These are ten very varied titles, from early readers to middle school, let’s dive right in!
Draw with Art for Kids Hub: Cute and Funny Foods by Art for Kids Hub (Author) Rob Jensen (Author)
We recently reviewed the first title of the series, and this is an item I intend to collect, not only because Rob Jensen is a superb artist, but because kids dig his style, he is a must in every classroom when learning how to draw stuff!
This step-by-step guide includes 30 prompts focused on everything edible, from kawaii cakes to cute fruit, funny sushi, and cartoon lunches. Kids love to draw food and draw big eyes in kawaii style, so this is a powerful combination.
Rob and his family continue to provide lots of instructions each week on their YouTube channel as well.
Draw with Art for Kids Hub: Cute and Funny Foods is on sale since August 13, 2024
Publisher: DK Publishing (Dorling Kindersley)
Pages: 96/ Paperback
EAN/UPC: 9780744098983
Up next, this is a mystic counting book:
Magic Counting by Nabeel Khan (Author)
This picture book is a counting book designed for younger audiences, but it features some mystic symbols usually associated with themes like sacred geometry.
In the beginning, everything had to do with shape. Geometry is the beginning of shape, as in one is a point two is a line and three makes a triangle, four a square, and five a pentagon… And the connections are made to symbols from all over the world, such as three gods, or five-star apple seeds, going back and forth from observation to symbolic meaning.
Nabeel Khan has an uncanny ability to portray shapes and patterns. Indeed, we can find numbers and shapes everywhere: in the natural world, in art and architecture, in symbolism, and the sky above us.
Magic Counting is on sale since August 06, 2024
Publisher: Scribble Us
Pages: 20/ Board Books
ISBN: 9781957363189
Up next, this is a love song to the Wetland:
Over and Under the Wetland by Kate Messner (Author) Christopher Silas Neal (Illustrator)
The Everglades features very distinct insects, birds, reptiles, and mammals. This book is set in Florida’s Everglades National Park and it is a loving view of all creatures, big and small, that inhabit this landscape.
Swamps, waterways, reeds, and grasses. Creatures living just out of sight in the branches and depths. Panthers, orchids, red-bellied turtles, raccoons, alligators, and frogs are just some of the sightings, you may guess that more creatures, flowers, and plants are there, just within reach as you travel alongside the paths, guessing who lives where, over and under the wetland.
Over and Under the Wetland is on sale since August 13, 2024
Published by Chronicle Books
Hardcover | Pages: 56
ISBN: 9781797210872
Up next, this title is all about an ancient delivery system:
Noodles on a Bicycle by Kyo Maclear (Author) Gracey Zhang (Illustrator)
Did you know that Tokyo used to have a bicycle delivery system for warm noodles? This delightful little fact is presented in a lovely manner, a child’s memory, in this picture book that shows just how amazing that delivery system used to be.
It reminded me of an entire Indian film made around a delivery gone wrong where the delicious meals made by a woman ended up on the plate of an old man who gets curious enough to seek her out, it is a love story, but it is also an elegy to these traditional systems (it’s called The Lunchbox if you’re curious).
Tokyo’s bicycle food deliverers, or demae, balanced towering trays of steaming hot noodles on their shoulders while navigating crowded city streets, driving their bikes. Think of Uber in 1970.
The kids loved the demae, and ran after them, and played mimicking their aerobics: they practiced with bowls of wobbling water stacked on trays, and tried to stack them as high as the demae can, towers of steaming noodles whizzing by!
Noodles on a Bicycle is on sale since August 27, 2024
Publisher: Random House Studio
Hardcover | Pages: 40
ISBN: 9780593706084
Now come a couple of nonfiction books that tell different stories:
Evidence!: How Dr. John Snow Solved the Mystery of Cholera by Deborah Hopkinson (Author) Nik Henderson (Illustrator)
Cholera is a plight that can return at any time if we forget how it spreads.
Dr. John Snow lived in 19th-century London and he was desperate to stop the spread of cholera. At the time, people thought, that the disease was airborne.
He thought otherwise, but he needed proof, very fast, because the disease killed very quickly, and without proof, they wouldn’t be able to stop the spread, losing many lies in the process.
As a doctor detective, he started interviewing people and mapping out the spread, knocking on doors, and asking questions, his data led to a breakthrough.
The story is told in a rushed, fast tone that makes the final discovery of evidence very rewarding.
This book would be great for making cross-curricular connections, mapping out the water system in your neighborhood, for instance, or studying outbreaks and the new public health policies to contain them, etc.
