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Mice Mischief: Math Facts in Action by Caroline Stills

Source: Holiday House
Hardcover, 24 pgs
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Mice Mischief: Math Facts in Action by Caroline Stills, illustrated by Judith Rossell, has adorable illustrations of 10 mice, and these mice perform circus-like feats.  While one mouse is somersaulting, the other nine are making their beds tidy.  In a round about way, the book starts young readers off thinking about how many mice there are and what they are doing.  The equations also are on the pages, allowing younger kids to see what those formulas look like.

These mice are dividing their time between work and play, and parents can have young kids count each mouse performing each page’s tasks and then add them together to see how many total mice there are.  At the conclusion of the book, all of the mice are rewarded.  Mice Mischief: Math Facts in Action by Caroline Stills, illustrated by Judith Rossell, is one way to introduce young children to math problem solving while providing fun illustrations and new vocabulary words.

82nd book for 2014 New Author Reading Challenge.

The Wing Wing Brothers Geometry Palooza! by Ethan Long

Source: Holiday House
Hardcover, 32 pgs
I am an Amazon Affiliate

The Wing Wing Brothers Geometry Palooza! by Ethan Long is in a comic-book style with the wing wing brothers up to insane antics.  Using the whammer the brothers demonstrate the relative position of objects by shooting each brother out of a cannon hoping to go through a ring of fire.  Kids will learn the difference between in front, behind, below, and above as the birds are flung through the air at alarming rates.  Each illustration is vivid in color, and kids will love these daredevil birds and their death-defying attempts at teaching geometry.  Long has created captivating characters that kids will gravitate to easily.

My daughter loves that part of the book where the birds are creating shapes from smaller and more simple shapes, including a parallelogram.  My daughter may not know these bigger shapes yet, but she’s learning to see how they can be created using the shapes that she does know, including triangles and squares.  By the same token, kids will learn about equal parts and fractions of larger parts.  The Wing Wing Brothers Geometry Palooza! by Ethan Long is a fun way to introduce math to younger readers, and this book meets the Common Core State Standards for math.

About the Author (from Amazon):

I love writing books. I love creating characters, crafting plot, and working with great editors and art directors. I love visiting schools and meeting students and teachers. I love when you read and enjoy my books. And of course, I love when you buy them. I hate garlic ice cream, but I love pizza and sushi. I live in Orlando, Florida, USA with my family, and I love them, too.

81st book for 2014 New Author Reading Challenge.

Plants Feed Me by Lizzy Rockwell

Source: Holiday House
Hardcover, 29 pgs
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Plants Feed Me by Lizzy Rockwell includes adorable illustrations of vegetables, fruits, plants, and children to demonstrate the importance of plants in feeding humans.  The book provides the basics of plants and their growth cycle for young children to easily understand, including the need for sunlight and nutrients in the earth.  Children are smiling as they dig holes, plant seeds, water plants, and begin harvesting food.  My daughter and I have read this book several times and each time she tells me something new.  She’ll point to something we’ve talked about in previous readings even before I read it to her.  She is recognizing carrots, lettuce, beets, potatoes, and more.

The author talks about the different parts of edible plants and she labels each vegetable and fruit depicted.  Fruits grow on trees and in bushes, vegetables can grow in the ground and above the ground, and some plants that many think are vegetables are actually fruits.  The pictures are well drawn and easy to understand.  Plants Feed Me by Lizzy Rockwell is a great story for young readers to share with their parents, helping them understand the natural wonders and where food comes from.

About the Author:

Lizzy Rockwell is an illustrator whose artwork can be seen in picture books, magazines, games and on walls. She studied art and art history at Connecticut College, and drawing and illustration at the School of Visual Arts in New York City.

Lizzy is the illustrator of over 25 children’s books by a variety of authors including her mother, Anne Rockwell. She is the author/illustrator of Plants Feed MeGood Enough to Eat: A Kid’s Guide to Food and Nutrition, Hello Baby! and The Busy Body Book: A Kid’s Guide to Fitness.

Lizzy has two grown sons, and lives and works in Bridgeport, CT with her husband, Ken Alcorn, a high school social studies teacher, and their dog Reggie.

79th book for 2014 New Author Reading Challenge.

Mailbox Monday #293

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.  The Wing Wing Brothers: Geometry Palooza! by Ethan Long for review from Holiday House.

Your favorite five wacky birds are at it again. This time teaching readers the building blocks of geometry, while trying not to topple over themselves!

