Posts Tagged cross-curricular

New STEM Book Release – Interview with Author Karla Valenti and a giveaway

I’m so excited to welcome author Karla Valenti to the Mixed Up Files blog!

 

 

 

 

Karla has written the first book in a new series called My  Super Science Heroes published by Sourcebooks.

The first book, Marie Curie and the Power of Persistence, uses a novel storytelling approach to bring this historical figure to life for readers, both young and old. Written and illustrated as a dynamic superhero story, this book introduces children to Marie Curie as an important scientist whose greatest achievement was not the discovery of radium and polonium, nor having earned two Nobel Prizes, but rather for her extraordinary power – the power of persistence.

Booklist says, “A fun, engaging take for kids who may not realize they’ve got the power to be science lovers.”

Kirkus — “This is a fact-filled, admiring examination!”

 

This looks so FUN, Karla, how did you come up with idea to give scientists “superpowers”?

I responded to a call for submissions put out by the Marie Curie Alumni Association (a global nonprofit association of researches and scientists). MCAA wanted to partner with an author to create a book about Marie Curie. The idea was that the book would be a source of funding for the science association’s many research initiatives. I was very excited about the proposal and the work MCAA does, and I wanted to find a way to partner with them on this initiative. So I began by doing extensive research about Marie Curie. The more I read about her life, a common theme began to stand out: what made this woman so remarkable was not just what she accomplished, but more precisely how she achieved what she did.

Marie faced a tremendous amount of challenges throughout her life (starting from a very young age). While most of her biographies ultimately focus on her great discoveries, it seemed to me that the more interesting story was her remarkable persistence in battling these many difficulties. Her persistence almost seemed to be a ‘super power’ without which she wouldn’t have accomplished anything! I immediately knew this would be my focus – not what she did, but who she was and how that trait enabled her to succeed. This also struck me as an exciting way to bridge a connection between a famous scientist and a young reader embarking on the study of STEM for the first time. In other words – the link was a key trait that both Marie and the readers have in common: persistence.

By framing this narrative as one of a super hero, I was able to to leverage a number of familiar storytelling tropes and structures that children know and enjoy. It was also a compelling way to show (vs tell) the antagonistic forces she faced in her life and how she ultimately defeated them. For example, her nemesis: Mr. Opposition, starts off quite large and intimidating (he has yellow eyes and fangs). As the story progresses and Marie persists, Mr. Opposition shrinks and loses his frightening characteristics. Children do not need to be told that she vanquished him, for they can see the transformation happening directly. All in all, it seemed fitting that such a strong and accomplished woman should be deemed a super hero.

Thus was born, the My Super Science Heroes series.

I proposed the story to MCAA and my proposal was selected as the winner. I began working with the science association and the incredible illustrator – Annalisa Beghelli – to put together the book. Initially, we were going to crowdsource the book but before the campaign was even over, Sourcebooks had found out about the series and wanted to partner with us to bring it to life. On April 7th, 2020 the book was born and we couldn’t be more delighted about this tremendous collaboration.

 

 Since you are using a fictionalized story, how much of your book is based in fact?

Everything about Marie’s life in the book is true, including the opposition she faced in reaching her goals. The only part that is fictionalized is how we represent that opposition.

 

How did you get involved in writing about science? Do you have a background in it? Or have you just been interested in science for a long time?

Though I am keenly interested in many scientific areas of study, I have always felt very intimidated by STEM and never though of myself as scientifically-capable. Indeed, this was one of the reasons I wanted to write a book that made it easy for young readers to relate to scientists. I wanted them to see that one didn’t need to be a genius or Nobel-prize worthy in order to love science. Rather, traits like persistence and curiosity are the hallmarks of scientists around the world.

 

What would you love kids to take away from this series?

Thank you for asking this question. There are a few things I would love for children to take away form this series:

(1) What defines us isn’t what we ultimately achieve, but who we are in the pursuit of our dreams. Marie is a super hero not because she discovered Radium and Polonium, but because she was persistent.

(2) Stories can be told in many ways. We do not need to be constrained to one particular “narrative.” For instance, just because Marie was a scientist doesn’t mean her life story must be told as a non-fiction biography. It can also be told as a super hero tale! In the same way, we get to decide what kind of story we want our life to be.

(3) We all battle antagonists throughout our life. It helps to know that even our heroes have struggled with the same challenges we face and, more importantly, that we share the same ability to overcome those challenges.

 

 Is there anything else you would like to share?

The Marie Curie Alumni Association has been instrumental in bringing this book to life. A portion of all proceeds go to help support the many research initiatives run by the MCAA. Also, they have created a wonderful 40-page Experiment Guide which can be found on my site, here, as well as a page dedicated to the My Super Science Heroes series.

