Friday, April 3, 2015

Older Than The Stars


Older Thank The Stars

by Karen C. Fox, illustrated by Nancy Davis


"You are older than the dinosaurs.
Older than the earth.
Older than the sun and all the planets.
You are older than the stars.
You are as old as the universe itself."

Thus begins Karen C. Fox's outstanding kid's cosmology book, Older Than the Stars, launching a narrative journey that starts at the singularity just before the big bang (without using the word 'singularity'), going through stellar formation, fusion, and supernovae, before arriving at the development and differentiation of life on Earth, culminating in you, the sentient bit of recycled atoms that is reading the book. The book is divided into two separate narratives - the first in verse ("This is the blast intense enough, to hurl the atoms so strong and tough, that formed in the star of red-hot stuff, that burst from the gas in a giant puff..."), with simple interpretive sidebars in prose ("Each star shone brightly for billions of years. But stars don't live forever. Whenever a star died, it exploded in a giant fireball called a supernova..."), that
provide the details of how our galaxy, solar system, and planet came into being, without going over a curious kid's head.

All of this well thought out (and fun to read) text is highlighted by gorgeous, vibrant, full-page illustrations by Nancy Davis. Between the big ideas, flowing text, and engrossing images, Older Than the Stars is sure to be a crowd-pleaser for kids of all ages.

Older Thank The Starsby Karen C. Fox, illustrated by Nancy Davis

Friday, March 13, 2015

Lauren Ipsum

Lauren Ipsum

by Carlos Bueno, illustrated by Miran Lipovača


One day, Lauren Ipsum - Laurie to her friend - got lost in the forest by her house. As she tried to find her way home, she instead found herself in a strange new place populated by Jargons, Elegants, Mailer Daemons, and talking Turtles (Green Round animals with a Shell) called Userland. Before long, she'd met the Wandering Salesman (who must visit all the towns in Userland without repeating his path), discussed infinity with Achilles and a Turtle (exploring Xeno's famous paradox), befriended a talking logic gate lizard called Xor, played the Game of Life, and helped build a binary semaphore network, expanding her own abilities along the way and discovering the difference between a solution that makes sense and a sensible solution.

Carlos Bueno's allegorical tale Lauren Ipsum is reminiscent of The Phantom Tollbooth, but with a focus on logic and computer science instead of words and grammar. Without getting bogged down in minutia, Bueno guides the engaged reader through major concepts of computer science including algorithms, recursion, binary search, abstractions, and many more. Bueno has a light touch and uses the Socratic method to good effect, asking leading questions and guiding the reader to the solution, without being (obviously) didactic. He builds on prior concepts and subtly teaches logic, without once actually mentioning computers.

Beautifully illustrated by Miran Lipovača, Lauren Ipsum is a great way to encourage a young person (or even an old person) to think about how computers work. I can't recommend it highly enough.

Lauren Ipsum
by Carlos Bueno, illustrated by Miran Lipovača

Sunday, January 4, 2015

What the Dinosaurs Did Last Night

What the Dinosaurs Did Last Night
by Refe and Susan Tuma

Strange things are happening all over the world. By night, plastic dinosaurs are creeping out of their toy boxes, shaking off their polite demeanors, and getting up to mischief.

No one knows how long this has been going on, but in 2012 Refe and Susan Tuma first noticed and started documenting online the shenanigans that their herd of plastic dinos were getting up to. By the autumn of 2013, reports were coming in from all over the world. Dinovember had arrived and cheeky plastic dinos were taking the world by storm.

By the 2014 launch of Refe and Susan Tuma's What the Dinosaurs Did Last Night, children all over the world were waking up each day in November to see what mischief had been wrought during the night. Facebook feeds and Pinterest boards were deluged with dinotastic destruction. One couldn't go on social media without seeing a T. rex stealing Halloween candy, a diplodicus devastating a birthday cake, or a triceratops tangled up in toilet paper, all aggregated under the tag #Dinovember.

What the Dinosaurs Did Last Night is an excellent way to bring a bit of wonder, mystery, and joy to your child during the late autumn. This book will give you lots of inspiration for what your herd of naughty raptors can get up to next November.

What the Dinosaurs Did Last Night
by Refe and Susan Tuma