 

 

2.  Plants Feed Me by Lizzy Rockwell for review from Holiday House.

A cheerful cast of multicultural kids demonstrates how plants are instrumental parts of what we eat in the latest from Rockwell (The Busy Body Book, 2004). Detailed colored-pencil-and-gouache illustrations show plants and the parts we harvest for food—leaves from lettuce and chard plants; roots and tubers from carrot and potato plants; fruits from apple trees, tomato plants, blueberry bushes, and pumpkin vines; seeds from wheat grass and walnut trees; and all kinds of beans from pods of many shapes. Full-page spreads depict children in the garden and on a farm harvesting fruits and vegetables, and helpful cross sections and close-ups reveal plants above and below the ground, with each part clearly labeled and a recognizable image of what that plant looks like once it gets to a grocery store. It’s easy to forget where everyday food comes from, but this gentle, colorful picture book explains, simply and accurately, how food gets from the garden and farm onto dining-room tables. Preschool-Kindergarten. –Sarah Hunter and BookList

3.  Mice Mischief: Math Facts in Action by Caroline Stills for review from Holiday House.

Ten colorful and acrobatic circus mice demonstrate how the numbers from 1-9 can add up to 10, matching the kindergarten Common Core State Standards for operations and algebraic thinking.

 

 

 

4. Jane Austen Cover to Cover: 200 Years of Classic Book Covers by Margaret C. Sullivan for review from Quirk.

Jane Austen’s six novels are true classics, still immensely popular some 200 years after their first publication. But although the celebrated stories never change, the covers are always different. Jane Austen Cover to Cover compiles two centuries of design, from elegant Victorian hardcovers and the famed 1894 “Peacock” edition to 1950s pulp, movie tie-in editions, graphic novels, foreign-language translations, and many, many others. Filled with beautiful artwork and insightful commentary, this fascinating and visually intriguing collection is a must for Janeites, design geeks, and book lovers of every stripe.

5.  The Company of Strangers by Robert Wilson for 50 cents from the library sale.

The stifling summer streets of Lisbon are teeming with spies and informers when Andrea Aspinall, an English mathematician turned spy, disappears under a new identity. Military attaché Karl Voss, experienced in the illusions of intrigue, arrives in Lisbon under the German Legation, though he is secretly working against the Nazis so that atomic and rocket technology do not find their way into Hitler’s hands.

In the lethal tranquility of a corrupted paradise Andrea and Karl meet and attempt to find love. Tragically, a night of violence leaves Andrea the keeper of a secret that triggers a lifelong addiction to the clandestine world. From Portugal to England and finally Cold War Berlin, she gradually discovers that the deepest secrets aren’t held by governments, but by those closest to you.

What did you receive?

There’s a Pig in My Class by Johanna Thydell, illustrated by Charlotte Ramel

Source: Holiday House
Hardcover, 26 pgs
I’m an Amazon Affiliate

There’s a Pig in my Class! by Johanna Thydell, illustrated by Charlotte Ramel and translated from Swedish by Helle Martens, is a cute book for kids in kindergarten and for parents to read to kids.  A lonely pig dreams of fun at the local school and one day gets his wish.  He is sneaked into the school and dressed up like a kid, so he can fit in.  While the students distract the teachers from the pig and his funny clothes, the other students make sure the pig can play the games and eat lunch with them.  He even gets to take a nap.  But eventually, the teacher becomes aware that this kid is a little bit different from the rest.

Nice pencil and ink drawings make these characters come alive from the honey-haired girl to the lively pig in human clothes.   My daughter adores books with animals and this one is no different, though the text is a bit too much for her, she did look at the pictures as I read it to her.  There’s a Pig in my Class! by Johanna Thydell, illustrated by Charlotte Ramel and translated from Swedish by Helle Martens, is a fun book about nature and how children can be brought out into the world and learn from it, and that nature can be fun.

About the Authors:

Johanna Thydell is a popular YA novelist in Europe, where her books have been published in thirteen different languages.  Her first novel won the prestigious August Award and was made into an award-winning film.  This is her first picture book and was inspired by her young son.  She lives in Stockholm, Sweden.

Charlotte Ramel grew up in Sweden with an American mother and a Swedish father.  Before becoming an illustrator she art directed food magazines.  The first children’s book she illustrated, The Cake Book by Marie Meijier, was an international hit.  She has since worked with Sweden’s most eminent children’s authors and now lives in Stockholm, Sweden.

66th book for 2014 New Author Reading Challenge.