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STEM Tuesday Cool Inventions and the People Who Create Them – Interview with author Mary Kay Carson

By on May 22, 2018   /   Author Interviews, Inventors / Inventions, STEM, STEM Tuesday  

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 author Mary Kay Carson who wrote this month’s featured cool invention book, Alexander Graham Bell for Kids: His Life and Inventions 

Find out how Alexander Graham Bell invented not only the telephone, but also early versions of the phonograph, the metal detector, airplanes, and hydrofoil boats. This Scottish immigrant was also a pioneering speech teacher and a champion of educating those with hearing impairments, work he felt was his most important contribution to society. Bell worked with famous Americans such as Helen Keller and aviators Glenn Curtiss and Samuel P. Langley, and his inventions competed directly with those of Thomas Edison and the Wright Brothers.

May Kay’s books include  a number of titles in Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s award-winning SCIENTISTS IN THE FIELD series, including  Park Scientists and The Bat Scientists, an ALA’s 2011 Notable Children’s Books for Middle Readers. Her book Exploring the Solar System was the 2009 recipient of the American Institute ofAeronautics and Astronautics Children’s Literature Award and the State Library of Ohio selected Beyond the Solar System as a CHOOSE TO READ OHIO book for 2015 & 2016. Visit her at marykaycarson.com  or on Twitter at @MaryKayCarson

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JAS: Thanks for joining us today, Mary Kay. This is a fabulous book! I love how you found such a unique trait to describe this historical figure. I mean, everyone knows that Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, but not many know why. Can you tell us how you discovered this fact? And also why you used it to create your whole book?

MKC: In today’s terms, we’d call Alexander Graham Bell a third-generation speech therapist. Bell’s father and grandfather worked with people trying to overcome speech impediments like stuttering or pronunciation struggles because of hearing impairments. Alexander Graham Bell was born into a family where the proper mouth position for making the sound of S was dinner table talk. Bell naturally went into this line of work, as well. Growing up with a mother who couldn’t hear gave him a deep understanding of both the isolation of the hearing impaired as well as a motivation for understanding how sound is made, transmitted, and perceived.

JAS: How did you come up with all of the activities? And why did you choose to add activities to your book?

MKC: I knew Alexander Graham Bell For Kids would include activities as a title in the Chicago Review Press “For Kids” series, all of which have 21 activities. It’s actually why I thought the book would be such a good fit for the series. Bell’s experiments, investigations, and inventions run the gamut from sound and light to flying machines and sheep genetics. The telephone invention alone lends itself to activities about electricity, sound, vibrations, and batteries. I’ve written four other books in this series with activities and Alexander Graham Bell For Kids was by far the easiest to come up with activities for. He was a wellspring of ideas.

JAS: The use of original sketches of Bell’s inventions are really great. How difficult was it to get permission to use them?

MKC: The Library of Congress has a huge Alexander Graham Bell archive, much of it digitized and in the public domain. It includes laboratory notebooks, invention blueprints, journals, personal letters, and photographs. It’s a real treasure trove of primary source material.

JAS: Why do you think learning about inventors is a so important for kids?

MKC: One of my favorite Bell quotes is: “The inventor is a man who looks around upon the world and is not contented with things as they are. He wants to improve whatever he sees, he wants to benefit the world.” To me, Bell’s description of an inventor actually describes young people in general. Most see the world as overdue for upgrades and improvements. Many have ideas on how to make things better, too. Being able to envision something different is the first step to inventing. Whether we’re talking about tackling a changing climate or designing a fun video game, it all starts with “What if…”

JAS: How would you suggest a teacher use your book in the classroom?

MKC: There are quite a few ways teachers can use the book in the classroom. The biography itself is instructive on how life experiences shaped the inventor that Bell became. The primary source material is cited and resources given for older kids who want to dig deeper into Bell’s life and legacy. Some of the activities in the book are simple enough for even kindergarteners to explore sound and light. Other activities are more open ended and challenge students to think of and execute an idea of their own.

Buy a Copy of the Alexander Graham Bell book

Praise for Alexander Graham Bell: “Many of the activities featured throughout the chapters, such as making an ear trumpet and feeling sound vibrations, use materials readers likely have at home, fairly easily giving them a taste of the devices used during Bell’s time and illustrating properties of sound. Avid readers can also pursue activities that require special purchases, such as seeing sound and making a pie-tin telegraph. Numerous black-and-white photographs of Bell and his family, period scenery, and artifacts immerse readers in the world of this prolific inventor, from his free-roaming childhood through his adulthood as a teacher of the deaf, an inventor many times over, and a family man. Children who enjoy exploring different symbolic communication codes, historical sciences, and inventions will find much to dig into in this detailed volume.

Thorough and well-rounded. (timeline, resources, glossary, notes, bibliography)”–Kirkus

 

Win a FREE copy of the Alexander Graham Bell book!   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! 

