Mixed-Up Files: Tell us a little bit about The Good Luck Book. Where did the idea for this come from?

Heather Alexander: THE GOOD LUCK BOOK is a large, illustrated, middle-grade nonfiction book that explores fascinating traditions and superstitions from all over the world. Kids will discover how and why they started, why people still do them today, if they hold up to science, the good luck charms we share, and the unique ways we wish for good fortune. All my nonfiction titles spring from my curiosity of the world around me or from articles that spark my interest. This one originated very close to home. You see, I generally pride myself on being very logical, but then I realized how many little superstitious rituals I do without thinking. They range from the typical, like crossing fingers or wishing on shooting star or blowing out the candles on a birthday cake, to the more personal, like knocking the side of an airplane before I enter. It got me thinking about lucky numbers, lucky foods, lucky animals–and when the list went on and on, I knew there was a book there.

MUF: What was your research process like? How did you find all the different traditions and beliefs about luck?

HA: I always scour libraries and used bookstores, both in person and online. And for this book, I looked at a lot of university folklore websites and even checked out international message boards on the topic. Everything I found was then cross-referenced for multiple sources. There are sooooooo many superstitions and lucky charms throughout the world so I tried to focus on the more popular ones. Also, there are a myriad of variations on similar rituals, depending on where you live or where your family is from, so the one I ended up choosing may not be exactly way the reader has heard it.

MUF: How did you and your illustrator work together? What was that like? (The art looks great!)

HA: I know, right? The art is stupendous! It was created by four different artists: Ruth Burrows, Teo Georgiev, Sonny Ross, and Sarah Walsh. Usually, I only have the honor of working with one illustrator on a book, but because there was so much to illustrate in a relatively short time Stefan Georgio, the art director at DK, decided the more, the merrier–and the faster. While I didn’t interact directly with the talented artists, I did give art notes through Vicky Armstrong, my editor, and Stefan.

MUF: We’re sure you learned all sorts of fascinating things during your research and writing journey on The Good Luck Book. Can you tell us a few facts that really surprised you?

HA: It’s hard to pick a few! How about:

• Covering your mouth when you yawn comes from a very old superstition. Your hand was there to block spirits from coming out of or going into your open mouth!
• “If birds fly low, expect rain and a blow,” is a popular saying. Can birds predict “fowl” weather? It seems so! Most birds have a Vitali organ. This is a special receptor in their middle-ear that can sense a drop in atmospheric pressure, and that drop means a storm is on its way.
• Many shops and homes in India hang seven chilies and a lemon from a thread on the door. It’s an old superstition meant to keep away Alakshmi, the goddess of misfortune. She likes eating sour and hot things, so if she’s happy with the treat, it’s believed she won’t enter to bring bad luck. But, it turns out, this is actually a supersmart natural pesticide. When the cotton thread pierces the chilies and lemon, a pungent and sour odor is slowly released, and this stench helps to repel flies and mosquitoes!

MUF: What do you want readers to know about the concept of luck?
HA: Lucky charms can be fun and superstitions interesting to learn about, but the most important thing is to make smart choices and search for real answers. We each have the power to decide what we believe and what we don’t, what we let scare us and what we don’t, what wishes we send out into the universe, and—most of all—what kind of luck we bring to ourselves and the people around us.

Learn more about Heather at her website or on Instagram @halexanderbooks.
The Good Luck Book: A Celebration of Global Traditions, Superstitions, and Folklore by Heather Alexander, illustrations by: Ruth Burrows, Teo Georgiev, Sonny Ross, and Sarah Walsh.

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Now is a good time to celebrate and enjoy the many books we have by him (they never go out of print) and to share them with young readers. I’ll speak of Steve here in the present tense, because he is still very much alive in his books, and there are more to come!

Steve Jenkins’ career and  books combine in marvelous ways his life-long love and understanding of science, of art, and of children, how they think and wonder. He’s never lost his playfulness or his own childhood curiosity about the natural world. His book ideas often begin with an irresistible question that kids (including his own) have asked.  Or one that he has asked himself. How do different animals see? What do animals do on their first day? What animals are the stinkiest? What are tails actually for?

A great place to start reading or re-reading Jenkins is with The Animal Book: A Collection of the Fastest, Fiercest,Toughest,Cleverest, Shyest–and Most Surprising–Animals on Earth. Imagine a 208-page picture book! The Animal Book is a kind of Steve Jenkins compendium and masterwork. It combines hundreds of his stunning cut-and-torn paper collage images of animals–living, endangered, and extinct. His illustrations are so lively you expect to feel their texture when you touch the flat page. Facts in his clear language, both basic and believe-it-or-not, accompany these stunning animal portraits.

Jenkins expected The Animal Book to be one a reader could browse in, starting anywhere. But he has also organized it in a progression of themes and subtopics–from a definition of animal to family relationships, senses and defenses, to an outline of animal evolution in “Story of Life.” Jenkins always strives to lead his readers to an understanding of how the world works and how these facts fit into a larger picture. The time-lines and other infographics in the book are beautifully clear.  His seamless book design makes the topics and their subtopics easy to follow.

A real treasure comes as an extra at the end of the book.  In a section simply called “Making Books,” he shows readers how he gets his ideas and  how he does his research.

Photo by Kevin Moloney, NYT

Then he takes us into his studio, with his collection of textured papers filling color-coded drawers. We learn how he selects just the right paper to cut or tear for a jaguar’s fur or a toad’s belly, a terror-bird’s beak or a rhino’s hide.  He also includes a graphic timeline of bookmaking from idea to finished publication. This book belongs on every public, school, and home library bookshelf.

