Information technology and new technological devices are revolutionizing the world of literature, and children’s literature is no different. The ever-increasing numbers of e-books and e-readers in recent years has sparked debate about whether or not e-books are bad for the book industry or reading in general. This argument has been especially critical in the arena of children’s literature. Though children’s e-books have both their improvements and downsides over print books, they achieve the same goal of reaching out to children and telling stories or conveying information in a way that children can understand and enjoy.

One improvement e-books have over print books is the superior picture quality of e-books. This is particularly important for a lot of children’s books. Lots of children’s books, both fiction and nonfiction, contain beautiful color illustrations or photographs. Backlighting on computers or iPads make these pictures brighter and more vivid, enhancing the child’s enjoyment and reading experience. Additionally, pictures which splay across two pages and are split down the middle by a page divide in a print book look better on a screen where there is no page divide.

There are other improvements. Audio books enable young children to hear stories without their parents having to read to them. This way if parents are doing something else the kids can have a book out and have a computer read it to them, and parents can interact from the kitchen or the driver’s seat (“What’s the picture of?” “What kind of sound does that animal make?” etc) without having to take their eyes off the stove or the road to read the book. Additionally the fact that iPads, e-readers, computers, and other electronic devices can hold hundreds of e-books in a tablet that takes up about as much space as one book makes them convenient for traveling and ensures that children always have something new to read.

Parents will like that the e-books are often cheaper and more durable than print books. Our favorite books all suffer from over-use – dog eared pages, worn covers, pages falling out. These happen even to adults’ favorite books, and most kids are far less careful with their things. E-books don’t have pages that can fall out or covers that can get bent in the bottom of a backpack. There are durable tablets available so that kids can drop the e-readers without breaking them.

The most important thing is to get children reading and to get them reading good books. Fiction has to have characters and an interesting plot. Children get this from the story itself, not the media. Harry Potter is still Harry Potter whether you’re reading about him in the familiar-smelling, dog-eared pages of the books you’ve had for years or whether you’re reading about him on a computer screen with the movie soundtrack emitting from the same computer. The same idea goes for nonfiction. Children’s nonfiction has to have information that keeps the child engaged and which the author explains on the child’s level. These qualities are things that both print books and e-books have in common. The goal is still the same – to get kids reading and interacting with language and information. Information is powerful no matter the media through which it is conveyed. 

For more information on children’s e-books from Sylvan Dell, go to Amazon. Our e-books are $0.99 through the 18^th of May.

Sanctuary One provides the community with a place to connect with nature and meet animals that children or adults may not have the opportunity to meet otherwise. They are very passionate and we hope you enjoy the video, and meeting them in the book Animal Helpers: Sanctuaries.
The Animal Helpers series by Jennifer Keats Cutis is a great way to introduce children to the challenges and rewards that a career helping animals entails. Each book in the series features work of special organizations and caretakers like Sanctuary One. These organizations are able to use the book as a fundraiser; it is expensive, and requires a lot of work to care for a farm of formerly homeless animals.
We at Sylvan Dell are happy to feature the great work of not only Sanctuary One, but also the other Animal Helpers. If you, or your children are interested in caring for animals there are organizations all across the country that need support and volunteers!

photo by D. B. King

On May 5^th, around the United States and Mexico, colorful decorations will hang, mariachi bands will play, and people will party in the street to celebrate Cinco de Mayo. This holiday celebrates Mexican culture – the music, the traditions, the food, but why, exactly, are we celebrating on this day? Some people think that Cinco de Mayo marks the day when Mexico became independent from Spain, or when the Mexican Civil War ended. Nope! Actually, Cinco de Mayo celebrates a battle in a war that Mexico lost!  

Mexico had a tough start as a country, enduring war after war, first against America in 1846, then against themselves in the Mexican Civil War. When all this was over, the country had spent so much on war that there was very little money for regular people to spend in their lives; in other words, the economy was hurt. As countries sometimes do, Mexico borrowed money from other nations in order to help itself. And, as friends sometimes do when you borrow a toy or book from them, those countries got tired of waiting for Mexico to give their property back and came over to collect. No, their moms didn’t drive them over in the van or anything like that; fleets of warships representing England, Spain and France crossed the Atlantic Ocean, entered the Mexican coastline and demanded that Mexico pay them back.

