptations that allow it to live successfully in the desert.

Activity 2

Use this site to create your own desert food chain

Activity 3 For younger students

Choose an animal from the book. Make a chart showing what the animal eats. Then make another chart showing what eats that animal.

This movie shows desert food chain interactions.

This site has a good explanation of the energy flow in food chains.

See my other posts about this food chain series at

http://simplyscience.wordpress.com/2009/11/04/a-coral-reef-food-chain/

http://simplyscience.wordpress.com/2009/04/15/a-who-eats-what-adventure/

I visited the Sonoran Desert in college during a January term for desert biology. I loved the plants and animals and will always have a special place in my heart for this desert. These food chain books by the Wohans have generated more interest than any of my posts, so I felt I had to do one more. All the books in this series are fascinating and distinguished by the wealth of organisms they include. 

National Science Standard: organisms and environment

  Books provided by Lerner.

Molds, Mushrooms, and Other Fungi

Molds, Mushrooms, and Other Fungi

By Steve Parker

Compass Points Books, 2010

ISBN #978-0756542238

Grades 4-7

NF

     “The world is full of living things, from tiny bugs and delicate flowers to giiant trees, huge elephants, and massive whales. But nothing lives forever. Eventually all plants, animals, and other forms of life die. But what happens to them?

     The answer: They become food for fungi. This kingdom of living things includes mushrooms, toadstools, molds, mildews, yeasts, and many others. Fungi are nature’s recyclers.”

     This upper elementary-middle school level book, presented in a picture book format, defines and discusses the Kingdom Fungi. It begins with an explanation of cells, including the fact that fungi are eukaryotic, and goes on to detail the life processes of the variety of fungi that exist. Places of growth, the below the ground decomposing structures, and the helpful and harmful aspects of fungi complete the book.

     The information is broken into sections interspersed with large, fascinating photos of fungi, parts, and their effects. The back matter includes a classification of life table, fungi classification, a glossary, further resources section, and an index. Chock full of facts, my only quibble with the book is that it comes off a bit crowded. The information, however, is excellent and it’s good to see a quality book with some depth on a lesser studied group of organisms put into an interesting read.

Activity 1

Research yeast and find out how it makes bread rise. Look up Louis Pasteur and read about his early experiments with fermentation to find out how yeast is involved in his experiments that lead to the Germ Theory.

Activity 2

Explain how fungi and their hyphae play a role in the food chain and food web.

Activity 3

Look up the symbiotic relationship that exists in lichens.

Activity 4

Design an experiment that has to do with where molds grow well and what might inhibit their growth. Use the scientific method and write up the experiment. Conduct the experiment and then make your conclusions.

Great information for more details.

This site makes fungi about as fun as you can make it! 

Take a look at these fabulous mushroom pictures.

National Science Standard: structure and function in living systems; diversity and adaptations of living organisms

Book provided by publisher.

Arctic Foxes

Arctic Foxes

By Carri Stuhr

Lerner, 2009

ISBN #978-0-8225-9432-1

NF

Grades 2-5

One of the animal books in the Early Bird Nature Books, Arctic Foxes provides extensive information about the fox and its family. From relationships to food hunting to coloration, the habits and life of the fox are explained in an easy-to-understand manner with the definitions of the more difficult words embedded in the text.

Colorful, interesting photographs appear on each page, illustrating specifics from the narrative text. The back matter includes a section for the adults, suggested reading and websites, a glossary, and an index.

Activity 1

Look up camouflage coloration. Find other animals with protective coloring. Make a chart listing the animals you found and where they live. Discuss how their color camouflages them where they live. Read about the octopus. How do they use protective coloration?

See examples and interact with them on this site.

Here are more examples of protective coloring. 

Activity 2

Construct a food chain for the Arctic fox.

Activity 3 (for older readers)

Look up mimicry. Find examples in nature of mimicry.

See additional information here.

National Science Standard: organisms and environments

See more about the book.

Book provided by publisher.

LET IT SNOW!

 

The Story of Snow

By Mark Cassino with Jon Nelson

Illustrated by Nora Aoyagi

Chronicle Books, 2009

ISBN #9780811868662

NF picture book

This book traces the development of snow crystals from tiny speck to the wide variety of shape snow crystals form. Diagrams and large, beautiful photographs fill the pages and provide up close looks at the crystals and their shapes. Inset, short sidebars provide additional information to accompany the lovely text.

Activity 1

 Create a graphic organizer to show the shape of the varieties of snowflakes mentioned in the book.