So what are the new titles  from Steve and his wife and collaborator Robin Page that we can look forward to in 2022? One of them obviously began with a question. The Animal Toolkit: How Animals Use Tools explores some surprising ways we’re discovering that animals solve problems and interact with the world.  Disasters by the Numbers came out this month, and there will be two more By the Numbers titles this year. The series has included Earth by the Numbers, Dinosaurs by the Numbers, Insects by the Numbers, and Solar System by the Numbers. These books are chock-full of accessible infographics and are a middle-grade trivia buff’s gold mine. The 2022 additions will be One Day by the Numbers and Animal Facts by the Numbers.

Steve Jenkins has always had great, serious fun deepening his knowledge of animals and the natural world. His readers will, too. When you buy a Jenkins book for a child–or for yourself–get the hardback version if you can. His books are keepers.

The post Steve Jenkins’ Books: a Middle-Grader’s Treasure appeared first on From The Mixed Up Files.

The Titanic was touted as “unsinkable” before its ill-fated maiden journey. Right?

Well, not exactly. The stories we’ve been told about historical events have been skewed by the fact that most were written from a single perspective. And no event has EVER had only one perspective.  That’s why I’m so excited that author Kate Messner is writing a new series for middle-grade readers called History Smashers.

Before we talk about the books, though, let’s talk a bit more about this notion of  the “single story narrative.” Last fall, while walking my daily two-mile neighborhood loop, I listened to author Linda Sue Park discuss her book PRAIRIE LOTUS with Matthew Winner on The Children’s Book Podcast. In the podcast, she talked about the “single story narrative” and about how she introduces the idea of a single story to young readers.  The analogy she uses is very clever. You should click the link above and listen to the podcast.

Since then, I’ve thought about how much of our history has been learned from a single perspective, and I’ve pondered the challenges teachers, parents, librarians, and those of us who write, edit, and publish for young readers, face.  Digging deeper, I listened to the TED Talk titled The Danger of a Single Story by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie that Linda Sue mentions in the podcast. The talk is more than ten years old, but never has it been more important that we ask ourselves “Who else was there?” and “What if we start the story from a different perspective?”

In an interview with Publisher’s Weekly, Messner says she wants “to tell stories in a way that’s respectful of kids. Kids can handle more than we think they can. And I feel like being honest with kids is really important. Sometimes our teaching of history has not fared so well in that area, particularly when it comes to our failings as a country, our mistakes. We like to teach little kids nice stories about history. I think we can start to have those conversations earlier.”

Out of that vision, the History Smashers series was born. With five titles complete and more on the way, the reviews are fantastic!

“Critical, respectful, engaging: exemplary history for children.” —Kirkus Reviews, The Mayflower, starred review
”The book’s format may be a good match for those with shorter attention spans, and permits it to be gratifyingly capacious in what it covers.” —New York Times Book Review

“Kate Messner serves up fun, fast history for kids who want the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Absolutely smashing!” —Candace Fleming, award-wining author

I also love that these books are fact-packed and visually enticing, with sidebars, graphic panels, and lots of illustration. They’ll be a welcome addition to classroom, public, and home libraries. I have no doubt they’ll be conversation-starters for years to come. Keep the conversations going, friends!

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STEM Tuesday–Symbiosis– Interview with co-authors Jenn Dlugos and Charlie Hatton

Welcome to STEM Tuesday: Author Interview & Book Giveaway, a repeating feature for the last Tuesday of every month. Go, Science-Tech-Engineering-Math!

Today we’re interviewing authors Jenn Dlugos and Charlie Hatton, co-authors of Odd Couples, part of their “Things That Make You Go Yuck” series. Although busy with lots of projects–Jenn writes and illustrates science text books, and Charlie is a computational biologist–they say they collaborate on their books to meet a “fundamental ‘need’ to be creative.” Self-proclaimed science nerds who met through stand-up comedy, they bring humor to their books. In a time when basic biology has revealed its scary side, it’s a relief to be able to laugh a little while enjoying the fascinating tales of interrelationships in this book.

(*I had a lot of questions and Jenn and Charlie had a lot to share. This interview has been edited for brevity.–CCD)

Carolyn Cinami DeCristofano: What’s Odd Couples about—and what was most important to you in deciding to write it?

CH: Odd Couples is part of a series of “Things That Make You Go Yuck!” books, all about interesting and unusual critters and plants. This book explores some of the cooperative – and competitive and completely bonkers – relationships between organisms. With Odd Couples and all the Yuck! Books, we wanted to show young readers that even the “yucky” bits of nature can be fascinating, inspiring and sometimes oddly beautiful.

JD: Every second is life or death in the wild, and sometimes organisms have to work together to survive. Odd Couples covers everything from weird mating habits to strange friendships (and  frenemy-ships). From a crab that waves sea anemones around like pom poms to ward off predators to sloths that have strange friendships moths that lays eggs in sloth poop, Odd Couples covers the oddest of the odd.

CCD: You are two co-authors of a book named Odd Couples, so of course I have to ask: What kind of an odd couple are you? How would you describe your creative partnership?

CH: Oh, we’re odd. We met around fifteen years ago doing amateur standup comedy around the Boston area among a crowd of fellow misfits. We began collaborating on creative projects a few years ago, which has turned out to be much more productive than telling jokes at a coffee shop at midnight on a Tuesday. We’ve taken a “sure, let’s try it” approach to projects, leading to working together on writing books as well as short plays, producing a web series and short films, and various other oddities-in-progress.

