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Books to Inspire You to Explore the Outdoors (safely)

By Jennifer Swanson on June 22, 2020 / Articles, STEM

Hopefully this blog post finds you all well and safe. I’m imaging it also finds you perhaps a bit anxious to get outside. After all, it is summer, and while I don’t know what the weather is like where you live, here in Florida, it’s glorious! A perfect time to get out and about and explore.

But what if where you live it’s not the right time to get out much yet. What can you do to keep your kids — and yourselves — occupied for the next few weeks while things open up? What can you do? Why not bring the outdoors inside or at the very least get creative with your own little outdoor spot. I’m talking about getting creative with SCIENCE outside. (come on, if you know me, you knew this was going to be a science post) 😁

Are you ready to get your outdoor science on? GREAT! —> Head to your bookshelf!

That’s right, inspiration for how to imagine, invent and discover great outdoor science is right there among the books.

What are you interested in? Bugs? Moths? Birds? Cool!

Check out a few of these books.

Or perhaps you have more of a technology bent and want to understand how animals and technology go together.

For that check out my new book BEASTLY BIONICS

And who says that animals are the only bits of science you can see outside or around your house? What about cars? or buildings?

Finally, what if you are just inspired to invent something? Try out these fun new books

For MORE great ideas of how to use STEM/STEAM books to create fun at home,

check out our STEM Tuesday Blog, which has three years worth of activities for kids/parents/teachers —

and also STEAMTEAM2020 website which highlights new books coming out in 2020!

Now that your interest has been piqued, it’s time to DO something with your new knowledge.

Your challenge is to observe, design, draw, build and create something new.

Come up with a new type of animal– one that doesn’t exist but you think it should
Design a new type of bionic robot that mimics the way an animal moves or reacts that would be helpful to humans
Draw a picture of a car or building that would be awesome to drive or live in
Write a story about your creation and share it with your friends and family
Make a game or puzzle for others to try to guess what you drew
Turn your living room into a new type of ecosystem (be sure to ask your parent’s permission) and take everyone on a safari

Science really IS all around you. It starts with your imagination. Time to let that imagination and inspiration SOAR!

I’d love to see what you come up with. Leave a comment/picture below and you’ll be entered to win a copy of my new Beastly Bionics book!

Happy inventing!

STEM Tuesday– SHARKS!– In The Classroom

By STEM Tuesday on June 16, 2020 / Articles, Sharks, STEM Tuesday

I was so excited when I saw the theme for this month. In elementary school, my daughter fell in love with sharks. Through her, I learned to love sharks, too.

This month’s list of books is packed with great choices. I read a few as I thought about activities that would be great to pair with them.

The Great Shark Rescue: Saving the Whale Sharks
by Sandra Markle

The whale shark is my personal favorite, so I had to read this one! It looks at dangers facing whale sharks. In doing so, it covers a lot of information about whale sharks and where and how they live.

World’s Weirdest Sharks
by Paul Mason

This book introduces readers to many different sharks. While the title says they are weird, I would describe them as amazing.

We Need Sharks (The Animal Files)
by Lisa Bullard

This book looks at why sharks are important and why we should care about them. It looks at sharks in food chains and the important roles they play in ecosystems.

Sharks Are Awesome
by Patricia Hutchison

This book is a celebration of sharks. Sharks are everywhere and have been around a really long time. They come in all sizes, have 7 senses, inspire new ideas, and help balance ecosystems. Like the title says, Sharks are Awesome!

Here are some ideas for exploring sharks further and for (hopefully) shifting the way people think about them.

Create a Shark Super-Hero

Sharks are often portrayed as sinister, scary things. It’s easy to cast them as villains. Challenge readers to create a shark super-hero based on the sharks they read about. They could pick a specific shark or draw on characteristics all sharks share for inspiration.

Here are some additional questions that might help spark ideas when creating a shark super-character.

What are the special abilities the shark has? How would that make it an awesome super-hero?
Who would be the shark’s arch-nemesis (villain)? Think about things that endanger sharks and other ocean creatures. How might a super-shark save the day?
What if the super-hero was more like the X-Men or Batman? What would make that super-hero special and shark-like?

