Book Lists

Number Crunch: Non-fiction for Math Lovers (and others)

By on August 13, 2012   /   Book Lists, For Teachers, Nonfiction  

Mixed-Up Files Reader, Michael M. comments:

I’m sure you’ve noted a heightened emphasis in the new Common Core Standards on NF and longer texts beyond articles. It’s particularly challenging, as much of the available NF is not expository pieces with the charts and tables that the CCS requires.  If you have any “go-to” people, that would be huge. Thanks for a great blog and a wonderful resource!

Michael, thanks for the comment and the compliment of our little piece of the blogdom. While I wouldn’t consider myself a “go-to” person, I’m interested in the same topic as a writer, school-based occupational therapist and general research geek. It’s a good thing since I can see from my calendar, it’s a topic I’ll be hearing a lot more about in upcoming professional development meetings. There will be lots of other people trying to figure out the practical implications of the standards and the best resources to implement them. Publisher’s Weekly had a great article about that very subject.

For this post, I searched for non-fiction books about math that included the graphs and charts you referenced in your question. For my needs, I also looked for high interest subject matter that had practical real life applications. I wanted books that did not look like textbooks in any way and were easy to access. I was able to find all of these books at my public library.

For our Mixed-Up fiction lovers (and as a nod to my previous post about book twins), I also included a few examples of fiction that reference math concepts. Hopefully MUF readers will add to the list in the comments below. Don’t worry, Michael, we’ve heard your plea and will include more non-fiction book lists and references in the future.

Tiger Math by Ann Whitehead Nagada; Cindy Bickel
Children learn to graph as they follow the growth of an orphaned Siberian tiger cub.

A Siberian tiger cub born at the Denver Zoo is orphaned when he is just a few weeks old. At first T. J. refuses to eat his new food, and it requires the full attention of the zoo staff to ensure that he grows into a huge, beautiful, and very healthy tiger.

Through photographs, narrative, and graphs, young readers follow T.J. as he grows from a tiny newborn into a five-hundred-pound adult. A heartwarming story about one tiger’s fight for survival that also introduces a basic math skill. (descriptions and cover photos from Indiebound unless otherwise noted.)

Joanne’s comments:  This is part of a series that includes books by the same authors including Panda Math, Chimp Math and Polar Bear Math. The right side pages follow the story of the animals. The left side pages include the math concepts such as charting growth patterns, figuring out how much food the animal needs, the feeding schedule etc.  The math concepts in the series include time, division,  graphing and fractions.

Growing Money by Gail Karlitz
Never before has there been a time when the economy has been so much a part of our daily lives. Today’s young investors want to know the basics of finance, especially how to make money grow. This complete guide explains in kid-friendly terms all about savings accounts, bonds, stocks, and even mutual funds!

Joanne’s comments: Money is motivating for most kids and this book is a great resource with lots of interesting information and facts.  Charts and tables are sprinkled throughout including comparing the cost of everyday items in the past to current prices and demonstrating the effect of interest on savings.


The Big Push: How Popular Culture is Always Selling by Erika Wittekind

Buyer beware! Why do you really buy what you buy? Did you see a commercial for a cool mountain bike? Did your favorite celebrity wear a fantastic pair of shoes on the red carpet? Learn how products are advertised using all types of media. And be aware of popular cultures influence on consumers including you! (description from Amazon.com)

Joanne’s comments: I am  veering a bit off topic here, but I found this book when I was looking at books about money. I thought it was fresh, relevant and was something that many kids could relate to. The charts and graphs were not plentiful but were interesting. The book was targeted toward the tween age group. Being a smart consumer is another aspect of managing one’s money and is definitely a needed life skill, so I believe it meets my criteria for this list.

Basketball: The Math of the Game by Thomas Kristian Adamson

How far is it from the three point line to the basket? What is the difference in diameter between a basketball and the rim? How do you calculate a basketball players field goal percentage? With every bounce of the ball and swish of the net, math makes its way to the court! (description from Amazon.com)

Joanne’s comments: This book is part of a Sports Illustrated for Kids series including other books featuring baseball, hockey and football.  I read Football: The Math of the Game by Shane Frederick and was pleasantly surprised at the level of difficulty of the math–definitely upper middle grade math including pre-algebra, mean, median, mode and range and calculating momentum. It has the familiar glossy magazine format with lots of photos, but there is a solid amount of text, tons of graphs and math problems based on real football situations.  Another example is the  Sports Math Series by Ian Mahaney including  Read more →

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A Moving Experience

By on August 10, 2012   /   Book Lists  

I’m happy to be settling virtually into the Mixed Up Files clubhouse, and settling physically into my family’s new home in rural New England. While boxing and unboxing all my worldly possessions, I’ve given a lot of thought to “moving experiences” in literature. Authors most often use relocation as a plot device, but it can also highlight a book’s theme, demonstrate character traits, or show an aspect of the setting.