JD:  In biological terms, we’re in a parasitic relationship. The parasite is whomever is not paying the tab that week.

CCD: What’s one of your favorite organism relationships from the book? Why is it a favorite?

CH: We researched a number of parasites for Odd Couples, which is a really… interesting way to spend your Saturday afternoons. My favorite is a flatworm called Ribeiroia that infects frogs during one phase of its life cycle. The worms’ next stage of development occurs in birds. To improve their odds of getting there, the worms affect infected frogs’ development, causing them to grow extra, gangly useless legs that hinder their hopping. These frogs are less likely to escape birds trying to eat them, which is good for the worms – though not as much for the Franken-frogs. It’s basically a Bond movie villain strategy for getting ahead.

JD: My favorite animals are spiders. (Yes, really. I had pet tarantulas when I was younger.) So, I have to go with the peacock spider. It’s an adorable little arachnid who basically does the Y.M.C.A. dance to attract a mate. Scientists recently discovered a new species of peacock spider that has markings that resemble a skeleton. You know, because spiders need to double-down on their creepy reputation.

CCD: Can you say a little about how your writing partnership works? For example, who does what when?

CH: On most projects, we discuss an outline and detailed plans for writing. I promptly forget most of it, and Jenn reminds me of the parts she says that we both liked the best. It’s not the most efficient process, but it works. While writing, we generally pass material back and forth – in the case of Odd Couples, we agreed on a format and researched the organisms we wanted to include, then split them up to each write about our favorites. Sort of like a fantasy sports draft, only with more spiders and parasites.

JD: Nothing happens until food and drinks arrive. It’s very possible that our waiter/waitress is our muse. Several hours later, we have something that resembles an outline typed out in Jenn-ese on my phone. I translate it to something that resembles English, and from there it’s a 50/50 split. We’ve been writing together for so long that we’ve developed a joint voice, and we sometimes forget which part each of us wrote. There have been more than a few times we have seen/heard a joke in something we’ve written and wondered which one of us was responsible for that nonsense.

CCD: What’s next for you as authors?

JD: Another infographics book (is) waiting in the wings after Awesome Space Tech.

(Awesome Space Tech, also an infographics project, is Jenn and Charlie’s latest book. –CCD)

CCD: Well, I’d bet that your humor and serious science creds have led to yet another book that will inspire, entertain, and fascinate kids. Your symbiosis certainly benefits others! Thanks so much for your time!

Win a FREE copy of Odd Couples

Enter the giveaway by leaving a comment below.  (Scroll past the link to the previous post.) The randomly-chosen winner will be contacted via email and asked to provide a mailing address (within the U.S. only) to receive the book.

Good luck!

Boston-based collaborators, Jenn Dlugos and Charlie Hatton are co-authors of Prufrock Press’s series, “Things That Make You Go Yuck!” and, in Charlie’s words, “several other, far more ridiculous projects.”

By day, Jenn writes science textbooks, assessments, and lab manuals for grades K–12. By night, she writes comedy screenplays, stage plays, and other ridiculous things with Charlie Hatton. Her favorite creepy crawlies are spiders.

Charlie is a bioinformatician who slings data for a cancer research hospital–as well as a science fan and humorist. He enjoys working with genetic and other data to support cancer research, learning about new and interesting scientific areas, and referring to himself in the third person in biographical blurbs.

***

Carolyn DeCristofano, a founding team member of STEM Tuesday, is a children’s STEM author and STEM education consultant. She recently co-founded STEM Education Insights, an educational research, program evaluation, and curriculum development firm which complements her independent work as Blue Heron STEM Education. She has authored several acclaimed science books, including Running on Sunshine (HarperCollins Children) and A Black Hole is NOT a Hole (Charlesbridge).

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This month on STEM Tuesday, we’re celebrating all things dinosaur—from fossils to their biology to the scientists who study (and sometimes fight over) them. Here are a few activities to try in the classroom to go along with this great selection of books.

Dinosaur bones: And What They Tell Us, by Rob Colson\

Opening this book is like opening a field sketchbook. It’s filled with watercolor drawings, complete with labels and descriptive notes. Annotated skeleton sketches allow readers to compare their own bones to those of dinosaurs and other prehistoric animals. A fun way to browse dino facts.

• • • • Use clay to model some miniature dinosaur bones. Have students find a bone from a skeleton sketch in the book and then create their model from the drawing.
      • How do skeletons tell us what dinosaurs really looked like? Artists use the skeletons to build bodies in illustrations. First they add a body shape over the skeleton, then they shade the drawing, and finally they add details, like feathers and eyes. Provide students withe fossil drawings and ask them to build out their bodies in illustrations.

Dining with Dinosaurs: A Tasty Guide to Mesozoic Munching, by Hannah Bonner
If you are starving for dinosaur knowledge, this book serves up a full-course meal of mouthwatering Mesozoic food facts. Starting with who ate who. Along the way, we meet scientists who explain tough questions about dinosaur poop, teeth, and more.

• • • • Have students pick some dinosaurs from the book and create food chains for them along with illustrations.
      • Ask students to pick a dinosaur and then draw a dinner plate filled with that dinosaur’s favorite foods, with labels.
      • Have students imagine what future scientists might guess about their diets by looking at their poop, teeth, and other fossils. Ask them to write a short description of the scientist’s findings.

Gutsy Girls Go for Science: Paleontologists, by Karen Bush Gibson; illus. by Hui Li

The first chapter introduces the science of paleontology, along with tips for how to pack your field kit. Then we examine the work and challenges of scientists Mary Anning, Mignon Talbot, Tilly Edinger, Zofia Kielan-Jaworowska, and Mary Leakey. There are plenty of “Field Assignments” (hands-on STEM projects) ranging from modeling an excavation to finding clues in teeth, and informative sidebars are sprinkled through the chapters.