Once readers have imagined a shark super-hero, challenge them to create a story where the shark-hero saves the day. For those who prefer creating graphic novels, there are some shark drawing and graphic novel resources below to help.

Showcase an Amazing Shark

With all the amazing sharks out there and in these books, at least one had to spark each reader’s interest. Challenge them to share what they found amazing with their friends, family, and/or fellow classmates. One way to do this is with a promotional poster.

I might title my poster “It’s a Whale of a Shark!” Pretty corny, I know. It’s tough coming up with a catchy slogan, but it’s fun to try.

Here are some other things that would be good to include:

A picture of the shark.
How big the shark gets, perhaps compared with something of similar size. For instance, in World’s Weirdest Sharks, whale sharks are described as being as long as a double-decker bus and as heavy as 5 rhinos.
Where the shark lives.
What, and how much, it eats.
Special abilities or features of the shark.

This could be converted into an aquarium-type classroom display, where different sharks are in “tanks” around the room. There are many ways to run with this idea.

Drawing Sharks

I promised some resources for drawing sharks or creating graphic novels. Here they are:

Author/illustrator Jarrett Lerner has tons of drawing and graphic novel resources on his website, including some that feature sharks. https://jarrettlerner.com/activities

Author and former art teacher Kathy Barbro has quite a few pages on drawing sharks on her website Art Projects for Kids:

https://artprojectsforkids.org/how-to-draw-a-cartoon-shark
https://artprojectsforkids.org/draw-a-megalodon-shark
https://artprojectsforkids.org/how-to-draw-a-shark

There are steps and a video for drawing a shark on Mocomi: https://mocomi.com/how-to-draw-a-shark

Author Lynn Plourde has a great graphic novel resource here: http://www.lynnplourde.com/uploads/31/Documents/2-CREATING-GRAPHIC-NOVEL-LINKS.pdf

Here is another blank template: https://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Free-Graphic-Novel-Comic-Book-Templates-598158

There are many more out there if you do a little searching.

Explore More Online

Several of the books talk about shark-tracking projects researchers use to gather information about different sharks. Some of these are available online for everyone to see. Check them out and see what kinds of sharks have been tracked closest to your home.

Ocearch – https://www.ocearch.org – Ocearch tracks many different species. Their main page shows animals they are tracking, with recent pings blinking. The different colored dots indicate different animals; sharks are blue. There are also yellow whales, green sea turtles, and more. Have fun exploring the different creatures and where they’ve been. Some of them travel truly astounding distances.

Conservation International has a whale shark tracker here: https://www.conservation.org/projects/whale-shark-tracker. There are lots of interesting videos and other things on their website, too, including a quiz to find out “What Kind of Shark Are You?” – https://www.conservation.org/quizzes/what-kind-of-shark-are-you.

Many aquariums also have lots of great information on their websites. Here are some of my favorites that feature sharks:

The Georgia Aquarium is (I believe) the only aquarium in the Western Hemisphere that has whale sharks. They’re amazing to see in person. They’ve got lots of info on their website, too. https://www.georgiaaquarium.org/animal/whale-shark

The National Aquarium in Baltimore has a web cam where you can try to see and identify sharks and other sea animals: https://aqua.org/Experience/live#btr. They have additional information about animals found there. Sharks in Shark Alley are listed here: https://aqua.org/Experience/Shark-Alley.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium also has a live shark cam: https://www.montereybayaquarium.org/animals/live-cams/shark-cam. At the bottom of that page and around the site there are links to stories, animals, and more that are worth exploring.

The Shedd Aquarium also has lots of information about sharks on their website. The Wild Reef’s a good place to start, then see where your fancy takes you: https://www.sheddaquarium.org/exhibits/wild-reef.

I hope you have fun exploring sharks. Perhaps soon, you’ll even be writing a love poem to sharks!