Check out Karla’s website here

One last thing – stay tuned for the next book in the series: Alan Turing and the Power of Curiosity where Alan Turing faces off against his nemesis: Miss Enigma (Jan. 2021).

That sounds amazing, Karla. What a STEM-tastic series! Thanks for being on the blog. 

And for you lucky readers, Karla has offered to giveaway one signed copy of her new book. To enter, just leave a comment below or Tweet about this post and Tag @mixedUpFiles  and Karla (@KV_Writes) on Twitter. The more times you tweet, the more chances you have to win! 

 

STEM Tuesday — Earth Day 50th Anniversary Celebration– Book List

We are avid Earth Day proponents. If you’ve ever heard us speak, you’ve probably heard us say that every day is Earth Day. This month we feature a number of new environmental titles for children, many with activities that young readers can do while sheltering in place during the coronavirus pandemic. According to a March 18, 2020 article  in Scientific American, “a number of researchers today think that it is actually humanity’s destruction of biodiversity that creates the conditions for new viruses and diseases like COVID-19, the viral disease that emerged in China in December 2019, to arise—with profound health and economic impacts in rich and poor countries alike. In fact, a new discipline, planetary health, is emerging that focuses on the increasingly visible connections among the well-being of humans, other living things and entire ecosystems.”

Now, more than ever, it’s time to show our children how to become better stewards of our planet and appreciate the beauty around us. 

Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.org One Earth: People of Color Protecting Our Planet by Anuradha Rao With stars from Kirkus and Publishers Weekly, this book profiles twenty environmental activists of color from around the world. Their individual stories show how they went from kids who cared about the environment to leaders in their communities.

 

 

Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.org Wildlife Ranger Action Guide: Track, Spot & Provide Healthy Habitat for Creatures Close to Home by Mary Kay Carson Dive into citizen science with a new book from a respected STEM author. This book is all about showing young readers how to make the world a better place for honey bees, monarch butterflies, frogs, lizards, and more. We love books that encourage children to take an active role in protecting wildlife.

 

Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.org Garbage: Follow the Path of Your Trash with Environmental Science Activities for Kids by Donna Latham; illustrated by Tom Casteel When we say, “Throw it away,” where is away? This book helps children track what happens to their garbage. Where does it go? Does it break down? How? Can we decrease the amount we’re throwing away? The authors include a number of hands-on STEM activities to get kids doing…and thinking!

 

  Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.org The Wondrous Workings of Planet Earth: Understanding Our World and Its Ecosystems by Rachel Ignotofsky In this illustrated tour of Earth’s ecosystems, Ignotofsky makes conservation science accessible and entertaining using art, maps, and infographics. Young readers will discover how our planet works and how to become better stewards of its life-giving processes.

 

 

  Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.org The Organic Artist for Kids: A DIY Guide to Making Your Own Eco-Friendly Art Supplies from Nature by Nick Neddo Did you know the natural world can provide art supplies? This title connects kids to their wilderness roots and reminds them that art used to be made with all-natural materials. Through a number of different art projects, such as creating your own paintbrushes and paint, Neddo shows young readers how to practice awareness and perception, two skills necessary to the creative process. A great antidote to Nature Deficit Disorder!

 

Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.org Eyes Wide Open: Going Behind the Environmental Headlines by Paul Fleischman This Green Earth Book Award title offers a wake-up call for middle-grade and young adult readers as they try to make sense of the flood of environmental news. Readers discover there is more at work than merely wanting to help — money, politics, history, and psychology are all connected.

 

 

  Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.org Generation Green: The Ultimate Teen Guide to Living An Eco-Friendly Life by Linda Sivertsen Sure, we want to be eco-friendly, but how do we accomplish that? Siversten offers dozens of tips on how to shop, dress, eat, and travel with a lighter carbon footprint.

 

 

Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.org Human Footprint: Everything you will Eat, Use, Wear, Buy, and Throw Out in Your Lifetime by Ellen Kirk A powerful visual tool from Ellen Kirk and NatGeo that helps kids visualize the extent of their consumption. Did you know we each consume 13,056 pints of milk; take 28,433 showers; and eat 12,888 oranges, 14,518 candy bars and buy $52k,972 of clothes in our lifetime?

 

 

Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.org Recycle This Book: 100 Top Children’s Book Authors Tell You How to Go Green edited by Dan Gutman Dan Gutman assembles essays from a number of noted children’s authors to show young readers what’s happening to our planet and how they can take action to save our world.