• • • Students can pick a female scientists to research more. Have them write a mini-comic book biography of the scientist, showing some important moments in their lives and research.
    • Discuss with students why the author chose the paleontologists that she did. What does each paleontologist bring to the book? How is their research different?
    • Try one of the many STEM projects in the book!

Tooth & Claw: The Dinosaur Wars, by Deborah Noyes.

This is a tale of the epic rivalry that exploded into a personal – and professional – war between two early fossil hunters. Edward Drinker Cope wanted to find the biggest, best bones of the newly discovered dinosaurs. So did Othniel Charles Marsh. Their race to uncover bones played out across the American West and they discovered dozens of dinosaur species. But their animosity ruined their lives. Includes a list of museums where modern dino-hunters can find bones.

• • • • Create compare and contrast charts with the contributions of both Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope to the field of paleontology.
      • Have students imagine an alternate world where people did not believe that dinosaurs once existed on Earth. They should think about what might have happened if these two scientists could not have convinced the public that dinosaurs did exist. Have students write a short story about this imagined reality.

STEM Tuesday classroom ideas prepared by:

Karen Latchana Kenney especially enjoys creating books about nature, biodiversity, conservation, and groundbreaking scientific discoveries—but also writes about civil rights, astronomy, historical moments, and many other topics. Her award-winning and star-reviewed books have been named a YALSA Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers, a 2015 Book of Note from the TriState Review Committee, a 2011 Editor’s Choice for School Library Connection, and Junior Library Guild selections. https://latchanakenney.wordpress.com

The post STEM Tuesday– Dinosaurs/Paleontology — In the Classroom appeared first on From The Mixed Up Files.

This month we uncover clues into the science of Crime Scene Investigation. Forensics is the science of finding evidence and analyzing it for clues. Evidence can be anything: blood spatters, carpet fibers, insects, pollen, powders, fingerprints, and footprints. Each piece of evidence reveals something about what happened at the scene of the crime – even if the crime happened hundreds of years ago.

Crime scene investigation:

Blood, Bullets, and Bones: The Story of Forensic Science from Sherlock Holmes to DNA by Bridget Heos (YA)

Crime scene investigation is not new; early detectives discovered ways to test for poisons, and conducted autopsies to determine cause of death. Over the years, crime-solving tools have become more sophisticated as technology improves. This book examines evidence from prints to ballistics, blood spatter to DNA and more.

Fingerprints : dead people do tell tales by Chana Stiefel.

Fingerprints are unique identifiers. Not even identical twins have the same fingerprints. This book explains the techniques scientists use to collect fingerprints and to identify criminals, and contains stories about how fingerprints helped solve real crimes.

Forensics: Uncover the Science and Technology of Crime Scene Investigation by Carla Mooney

This book introduces the science of crime scene investigation, with chapters about fingerprints, blood evidence, bones, and bodies. Sidebars highlight forensic careers, and there are plenty of hands-on activities for kids to try on their own.

Forensic Identification: Putting a Name and Face on Death by Elizabeth Murray

Forensic anthropologist, Dr. Elizabeth Murray takes readers into morgues and labs where scientists use technology to determine the identities of remains. Filled with case files and a diversity of techniques including facial reconstruction, dental records, X-rays, and DNA testing.

Ancient Cold Cases:

Bone Detective: The Story Of Forensic Anthropologist Diane France by Lorraine Jean Hopping

Meet forensic anthropologist Diane France as she lugs a two-gallon bucket containing a brain …without letting it slosh around. Any other day she might be examining skeletal remains of past royalty or Civil War soldiers, or be called to the site of a disaster to help identify victims. Side bars, photos, and diagrams explain science concepts.

Written in Bone: Buried Lives of Jamestown and Colonial Maryland by Sally M. Walker

Forensic scientists use their knowledge of human remains to help solve mysteries of remains found in colonial-era graves near Jamestown, Virginia. Using science, they help recreate the lives of a ship’s captain, an enslaved African girl, and more.

Two books about the Kennewick Man:

  Mysterious Bones: The Story of Kennewick Man by Katherine Kirkpatrick and Their Skeletons Speak: Kennewick Man and the Paleoamerican World by Sally M. Walker and Douglas W. Owsley

In July of 1996, two young men accidentally uncovered a skeleton along a bank of the Columbia River in Kennewick, Washington. Was this an unsolved murder or the remnants of a settler’s or Native American’s unmarked grave? Scientists determined that the bones were more than 9,000 years old – transforming our understanding of how humans colonized North America.

Channel your Inner Detective:

CSI Expert!: Forensic Science for Kids by Karen Schulz

This book contains 25 hands-on forensic science activities, including fingerprinting, blood-stain identification, chemical analysis, ballistics, and fiber identification. Each activity is set up as a lab.

Crime Scene Detective Arson: Using Science and Critical Thinking to Solve Crimes by Karen Schulz

This book includes everything teachers (or mystery dinner hosts) need to set up a mock crime scene based on arson. There are suspects to interview, forensic lab tests, and a section on forensic science careers.

Carson-Dellosa Forensic Investigations Resource Book by Schyrlet Cameron, Janie Doss, & Suzanne Myers

This book contains ten cases for students to solve, including forgery, theft, and vandalism. Each case (unit) highlights specific skill-based activities, such as handwriting analysis. Labs challenge students to apply the skills they learned to solve the crime.

