Noisy Animals!

 I’ve been enjoying Darrin Lunde’s books for a while – and this summer he had two new books hit the shelves. What I really appreciate is that Darrin writes from his experience of being a biologist – he’s the collection manager in the Division of Mammals at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC.

Themes: nonfiction, animals, animal behavior

Who's Making All That NOISE?! 

by Darrin Lunde; illus. by Erica J. Chen 

32 pages; ages 3-7

Charlesbridge, 2025

Rap tap tap! Rap tap tap tap!

Who’s making all that noise?!

Owl and squirrel and a bunch of other animals want to know because it is sure a LOUD hammering on a tree! Before we turn the page, though, can you guess who it might be?

If you said woodpecker, you would be right! Woodpeckers hammer on trees to find ants and other insects. They hammer on trees to communicate with other woodpeckers. And when they hammer on the side of my house, I’m pretty sure they’re doing it just to bug me!

From creaky clicks in the sea to grunts, roars, and quacks, readers meet seven animals who make their own kinds of noises.

What I like about this book: I like the format of paired spreads. The first presents the sound and asks “Who’s making all that noise?” There’s a brief description of the sound: it’s a loud blast of air, or it sounds like rumbling thunder. This makes for a fun read-aloud because you can pause … and wait … and let kids guess … before turning the page to reveal the Noisy Animal! Also, it’s fun to read the sounds. I also like that there’s back matter: a spread filled with facts about the noises animals make.

Some of Darrin’s books are being published in board book format – here’s one

Whose Egg Is That? (Whose Is THAT?) Board book 

by Darrin Lunde; illus. by Kelsey Oseid 

22 pages; ages 0-3

Charlesbridge, 2025

As with the book above, Whose Egg Is That? Is a nonfiction guessing game exploring the connections between an animal, its eggs, and its habitat. With fewer pages come fewer animals, in this case: emperor penguin, sea turtle, ostrich, robin, and dinosaur. The final spread shares fun facts about the featured critters – and their eggs.

Beyond the Books:

Listen to animals! Where? I sit on my porch in the morning and listen to birds. I go to the zoo where I can hear penguins and lions. And when the weather allows, I leave my windows open at night so I can hear frogs calling, owls hooting, and foxes screaming.

We’ll join Perfect Picture Book Friday once they resume. It’s a wonderful gathering where bloggers share great picture books at Susanna Leonard Hill's website. Review copies provided by the publishers.

A Sweet Book about a ... Skunk?

If You Wake a Skunk 

by Carol Doeringer; illus. by Florence Weiser

32 pages; ages 5-8

Sleeping Bear Press, 2023   

theme: animals, nature, communication

Shhh. Tiptoe by. Don’t make a peep.

If you can sneak by quietly, you won’t wake the skunk (who’s sleeping in a cozy spot right behind that tree stump). What? You want to take a peek? You sneezed? 

Using humor and rhyme, Carol Doeringer introduces readers to the behavior of a spotted skunk. They stomp and hiss and do handstands! Skunks use so many ways to communicate their irritation at being woken from a nap, and their intent to share their special perfume. Wise readers will take these warnings to heart.

What I like about this book: The rhyming text is fun, and Carol has tucked lots of alliteration in there as well: “Silly you, still standing there.” “steady stare.” “twitchy tail” – okay, that last is a serious sign we should skedaddle. The book is also addressed to the reader, so it feels as though someone is talking to you, offering advice, and waving their arms in warning: Don’t Wake the Skunk! And there’s back matter about skunks and their defense plus fun facts.

I reached out to Carol the other day and asked: how did If you Wake a Skunk come about?

photo by Betsy Michele

Carol: In intended to write about the striped skunk, which was my – and probably many of our – default image of a skunk. At first, it was just a few stanzas to complete an assignment in Renee LaTulippe's Lyrical Language Lab. I decided to write a mini cautionary tale about the signals skunks give before spraying, using the second person point of view. I giggled as I wrote, recalling how many times I had read The Monster at the End of this Book when my kids were little.  

Me: I remember reading that book, too. But waking up a skunk seems scarier than Grover hiding on the last page! And your book is nonfiction. That took a bit of research, right?

