Firefly Light and Great Books about the Night
Do you remember summer nights when you were a child? Running on bare feet? The grass silk-soft and dewy? Crickets chirping? A bright slice of moon? Fireflies and the first stars?
STEM
Hedy Lamarr’s Double Life
One of my favorite STEM-themed picture book biographies is Hedy Lamarr’s Double Life: Hollywood Legend and Brilliant Inventor by Laurie Wallmark and Katy Wu.
Here’s a brief description:
To her adoring public, Hedy Lamarr was a glamorous movie star, widely considered the most beautiful woman in the world. But in private, she was a brilliant inventor.
During World War II, Hedy collaborated with another inventor to develop an innovative technology called frequency hopping.
“Science + History = Whole Picture”
On my “final” draft of Bones in the White House: Thomas Jefferson’s Mammoth, I drew a line of little mastodons trooping across the bottom of the manuscript pages. Each animal bore a date that matched a sidebar fact or referenced the main text. I thought this was a clever way to remind readers of the march of time.
The first little mastodon (or “mammoth,” as the creature was called in Jefferson’s day) was labeled “700 million years ago,” the second “13,000 years ago,” the third “11,000 years ago,” inching along like an Ice Age glacier to the time period of the story. … more
Explorer Academy: The Falcon’s Feather
Explorer Academy: The Falcon’s Feather
Trudi Trueit
illustrated by Scott Plumbe (with a blend of photos)
National Geographic Partners, 2019
ISBN 978−1−4263−3304−0 I’ve written a prior Reading Ahead essay about my love for The Nebula Secret, the first book in the Explorer Academy series. Now book two, The Falcon’s Feather, continues the story and I think it’s even more exciting.… more
Trudi Trueit
illustrated by Scott Plumbe (with a blend of photos)
National Geographic Partners, 2019
ISBN 978−1−4263−3304−0 I’ve written a prior Reading Ahead essay about my love for The Nebula Secret, the first book in the Explorer Academy series. Now book two, The Falcon’s Feather, continues the story and I think it’s even more exciting.… more
Joining Forces
Creating a Library Exchange Network
Last year, I had the distinct honor to attend a professional development opportunity at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology). As part of the training, we were given a chance to see some of the projects students and professors are working on in fields such as education, fashion, and healthcare. I was surprised to learn from Dr.… more
Bookstorm™: Bulldozer’s Big Day
It’s Bulldozer’s big day — his birthday! But around the construction site, it seems like everyone is too busy to remember. Bulldozer wheels around asking his truck friends if they know what day it is, but they each only say it’s a work day. They go on scooping, sifting, stirring, filling, and lifting, and little Bulldozer grows more and more glum.… more