One-Hour Mysteries, Private Eye School: More One-Hour Mysteries, and More One-Hour Mysteries by Mary Ann Carr

A series of fun classroom mysteries for 4th and 5th graders. Each book provides five mysteries that challenge students to apply their skills of deductive reasoning, inferring, taking notes, organizing data, and analyzing evidence to solve the case.

STEM Tuesday book list prepared by:

Sue Heavenrich writes about science for children and their families, from space to backyard ecology. Bees, flies, squirrel behavior—things she observes in her neighborhood and around her home—inspire her writing. A long line of ants marching across the kitchen counter generated one of her first articles for kids. When not writing, you can find her committing acts of science from counting native pollinators to monitoring water quality of the local watershed. Her most recent book is Diet for a Changing Climate (2018).

Maria is a children’s author, blogger, and poet passionate about making nature and reading fun for children. She’s been a Cybils Award judge since 2017 and a judge for the #50PreciousWords competition since its inception. Two of her poems are published in The Best Of Today’s Little Ditty 2016 and 2014-2015 anthologies. When not writing, or reading, she bird watches, travels the world, bakes, and hikes. Visit her at www.mariacmarshall.com

The post STEM Tuesday– CSI – Forensic Science and Anthropology- Book List appeared first on From The Mixed Up Files.

I love both science and history, so I was really excited to read books on this month’s list. I confess to being a bit grossed out by some of the mummies, but these books didn’t disappoint. I saw many different aspects of the field of archaeology and learned a lot about the societies and people the archaeologists studied.

Shop your local indie bookstore

Mummies Exposed! by Kerrie Logan Hollihan

This book covers many different types of mummies. While many were purposeful, some were accidental. Through the examples, we learn about the science behind the creation of mummies. Analysis of the Items buried with the mummies gave clues to the type of people they had been and how they spent their time when they were alive.

Shop your local indie bookstore

The Whydah by Martin W. Sandler

The search for the pirate ship Whydah required the study of historical maps and records. These records, along with the artifacts discovered on the shipwreck paint a very different picture of pirates than we’ve come to expect.

Shop your local indie bookstore

Forgotten Bones by Lois Miner Huey

This book looks at what archaeologists have learned about a segment of society whose history has gone largely unwritten. I was fascinated by how much information they were able to glean from the bodies. Customs that left permanent marks on the body helped identify those who grew up in Africa versus those that grew up in America. Scars from injuries helped indicate what types of jobs the people performed. Most amazing was the ability of an artist to create a possible representation of each of the skeletons found using DNA analysis and the structure of the skulls.

Suggested Activities

In true “me” fashion, my brain went into overdrive thinking of activities that would fit well with these books. Here are a few…

Become an Artifact Detective

Archaeologists have to be detectives. They need to use the clues they’ve unearthed to figure out who these people were, how they lived, and what caused them to die. Challenge your class to be detectives, too.

First, have each person represent themselves with things. Have them pick 5 to 10 items that are often found with them. They could be things they carry around with them or wear every day. They could be favorite items or games we might find in their room at home.

To include science in this exercise, have the students describe the items as a scientist would. What is the item made of? What color is it? What are its measurements? Include a sketch or photo of the item. You could even pretend that these things have been buried for centuries. What would degrade and what would stay whole? If it broke into pieces, what would a defining feature be that might give a clue to what the item is?

For the next part, make sure each list doesn’t identify who the items belong to. Instead, use a student number or a nickname like the archaeologists did in the books.

Provide the set of lists to the class. This could be done by posting them around the room or through a virtual message board. Challenge the students to identify which of their classmates belongs with each of the artifact lists.

Once everyone has attempted to identify their classmates based on their artifacts, have each person present their artifacts and explain why they picked the items they did. The students will not only practice deductive reasoning, they’ll also get to know each other better.

Do Some Research

The discoveries described in The Whydah and Forgotten Bones relied upon historical research to help identify what was discovered. In the case of The Whydah, historical records like maps and diaries helped provide the location where excavators should look for the lost ship.

Use these examples to look into where historical records can be found and what kinds of information different documents can provide. This could even include a field trip to a local historical library or National Archives location and a lesson on how to use microfiche.

So many people use these resources – authors, archaeologists, genealogists, historians, lawyers, and more. To make this exercise more relatable, perhaps tie it to research into a local historical figure or genealogical research.

Debate the Issue

In Mummies Exposed! and Forgotten Bones, archaeologists faced cultures that believed burial grounds should remain untouched. After reading one or more of these books, have your students join the debate. Does the knowledge gained from archaeological research outweigh the beliefs that burial grounds should not be disturbed? Is it enough to rebury the bodies once they’ve been studied?

Other Ideas

Time Capsule

It occurred to me that each archaeological dig described in these books is like a time capsule. They capture what life was like for that person or people at the moment in time when they became buried or lost at sea. There are some good ideas here: http://www.timecapsule.com/time-capsule/how-to-make-a-school-time-capsule

Decoding the Past

The Smithsonian Learning Lab has a lesson about how archaeologists interpret artifacts called “Decoding the Past.” If you download the PDF, you will find an article on the subject and worksheets for some related activities. https://learninglab.si.edu/collections/decoding-the-past-the-work-of-archaeologists/AUq5scPw1RXKYyNy

Archaeology Activities

The Society for American Archaeology has a ton of activities for students, including a few about the Iceman (featured in Mummies Exposed!). https://www.saa.org/education-outreach/teaching-archaeology/k-12-activities-resources

I hope you and your students enjoy exploring these books and activities. If you have any suggestions for how you make archaeology and history come alive, please share in the comments below!