Plot Moves:

This is the most straightforward example. Typically there’s a character who encounters a new kid in class, or is a new kid in class, or has to deal with a friend or family member moving away. The move might be permanent, like Pip moving to London with great expectations, or it might be temporary, like Alice’s visit to Wonderland. The important thing is that if Alice decides not to follow the White Rabbit, the entire rest of the story fails to take place. The character’s move is what moves the plot.

Thematic Moves:

Into the woodsC.S. Lewis’s The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe features a group of siblings who are relocated to the countryside during the WWII bombing of London. They then discover a magical gateway and move again, this time into the land of Narnia. That second move is necessary to the plot, but what about the first? Wouldn’t this story have worked just as well if it had been otherwise unchanged but instead had the siblings discover a portal in their own long-familiar London home?

Lewis used the initial move to introduce a theme and ratchet up the tension. These kids, moved from bomb-battered London to a seemingly safe environment, suddenly find themselves in more danger than ever. Out of the frying pan, into the fire. The move has created ironic tension, because the pastoral countryside is not the sanctuary it was made out to be. The themes of danger and safety are integral to the book and make the story more impactful.

Character-Revealing Moves:

The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin presents a group of unlikely characters who compete to solve a mystery and earn the inheritance of a wealthy eccentric. At the start of the book, every one of these future contestants moves into the same apartment complex, which makes it possible to tell the story in a compact space. It’s a practical move, necessary to the plot, but it also spotlights the manipulative nature and social engineering skills of Sam Westing as he entices all of these people to uproot their previous lives even before the contest and its stakes have been introduced. If any of those families had decided to stay put instead, the entire intricate plot would have begun to unravel. By the end of the book, we see exactly how manipulative Westing has been, but it all starts with that big collective move.

A World-Building Move:

Harry Potter's luggage tagConsider the Harry Potter series, in which Harry moves from his uncle and aunt’s house to Hogwarts for each school year and back again for the summer. In his first year, Harry moves twice. First, he moves to a part of the wizarding world that’s a single semi-permeable wall away from the world we live in. From there, Harry and the other first-year students move by train to the pure magic of Hogwarts, which is as far removed from the muggle world as one can get. Most of the characters who make a similar double-move are muggle-born, like Hermione. Others who are native to the wizarding world only have to move once, like Ron and Draco. Every student is in for a magical year of new experiences, but readers have been introduced to a caste system that plays out more and more in later books.

How else have you seen a move used in your favorite books? Let me know in the comments, and thanks to everyone who helped me move my words onto this blog.

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Using Your Resources

By on August 6, 2012   /   Book Lists  

Hi, Mixed-Up Filer’s! May I just say MUF’s as in Moofs? Let’s go with that.  I coined it, so my pronunciation.

Anyway, since this is my first real piece for MUF, other than the interview I conducted with Shana Burg, which if you haven’t read it, why on earth not?? Go on and do it now. I’ll wait………… (whistling)…………………………(glancing at my watch)……………….Ah, there you are! Welcome back! Wasn’t she great? Anyway, as I was saying, since this is my first post, I decided to ask our fearless-leader, the Lord-High, Elissa Cruz, (I’m not sure why, but that’s what she makes us call her) Anyway, I asked her what should I write about?

Her reply was a simple, “Whatever you want.”, which seeing as how that will most likely be the last time she ever tells me that, I thought I’d take advantage of her edict and figured that the best thing to do for my first piece, would be to first introduce myself, and then explain how I came to be a member of this site. And then, I will discuss resources. And what do I mean by resources? I mean, taking advantage of everything at your disposal to help on your writing.