Activity 2

Do this experiment about the density of water, ice, and snow. This is for places that have snow!

Activity 3

Make your own individual ice creams. This is for those who don’t have snow! Arrow down to the specific ice cream making activity.

Here’s more of the science and history behind it.

Other snowy books to read:

A Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats.

Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin.

See other reviews at Miss Rumphius Effect and at Bookends.

National Science standard: properties of objects and materials

Review book from TWU Librarian’s Choices Committee

2010 and HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Happy New Year!

I turned in two science books on Monday, so I’m back to my blog. It’s been a year since I started blogging.

It’s starting off as a busy year. I’ll be judging NF picture books for the Cybils second round and I’m looking forward to reading the finalists that I haven’t already read. They look like excellent choices. Many thanks to the first round judges who read so many to winnow down the choices. Here are the finalists. You can check this link to Dad Talk and see a summary of each book.

Down, Down, Down: A Journey to the Bottom of the Sea by Steven Jenkins

Life-Size Zoo Created by Teruyuki Komiya with photographs by Toyofumi Fukuda

Mermaid Queen: The Spectacular True Story of Annette Kellerman, Who Swam Her Way to Fame, Fortune, and Swimsuit History  by Shana Corey

The Day-Glo Brothers by Chris Barton

Moonshot by Brian Floca

Faith by Maya Ajmera, Magde Nakassis, and Cynthia Pon

14 Cows for America by Carmen Agra Deedy with Wilson Kimeli Naiyomah

The  first new year book  entry  will be here Wednesday, but I’m staying quiet on the Cybils for now! I’ll choose some favorites that suit for fun science activities.  I’m so looking forward to being able to blog on science books I wrote sometime this year. Both topics were such fun and I interviewed some fascinating (and brilliant) people as part of my research.

Here’s to a fun 2010 and lots of great reading.

Nonfiction Monday Round-Up and My End of Year Books

    

When I took December off, I forgot about my time for Nonfiction Monday. So I’m back! Welcome to SimplyScience. Put your information and link in the comments and I’ll update them throughout the day.   

From Abby (the) Librarian, The Story of Snow by Mark Cassino with Jon Nelson.

Robin at The Book Nosher has a new National Geographic book: live, laugh, celebrate.

Roberta at Wrapped in Foil has Dragonflies of North America by Kathy Biggs

In Need of Chocolate has Paleo Sharks

Wild About Nature reviews About Penguins: A Guide for Children

Three Turtles and Their Pet Librarian reviews Zero is the Leaves on the Tree by Betsy Franco

Amanda at A Patchwork of Books has reviewed lots of picture book biographies 

Wendie’s Wanderings looked outside her window and decided that 20 inches of snow was the order of the day and so is offering Snowflake Bentley

Lost Between the Pages has Emily Post’s Table Manners for Kids

Check It Out has Redwoods by Jason Chin

Bookends Blog has a fabulous pair of poetry/animal camouflage books: Where in the Wild and Where Else in the Wild

Tundras

Frosty Treeless Land

By Laura Purdie Salas

Illustrated by Jeff Yesh

Picture Window Books, 2009

This fact filled book explained tundras in detail with excellent, reader-friendly text and supplied additional, fun information in sidebar Fun Facts. One in the series of Amazing Science—Ecosystems, it’s fun to read. Carefully labeled illustrations highlight the digital art. Tundra facts appear in the back matter. It includes a glossary, index, and further reading section.

Activity

Create a food chain for the tundra.

National Science Standard: organisms and environments

Book sent by publisher

Box Jellyfish

Killer Tentacles

By Natalie Lunis

Bearport Publishing, 2010

The deadly difference between box jellyfish and regular jellyfish are detailed in this book. The book begins with a girl being stung and explains the treatment, then goes on to discuss these tropical invertebrates. One in the series Afraid of the Water, this book contains fascinating photos and one of the stings is sure to be remembered. It includes a glossary, index, and further reading section.

Activity

Create a chart comparing the differences in box jellyfish and regular jellyfish. Don’t forget to include habitat, eyes, swimming, tentacle placement, and lots of other differences.

National Science standard: organims and environment

Book donated by publisher

Let’s Look at Snails

By Laura Hamilton Waxman

Lerner Publications, 2010

Lightning Bolt Books

Bold, bright photos mix with big text to describe snails and how they live. Labels point out specific facts and the book has additional fun facts and a snail diagram in the back matter. It includes a glossary, index, and further reading section.

