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ABC Universe by American Museum of Natural History

Source: Sterling Children’s Books
Hardcover, 18 pgs
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ABC Universe by American Museum of Natural History is not your typical book about the alphabet.  Whether you have daughters, sons, nieces, or nephews who are just starting to learn their letters, this board book presents vivid and interesting pictures for kids to associate with their new letters.  Young kids always find things they are unfamiliar with in their daily lives fascinating.  Outer space is a big wide and different world from that here on Earth.  My daughter LOVES outer space stories, and this combines learning new words with things she’s interested in.  I think since this book entered the house in March, my daughter and I have read it about 10 times or more.  She’s starting to know some of the words on her own by looking at the picture, like Astronaut, and she can tell me what letter the words start with.  Harder words, like Quasar, are more difficult, but she does recognize the Q at the beginning of the word.

ABC Universe by American Museum of Natural History is a fun introduction to not only the alphabet, but also things found in outer space.  It will get kids thinking about words that they are not readily familiar with and they will see outer space in a different way.  We have fun with this book, and we’ll probably read it another 10 times before the year is out.

Mailbox Monday #315

Mailbox Monday, created by Marcia at To Be Continued, formerly The Printed Page, has a permanent home at its own blog.

To check out what everyone has received over the last week, visit the blog and check out the links.  Leave yours too.

Also, each week, Leslie, Vicki, and I will share the Books that Caught Our Eye from everyone’s weekly links.

Here’s what I received:

1.  Rebel Queen by Michelle Moran from the author for review.

When the British Empire sets its sights on India in the 1850s, it expects a quick and easy conquest. After all, India is not even a country, but a collection of kingdoms on the subcontinent. But when the British arrive in the Kingdom of Jhansi, expecting its queen to forfeit her crown, they are met with a surprise. Instead of surrendering, Queen Lakshmi raises two armies—one male, one female—and rides into battle like Joan of Arc. Although her soldiers are little match against superior British weaponry and training, Lakshmi fights against an empire determined to take away the land she loves.

Told from the perspective of Sita, one of the guards in Lakshmi’s all-female army and the queen’s most trusted warrior, The Last Queen of India traces the astonishing tale of a fearless ruler making her way in a world dominated by men.

2.  Double Jinx by Nancy Reddy from Milkweed Editions for review.

Double Jinx follows the multiple transformations — both figurative and literal — that accompany adolescence and adulthood, particularly for young women. Drawing inspiration from sources as varied as Ovid’s Metamorphoses, the rewritten fairy tales in Anne Sexton’s Transformations, and the wild and shifting dreamscapes of Brigit Pegeen Kelly’s work, these poems track speakers attempting to construct identity.

A series of poems depict the character of Nancy Drew as she delves into an obsession with a doppelgänger. Cinderella wakes up to a pumpkin and a tattered dress after her prince grows tired of her. A young girl obsessed with fairy tales becomes fascinated with a copy of Grey’s Anatomy in which she finds a “pink girl pinned to the page as if in vivisection. Could she / be pink inside like that? No decent girl / would go around the world like that, uncooked.”

The collection culminates in an understanding of the ways we construct our selves, whether it be by way of imitation, performance, and/or transformation. And it looks forward as well, for in coming to understand our identities as essentially malleable, we are liberated. Or as the author writes, “we’ll be our own gods now.”

3. ABC Universe by American Museum of Natural History from Sterling Children’s Books for review.

From an astronaut in space to Voyager, yellow dwarf, and zenith, this ABC board book opens up the entire universe to children! Created in tandem with the American Museum of Natural History, it takes kids on a photographic journey through comets, flares, and planets like Jupiter, and introduces them to black holes, supernovas, telescopes, and more. Perfect for the youngest astronomers.

What did you receive?