 

 

Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.org Friends of The Earth: A History of American Environmentalism with 21 Activities by Pat McCarthy A collection of inspiring stories about the women and men who had the foresight to preserve Yosemite, Mt. Ranier, the Grand Canyon, and the Florida Everglades. Through these stories, young readers form a picture of American environmentalism and conservation. McCarthy helps kids act with 21 eco-activities.

Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.org Rachel Carson and Ecology for Kids: Her Life and Ideas with 21 Activities and Experiments by Rowena Rae Rachel Carson’s life and work were rooted in the study of nature. She’s best remembered for her book, Silent Spring, which exposed the harmful effects of chemical pesticides in the US. In addition to Rachel Carson’s biography, this title includes a timeline, resources, sidebars, and 21 hands-on activities to inspire our next generation of environmental thinkers.

 

Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.org World Without Fish by Mark Kurlansky and Frank Stockton An urgent look at overfishing in our world ocean. A world without fish affects ocean ecosystems, our economy, biology, politics, history, culture, food, and nutrition. Stockton’s graphic images offer a unique representation to the frightening possibility of a world without fish.

 

 

Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.org No One is Too Small to Make a Difference by Greta Thunberg  Greta Thunberg is the Swedish teen that has rocked the climate change argument. She began with once-a-week protests, which sparked a global movement among millions of tweens and teens. This title features a collection of her inspiring speeches at climate summits around the world. Greta has been nominated for  a Nobel Peace Prize and was Time’s 2019 Person of the Year.  

 

Looking for more Earth Day titles? Check out the annual Green Earth Book Award lists. And don’t forget the following classics that might already be part of your collection:

  • The Great Kapok Tree: A Tale of the Amazon Rainforest by Lynne Cherry
  • The Lorax by Dr. Seuss
  • Hoot by Carl Hiaasen

Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.org Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.org Support Independent Bookstores - Visit IndieBound.org


STEM Tuesday book lists prepared by

Nancy Castaldo has written books about our planet for over 20 years including, THE STORY OF SEEDS, which earned the Green Earth Book Award, Junior Library Guild Selection, and other honors. Nancy’s research has taken her all over the world from the Galapagos to Russia.  She strives to inform, inspire, and empower her readers. Nancy also serves as the Regional Advisor of the Eastern NY SCBWI region. Her 2018 multi-starred title is BACK FROM THE BRINK: Saving Animals from Extinction. Visit her at www.nancycastaldo.com. 

Patricia Newman writes middle-grade nonfiction that empowers young readers to act on behalf of the environment and their communities. The Sibert Honor author of Sea Otter Heroes, Newman has also received an NSTA Outstanding Science Trade Book Award for Eavesdropping on Elephants, a Green Earth Book Award for Plastic, Ahoy!, and a Eureka! Gold Medal from the California Reading Association for Zoo Scientists to the Rescue. Her books have received starred reviews, been honored as Junior Library Guild Selections, and included on Bank Street College’s Best Books lists. During author visits, she demonstrates how young readers can use writing to be the voice of change. Visit her at www.patriciamnewman.com. Stay tuned for her upcoming Planet Ocean – fall 2020.

 

STEM Tuesday– Astronauts and Space Travel — Interview with Author Tanya Lee Stone

STEM Tuesday–Astronauts and Space Travel– Interview with Author Tanya Lee Stone

 

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 Tanya Lee Stone, author of Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared To Dream It’s a fascinating look at the early days of astronaut training where women were barred from participating despite, in some cases, possessing superior skill levels. The New York Times Book Review said, “Stone’s carefully researched book makes the point that in the 1950s and ’60s there were ’13 women who… had the Right Stuff’ – but were the wrong sex at the wrong time.

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Christine Taylor-Butler: Tanya, you are one of the most accomplished authors in the field with more than 100 books under your belt. One of your superpowers seems to be telling compelling stories of lesser known historical figures whose contributions have left an indelible mark on society. For example, you wrote about Ilan Ramon, the first and only Israeli astronaut to date. What lead you to his story?

Tanya Lee Stone: Gosh, that book was written in the beginning of my career, before I was choosing my own topics. His story was so compelling that I dove right in.

CTB: In researching Ilan Ramon you came across private research that was conducted decades prior (1961) to determine if women were qualified to go into space. That snippet of information lead to writing Almost Astronauts – which earned you the American Library Association’s  Sibert Award. Do you find that your book research leads you to other serendipitous topics for future books?

Tanya: Yes. It was in doing the research for the Ilan Ramon book that I discovered a snippet of information about Jerrie Cobb–and that led me to write Almost Astronauts. That happens to me a lot. I’ll get lost in the library, immersed in research, and uncover all kinds of fascinating things that plant seeds in my brain for future books. I think I was writing about Elizabeth Blackwell (Who Says Women Can’t Be Doctors?!) when I fell in love with Ada Lovelace and later wrote Who Says Women Can’t Be Computer Programmers?!