Mexico didn’t have the money to pay them though! What’s a young country to do?! All they had were vouchers to give to the representatives from these countries, papers that double-super-promised to someday pay them back. This satisfied England and Spain and they went home, but to France, this meant war! Sacre bleu!

Under the command of Napoleon III, France invaded Mexico with the intention to totally control it. They marched from the coastline to Mexico City, and on the way passed the small Mexican state of Puebla. The Mexican soldiers at Puebla were vastly outnumbered, but in this fight on May 5, 1862, called La Batalla de Puebla, Mexico somehow overcame the odds and defeated the French forces! Now that’s reason to celebrate!

France eventually managed to occupy Mexico, but they were delayed a whole year by this surprising Mexican victory. The shocking, underdog victory at Puebla has come to symbolize the Mexican spirit of resilience and tenacity. Therefore, on its anniversary every year, Mexico and places with many people of Mexican descent play Cumbia music, wave the Mexican flag, eat tamales, hit pinatas, and generally celebrate all things Mexico!

Of course, at Sylvan Dell we celebrate Mexican people and culture every day! Each and every one of our dozens of titles are available in Spanish, such as Los árboles de globos and La naturaleza recicla—¿Lo haces tú? and El detective deductive!

Which Fishing line works best?

These science experiments were test of life’s real problems from what fishing line works best to does popcorn soaked in liquid pop better than dry kernels? The judging was tough, it is hard to choose a winner when you see so much work and excitement for a project, but an award must be given and here are a few of the favorites.

This fourth grader worked very hard on their egg incubators and recorded daily temperatures and progress in the journal. They even experienced heartbreak when one of the chicks died because it came out too early.

Will My Homemade Incubator Hatch Eggseven experienced heartbreak when one of the chicks died because it came out too early.

Which food coloring produces the most vivid carnations? No paint needed to get vivid blue and green carnations just a little food coloring will do! This student did a great job documenting the time it took to move the color from the water to the petals.

Which Food Coloring will bring the brightest flowers?

Fish can be trained! This participant put their beta fish through obedience training and it worked. The observations here were really fun to read and I had no idea that a fish would respond to a ringing bell.

Pavlov’s Fish? Who Knew!

This experiment taught me the best way to store lettuce, strawberries and other fruits and vegetables. With daily documentation, and a lot of research on wasted food this student put together a very useful and helpful experiment!

How to store fruit best?

I want to thank the teachers for inviting me to judge the contest and congratulations to the winners and all the participants!

“Eliminate all other factors, and the one which remains must be the truth,” Sherlock Holmes has said about his method of detective work. In Sylvan Dell’s new picture book, Deductive Detective, our hero Detective Duck shows that he’s learned from the best! He dons his best deerstalker hat, his much-too-big magnifying glass, and solves the case of the missing cake with the same methods the pros use!

That is, a style of logical thinking called “deductive reasoning.” In deductive reasoning, someone finds an answer they’re looking for by first finding out what the answer isn’t. When Detective Duck examines the clues and finds out which of his friends couldn’t have stolen the cake, it leads him closer to what really happened!

Of course, you don’t need a weird hat and a magnifying glass to use deductive reasoning. These methods come in handy every day! If you lose a toy, for example (or car keys), you may make your search easier by determining where the item isn’t.

“Oh yeah,” you may say, “I didn’t bring it to my friend’s house; I wasn’t holding it when I walked to the living room, or landed on the moon. I wouldn’t have brought it to my parents’ room or under the ocean or into Mordor.” By deciding where you shouldn’t look, you now have a better idea of where you should.

This kind of logic process happens throughout the day, sometimes without you even being aware of it; you might say your brain is always on the case as much as any detective!

Apply deductive reasoning the next time you’re in the bookstore: subtract the books that don’t meet the highest educational standards, offer pages of activities and facts, offer online supplements, are fun to look at and fun to read! You’ll be left with books by Sylvan Dell like The Deductive Detective!

If a tiny larva is able to recycle and build a protective house, do we humans do enough to reduce waste and adapt to our environment. Recycling is more than filling a bin with bottles, cans and paper for the trash collector. It’s about reducing waste and protecting our planet for the future.  You can create a compost of organic material, buy new items made from recycled materials or make your own new items from things around the house.