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Janet Slingerland loves learning about science, history, nature, and (well) everything, which she then turns into a book. She regularly visits aquariums with her family and has even touched a shark or two – or in the case of this picture, a ray. She was able to write about whale sharks in her book 12 Epic Animal Adventures. To find out more about Janet and her books, check out her website: janetsbooks.com

Diversity in MG Lit #17 Equity for Black books and their creators

By Rosanne Parry on June 15, 2020 / Articles, Diversity, For Librarians, For Parents, For Teachers, For Writers, independent bookstores, Op-Ed

It’s my goal with these posts to shine a light on new diverse books for young readers at the middle grade level. It’s a regular feature on the Mixed Up Files Blog because the disparity in attention that diverse books receive is an ongoing problem. Recent events, however, call for a more systemic look at racism as it exists within the children’s book industry.

I have been writing for the last 25 years and have had published work for the last 11 years. In that time I’ve met people at all levels of the publishing and bookselling industries. Across the board I’ve found kind folks with good intentions. There has been an awareness of the inequalities in the industry as far back at the 1920s or 30s. Efforts have been made over the last hundred years, and yet time after time they have come woefully short of anything that looks like equality.

Rather than cast blame I’d like to look at the retail side of the equation and a handful of concrete ways all of us can make book sales grow, especially for POC authors & illustrators. It’s not the entire solution, but one sure way to make more money available for Black authors is to make books more available to Black families. Here are a half dozen steps you can take to do right by authors of color.

Buy your books from Black-owned bookstores. Here’s a list of them by state. If there’s one near you, please become a regular customer. If not order from one once in a while and have them ship the books to you.
Support Indie bookstores. Most new voices are first discovered and promoted by indie booksellers. Indie bookstores are a venue for book events for local authors not given a publisher-sponsored tour. And indie bookstores selling books at their cover price are the ones that give an author their full royalty. Those venues on line or elsewhere that offer discounts on books are giving the author less in royalty. Royalties are what make it possible for an author to continue writing.
Donate to BINC. BINC is the Book Industry Charitable Foundation. They provide assistance to booksellers which helps them stay open in the face of difficulty. The assistance includes help with serious medical expenses, eviction prevention, funeral expenses, disaster assistance, domestic violence survival, utility shut-off prevention, and many other things. Donate here. Every little bit helps, especially now when so many book stores are struggling.
Read books from Small Presses. Even the big publishers agree that the most daring and diverse books come out of small, independent, regional, and university presses. If you are a librarian, especially one on a book award committee, please give equal attention to the small press gems from Amistad, Just Us Books, Cinco Punto, Orca, Charlesbridge, Lee & Low, Enchanted Lion, Lerner, , and the many others listed here.
Get involved in small business politics If I could wave a magic wand I’d love to give every neighborhood and town it’s own vibrant independent bookstore. Sadly many people live in a book desert. If that’s your community, spend some time at your town’s council meetings. Ask the local small business association what you can do to bring a bookstore to town, The American Booksellers Association has a small business issues section that offers, state-by-state some suggestions for advocacy for bookstores. This kind of advocacy can be boring and feel far removed from the heat of the moment but if we want Black businesses to flourish in the future we have to lay the groundwork for it now.
Use and promote your public library. Librarians are often at the forefront of advocating for diverse books. If your local library is not as inclusive as you’d like, The American Library Association has materials to help a library conduct a self audit and take steps to diversify the books on the shelf. If the books on your state reading lists and battle of the books lists are not reflecting Black lives, speak up. Librarians choose those lists; they need to hear from you. If they’ve consistently done a good job of serving the Black community—give them that feedback too. Help your library by using it regularly, requesting Black-authored books regularly, and supporting it with your votes when the library levy is on the ballot.
Advocate for a full time teacher-librarian in every public, private, and charter school. Librarians pay a key role in introducing young readers to diverse voices. They also support diverse authors by buying their books. Show up at school board meetings. Pay attention to how school funding is allocated. Make sure there is always budget for diverse books and the librarians who support them.
Most important of all–Vote. Vote in every election, especially the local ones. Be a well-informed voter, drawing your information from a variety of sources. Be a passionate voter, advocating for free access to the ballot box for all. Speak up when voting abuse happens. And always, always, keep in mind the readers you serve as a parent, teacher, librarian or bookseller. Serve not just your immediate interest but their long term benefit.

Articles

Books to Inspire You to Explore the Outdoors (safely)

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