A few weeks ago I was visiting the Griffith Park Observatory, sitting in the angled chairs of the planetarium, waiting for the lights to go down and the show to start.
A wee boy, just out of toddler-hood, hopped into the chair on my left and wiggled into place. He was little more than a head with sneakered feet sticking out, just reaching the end of his seat.
Just as he was settled, the lights went down, and the stars came into focus in the dome. A second later, and we were zooming through space toward the moon, and my pre-school neighbor gasped in a tiny whisper, "Wow."
Sure enough, eyes wide, mouth shaped like an "O," my neighbor, who was not long out of pampers, was fascinated by the universe.
I wish I could bottle the expression on the kid's face and call it Eau de Wonder, and sell it to Febreeze to freshen school buses.
In lieu of Wonder Spritz, I hit the book store to find some children's books to maybe inspire a bit of wonder in my niece and nephew. My sister-in-law and I have a deal; her children can never be spoiled by too many books. So I buy piles of 'em. Gavin is just turning six, and Neavie is newly two. I have bookcases to fill with quality kids books while their minds are spry and spongey.
Children's science books can be a bit stiff sometimes. Textbooky. Unfun. You have to spend a bit of time in the aisles picking through some dreck to uncover the gems. Since I make regular stops in the children's section, I've been able to uncover some gorgeous, wonderful, wow-inspiring page-turners. I'm sharing a few of my faves, and hope readers will make some suggestions for sciencey good books in the comments.
Science Verse by Jon Scieszka, Illustrations by Lane Smith. Viking, 2004.
A little boy falls asleep in science class and learns a bit of biology, physics, and chemistry through osmosis. Each page features a gloriously silly illustration and poetry about various science subjects from parasitic infections to different states of matter:
What's the Matter?
Miss Lucy had some matter.
She didn't know its state.
She only had three choices,
So tried to get it straight.
She thought it could be liquid,
Quite possibly a gas.
And if it wasn't solid,
Well call me sassafrass.
The illustrations are hella fun, my favorite is this "x-ray" of a skeleton caused by sticking a fork in a toaster.
Tons of disgusting imagery makes this especially awesome reading for the pre-school/Kindergarten set who love any sort of gross booger-type pictures. I mean, amoebas DO look like boogers, when you think about it. And an amoeba gets a whole giant page, all in black, with its own tiny poem under its tiny amoeba booger-like self, just a small green spot of snot-erific jelly. Fabulous.
I should also mention a deliciously ironic poem filked from Twas the Night Before Christmas, in which Santa Claus sneezes out the universe and calls it The Big Bang.
If you adore Science Verse, the same author and illustrator have given us Math Curse, Scieszka and Lane, Viking, 1995.
A young student with math anxiety discovers that his whole life is comprised of various math problems, but fortunately, math also offers him a solid solution. The illustrations are just as epic in silliness as Science Verse, as are the problems he encounters. From the moment he gets out of bed, he's presented with math problems as he tried to get dressed for school:
I have 1 white shirt,
3 blue shirts,
3 striped shirts,
and that 1 ugly plaid shirt my Uncle Zeno sent me.
How many shirts is that all together?
How many shirts would I have if I threw away that awful plaid shirt?
When will Uncle Zeno stop sending me such ugly shirts?
Everything seems to be a problem.
How do I properly divide a cupcake for sharing? Do only aliens count n binary? How many centimeters is an M&M? How many M&Ms would it take to stretch across the Mississippi river?
Don't worry about this being way too mathy for the kindergarten crowd. There's a lot of counting and rich visuals that will stick in their meaty little brains for later recognition. And there's the overall message that one can solve a host of problems by employing logic, and also the triumph of getting over a fear of math. Hooray!
What Do You Do With a Tail Like This? Steve Jenkins and Robin Page. Houghton Mifflin, 2003.
This one is especially gorgeous. Each page presents an illustration (cut-paper collage) of a variety of tails, ears, eyes, and mouths from different animals, and a question: What do you do with a tail (or mouth, or ears) like this?
The following page shows the reader the whole animal, and how each has its own special adaptation for that body part. Every page is a possible conversation about why animals have adapted to their environments. Why does a bat need to "see" with its ears? Why does a pelican have a mouth like a net? It's a bio treasure (unfortunately, there are no cephalopods, PZ fans...maybe you can request a sequel).
There's also a handy glossary in the back with a bit more information about the animals featured, which I think is a lovely introduction to researching in order to sate curiosity.
The tail featured on the cover belongs to a skink, a lizard with a breakaway tail (which is a clever trick to escape predators). The medal on the cover is the Caldecott, given for excellence in children's illustrations.
When I was a wee one, my dad bought Math Curse for me and my brother. He read it to us, we read it to eachother, we read it ourselves over and over.
And to this day, I can recall the name "Zoom!" more than I recall Factorials. It gave me a much better understanding of math from a very early age, an appreciate of the number zero, and all sorts of other concepts. Highly, *highly* recommended.
Posted by: Loki | March 03, 2010 at 08:11 PM