Emily K. Green has writen a simple book of facts on an insect that has kept children fascinated for generations. The firefly has always been somewhat of a mystery to kids and yet they are drawn to the green glowing critters. Summer isn’t summer without trying to capture a firefly or two in a jar. So why not harness the childen’s natural curiosity and let them learn at the same time as they entertain themselves by reading.
This book is from a series called World of Insects from Bellweather Media. It is a blastoff readers level two wich offers young readers a little more challenge in it’s sentence structure to encourage their reading skills. The other titles in the series are Ants, Bumblebees, Cockroaches,Crickets, Dragonflies, Grasshoppers, and Walkingsticks.
Rain Forest is a children’s book that is written by Jinny Johnson. The into was written by Dr. Nalini Nadkarni as well as some quotes that are scattered throughout the book alluding to her experiences in the rain forest.
This book is one of those rare books that comes to life as you turn the pages. The pages are filled with photographs of life that most of us will never see or experience. It is vibrant with colorful plant life and animal life.
Much of the rain forest is a mystery. There is various life forms on the ground level, in the trees and on top of the trees or in the canopy. There is the hairy pink toed tarantula, gorillas, anteater, flowers, beetles, river dolphins, parrots, tribal people, howler monkeys…and really, so much more. You have to see this book.
We get to see how Dr. Nalini as well as other scientists explore all levels of the rain forest. Each page is filled with interesting facts about the plants, animals and trees. As much fun as it is to see and read…Dr. Nalini makes sure that she tells us how important the rain forest is to people all over the world.
The rain forest is important to the stability of the world’s climate. Many of the plants in the forest canopy is being tested and researched for making medicines. The book even touches on the people of the rain forest and how they live in a somewhat hostile environment. The book has interesting pages and filmy see through pages which amazingly have different pictures on each side.
It is a fun book to read and experience. I think both boys and girls will enjoy this book and seeing a glimpse into a world that they often hear about on the news and in school.
Rain Forest is published by Kingfisher, a Houghton Mifflin Company. It was copyrighted in 2006
How To Deal With Teasing, is another book in the series Let’s Work It Out; written by Julie Fiedler. It was published in 2007 , by The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc.
The books in this series are not extremely long. They are nice because they give the basics to their subjects. This one on teasing describes what the word means in basic terms and talking about when teasing is taken too far.
It covers what happens when teasing becomes hurtful…how it can damage self-esteem. It lets the reader know that they are not alone…everyone gets teased.
It discusses how to handle the teasing. It also points out what to do if you are the one who is doing the teasing. The book doesn’t really go into too deep of territory. It really introduces the subject of teasing to the reader. I would say it is written with the elementary student in mind.
The thing that i do like about the books in this series is that they have a glossary in the back of the books to describe what some of the larger words in the book mean.
How To Deal With Anger is a children’s book written by Julie Fiedler. It is a title in the series, Let’s Work It Out. Other titles are on the subjects: anger, bullies, fighting, insults, jealousy, and teasing. These books are put out by PowerKids Press. The publisher is The Rosen Publishing Group and this book was copyrighted in 2007.
The book How To Deal With Anger is a relatively short book 14 pages. It is written in simple language. There is a glossary at the back of the book for some of the larger words.
The speaks to the knowledge that everyone gets angry and then proceeds in telling the reader that identifying why you are angry goes a long way towards helping the person to express their feelings.
It goes on to say that there are good ways and unhealthy ways to deal with anger. It suggest ways to discuss their feelings of anger and who to safely trust with those feelings. The book goes on to discuss how it makes a person feel to be around other people who are angry.
The book is a nice easy way to describe the basics of being angry and how to best identify and handle those feelings.
Proud To Work: A Pictorial History Of Michigan’s Civilian Conservation Corps is a peek into the history of our countries rebuilding attempts after the devastation of The Great Depression.
The Civilian Conservation Corps was started by Franklin D. Roosevelt to employ young men around the country who were without jobs. It was designed to encourage young men from families to do an assortment of jobs…the main jobs were to enhance the value of our country’s natural resources; and, to create jobs to help un-employed men earn ways to feed themselves and their dependents.
The type of work the CCC did was re-forestation and flood prevention; but, they also installed telephone lines, constructed fire and logging roads, tree planting, bee keeping, fence construction, furniture manufacturing, and preventing soil erosion.
The young men were aged 18-25; although times were desperate and some young men faked an appropriate age just to join in. They were fed well and earned $30.00 a month or a dollar a day.
As many families had alot of mouths to feed…this was a wonderful way to lesson the load as far as numbers of children to feed. They also knew that the young men would eat well, plus earn money to send back home to help out. This book illustrates the closeness of families and their williness to use their strong work ethic to earn an honest living.
The requirement was that $25.00 be sent home to their families allowing them to keep $5.00 each month for themselves. They lived in camps and worked hard. This allowed them to build themselves up physically. Before the CCC many were malnourished, so the young men were glad to have 3 meals a day and a roof over their heads. The camps were run with military like discipline and the young men wore military uniforms.
I myself heard tales growing up of my grandfather’s contribution to our local environment. He helped to plant trees in Big Prairie Township, Michigan. Earlier families to the territory had depleted the natural forests around the Muskegon River and had caused the land to turn on itself creating a desert that started to consume land all around. What started out as a 10 acre desert soon turned itself into over a thousand acres.