Carol: When I decided to turn my few stanzas into a picture book, my research began in earnest. Reports of the skunk's warning signs sequence varied, so I read widely. That's when I stumbled upon a totally new-to-me skunk, the spotted skunk. Once I discovered this relatively little-known creature, I realized it just had to be the star of the book. First, it delivers much of its warning routine while in an adorable, acrobatic handstand. Second, the Eastern Spotted Skunk is a species considered vulnerable, and in some states is listed as endangered. The handstand routine meant there would be wonderful visuals for the illustrator to play with, and as a nature nerd, I became excited at the thought of introducing kids to the idea that there's more than one kind of skunk.  I didn't end up highlighting the spotted skunk's conservation status in the story or back matter, but I'm fully intending to develop school presentations that bring that into the discussion. 

Me: Do you have any skunk events scheduled?

Carol: In June I'm scheduled to spend a full day with a skunk rescue organization, where I'll film rescue and rehab work with striped skunks, mostly very young ones. I'm told there may be as many as 50 skunks on hand – what a visual that might end up being!  I'll be aiming for footage and interview clips with the rescue staff, working toward getting kids to think about why skunks – with their undeserved bad rap – deserve a place on the planet and to be helped when in trouble. I'll also make a video for the rescue organization, something they can use for fundraising or whatever they like.

Me: I can’t wait to see where that leads. Meanwhile, let’s explore some activities…

Beyond the Books:

Check out Carol’s book trailer over at her blog, Tales from a West Michigan Wood.  

How are you at skunk communication? Can you hiss, stare, and stomp your feet? What about doing a handstand? 

Learn more about eastern spotted skunks. Here’s one resource from the Missouri Department of Conservation

Carol Doeringer is a member of #STEAMTeam2023. You can find out more about her at her website at www.caroldoeringer.com   

Today we’re joining Perfect Picture Book Friday. It’s a wonderful gathering where bloggers share great picture books at Susanna Leonard Hill's website. Review copy provided by the publisher.

Info-Graph Your Thanksgiving Meal!

If you want to keep track of how the seasons change, your favorite lunches, or keep track of all the food you eat at Thanksgiving (and even the time it takes to make it), all you need is a pencil and a scrap of paper. 

But if you want to impress your neighbor with the numbers, you might need a bit more – a way to share your information so people can understand it in a glance. And that way is through infographics ~ a combination of math, art, and communication. To explain your Thanksgiving meal you might want to use a time line to show how long it took to prepare the food. And you’ll definitely need a pie graph to compare the kinds of pies you ate!

Here are two books that show and tell how to make infographics. They might even inspire kids to keep track of the interesting (and even mundane) things in their lives.

Life Log: Track Your Life with Infographic Activities Diary 

by Lea Redmond; illus. by Andrea Tsurumi

96 pages; ages 8-12

Chronicle Books, 2022 

Life Log is a guided workbook for infographic exploration. It opens with an introduction to the basics: what infographics is, how a key works, and the lowdown on facts and data. There are pie charts, rainbow charts, timelines, and lots of great questions. All the book asks is for curious kids to bring a bunch of colored pencils and a willingness to visualize information in a new way. 

My favorites: tracking a tree, how long a pencil lasts, and a month of insect encounters. This book is a great way to jump into creating graphs and charts.

Or you could keep track of how regularly you "ate the rainbow" of vegetables and fruits suggested in daily servings.

Show and Tell! Great Graphs and Smart Charts: An Introduction to Infographics 

by Stuart J. Murphy; illus. by Teresa Bellón    

48 pages; ages 7-10

‎Charlesbridge, 2022  

Bar graphs, line graphs, pictographs, and pie charts can show a lot of information in a single glance. But which do you use, and when? Let’s say you want to find out more about lunchroom food. If you want to know what meals kids like the most, you could conduct a survey and display the results in a bar graph. If you wanted to compare the number of entrees served during a lunch period, you might draw a pie graph. (yes, you can create pie alamode graphs if you really want to) This book serves well as an introduction to charts and graphs, and ends with a list of things kids can use infographic techniques to explore.

Thanks for dropping by today. On Monday we'll be hanging out at Marvelous Middle Grade Monday with other  bloggers. It's over at Greg Pattridge's blog, Always in the Middle, so hop over to see what other people are reading. Review copies provided by the publishers.

So You Want to be a Cyberspy?