Evidence! is on sale since August 13, 2024
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers
Hardcover | Pages: 40
ISBN: 9780593426814
Volcanoes by Nell Cross Beckerman (Author) Kalen Chock (Illustrator)
With powerful illustrations inspired by real-scene photography, this is an interesting take on volcanoes, with tidbits of information alongside the wonderful force displayed by erupting volcanoes.
Some of the leaps of information did not seem that obvious to me, like going from Krakatoa and the ripple effect it had on the world, to extraterrestrial volcanoes, but it is interesting nevertheless.
The author’s photograph, which portrays her being very excited about being near hot steaming lava, is a keeper.
Volcanoes is on sale since August 06, 2024
Publisher: Orchard Books
Hardcover | Pages: 40
ISBN: 9781338874679
It’s time now for some amazing graphic novels and illustrated middle-grade books:
Oliver’s Great Big Universe: Volcanoes Are Hot! by Jorge Cham (Author)
This one is an upcoming book, (it comes out in September) but I thought it fitting to come after the illustrated version, as it is not exactly nonfiction but takes volcanoes to the next information level.
Oliver’s Great Big Universe #2 is a middle-grade novel that takes on the illustrated gimmicks of Wimpy the Kid but does an awesome job of making them educational, and not in the boring sense, either!
Oliver is only eleven years old, and has already written something amazing about the universe. However, he has become infamously associated with a barfing event in the cafeteria, and he wants to make his fame come back by winning the Science Fair. However, he has a nemesis: Ana Lía Quintero, who has consistently won the science fair every year.
His geoscientist aunt has emerged from a cave where she had been doing research and is willing to help him. Not do the work for him, though. The drawings have a lot of interesting science behind them, they seem incredible doodles by a talented note-taker on a science quiz, with lots of comparisons to everyday yucky things and the real science behind volcanic eruptions: (he calls them volcanic burping).
From comparisons on how Earth’s layers are basically like boba tea, and how school cliques and the solar system have a lot in common, or why you can’t dig through the center of the Earth, this book is both fun and jammed with information.
Oliver’s Great Big Universe: Volcanoes Are Hot! will be available September 17, 2024
Publisher: Amulet Books
Hardcover | Pages: 256
ISBN: 9781419764103
Magic Pickle and the Roots of Doom: A Graphic Novel by Scott Morse (Author)
This book is a bit of a mockery of the whole superhero deal and might appeal to most ten-year-olds who feel that have seen it all when reading about caped Crusaders.
The veggie names are fun, the drawings are energetic and amazing. The sidekick Jo Jo is a human girl who argues a lot with the self-absorbed and briny hero Magic Pickle, and the enemies are phenomenal: Evil tuber Square Root, and the smelly garlic Herb Cloverson, are planning to “squash” our heroes’ powers and rule the world!
All the puns and plays on words are veggie-related, and all in all, it is a fun caper.
Magic Pickle and the Roots of Doom is available since August 06, 2024
Publisher: Graphix
Paperback | Pages: 128
ISBN: 9781338188042
Unico: Awakening (Volume 1): An Original Manga by Samuel Sattin (Author) Gurihiru (Illustrator) Osamu Tezuka (Created by)
Master storyteller Ozamu Tezuka created a very endearing character, a unicorn that lives among the Greek gods, in a very different style that distinguishes itself from other Greek-inspired mythologies out there. Now, recreated by Samuel Sattin and Gurihiru, this all-color illustrated narrative is a wonderful story in its own right.
Unico is feeling very loved inside the Greek Pantheon until Venus gets jealous of him. Soon he will have to escape her wrath by hiding and starting his adventures on a mysterious land filled with talking cats. When Unico turns the cat Chloe into a human girl, Venus sends her minion Byron after them both.
Unico is available since August 06, 2024
Publisher: Graphix
Paperback | Pages: 224
ISBN: 9781339036335
Lastly here is a huge undertaking in book form:
All About U.S.: A Look at the Lives of 50 Real Kids from Across the United States by Matt Lamothe (Author) and Jenny Volvovski (Author)
This book feels a bit like an encyclopedia, with each page or two pages crammed with information related to one of the 50 kids portrayed, state by state.
That means a lot, as the US is a big country and each of the states has countless things going on in it. Amelia lives in Iowa, Ramon lives in Rhode Island, Adrain Jr lives in Louisiana, you get the idea.
This book works as a map, documenting fifty children’s daily lives across the nation. All kinds of landscapes, lifestyles, families, abilities, and races are portrayed, as similar and different as they could be.
My only caveat is that the letter size is too small. You cannot cram an entire country in this manner, it simply doesn’t fit the form and I wonder if it could have been a different type of series, one small book per child, maybe?
All about U.S is available since August 06, 2024
Publisher: Graphix
Hardcover| Pages: 84
ISBN: 9781797213705
