Do polar bears hibernate like most other bears? I thought they did because I had seen videos of bears emerging from dens, but according to the book, polar bears do not hibernate. Most remain active through the winter. The exception, however, are expectant mothers. They dig dens in the snow where they sleep and have their young. It is much warmer inside the dens, which helps the young survive. And boy, those young polar bears are cute!

With color photographs, a range map, a glossary, an index and suggestions for places to find out more, Polar Bears is sure to suit youngsters wanting to learn about the mysterious big white bears, and please teachers and librarians as well.

Note for sensitive children:  there is one photograph of a polar bear biting a seal. It looks dead, but isn’t bloody.

Reading level: 1-2 IL: 1-3
Paperback: 24 pages
Publisher: Capstone Press (August 1, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1429671890
ISBN-13: 978-1429671897

Book provided by the publisher for review purposes.

Nonfiction Monday is a blogging celebration of nonfiction books for kids. We invite you to join us. For more information and a schedule, stop by Booktalking to see who is hosting each week.

This week’s round-up is at Capstone Connect.

This week’s round up is at Simply Science. Be sure to go see what our participants have to offer.

If you would like to participate in STEM Friday in the future, go to Booktalking blog and click on STEM Friday for more information.

In Fatty Legs, Margaret Pokiak is a young Inuit girl who is sent off to a Catholic “residential” school at the age of eight to learn English and the ways of another culture. A Stranger At Home follows the trials of her return home after two years away. Instead of the happy reunion she had long awaited, Margaret (whose Inuit name is Olemaun) finds her own mother doesn’t recognize her and that coming home again is not as easy as it seems it should be.

Christy Jordan-Fenton is Margaret Pokiak-Fenton’s daughter-in-law. She has done a marvelous job of capturing the first person voice of a young, scared Inuit who has been cut off from her roots. The dark-colored illustrations help maintain the atmosphere and the historical photographs fill out the setting.

Although this book takes up where Fatty Legs left off, it is really stands on its own as well. A Stranger At Home is a very readable book that stays with the reader even after the last page is done. Recommended for children interested in history, geography and other cultures.

Reading level: Ages 9 and up
Hardcover: 124 pages
Publisher: Annick Press (July 14, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1554513626
ISBN-13: 978-1554513628

Fatty Legs: A True Story by Christy Jordan-Fenton and Margaret Pokiak-Fenton, with illustrations by Liz Amini-Holmes

Book provided by the publisher for review purposes.

Nonfiction Monday is a blogging celebration of nonfiction books for kids. We invite you to join us. For more information and a schedule, stop by Booktalking to see who is hosting each week.

This week’s round-up is at Wende’s Wanderings.

Are you looking for Science, Technology, Engineering or Math children’s books? Then you’ve come to the right place. We’ve gathered some of our recent  favorites to share.

For my contribution, I am featuring a book that would be an excellent tool for a discussion on the pros and cons of advancements in technology. Becoming Invisible: From Camouflage to Cloaks by Carla Mooney is a detailed look at what is happening in the high tech world of cloaking.

Camouflage and invisibility are fascinating topics. Everyone who has read the Harry Potter books probably wished they could have an invisibility cloak, too. Can you imagine how much fun it would be to be able to hide in plain sight?

Mooney explains the differences between camouflage and invisibility. With camouflage, the colors and patterns help the wearer blend in with the environment, but you can still see them if you know where to look. The idea of camouflage was proposed by an artist who studied the markings of animals in the late 1800′s. During World War I, the armies and navies of many countries tested camouflage patterns to hide both equipment and people, leading to the camouflage uniforms used by military personnel today.

“Optical camouflage” is another form of camouflage which uses projectors to display scenes of the moving background onto special reflective cloaks. From the right angle, it is impossible to tell where the cloaked person (or object) is standing because he or she seems to be part of the background images. If the viewer isn’t in line with the projectors, however, the illusion doesn’t work.

On the other hand, when something is truly invisible, our eyes can not see it. To attempt to produce true invisibility, scientists have trying to bend light to go around objects. Researchers have been able to bend types electromagnetic waves that are near relatives of visible light with special man-made materials called metamaterials. Using metamaterials made of metal and fiberglass, scientists have been able to develop “cloaks” that bend either microwaves or infrared light around an object, hiding it from detection. Both microwaves and infrared radiation have longer wavelengths than visible light, so the metamaterials will have to get smaller to be able to bend visible light. The possibility, however, seems more likely than ever before.

In Chapter 4, Mooney gives some ideas how invisibility cloaks could change the world if engineers and scientists succeed. She suggests several positive uses for the technology, but points out that it could be dangerous, as well. Can you imagine if criminals could become invisible? What about if enemy armies could cloak themselves and then suddenly appear well inside our borders? Other worry that invisible agents could spy on our every move without our knowledge or consent.