Here are a few planet saving recycling habits to adopt:

• Carry a water bottle and fill it up with tap water. Only 13% of water bottles are recycled
• Bring Your Own Bag –reusable bags cut down on all the plastic that goes into a landfill
• Donate used clothing to local charities.
• Participate in electronic buy-back or take back programs
• Buy recycled products
• Use recycling bins and place them throughout your house post signs for proper sorting
• Start a recycling program in your community!

Here is a fun craft to get you started recycling.

http://www.zittaschnitt.com/2_projects/download/ZittaSchnitt_PET_BOTTLE_PURSE_English.pdf for detailed instructions.

If you would like to learn more about Nature Recycles: How About You?  or read it for yourself, visit www.sylvandellpublishing.com.

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Nature Recycles

by Michelle Lord

Giveaway ends April 12, 2013.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

 

More facts and recycling ideas can be found at http://www.nrdc.org/cities/recycling/gsteps.asp.

Naturalist Mary Holland spent a summer photographing Ferdinand and his family to capture a real life way a fox kit grows up. The amazingly cute photos are paired with a wealth of fox information. Ferdinand learns how to adapt to his habitat, hunt for food and even play with his siblings.

Learn even more about how foxes adapt to their environment in the For Creative Minds section in the back of the book. Here you may see why foxes get their bad reputation.

Visit www.sylvandellpublishing.com for quizzes, activities and facts about Ferdinand. Also sign up to win a copy on Goodreads!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Ferdinand Fox’s First Summer

by Mary Holland

Giveaway ends March 29, 2013.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Here is a silly sentence activity, Have Fun!

FoxSillySentences

We want to hear from you! Send us questions about the spring 2013 titles pictured above and we will answer them on our blog.

Balloon Trees, the new title from Sylvan Dell, written by Danna Smith and illustrated by Laurie Allen Klein, reveals that the rubber that makes up balloons, balls, tires, shoes and many more things actually comes from trees! What other surprising things do you think trees give us?

The house you live in may be made from wood from trees; that’s obvious, but did you know that that house is filled with gifts from trees also? Do you like that your parents are less grumpy in the morning when they have their coffee? You can thank the coffee arabica tree for that, a 20 foot evergreen that grows in warm climates of the world. A cup of hot cocoa has made a long journey from cocoa trees along the equator to reach your kitchen. Maple syrup, cinnamon, fruits, nuts, and many more delicious items also come from trees.

Ever wonder how jelly candies get so goopy and great? Check the ingredients and you’ll find “gum arabic” in the list. Gum arabic is hardened sap from an acacia tree, and it’s used in foods like desserts to lend its goopy texture to them. It is also a key ingredient in glues, paints, and many other products that manufacturers want to make ‘slimy,’ ‘goopy,’ or ‘jelly.’

“Cellulose” is part of the ‘skin’ of trees, and when manufactured it can become “Rayon” clothing to make our own skin warmer. Cellulose is even an ingredient in foods and beauty products, lending its texture to them to make them ‘thicker’ or ‘heavier.’ When fat is removed from some “diet” or “fat-free” products, cellulose is often added to try and make the food ‘feel’ the same in a person’s mouth as before.

Trees also give us many kinds of medicine, such as aspirin, and even the first medicine for fighting malaria, “quinine.” If you’ve read our book, The Most Dangerous, you know how harmful the mosquito-spread disease malaria can be. Without the discovery of quinine from Peruvian trees, malaria would have harmed that many more people, and maybe even changed world history! Soldiers in WWII that fought in the Pacific jungles took quinine everyday, and it helped the building of the Panama Canal, and the Dutch and English to build their historical empires!

Of course, this is only the beginning of the gifts that trees give us. Say “thank you” back, by planting a tree, or at least reading a Sylvan Dell book under the shade of one!

Goodreads Book Giveaway

Balloon Trees

by Danna Smith

Giveaway ends May 10, 2013.

See the giveaway details
at Goodreads.

Enter to win

Sanctuary One is a care farm, which is a working farm that brings people, animals and nature together in a unique therapeutic environment. One special resident is Lisa the pig, at 700 pounds Lisa’s former owners were unable to continue to care for her. She is now a permanent resident a Sanctuary One, and just in time for Valentine’s Day you can watch this love story unfold below.

Caring for Lisa and all the other animals at Sanctuary One is very costly; they will be selling Animal Helpers: Sanctuaries as a fundraiser. Please visit their website to learn more about Sanctuary One.