Cyberspies: Inside the World of Hacking, Online Privacy, and Cyberterrorism 
by Michael Miller 
120 pages; ages 11-18
Twenty-First Century Books/Lerner, 2021

In this book, Michael Miller provides a primer on cyberspying. He shows how digital threats are used against individuals, businesses, and entire governments. Each chapter focuses on a specific aspect of cyber threats, and includes steps you can take to protect yourself.

The first chapter takes readers into the world of cyberintelligence – and yes, there are jobs for those who are interested.  He gives a glimpse into cyber command at NSA. From there, he shows how people can use computers to legally search government records, news archives, and more. He contrasts that with a chapter describing how people use computers to obtain private – and in some cases secret – information. They often employ phishing emails to obtain access to business and government secrets.

A pair of chapters take a close look at cyberspying and politics. Miller shows how individuals and government entities have used digital technologies to hack elections. He pays particular attention to the 2016 election in the United States, the fake twitter accounts and propaganda spread through social media. And he answers the question: Which is more hackable – voting machines or mail-in ballots? He also defines the difference between real “fake news” (propaganda and outright lies) versus the tendency for some people to label real news as “fake” when they don’t like it. And he discusses why some people are more prone to fall for fake news/propaganda than others. Miller knows his stuff, because a couple years ago he published an entire book about Fake News, reviewed here.

Miller discusses cyberattacks against businesses and governments. Hospitals have lost access to their computers, tying up admissions and patient care for hours. Towns, school districts, and library systems have been held hostage to ransomware attacks. The perpetrators are usually criminals extorting victims for money.

Cyberterrorism is a broader attack on a country or region’s systems and infrastructure. These attacks, backed by governments, tend to go after power grids, telecommunication systems, financial institutions, and other systems. The goal is to destabilize the society and create chaos. Miller documents cases of cyberwarfare.

The need for cybersecurity has skyrocketed leading Miller to close with a chapter on career advice for potential cyberspies.

Thanks for dropping by today. On Monday we'll be hanging out at Marvelous Middle Grade Monday with other  bloggers. It's over at Greg Pattridge's blog, Always in the Middle, so hop over to see what other people are reading. Review copy provided by the publisher.

 

Starting the Year with Animals

Welcome back to a new year of STEAM books and activities, and Wednesday nature breaks. This will be a busy year for me because I am working on another book full of science and fun for kids. And, next month my debut picture book is released. It features flies (because who doesn’t love bugs?) – and the predators that snack on them.

I hope you had the chance to join Susan Stockdale at the Natural History museum last Saturday. She talked about animals with stripes. Today I’m sharing books that introduce more animals and their adaptations.

themes: animals, homes, communication

Animal Homes 
by Mary Holland (Author)
32 pages; ages 5-9
Arbordale Publishing, 2020

Animals use their homes for shelter and for raising their young.

Some animal homes are easy to see, and others are hidden for protection. Some animals build their own homes, while others move into abandoned burrows or take advantage of natural caves and crevices. Some homes are one-room affairs; others branch into separate rooms. Some animals use natural materials for building, and some make their own materials – ever seen a bubble-house?

What I like about this book: Each spread features an animal and information about its home. Featured animals include squirrels, woodpeckers, beavers, wasps, caterpillars, spittlebugs, bears, woodchucks, and foxes. I may have missed a couple! Mary Holland’s photos are crisp and engaging. And the back matter includes extra facts and a matching game.

What's This Tail Saying? 
by Carolyn Combs; illus. by Cathy Morrison 
32 pages; ages 4-8
Dawn Publications, 2020

Animal tails are talking. Can you guess what they are saying?

From skinks to skunks, rattlesnakes to raccoons, Carolyn Coombs shows how a dozen animals use their tails to communicate. Sometimes it’s a warning, sometimes it’s an invitation to play.

What I like about this book: On one page there’s a clue: an illustration of a tail with descriptive words. Switch Twitch ~ what’s that tail saying? Take a guess, then turn the page to find out if you’re right. Back matter includes more information for each animal featured and a list of STEAM activities.

Beyond the Books:

Build an animal home! If you’re outside, use natural features and/or natural materials to construct a home for an animal – or for yourself. How does your home hold up to the elements?
If you’re stuck inside on a cold or rainy day, build a home out of things you find around the house. What sort of purpose does your home serve? (my blanket fort is a great place to read!)

Design an animal tail for yourself. What would it look like? How would it work? Would it use noise or color or movement to send messages? And what sort of messages could you send using your tail? 