Activity

Look up snails to find out all of the places snails live. Make a chart to show these habitats.

 National Science standard: organisms and their environment, life cycle

Book donated by publisher

Out of This World

The Amazing Search for an Alien Earth

By Jacob Berkowitz

Kids Can Press, 2009

This text dense book about the hunt to find an alien Earth that supports life as we know it begins as fiction, but is filled with facts. Sidebars provide additional information. It will appeal to the budding astronomer who can distinguish fact from fiction. Some of the ideas provide food for thought and this could be a fun book for the right reader.

Activity

Find out more about exoplanets.

http://exoplanets.org/

National Science standard: objects in the sky

Book donated by publisher

Many thanks to the publishers who contributed their books. The blog has been a pleasure and I’ll be able to include my two new science books in the blog in the coming year!

Happy Holidays

I am taking off the month of December and will return to SimplyScience the first week in January. I’m facing a two book deadline -YAY!–and will be enjoying the  holidays as well.

I hope to see you back in January. I have a stack of books waiting for the new year. Thank you to everyone who visited SimplyScience this year.

Waiting For Winter

Waiting For Winter

By Sebastian Meschenmoser

Kane Miller, 2009

ISBN #978-1-935279-04-4

PB

“Winter is almost here,” said Deer. “I think it’s going to snow.”

“Snow?” asked Squirrel.

“Snow,” answered Deer. “White and wet and cold and soft.”

This simple story tells of the wait by squirrel to see snow, and as he waits and tries to stay awake he awakens hedgehog. Hedgehog decides to join him and in order for them to stay awake, they sing sea shanties. In the process of singing, however, they awaken bear, who decides to join them and see snow himself. Each of them in turn finds what he thinks is snow, until they all sit down….and it snows. The final endpapers show the result of their snow adventure.

A great deal of the action is portrayed by the minimal pencil drawings tinted with a hint of color and the short text moves the story along nicely. All together, the art and words make a fun and funny anticipation for the coming winter.

Activity

Define hibernation and dormancy. Look up some animals and see if they hibernate or go dormant for the winter.

This site has good kid-friendly information.

Here’s another good explanation.

This site includes migration and adaptations along with hibernation and dormancy.

National Science Standard: Life cycles of organisms

Book from Publisher for Librarian’s Choices Book Award Committee, TWU

Life in the Boreal Forest

 

Life in the Boreal Forest

Brenda Z. Guiberson

Illustrations by Gennady Spirin
Henry Holt and Co., 2009
ISBN #978-0-8050-7718-6

K-5^th grades

NF PB

“Tika tika tika swee swee! A Tennessee warbler sings in a forest so huge that it covers one third of the earth’s total forest area. It grows across Alaska, Canada, Scandinavia, and Russia. A swath of trees this big has many names, like taiga and boreal forest. Boreal means northern, from  Boreas, the Greek god of the north wind.”

This gorgeous book describes the variety of life in the boreal forest in its natural context of habitat and the food web. Including even a bit on the relationship of the predators and prey, the text portrays the life cycles and habits of the life within the forest and the effects the environment cause to its inhabitants. The text explains the reasons for the dwindling amount of boreal forest, a primary premise of the book, but does so in a slightly heavy-handed manner. The information is detailed and ecologically oriented, and includes the food web relationships of the organisms along with their adaptations for survival in the rugged climate.

The illustrations are beautifully rendered in lifelike paintings positioned across three-fourth of the spread with the text in the remaining space, positioned on one side or the other of each spread. The starving animals make an interesting, if pitiful, addition to the realities of life in the boreal forest and its harsh conditions and illustrator Spirin has done an excellent job with them. The animals in action are fascinating and I personally love the snow covered, frozen pond with the beaver lodge and a passing dogsled team.

Activity 1

List the adaptations that enable the inhabitants of the boreal forest to survive the harsh conditions.

Activity 2

Create a food chain using some of the organisms from the book.

Activity 3

Look up information about tropical rain forests. Compare and contrast the differences in the rain forest and the boreal forest. Look for adaptations the organisms in the rain forest have that help suit them for that biome.

Rain forest biome information.

More details about rain forests.

This site has information and facts about the loss of rain forest habitats

Read more information here.

This site has good general information.

 This site has good information and games; however, some links wre not not working. If you have patience, there were a couple of them, including one about The Lorax, that looked fun.

Anastasia has a 6 Trait writing activity for this book at Picture Book of the Day.

National Science Standard: organisms and environments

Book supplied by publisher to Librarian’s Choices review committee