Janet Slingerland loves learning about science, history, nature, and – well, everything – which she then turns into a book. She especially loves visiting living history museums, where the past really comes alive. To find out more about Janet and her books, check out her website: janetsbooks.com

You never know what you’ll find in a museum. Here’s a pic of Janet at the Musician’s Hall of Fame in Nashville, where she found a Slingerland drum head.

The post STEM Tuesday — Digging Up History/Archeology– In The Classroom appeared first on From The Mixed Up Files.

Welcome to STEM Tuesday: Author Interview & Book Giveaway, a repeating feature for the fourth Tuesday of every month. Go Science-Tech-Engineering-Math!

Today we’re interviewing Kay Frydenborg, author of CHOCOLATE: Sweet Science & Dark Secrets of the World’s Favorite Treat, a title in this month’s featured book pairs. School Library Journal gave it a starred review, saying, “This fascinating book presents a deep, multifaceted glimpse at a delectable dessert: chocolate. Engaging—even witty in places—and enlightening.”

Mary Kay Carson: How did Chocolate come about?

Kay Frydenborg: Chocolate was my second book for Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH), following Wild Horse Scientists—a project that I’d loved researching and writing both for the subject matter (a long-time interest of mine that I’d tried to write about in different ways for years), and for the opportunity to join the ranks of Scientists in the Field (SITF) books, authors, and editors I so admired. When I started thinking about my next book, I was drawn to other subjects that might lend themselves to the series. So when I came across an article in the New York Times about scientists searching in the jungles of Peru for ancient cacao trees previously thought to have been extinct, I felt that little zing of recognition. I immediately pictured the scientists hiking along a tangled jungle path, and imagined the oppressive heat and the buzzing insects, the sweat and physical exertion along with the anticipation and sense of discovery that must have propelled them.

I learned that one of the principal researchers introduced in that NYT article was a USDA plant scientist headquartered in Beltsville, Maryland, within an easy drive of my home. I found his phone number and made sure he was actually there and would be willing to talk with me about his work, and I began to see a new SITF book take shape in my mind’s eye. But when I pitched the idea to my editor at HMH, I got a response I wasn’t expecting: she and her managing editor didn’t want the SITF book about chocolate scientists, but they did want a “big” stand-alone book about chocolate, for a slightly older (YA) audience. It would be longer, more complex, and broader in scope than what I’d originally proposed. Unlike wild horses, chocolate was a subject I knew little about except that I liked to eat it, so it would require a lot of research. I barely knew what a cacao tree looked like, or where it grew, or whether it was large or small. I thought about it for a bit, and then took a deep breath and accepted the challenge. It was an opportunity I couldn’t pass up, and luckily, I do love research.

MKC: Care to share a fun research moment or two?

Kay: The first was when I met and interviewed Lyndel Meinhardt, the United States Department of Agriculture plant scientist with the unusual name. He was so knowledgeable and generous in sharing his knowledge of all things cacao, and he introduced me to my first in-person cacao tree, which was actually living in a big pot on the floor of his office. Photos almost don’t do justice to this tree and its fruit, which seems about as different from chocolate as a spare tire is from a rubber tree. After introducing me to “his” cacao tree and showing me slides and maps from a couple of chocolate expeditions to the Amazon jungle, Lyndel led me to a climate-controlled greenhouse on the sprawling USDA campus, where rows of carefully-tended young trees of varying heights were thriving more than 3,000 miles from their natural habitat near the equator. Lyndel told me about the many diseases to which cacao trees in the wild are susecptible, about the closely guarded storage vaults where precious plants are stored in a few places in the world, and about how advances in genomic testing have opened a whole new world of chocolate science.

Another favorite moment? The day I received a surprise package in the mail from Dan Pearson, a California-based chocolate entrepreneur who was a major character in the book. He’d sent me a stash of his own fine Peruvian dark chocolate, in several forms, and even included some raw cacao beans. I didn’t eat the beans (although Dan told me you can), but I sure did enjoy the chocolate bars and nibs! A little went a long way, so they lasted forever, and knowing about where they came from and how they were created made them even more delicious. I could almost close my eyes and see that little tree in a steamy Amazon forest when I tasted that amazing chocolate.

MKC: What approach did you take for Chocolate and why did you choose it?

Kay: I wanted to approach this very big subject from the dual perspective of history and science—the approach I’ve followed for all of my nonfiction books. I’m equally fascinated by both ways of looking at just about everything, and find that starting by tracing the history of a given thing or event naturally leads into exploring the science around it. In the case of chocolate, the history is ancient and complex, and I was soon enthralled by stories of the ancient Mesoamerican peoples who first figured out how to transform cacao pods into chocolate, and then about the dramatic impact that European conquerers had on those ancient, rich civilizations.

Following the trail of chocolate opened a whole, fascinating world to me. This is why I love writing narrative nonfiction! I guess I write for myself, first—to satisfy my own curiosity, and I hope others—both young people and not-so-young readers—will be just as curious as I am. I read many books and articles over the course of my research, but fairly early on I also identified and began interviewing original sources, like Lyndel Meinhardt and Dan Pearson, as well as many others. Personal interviews make the story come alive for me.

Kay Frydenborg is the author of several books, including They Dreamed of Horses, Animal Therapist, Wild Horse Scientists, Chocolate: Sweet Science and Dark Secrets of the World’s Favorite Treat, and A Dog in the Cave. She lives in Pennsylvania with her husband and two dogs, who are always hungry but are definitely not allowed to eat chocolate. When not writing, she enjoys spending time with them and riding her horse as often as she can. Learn more about her and her books at www.kayfrydenborg.com.