Today we're joining Perfect Picture Book Friday, an event where bloggers share great picture books at Susanna Leonard Hill's website. Review copies provided by the publishers.

Can an Aardvark Bark?

Can an Aardvark Bark?
by Melissa Stewart; illustrated by Steve Jenkins
32 pages; ages 2-8
Beach Lane Books, 2017

themes: animals, nonfiction, sounds 

Can an aarvark bark?
No, but it can grunt.
Lots of other animals grunt too.

This is such a fun book, filled with barks, squeals, grunts, roars, and whines. Also bellows, growls, and laughs. Animals, it turns out, make all kinds of sounds. For all kinds of reasons - and Melissa gives us an inside look at what those sounds mean.

What I like LOVE about this book: The sounds! If you're reading it out loud, expect your listeners to bellow, roar, grunt, and bark along with the animals. Every page if filled with SOUND - and plenty of examples of animals that make those sounds. Did you know that frogs bark and rats chortle? OK, I've heard frogs bark and quack, but laughing? I haven't heard wild things laugh, chortle, or giggle with glee. But they do and Melissa gives us the facts.

The illustrations! Steve Jenkins does such spectacular work, and it's always fun to open up a new book filled with his cut-and-torn-paper artwork.

The structure! This is subtle and it took me a couple pages to realize what was going on - but then I discovered a pattern to the questions and the answers.I don't want to spoil the fun of discovering it yourself.

The best thing? Readers learn that animals use a diverse array of sounds to communicate their thoughts and feelings. Just like people do. This is the perfect book to share with a kid who dreams of becoming a translator for their dog, cat, snake, goldfish, or pet rock. OK, maybe not the rock...

Beyond the Book:
Learn to speak a foreign language: animal. Listen to the sounds an animal makes, and imitate them. If you don't have an animal living in your home, find a place where you can listen to animals: a pet shop, zoo, or even sitting on a park bench listening to - and watching - squirrels and birds. Write down the different sounds your animal makes.

What does your pet say? Hang out with an animal long enough, and you begin to understand their language. Sometimes it's sound; sometimes it's posture; sometimes it's a combination. Can you write a dictionary to explain what your animals mean when they bark, growl, purr, or whine?

Go on a listening walk. Early mornings or evenings are good times to listen to animals out and about. What do you hear? Frogs? Geese and ducks talking to each other as they migrate? Insects?

Learn to speak bird. Cornell Lab of Ornithology has a site dedicated to songs and calls. 

On Monday, head over to the GROG Blog for an interview with Melissa. She'll talk about her journey from idea to book (and how long it took!) and a few other things.

Today we're joining the STEM Friday roundup. Drop by STEM Friday blog for more science books and resources. We're also joining others over at Perfect Picture Book Friday, an event in which bloggers share great picture books at Susanna Leonard Hill's site. She keeps an ever-growing list of Perfect Picture Books.  Review copy from the publishers.

Bugs! Bugs! Bugs!

Spring is here - and in some places there are lots of bugs flitting and flying and crawling about. Here are two books to celebrate the insects - and other arthropods - in your neighborhood.

Insects, the most fun bug book ever
by Sneed B. Collard III
48 pages; ages 9-12
Charlesbridge, 2017

Earth is a great place to live. But, says Collard, if you look at all the animals on our planet, it becomes clear that insects dominate the life on Earth. Scientists have catalogues nearly 1 million species of insects, and they haven't come close to finding all of them.

Collard gives us the basic body plan for bugs, and then goes into details about how well they can see (some see ultraviolet light), how fast they can fly (35 mph for dragonflies), how tough they are (ironclad for some beetles). He points out the hairiest and the hungriest, tells us the secrets of insect communication, and gives us an inside view of "growing up insect",

As promised, this is a fun bug book. We learn about insects' favorite foods - some will dine on tacos from a dumpster while others prefer sweet nectar - and there's an entire section devoted to the "party animals". Some bugs are very social. Collard introduces us to "good" bugs, those that we use for dyes, food, medicine, and pollination services. He introduces us to "bad bugs" that chew up crops and damage homes. The key thing: insects are essential and play a vital role on our planet. So if we want to do right by our six-legged buddies, we should be planting more gardens - and throwing out the pesticides.

