Tag Archives: life science

Is This a Tiger?

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by Elina Ellis

Atticus wants to meet a tiger. Luckily, his friend, Alex, has all the information in her journal and is eager to share. As Alex shares a characteristic of the animal (“they have stripes” and “they have big teeth”), Atticus locates other animals with the same attributes that are not tigers (skunks, lemurs and zebras have stripes, too!). Finally, Atticus is able to find an animal that has all the characteristics that Alex has described. And, the final page shows Atticus and Alex running from the tiger that they found.

This book is sneaky! The reader is lured into learning some great information about tigers while enjoying a happy romp through a story where two kids are looking for a tiger and find everything but one until the end. In addition, there is information about the other animals that Atticus mistook for tigers along the way. The book ends with some great resources, including organizations that work to preserve the existing populations of tigers. Illustrations are vibrant and fun and the energy abounds in this fun-to-read addition to the Alex’s Field Guides series.

Strange Nature: The Insect Portraits of Levon Biss by Gregory Mone

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I need to state right here, right now: BUY THIS BOOK!! Insect books for kids are wonderful and can often lead to further exploration. This book can turn anyone into a budding entomologist (and the book explains what that is).

Each two page spread includes a full page photo of an insect with added details and explanations. The second page for each insect includes size, habitat, facts and a sometimes humorous paragraph to bring it more inline with the intellect of a typical 10 year old. The back of the book includes a glossary and a link to the photographer’s website for more incredible insect photos and information.

Photographer Levon Biss went from a backyard foray with his son to an amazing photo exhibit of 37 insects from the Oxford University Museum of Natural History. He called this work “Microsculpture”. Each insect was photographed thousands of times using special equipment and those pictures were combined to make these amazing photographic masterpieces. These photos were originally exhibited as ten foot tall art pieces and now, are in a book that is accessible to young entomologists. This book will not be on the shelf very long – it’s that good! Highly Recommended

Wow in the World. The How and Wow of the Human Body: From Your Tongue to Your Toes and All the Guts in Between

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You can find just about any answer you need to your questions in this fast-paced nonfiction book about the human body. It begins with the head and moves its way through the systems, stopping here and there to deliver some facts that will add a “Wow” factor (actually, more of a “Gross” factor) to the information. It is illustrated with cartoon-like characters and body parts. The characters are diverse, with differing skin tones and abilities.

A glossary, bibliography and source notes are available. Something really cool to note is a page of QR codes that lead to relevant episodes of the authors’ podcasts of Wow in the World on NPR.

There is a lot of information to take in through these 188 pages. But, kids will likely be engrossed in the gross facts added to the information presented. A rather vivid description (and illustrations) of various types of poop on the Bristol Stool Scale is one example of the extra stuff that kids will love to read about and share with unsuspecting adults. Now, I know seven types of feces and I might just share that information, too!

This book is part of a series called “Wow in the World”, in which there are currently two books and a third due out in April 2022.