CTB: You have a journalistic tenacity when it comes to tracking down primary sources, sometimes calling the person or their families to obtain photos, letters and journals. You speak of taking the time to gain their trust. How long does it take you, on average, to do the research for your books?

Tanya: Every book is really unique. It depends on how difficult it can be for me to find everything I need. The more obscure the story, the harder the job. Courage Has No Color took me 10 years to research and write because I was determined to track down as many of the men (or their family members) as I could to find primary sources such as letters, journals, and photographs to allow me to tell that story.

CTB: That’s a huge learning lesson for aspiring writers and students who believe primary resources are books written by other people about a particular subject.

Tanya: The time is well worth it; I consider it an honor and a privilege to shine a light on these stories–especially while some of these extraordinary people are still living!

CTB: What surprised you most in researching Almost Astronauts?

Tanya: What surprised me most is what still surprises me–that these women, who paved the way for every woman in the space industry today, are still not household names. I hope this book gets made into a film someday so it will have a much wider audience. Can’t you just see Reese Witherspoon as Jerrie Cobb?

CTB: Randolph Lovelace, the scientist conducting the tests, noted women were lighter and would take up less space on a mission. He calculated the difference in cost at $1,000 per pound compared to men if women were sent to space. That’s significant savings in 1960’s dollars. And yet NASA didn’t find it a compelling reason to open the program to women?

Tanya: Nope. Shocking, right? And Lovelace thought for sure that was going to be the fact that would make him a hero. So disappointing.

CTB: Nineteen women were tested. Thirteen successfully completed the testing, in many cases performing better than their male counterparts. Despite their proven skills, women were shut out of the astronaut program until 1978. You’re careful to explain the era in which these events occurred. Still, did it surprise that both John Glenn and Scott Carpenter both testified in Congress against having women in the program?

Tanya: Yes, it did surprise me–and it angered me. But what surprised me even more was that Jackie Cochran did the same thing to them! So much for the sisterhood, eh?

CTB: What do you want readers to come away with after reading your books?

Tanya: I write books about things that I have a strong emotional connection to, or passion for–whether that connection is positive or negative. The kind of thing that makes me say, “Wow, I can’t wait to share that with readers–that’s so cool, or that’s so interesting, or that’s so unjust!” So what I hope is that readers are as intrigued by the stories as I am, because they are the reason I’m sharing the story in the first place.

CTB. What’s next on the horizon for Tanya Lee Stone? Any future projects you want our readers to watch for?
Tanya: Absolutely! My next partnership with the brilliant illustrator Marjorie Priceman will be Remembering Rosalind: Rosalind Franklin and the Structure of DNA. This is our third book together–I’m ecstatic!

CTB: Note to readers. This book is well worth checking out. There’s a shocking revelation at the culmination of the women’s fight to be recognized.  I promised not to reveal it here but it helps explain what made this book so popular with awards committees. The author’s ability to tell the story of breaking barriers in the women’s own words makes for a compelling narrative, as does the discussion of the time period in which the events takes place. Enjoy.

Win a FREE copy of Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream.

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!

 

Tanya Lee StoneTanya Lee Stone is an Assistant Professor at Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont, teaching in the Professional Writing Program.  She started her career as an editor in New York. After moving to Vermont in the late 90s, she started writing. She is best known for telling true stories of unsung heroines, with themes of empowering girls and women threaded throughout her work, such as Girl RisingAlmost Astronauts, Who Says Women Can’t Be Doctors?! and Who Says Women Can’t Be Computer Programmers?!  Her articles, essays, and reviews have appeared in The Horn BookThe New York TimesSchool Library Journal, and Publishers Weekly.

Awards and honors include an NAACP Image Award, the Robert F. Sibert Medal, Golden Kite Award, Boston Globe-Horn Book, Bank Street’s Flora Stieglitz Straus Award, YALSA’s Excellence in Nonfiction, NCTE Orbis Pictus Awards, NPR Best Books, and many state awards.  To learn more about Tanya and her books, please visit www.tanyastone.com. You can follow her on Twitter @TanyaLeeStone
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Christine Taylor-ButlerYour host is Christine Taylor-Butler, MIT nerd and author of Bathroom Science, Sacred Mountain: Everest, Genetics, and many other nonfiction books for kids. She is also the author of the middle grade sci-fi series The Lost Tribes. Follow @ChristineTB on Twitter and/or @ChristineTaylorButler on Instagram