Creepy Crawlies: tiny creatures, amazing powers
by Richard and Louise Spilsbury
128 pages; ages 7-12
Scribo, 2017

Divided into five chapters, this book gives kids a close-up look at ants, bees, dragonflies, and spiders. One chapter is filled with "frightening fun" - scary statistics and a quiz.

In each chapter you'll learn the basic body parts for that bug, its "superpowers", and get introduced to some diversity in the group. For example, in the chapter about bees you learn about stingers, compound eyes, and living with a queen. Then you get to meet killer bees and leafcutter bees.

The cool thing about dragonflies is how their aquatic larvae use jet propulsion to get around. And some spiders can run - 70 times their body length in a second! That's like running 10 times faster than Usain Bolt.

We're joining the STEM Friday roundup. Drop by STEM Friday blog for more science books and resources. Review copies provided by publishers.

Beastly Brains

Beastly Brains
by Nancy Castaldo
160 pages; ages 12 & up
HMH, 2017

Do animals think? Solve problems? Do math? Understand the concept of fairness?

You bet, says Nancy Castaldo, and she offers up a wealth of examples shoeing how animals think, talk, and feel. In one chapter she describes and experiment in which scientists gave monkeys tokens that they could use to buy treats. The monkeys quickly learned to take advantage of "sales" (when they could get more than the usual item for the same cost). They also stole tokens from others.

Other scientists wanted to know whether dogs feel jealousy. So they tested pairs of dogs. One was asked to "shake" without any reward. Then another dog joined them and when it "shook" paws it was given a treat. Do you think the first dog kept giving her paw when asked to "shake"? No! She went on strike! Unfair!

Castaldo has filled this volume with stories that will amuse you, make you think, and maybe even inspire you to test your own pet's intelligence. There is a wonderful section at the back ("Inquiring Minds Want to Know") that outlines how you can do your own animal intelligence studies. There are also tons of other resources: places where your pets can get involved in studies, organizations that advocate for animals, videos and books, plus a glossary and source notes.

Today we're joining the STEM Friday roundup. Drop by STEM Friday blog for more science books and resources. Review copy provided by publisher.

Eyes Wide Open~ Going Behind the Environmental Headlines

Eyes Wide Open: Going Behind the Environmental Headlines
by Paul Fleischman
208 pages; ages 14 +
Candlewick, 2014

Growing up with the first Earth Day, the birth of the EPA, and an emerging corps of environmental journalists it was no surprise that I ended up writing about science and environmental issues.

But now, concurrent with a growing awareness of climate change and increased protests against drilling, there's an ever-decreasing number of environmental journalists on staff at news organizations - even as Congress whacks away at EPA (telling the agency it can't use scientific data to base its findings on!)

This book could not come at a more critical time!And Fleischman does a great job of wrangling a huge amount of information into six readable chapters (plus scads of material at the back). Science is only part of the environmental story, he warns us. Turns out money is just as important. Where science tells us what nature is doing, money explains what people are doing. And "power and politics are bound up with money".

Fleischman discusses Vested Interests, power, and politics.He talks about complexity and uncertainty, and how lobbyists can use those to sow doubt and prod people into denial about environmental problems. He shows how groups pouring money into pro-polluting campaigns can hide their identity and how language is used to instill fear. Take, for example, the labeling of protestors as "eco-terrorists". With the use of one word, people peacefully protesting pollution are suddenly stripped of their rights to protest and treated as criminals.

One issue Fleischman raises is conflict caused by environmental stress. Climate change can bring too much rain and flooding to one place, too little rain to another. Drought-induced food shortages can create political conflicts as people leave their farms and try to move elsewhere. As arctic ice melts, the Arctic Sea could become a battleground between nations vying for oil and gas or other minerals now accessible.

Understanding the problems is important - but learning how to judge the media and weigh the information you uncover is vital. Fleischman includes a great guide on how to judge websites, print media, books - and even the journalists publishing the news. He gives readers the same tips editors give their cub reporters: Follow the money; beware of "mental" vested interests; and check for fallacies. The camera can lie, he says.

Back matter includes source notes, bibliography, resources, glossary, and a handy index.

 As a press-card-carrying environmental journalist, I give this book my MUST READ recommendation. Today is STEM Friday - head over to the STEM Friday blog to see what other bloggers are reviewing. Review copy provided by publisher.