MKC: How is your book different from other books about chocolate for older kids?

Kay: There actually aren’t a lot of other nonfiction books about chocolate for young adult readers (although H.P. Newquist’s is a good one), while there are quite a few books on the topic for younger kids and for adults. I think one thing that sets my book apart is its narrative approach. Once I started writing, the cacao tree itself assumed a prominent place in the narrative. It became a “character” in my mind—the central character in the long story of chocolate. It provided a specific image and focus that I thought made a vast, multifaceted subject more accessible—at least, it did for me! So I started by picturing one individual tree growing in a particular place, just as one might choose one particular person to be the central character of a novel. I spent a lot of time visualizing that tree and its surroundings and then describing the particulars of its fascinating features, and I often came back to that original image as I wrote. I imagined the forest animals breaking open and feasting on the cacao pods, and then the first humans to discover the tree and its remarkable fruit. Later in the book, when I introduced a larger cast of human characters past and present, I tried to ensure that the connection to that wonderful, fragile cacao tree was a consistent thread to pull the reader through the layers of history and intricacies of the science, the technology, and the business of chocolate. The little tree that opened the narrative reappeared in the form of the cacao tree in a remote Peruvian canyon that began a kind of odyssey for one of my central human characters, Dan Pearson, as well as Lyndel Meinhardt, the USDA scientist. I enjoyed tracing all of these connections through time and place.

MKC: Do you have a favorite chocolate treat?

Kay: I guess I most love a really dark fudgy treat like, um, fudge! The old-fashioned kind that is hard to find and tricky to make. Or a good, fudgy brownie or my grandmother’s recipe for fudge pie (which appears in my book!)

Win a FREE copy of CHOCOLATE: Sweet Science & Dark Secrets of the World’s Favorite Treat!

Enter the giveaway by leaving a comment below. The randomly-chosen winner will be contacted via email and asked to provide a mailing address (within the U.S. only) to receive the book.

Good luck!

Your host this week is Mary Kay Carson, unapologetic chocoholic and author of Mission to Pluto and other nonfiction books for kids. @marykaycarson

The post STEM Tuesday — Pair Up! Comparing Nonfiction Titles — Interview with Author Kay Frydenborg appeared first on From The Mixed Up Files.

Going Deep

Today we are diving deep into two books that intrigue me. Books about a horrific medical epidemic. Books that both use narrative and expository plus characters to carry readers through the story. Books that plunge into history and science plus ethical and moral questions.

Fatal Fever: Tracking Down Typhoid Mary, by Gail Jarrow

Terrible Typhoid Mary: A True Story of the Deadliest Cook in America, by Susan Campbell Bartoletti

Here’s a quick recap. In the early 1900s Mary Mallon carried typhoid but didn’t display any of the symptoms. She worked as a cook, was definitively linked to the infections of 49 people plus three deaths, was quarantined for decades, and became the brunt of a tabloid scandal. Both books look at the entangled story of her life, medical professionals who tracked her down, legal charges against her, and implications for constitutional rights.

In two books on the same topic, published in the same year, written with similar audiences in mind, there is much to compare and contrast. What I find most intriguing is that both bring the science and history to light while posing enduring questions.

Dive In

Let’s look at how these books each handle one of those enduring questions. Get ready for some close reading!

After years of quarantine, Mary was finally released on parole. The terms of her release specified that she take precautions to not infect others, not work as a cook, and report regularly to the health department. But Mary broke those terms, resulting in another major outbreak and her own exile until death. The question these authors chase: Why did she risk it?

Turn to pages 133-135 of Terrible Typhoid Mary and Page 118-120 of Fatal Fever to read the texts. Here are some things to look for. I’ve included a few things I noticed and am eager to hear what you discover.

Whose story is told first?

• Fatal Fever:
  • “Mary had no lawyer to help her.”
• Terrible Typhoid Mary
  • “Mary never said why she broke the conditions . . .”

What words are chosen to set the tone?

• Fatal Fever:
  • “A Witch!”
• Terrible Typhoid Mary
  • “. . . she struggled . . .”

In what way are other characters’ reactions used? Do those reactions support or denigrate Mary’s choice?

• Fatal Fever:
  • “The sympathy that people once felt toward Mallon evaporated.”
• Terrible Typhoid Mary
  • “Her temerity galled Soper.”

What words or phrases convey doubt or leave interpretation open?

• Fatal Fever:
  • “Maybe she didn’t see the harm in it, . . .”
• Terrible Typhoid Mary
  • “Is it possible that Mary simply didn’t understand . . .”

Are you caught up in this conundrum? Of how Mary, who had been presented as a person who stepped in to care for children when needed, could do such a thing? I am.

Where do these passages leave you emotionally? Did the balance between narrative and expository impact your reaction? Does either passage affect you more? Why?

On Your Own

Now, pursue a similar close reading on your own. There are plenty of other parallel topics in these books. Try the discussion of gall bladder removal: Fatal Fever (page 93) and Terrible Typhoid Mary (pages 136-137).

How do these authors use sequencing, language, and other characters? How do their skillful use of nonfiction devices impact you as a reader?