Becoming Invisible: From Camouflage to Cloaks gives the reader a lot to think about. I definitely recommend it to students who are considering physics or engineering as careers.

Be sure to check out the Camouflage and invisibility activities at Growing With Science that were inspired by the book.

Today’s STEM Friday recommended books:

(Links take you to the review of each title.)

	Jeff at NC Teacher Stuff has Open Wide! by Catherine Ham
	Shirley at Simply Science has the lovely A Leaf Can Be… by Laura Purdie Salas
	Precious at Rourke Publishing Blog highlights Fossils, Uncovering the Past by Tom Greve
	Anastasia has Freaky-Strange Buildings by Michael Sandler at Booktalking.

If you would like to participate in STEM Friday in the future, go to Booktalking blog and click on STEM Friday for more information.

The 2012 winner is:

Balloons over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy’s Parade by Melissa Sweet

The four honor books are:

	The Elephant Scientist (Scientists in the Field Series) by Caitlin O’Connell Rodwell and Donna M. Jackson and illustrated by Timothy Rodwell
	Black and White: The Confrontation between Reverend Fred L. Shuttlesworth and Eugene “Bull” Connor by Larry Dane Brimner
	Drawing From Memory by Allen Say
	Witches: The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem by Rosalyn Schanzer

Congratulations to all the winners!

A Leaf Can Be . . . by Laura Purdie Salas would be almost guaranteed next year’s Caldecott if illustrator Violeta Dabija was an American. Alas, she is from the Republic of Moldova in eastern Europe. I guess there’s still the Sibert medal…

Yes, the mixed-media illustrations in this gorgeous picture book are of that caliber. Yes, the illustrations are definitely what draw you in. It is Laura Salas’ sublime poetry, however, that makes you want to read it again and again.

Salas reveals on her website that she was inspired to write the book by the adorable white Honduran tent bats that use large leaves for tent-like shelters each night. From that jumping off point, she researched many other uses for leaves. The leaf “jobs” she highlights are sure to lead to further discussions, ideas for activities, stories, and memories. Notes in the backmatter help fill in the details, but readers’ imaginations are likely to take it much further.

Take a look:

Poetry, science and gorgeous art all wrapped together. This book is sure to inspire and enthrall many young readers (and adults as well.)

A Leaf Can Be . . . is already getting a lot of well-deserved buzz, with a review today at Shelf-employed and another wonderful review by Jeff at NC Teacher Stuff. Although technically being released February 1, 2012, some retailers are already carrying it.

Ages: 5-8
Hardcover: 32 pages
Publisher: Millbrook Pr Trade (February 1, 2012)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0761362037
ISBN-13: 978-0761362036

Review was based on an electronic copy provided by the publisher.

Nonfiction Monday is a blogging celebration of nonfiction books for kids. We invite you to join us. For more information and a schedule, stop by Booktalking to see who is hosting each week.

This week’s round-up is at Shelf-employed.

Jeff Szpirglas is a grade school teacher, so you can bet he has personally encountered some “wild and wacky” actions. He explains in a friendly introduction that he got his ideas of studying human behavior when he read The Naked Ape by animal behaviorist Desmond Morris as a kid. He realized he hadn’t seen a book about human behavior like that for children, so he started doing some research. The result is a book just might inspire future scientists.

Written in an easy and fresh conversational style, the layout consists of two-page spreads of each topic, with plenty of sidebars. The illustrations are modern-looking combos of cartoons/drawings and photographs of kids.

Don’t be fooled by the relaxed look, however. The content is full of solid research and suggestions for experiments. Did you know that people speaking different languages use different disfluencies, or filler words like “uh” and “er”? Or that a mom finds her own baby’s smelly diaper less revolting than that of an unfamiliar baby? (Now, that explains how we mothers make it through our children’s early years!)

It is too bad the publishers found room to advertize Jeff’s other books, but not to include any source notes or places to find more information. From the long list of acknowledgements to specialists, the source notes would have been interesting and useful.

You Just Can’t Help It! is a serious look at human behavior in an easy-to-read package. It will definitely appeal to middle grade readers who want to know more about themselves and their classmates.

Reading level: Ages 9 and up
Hardcover: 64 pages
Publisher: Maple Tree Press (March 1, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1926818075
ISBN-13: 978-1926818078

A .pdf copy of this book was provided by the publisher for review purposes.

Laurie Thompson is hosting the STEM Friday meme this week. Be sure to visit for links to more excellent STEM books.