But first let’s start with, how did I become a part of MUF? It’s kind of a funny story actually. You see, like my esteemed-colleagues, I love middle-grade books and I love to write. Also like them, I had to apply to become a member of this site. However, unlike them, I had to apply many times. Many, many times. Did I say many yet? Anyway, after my thirty-seventh application, I received a very lovely e-mail from the aforementioned Elissa Cruz, asking me, that if she agreed to let me become a part of MUF, would I please stop sending the weekly delivery of rhododendrons to her house? Well, from experience, and as Jenny Finkel, the girl who I asked to my prom over seventy-three times, can attest to, I can sense when I’ve worn someone down. So, I readily agreed and here I am!

Now, about this post. I know, I know, get to the point already, Jonathan. Well, give me a second, I was just about to! See, I love to read Middle-Grade, which I guess tends to help if you’re writing for a site dedicated to it. But, I also love to write Middle-Grade, and that’s what I want to discuss. Writing and using your resources. Resources are plentiful for writers, but I’m just going to mention a few. Let’s start with this site (shameless plug). There are many different reasons why people come to sites such as MUF, I mean besides hoping to read one of my posts. Take why I came for example. Even before I became a member of MUF, the reason I always loved coming here, was to find out about what books were out right now in Middle-Grade. Mixed-Up Files gives a really cool and in-depth monthly release list, which invariably led me to buy one or more of those titles listed…every time. Yeah, I’m like a kid and have absolutely no will-power when it comes to books. Or comics. Or DVD’s. or… Okay, yeah. I see it too. I think I just might have a problem. But anyway, I checked off what I was interested in and knew what books to be on the lookout for. And if you read the author’s interviews, you probably noticed that time and again, the thing that’s mentioned most is “How’d you get my number, Jonathan?” But after that, the other thing that was mentioned a lot, was the importance of reading in your genre. It’s good to know what’s out there. Not just to get a glimpse of the marketplace, but because reading helps you improve your own writing.

And speaking of the author interviews, they are another feature to take advantage of. Usually, the authors wind up giving tips about what helps them or about their writing routines. I realize that what works for one, might not work for others, but I think even if one thing helps, it becomes worthwhile. You just might pick up something that you haven’t considered before.

Commenting on the articles is good too. It’s never a bad thing to ask further questions and reach out to others. You might get answers to something you’re interested in or get help about an issue you’re having. And I don’t just mean this site. While, I want you to stay here and spend as much time as possible on Mixed-Up Files, check out others as well. Different sites have different perspectives. It can only help you to see what benefits you (but, of course always come back home to MUF 🙂 )

Network and market yourself. And by networking, I don’t mean trying to make connections in order to see what somebody can do for you and help you out. Some actually do think it’s about that, but know up front, there are NO shortcuts. It’s about the work. It always comes back to that, doesn’t it? Your work. I know it may sound funny coming from someone who hasn’t been published yet, but nobody can say that I’m not putting in the work. That’s what counts in the long run. Nobody cares how many Facebook friends you have, if your story is in terrible condition. It’s how well you are able to revise and do the work and do what needs to be done to get your story in the right condition to be sold. And while the work is what counts, I’m just saying that using your resources, might make the work easier.

With that being said, still network. I know it sounds like a contradiction from the previous paragraph, but it’s not. Connect with other writers. Critique groups, conferences, etc. As for Facebook, use it! Join pages dedicated to writing. Friend other writers. I don’t mean bombarding specific writers with questions, because that’s a quick way to get unfriended. But, I am constantly amazed at how friendly the writing community is. I’ve seen people throw a writing question out as a status and been surprised by how many others rush to respond to it and help out their fellow writers. I’ve friended writers on there and discussed writing with, but haven’t yet met. And weird thing is? You come to feel close to these people and root for each other. But, if you’re a writer, you understand. You get it. Writing is a lonely, solitary profession, but perhaps could be a little less so when you’re sharing your experiences with others going through the same thing.

Well, that’s it for now. Elissa placed me on a strict word count and I’m getting close to it. It’s been a lot of fun and before I go, I’d like to first of all, thank my good friend, Lester Sherman for helping me with the research necessary for this article. But, even more important, I’d like to thank, Elissa Cruz, because in honor of my first post, she has vowed that if I receive over 500 comments from different, individual users, she will post pictures of herself wrapped like a mummy. Yes, a mummy. So, what are you waiting for? Comment away!

Jonathan Rosen is a high school English teacher, living in South Florida. He writes middle-grade geared toward boys, because he finds they share the same sensibilities and sense of humor. Jonathan has lived all over the world and is hoping to eventually find a place that will let him stay.

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