—-

By Heather L. Montgomery

Heather L. Montgomery writes for kids who are WILD about animals. Her latest book, Bugs Don’t Hug: Six-Legged Parents and Their Kids, is a perfect picturebook for a close read.

www.HeatherLMontgomery.com

The O.O.L.F. Files

Resources for Writers

https://www.rhymezone.com/

This site might have been designed with rhyming in mind but it has many other uses. Need a thesaurus? Angling for alliterative words? Looking for lyrics? Rhymezone’s got you covered.

https://www.google.com/alerts

Needing to go deep on a topic? Set up a Google alert on your topic. Day after day it will deliver the freshest posts straight to your inbox.

http://www.bluebulbprojects.com/MeasureOfThings/default.php

When you need a measurement comparison, The Measure of Things is your best friend! How large is 110 cubic inches?

• 9/10^th the size of a human stomach
• 1/3^rd the size of a bowling ball
• 1 1/10^th the size of an ostrich egg!

The post STEM Tuesday — Pair Up! Comparing Nonfiction Titles — Writing Craft and Resources appeared first on From The Mixed Up Files.

Today is the 11th–a 1-1 pair-up. It’s an especially apt day for continuing with our Nonfiction Pair-up theme. One thing seems sure: You’ll double your impact if you pair nonfiction reading and writing with STEM lessons!

Ideas Worth Spreading

Fatal Fever and Terrible Typhoid Mary highlight the social, personal, and epidemiological stories around Mary Mallon, AKA Typhoid Mary. Exemplifying how science and society intersect and examining the difficulties of clashing social and individual interests, this pair offers high drama and nearly endless entry points for curriculum learning.

• Does the government have the right to imprison someone to keep that person from infecting others?
• Do students think Mary was “terrible?
  • Students can develop charts with reasons for answering yes and no–then take a stand with mock op-ed pieces.
  • Form student committees to answer “What to do about Mary?” Make sure they consider how any decisions impact Mary and the community.
  • Expand into current day concerns: “What to do when one of us gets sick?” Students might research the school’s policy regarding teachers and students with the flu or other infectious diseases. What options are available to keep everyone safe and able to work and learn?

Looking for infectious enthusiasm? Try these science learning ideas.

• DragonFly TV’s five-minute GloGerm video offers information, an experiment, and visuals including a powder that glows under UV light and spreads throughout a kids’ bowling party.
  • Show the video to accompany their reading.
  • As an alternative, if you have the resources to purchase GloGerm and a UV light, use the video as an inspiration for a lesson plan. Demonstrate the spread of disease. Then challenge students to design their own experiments.
• In this lesson using water, baking soda and a simple acid/base indicator, one student unwittingly becomes the source of an “infectious disease”, which then spreads to classmates.  The indicator ultimately reveals “infected” students. As an extension, track down the source student–your classroom’s counterpart to Mary Mallon in 1906, someone who unknowingly spreads disease.
  • What does the student feel like?
  • How would the class feel if all of the infected students now had to stay quarantined despite feeling well, or could no longer do whatever job they would like?
• Students become disease detectives with an engaging interactive from PBS’s NOVA resource, which allows them to “interview” subjects, collect and review data, and explore possible sources of the new Dizzy Disease. Students might also compare and contrast their methods to those used by the typhoid tracker who found Mary Mallon, George Soper.

And Now, Some Rotten Ideas

Students can become decomposers as they break down Rotten and Death Eaters, into their essential content and structure. For example, Elementary Nest’s lesson provides suggestions on conducting a compare/contrast of the facts in paired nonfiction titles.

Of course, this topic screams for a scavenger hunt! Send students searching for nonfiction text features. Check out these scavenger hunts  and, presto! You’ll gather your own list of features in no time. Follow up with a look at how these features help or detract from the reading experience.

• How do various features help engage and explain information to readers?
• Are there places in either book where the reader’s experience would have been enhanced by the addition or omission of a given feature?

After students digest the books in these lessons, they can recycle the morsels of information and insight into new, lively texts, composing short pieces based on the facts that they collected and incorporating the nonfiction text features to help readers engage with or grasp content.

Hands-on science experiences can add to the detail of student writing.  Start with this worm bin building activity and related resources from National Agriculture in the Classroom.

This Trash Talk’s OK

Heighten student awareness of different styles and purposes of informational text with this trio. This Book Stinks is full of small bits of text and splashy graphics. Contrast it with Tracking Trash and Plastic Ahoy!, which combine storytelling, exposition, and characters into a cohesive whole. Challenge students to take passages from each book and turn them into the style and format of the other.

For science experiences, tie these books in with the decomposition books above (pair the pairs!). Or:

• Explore the decomposition of different fruits. 
• Conduct a longer-term investigation to explore what does and does not decompose.
• 5 Gyres Institute’s Plastic Pollution Curriculum and Activity Guide will help you focus more deeply on marine plastic pollution, with numerous lessons for different grade levels.

There’s so much you could do with this month’s theme, maybe you, too, should pair up; find a teaching partner to develop some of these ideas into great experiences for your students, or create your own.

• What other book pairings can you suggest?
• Which activities work for you?

Drop a comment to let us know!

****** BREAKING NEWS!!****

STEM Tuesday is now a monthly PODCAST! Tune into Jed Dougherty’s Reading With Your Kids Podcast on iTunes to listen to your favorite STEM Tuesday posts! The first airing is right here:  STEM Tuesday Podcast #1 

Be sure to join us the second Tuesday of every month for a podcast update!

Carolyn Cinami DeCristofano pairs writing nonfiction STEM books for kids with STEM educational consulting work.  Running on Sunshine: How Does Solar Energy Work? celebrates the innovative spirit and challenges behind engineering solar technologies, and received a starred review from Kirkus.

The post STEM Tuesday — Pair Up! Comparing Nonfiction Titles — In the Classroom appeared first on From The Mixed Up Files.