The planting of trees saved many homes and families from the “blow sand”. I can remember taking an end of the year school trip out to the area to see what was left of the desert. Unfortunately, i can’t remember much about what we were told, except that Indians had previously lived in the area and the occasional lucky child found an arrow head when we visited the rippled sands on our end of the year picnic.
I like to drive through the dirt roads and see the remains of some of the trees that were planted. It is an amazing book and links into part and parcel of my memories of my childhood memories of growing up in some of the areas blessed by the work of the CCC’s. The book is also a strong advocate to take care of our natural resources and to honor the contribution of those who worked so very hard to save the beauty of nature around us.
This book was written by Annick Hivert Carthew, copyrighted in 2006. It was published by Wilderness Adventure Books. It is an informative book on country’s ability to dig in and rebuild itselt when it was dealt a devastating blow from The Great Depression.
This book is sure to catch the interest of any young boys or girls who are into inventions or just plain science. It is called, Cold Light, Creatures, Discoveries, and Inventions That Glow.
The photography in this book is outstanding. First off, it starts off explaining cold light and the science behind it; such as, in every kid’s flashlight of choice….a glow stick like the kind used at halloween; or, glow in the dark jewelry for young ladies. I always wondered what was in the center of those things that you had to snap to make them glow. Wonder what common household ingredient it is? You have to read the book to find out! 
Now the creatures in the book; some are underwater and some are creatures that scientist’s and doctors are using to advance medical treatments and discoverys. Truly, the photography is amazing…underwater…black light…infrared pictures. You have to see the jellyfish and the octopus that glow underwater. It is an eye popping book.
Another interesting section for any child who spent time outdoors chasing fireflies with a jar to capture that glow will want to read up on the firefly and the cold light abilities that they are born with.
This book was written by Anita Sitarski and you can tell that she is a lover of learning. She teaches about all of the interesting things around us and what makes them special; both in nature and man made. The book and is a very fun read.
The publisher of the book is Boyds Mills Press, copyright 2007; www.boydsmillspress.com. The photographers and such are too numberous to mention but they all did an outstanding job.
Water Power is another title from the Energy For The Future And Global Warming series. This book was written by Andrew Solway and illustrated by Stefan Chabluk. It was copyrighted in 2008 and published by Gareth Stevens Publishing. The subject of this book is about one of the most basic sources of life; and yet, it is also one of the most abused sources.
Since the beginning of time, man has tried to learn to use water to make life easier. There are those who waste water without giving it a thought and yet, as climate changes affect our lives daily, we must learn how to best use what we have been blessed with in the least damaging way possible.
Water Power is a great energy source. When that source is harnessed in the right way it is powerful and can be made eco friendly. Water is used to heat and to cool homes and businesses. Water is used to generate electricity. Vehicles are being designed to partially run on the power of water instead of fossil fuels. With the idea that fossil fuels wont last forever; engineers are getting creative figuring out ways to make better use of oceans, rivers, lakes and resevoirs.
From days past, humans have realized the brillance of using the movement of water to power machinery. Water wheels were used to power grind stones to grind up grains between the stones using the motion of the water to turn the wheels.
This book is a small history lesson, blending the beginnings of knowlege in the areas of inventing different ways to power our world. As the world population grows, our need for more energy increases every day. We must create more energy while doing as little damage to our planet as possible; it is wise to use green ideas when we can.
There are some great pictures and charts included on these pages which shows the force that can be achieved by simply focussing on the most prescious resource we have…water.
The publishers website is as follows: http://www.garethstevens.com.
Tsunamis, a book in the Natural Disasters series was published by Smart Apple Media. There are six books in the series. One subject for each book; they are as follows: Droughts, Earthquakes, Hurricanes, Tornadoes, Volcanoes: and again, the book we are discussing today is Tsunamis.
This book is filled with many colorful pictures, charts and illustrations. While the subject is about the destructive force of tsunamis…it takes special care to explain how a tsunami is formed; and about the care that has been taken to develop warning systems.
While a young child might find the pictures disturbing, of the damaged buildings and properties, there are no pictures of dead human bodies. Certainly the words discuss this great loss but the pictures have shown more of the damage in the areas of damage to inanimate objects.
For the child who reads, the book does well explaining how tsunamis are triggered. It explains the cause and effect of the earth’s shifting of it’s tectonic plates; or eruptions of underwater volcanoes, and of the power of an earthquake’s effect on the movement of the ocean’s water.
There is one picture that stands out, in my mind, of people standing on the beach where the water has receeded, staring out to sea; farther out there are two much larger ridges of waves crashing towards the humans as they realize the danger they are in. It is a strong visual of the human being’s fascination with the power of nature even when common sense says to flee.
Finally, there is an important passage about disaster relief and the high cost of rebuilding these communities. It communicates to the reader how important it is for nations to work together when disaster strikes.
Tsunamis was written by Louise Parks and it was published in 2008. The publisher has a couple of websites that can be visited. The first of the websites: http://www.macmillan.com.au/ and the other is http://www.macmillanlibrary.com.au/; macmillan is one of the best out there for publishing books kids want to read.