If you would like to participate in STEM Friday in the future, go to Booktalking blog for more information.

“Did you know that people used needles and thread to sew together clothes before the first clay pot was made? Bet you didn’t know that…” I hear these words a lot when children read this book. Not only is the book full of discoveries about inventions and inventors, but it is also full of revelations about when these inventions came about. It’s exciting, entertaining and fun to find out when things were first made.

Seeing inventions unfold page by page as a timeline really does put things in perspective. For the first 1000 years AD the Chinese dominated the invention scene. Things then moved to Europe during the Renaissance, The reader can see the Industrial Revolution take off as major new inventions are made every few years rather than over centuries or decades. Children also begin to see that inventions they take for granted came about in their parents’ lifetime, and some even within their own lifetimes!

Of course not every invention can be included, but the author did a fine job of picking interesting as well as important ones. I like that she included a number of inventions by women.

An Illustrated Timeline of Inventions and Inventors is a resource book that appears to be deceptively simple and yet can be used in a multitude of ways, and will be picked up again and again. It is sure to spark an interest in the reader to find out more.

You can see sample pages at Google Books.

Related activities:

• Inventing a new pencil
• Enchanted Learning has pages of information about inventors and inventions

Reading level: Ages 7 and up
Paperback: 32 pages
Publisher: Picture Window Books (August 1, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1404870172
ISBN-13: 978-1404870178

This book was provided by the publisher for review purposes.

Capstone Connect is hosting the Stem Friday meme this week. Be sure to visit for links to more excellent STEM books.

If you would like to participate in STEM Friday in the future, go to Booktalking blog for more information.

Starting with the sinking of the Lusitania, Bausum sets the stage for the United States entering World War I. Focusing on domestic events, she shows how a propaganda machine whipped up patriotism at the same time liberties were being curtailed, and anti-German sentiments were pumped up to the level where German language courses where discontinued at schools and people dumped German beer. Eventually it reached the point where it was illegal to speak out against the war, and suspicious individuals were jailed and even killed for doing little more than protesting.

In addition to the riveting text, the illustrations are outstanding as well. Bausum is fascinated with the political cartoons of the time, and the book includes several as illustrations, as well as a forward by editorial cartoonist Ted Rall. His two-page spread cartoon summarizes the thesis of the book. You can see more about political cartoons and how to use them for learning at Bausum’s website.

The book has extensive back matter for those who want to learn more.  It includes a “Guide to Wartime presidents”, a time line, research notes, resource guide, bibliography, and an index.

Unraveling Freedom is a thought-provoking book that can be useful on many levels. For example, would be an outstanding addition to a unit on World War I, an awesome resource for reports on U.S. History (including many extra details, such as an overview of President Woodrow Wilson’s later life), naval history (the sinking of the Lusitania) and even for a lesson on understanding political cartoons. It would also be informative for compare and contrast for lessons on 9/11.

Have you read Unraveling Freedom yet? What did you think of it?

Reading level: Ages 10 and up
Hardcover: 96 pages
Publisher: National Geographic Children’s Books (November 9, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1426307020
ISBN-13: 978-1426307027

The book reviewed was my personal copy.

Nonfiction Monday is a blogging celebration of nonfiction books for kids. We invite you to join us. For more information and a schedule, stop by Booktalking to see who is hosting each week.

This week’s round-up is at Great Kid Books.

The eye-catching color photographs and illustrations will be what attracts the reader’s attention first, which is appropriate. After all, the book is about animals that use bright colors and flashy behaviors to attract attention of mates, warn off predators and, believe it or not, blend in with their surroundings. However, the book is also full of interesting facts and amazing stories about animals that are both familiar and exotic.

Sometimes with “showy” books like this the concepts get lost between the pretty pictures, but that isn’t the case with Show-offs. Each new section builds on the previous ones, providing a sound conceptional framework for those that take the time to read the captions. The photographs and illustrations are sure to draw in the reluctant reader, making them want to know more. They will be enticed to read the text and to turn the next page.

In addition to a useful book for the science classroom, Show-offs would be a very nice gift book for youngsters interested in animals.

For more information and related activities:

• Brain Pop Jr. has a unit on camouflage
• The Arts of Deception at Mongabay.com
• Survivors: How Does Color Protect Insects from Predators?

Reading level: Ages 6 and up
Hardcover: 64 pages
Publisher: Kingfisher (September 27, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0753467224
ISBN-13: 978-0753467220

This book was provided by the publisher for review purposes.

Rovingfiddlehead Kidlit is hosting the Stem Friday meme this week. Be sure to visit for links to more excellent STEM books.

If you would like to participate in STEM Friday in the future, go to Booktalking blog for more information.