A Boy and a Jaguar

A Boy and a Jaguar
By Alan Rabinowitz; illus. by Catia Chien
32 pages; ages 4-8
HMH Books for young readers, 2014

This is a true story about a boy, his connection to animals, and how he became the "Indiana Jones of wildlife conservation".

themes: nonfiction, autobiography, animals

"I'm standing in the great cat house at the Bronx Zoo. Why is this jaguar kept in a bare room? I wonder. I lean toward my favorite animal and whisper to her."

Alan Rabinowitz loves the jaguar. He can talk to her. He also loves his chameleon, gerbil, and snake. He can talk to them, too. The only animals he can't talk to are human. Alan stutters, and no one - not his dad or his teachers - can understand him. So when he talks to his animals, Alan promises that if he can ever find his voice, he will be their voice and keep them from harm.

When he grows up, Alan studies jaguars. But they are being hunted nearly to extinction. Alan knows he has to protect them - and that means talking to government officials.

What I like about this book: It is full of hope - for children and for animals. And I like that Alan tells his own story, and that he still talks to jaguars (and other cats). In an interview on NPR Alan says that all children go through periods in their live where they feel misunderstood or shut off from the human world - whether they have a disability or just something inside them that makes them different from everyone else. "I wanted this book to speak to all of those children because I don't think adults realize, unless you've gone through it as a child, what a lasting mark such pain leaves on a young person."

Beyond the book: Have you ever talked to an animal? Cats make wonderful listeners. So do toads (they don't hop away as quickly as frogs). If you do end up talking to an animal, what sort of things might you discuss?

Visit jaguars and other wild cats at a zoo.

Alan Rabinowitz is president and CEO of Panthera, a wildlife organization dedicated to protecting the world's wild cat species. You can learn a lot about jaguars and other wild cats at Panthera.

Watch In Search of the Jaguar (free feature-length documentary)

See out what other bloggers are reviewing over at the STEM Friday blog. Today's review is also part of PPBF (perfect picture book Friday), an event in which bloggers share great picture books at Susanna Leonard Hill's site. She keeps an ever-growing list of Perfect Picture Books. Review copy provided by the publisher.

Animal Teachers

Animal Teachers
by Janet Halfmann; illus. by Katy Hudson
36 pages; ages 4-8
Blue Apple Books, 2014

It's back-to-school time, so grab your lunch bucket and your notebook and your number-2 pencil and hustle out the door so you don't miss the bus. As you head into the classroom, did you ever wonder how animal kids learn? They don't go to school. Do they even have teachers?

It turns out that polar bears and penguins and chimps and elephants - animals of all kinds - do have a lot of lessons to learn. Animal Teachers provides a window into the wild classrooms of the animal world.

Young otters have to learn how to swim, and joeys (baby kangaroos) need to learn some self-defense skills. Fortunately their moms teach them these skills. Other youngsters learn by copying what the adults around them are doing. In this book we see young animals learning how to run, fish, and communicate. This is a fun book for kids just starting school - and kids who are learning at home.

What sort of things are you learning ~ and who are your teachers?
Drop by STEM Friday to see what other science books and resources bloggers are sharing. Review copy provided by the publisher.

Baby Birds Need Password for Supper

Juvenile superb fairy wren. (Wikimedia commons)

Like any other baby bird, fairy-wrens sing for their supper. But they have to go one step further and give mama bird a secret password before she hands over the worm. Not only do fairy-wren nestlings have passwords, but each family has a different password – a single unique note that nestlings incorporate into their begging calls.

And they learn this password before they’re born – while they are still in the egg. Mama birds sing to their eggs to teach them their special“feed me” song. The mama birds also teach their mate and any helpers the secret password as well.

Why? Because parasitic cuckoos sometimes lay their eggs in fairy-wren nests. Baby birds need lots of feeding, and cuckoos tend to be greedy, gobbling up the food when given a chance. So if a mama bird can tell which nestlings are her own, she can feed them – and not the imposter.

Each fairy-wren family has its own password, too; and it’s learned, not inherited. When scientists switched eggs (they put one mom’s eggs in another’s nest), the hatchlings sang the “feed me” song that matched their foster-mom, not their biological mom.

So next time you’re at the supper table and mom says, “what do you say?” – you’d better pay attention. Could be your family has a special password, too. Check out more cool news and resources at STEM Friday.