Hosting this week is Jennifer Swanson, fellow science nerd, and author of Astronaut Aquanaut: How Space Science and Sea Science Interact and other nonfiction books for kids. @JenSwanBooks

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Interview with a Character ~ Brightwood by Tania Unsworth

By on May 21, 2018   /   Author Interviews, Fiction  

I’m so excited to introduce you to Tania Unsworth’s main character and basic facilitator of the middle grade fantasy Brightwood – “Brilliantly conceived . . . entertaining and heartfelt.” —Kirkus Reviews

Meet Daisy – an imaginative and determined girl who is willing to fight for the only home she’s ever known.

Hi, Daisy! It’s great to meet you.

It’s great to be here. Thank you very much.

Tell the readers about Brightwood Hall, the only home you’ve ever known.

I love my home. It’s filled with treasures and secret passageways and enough supplies to last us just about forever. Sometimes I go down the driveway and look through the gates at the outside world, and wonder what other people’s houses are like. I was born in this house, and I’ve never been out, not even once. As for my rat, he’s called Tar, and he’s not really mine. He appears when he wants food, which is most of the time because he is obsessed with eating. Tar is very chatty. I know he can’t really talk, but he seems to. It’s hard to explain. As for the ‘explorer ghost’, her name is Frank, and she’s not really a ghost at all . . .

Whoa . . . you just blindsided me with the end of that response. I am so intrigued! What are some of your favorite things and ways to pass the time?

Brightwood is full of animals. I like feeding and looking after them. My favorites are the peacocks. Years and years ago, there were only two of them. Now there are dozens of them running around wild.

They run around wild? That must be funny.

I also like cooking – I taught myself from books in the library. Our basement is filled up with hundreds of boxes of food and groceries, so I can always find the ingredients I need. I go to school every day in the ballroom. My mum teaches me. Sometimes I wonder whether my life is different – even strange. But I don’t have anything to compare it to. Do other kids do their lessons in a ballroom? I just don’t know…

It must have felt strange being alone in the house when Mr. Gritting first arrived. What did you think of him?

When my mum didn’t come back, I tried not to worry, although she’d never been late home before. I kept telling myself there was a reasonable explanation, but when she hadn’t returned by evening, I knew something bad must’ve happened. I was scared when Mr. Gritting arrived in his car. Apart from my mum, I’d never seen another person in my life before.

This must have been so hard for you. You are a strong girl, Daisy.

I wanted to trust him, I really did. And he seemed quite friendly to begin with. But something about him didn’t seem right. Maybe it was the way he acted – as if he owned the place.. Or maybe it was the moment he said, “I have to take care of you” that made me realize the truth. Mr. Gritting was not my friend, and he wasn’t going to help me. He was planning to do the exact opposite.

Would you share something you learned about yourself throughout this book journey?

I’ve learned I’m braver than I knew.

???

A door creaks open and someone shuffles into the room.

Oh my gosh! What a lovely surprise! Tania, your creator, is here. 

*Daisy blushes*

Daisy, care to share what you really think of your creator? *I smile, and she smiles back.*

Okay. I think she was a little bit like me when she was a kid. She made things up – people and places – and they seemed real to her, even though she knew they weren’t. When you’re a child it’s far easier to believe two opposite things at the same time. I happen to know that she had an imaginary friend, whom she blamed whenever she got into trouble. One day, during a long drive, she blamed him for pinching her sister on the leg. Her father stopped the car and told him to get out, and that was the last she ever saw of him. As far as she knows he’s still there, on the side of the road.

Haha! I think I really like her father. It was wonderful meeting you, Daisy. Best of luck on your future adventures. Thank you for joining us. I’m going to chat with Tania for a minute.

Hi Tania! I’m thrilled you’ve dropped by, again. Real quick, tells us your favorite thing about writing this book.

I got very fond of Frank. Even when I’d finished the book she refused to go away. When a reader sent me a letter telling me how much she liked BRIGHTWOOD, I felt compelled to answer as if I was Frank. And for nearly a year, Frank persisted in sending this reader at least a dozen further letters, recounting her adventures with Sir Clarence in the Amazonian jungle. I had to really put my foot down before she finally stopped.

That is very cool! It’s wonderful you have such a strong connection to Frank. I’m sure the lucky recipient reader loved this.

What can your readers expect next from you?

My latest book THE GIRL WHO THOUGHT HER MOTHER WAS A MERMAID, will be published in July 2018 by Zephyr/Head of Zeus. As you might guess from the title, it’s a mermaid story, but with a dark and unexpected twist…American readers can preorder it on amazon.co.uk

Ooh, sounds like a fantastical read kids (& adults like me) will love! Best of luck to you always. Thanks to you and Daisy for spending time with us.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Tania Unsworth is the author of THE ONE SAFE PLACE, BRIGHTWOOD, and THE GIRL WHO THOUGHT HER MOTHER WAS A MERMAID. She moved from the UK in her twenties, and now lives with her family in Boston, Mass. Find her on her Website and Twitter.

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