Two Fun Books to Tuck in a Tote

A couple of books came out last month and I think they’re perfect for spring.

Odd Bugs: Meet Nature’s Weirdest Insects 

by Laura Gehl; illus. by Gareth Lucas 

22 pages; ages 2-4

Abrams Appleseed, 2026   

A few years ago I chatted with Laura Gehl about her book Odd Beasts. This one is the third in her series of “nature’s oddballs” and it’s about my favorite critters: bugs!

Odd Bugs presents eight insects, each with a particular adaptation. Among them is a moth with painted wings, and a caterpillar that stings. There are ants that weave with silken strands and a butterfly whose wings look like panes of glass. And then there’s the robber fly – a true thief. Even their babies steal from other insects!

What I like about this book: Using fun and playful language, each spread presents a single bug. Read aloud, page by page, it’s a single poem about the insects. My favorite part is at the end where Laura points out that we don’t have six legs or antennae or wings or any of the buggy attributes they do. So … who’s the real weirdo? What’s more, this board book has Back Matter! Two spreads present additional information and photos of each insect featured. Laura will be one of the guests at the Annual Arthropod Roundtable over at the GROG on Earth Day, April 22nd.  (Review copy from the author)

What's the oddest bug you've ever seen? 

A spiky caterpillar? 

A moth the size of  a hummingbird? 

This summer, draw pictures of the truly odd bugs you find around your neighborhood.

Big Brain Puzzles: Plant Pandemonium! 

created by Camille Pichon 

10 pages; ages 6 and up

Twirl, 2026

Flowers, butterflies, earthworms … all in puzzles that mix things up. Spin the dials on a lily pad, pull butterfly tabs, slide worm parts through the soil to match the challenges. Five puzzles times nine different ways to play makes a total of 45 different challenges – adding up to complete pandemonium! Great for logic and problem-solving. (Review copy from Blue Slip Media)

Have fun!

Wednesday Explorers Club ~ rainy day maze

One afternoon, the kids in the Lego Club at the local library constructed marble mazes. This one is a garden maze, but there was a fruit stand, a bridge, a tall maze, and an underground maze.

Cool thing #1: all you need is a bunch of blocks, a base, and a marble. And when you get tired of the maze, you can move the blocks to create a new maze. Here's one in motion.

Cool thing #2: if you don't have Legos, you could raid the recycling bin for cereal boxes, corrugated cardboard, or maybe the cover of a discarded hardback book. Instead of clicking blocks on a base, you'd need to glue maze walls. Or use a stapler or duct tape.

Cool thing #3: if it's a sunny day, you can make a maze outside for your friends to follow. Think about how you might get help mowing a maze, or lining up hay bales (or boxes), or using stones or cement blocks - even pine cones - to outline a maze.

The hard part: creating the maze so you (or a marble) can travel from one end to the other, and including false trails that end in a road block.

How many guinea pigs can fit on a plane?

"If each guinea pig sits on its own seat, then it just depends on how many seats are on the plane," says Laura Overdeck. It's a different matter if you're squishing them in as tightly as they can fit. And the fact is, she says, "guinea pigs are happiest when they're together with friends." She would know; she wrote the book, How Many Guinea Pigs can Fit on a Plane?

ages 7-11; Feiwel & Friends, 2017

The math gets a bit more complex and involves cubic space and how tightly you pack them. But for the sake of argument, let's go with 472,500.

Guinea pigs aren't the only critter calculations in the book. Overdeck demonstrates how one can compute the total number of dogs in the world - spiders, too - and whether hopping bunnies move faster than running people.

And that's just the Animal chapter. There's a chapter about math for your mouth (it includes chocolate), your life in numbers, math used to calculate things in nature, and tips for mental math.

But first, before the first problem is served, Overdeck treats us to a bite of pie pi. That's so we can figure out cool things like how much wrapping paper you'd need to cover a basketball, and how much space is inside that basketball. A fun, fun book brought to us by the mistress of the Bedtime Math series (see reviews here and here - and click on the Bedtime Math button over in the right column for today's problems!)

ages 8-12; Nat. Geo Kids, 2017

You can never have too many math games, so here's another book filled with games, puzzles, and information about your brain. Brain Bogglers starts with a page of puzzles to determine what "kind of genius" you are. Because there are different kinds.

Each chapter focuses on some aspect of how your brain works, and includes puzzles to challenge you. For example, how does your brain translate reflected light into images? And does it ever trick you?

Sometimes our body tricks our brain. Sometimes we know stuff that we don't know we know. (I know- confusing, right?) And sometimes we don't get top score because other animals are so much ... smarter?

Thank goodness the answers are at the back of the book!

Today we're joining the STEM Friday roundup. Review copies from the publishers.

Two Books for Space Cadets

Today I'm celebrating space exploration - real and imagined. Also spiders, which some people know I love. Today's theme: nonfiction, space

Nefertiti, the Spidernaut
by Darcy Pattison; illustrated by Valeria Tisnes
32 pages; ages 6-8
Mims House, 2016

Early in 2012, in a greenhouse near Yarnell, Arizona, a Johnson jumping spider laid an egg sac.

One of the spiderlings that hatched from that egg sac became a famous space explorer. Her name was Nefertiti and she spent 100 days in space. Her job: to hunt. In a weightless environment.

What I like about this book: It takes the reader through the scientific process, plus some "pre-launch" tests to make sure Nefertiti could handle conditions in space. Once aboard the International Space Station, Nefertiti has to learn how to hunt all over again. On earth, she jumped in an arc to capture prey. In space, once she jumped? Furthermore, once she returned to earth, could she re-adapt to gravity?

I like the backmatter: facts about Nefertiti, resources for learning more, and a discussion about the engineering problems of building a spider habitat for space.

Beyond the book: 
Look for Jumping spiders in and around your house (ours tend to hang out in the kitchen and bathroom where it's a bit more humid). Check out these photos at BioKIDS. 

Watch a video of Nefertiti hunting aboard the space station . 

Read what author Darcy Pattison has to say about doing research for the book. 

Space Puzzles (series: Brain Games Treasure Hunts)
by Dr. Gareth Moore
32 pages; ages 8-12
Hungry Tomato (Lerner), 2016

This is a solve-it-yourself adventure book in which you are alone on a space ship roaring away from Earth. You need to solve a series of puzzles to pilot the ship to the moon, refuel, and return to Earth.

Along the way you'll have to use codes and coordinates, solve balancing puzzles, figure out how to open the hatch, and work out some basic "rocket science".

You won't get Lost in Space, though - because there are some hints (and even solutions) to help you navigate safely home.

Today's review is part of the STEM Friday roundup. Drop by STEM Friday blog for more science books and resources. We're also joining 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 copies from publishers.

Junior Ranger Activity Book & Author Interview

Junior Ranger Activity Book
by National Geographic Kids
160 pages; ages 8-12
National Geographic Kids, 2016

This year the National Park Service turns 100 years old. Sure, there are national parks older than that... but why not celebrate 'em all! Which is why NG Kids came up with this book full of puzzles, games, and facts inspired by our nation's parks "for the people".

The cool thing: you don't have to visit a national park to do many of these activities - they're plain fun and perfect for any road trip to a state park or forest or campground or picnic area.

Fun stuff includes mad-libs (those funny fill-in-the-blank stories), anagrams, jokes, quizzes, challenges to "name that thing", and close-up photos as well as maps and other handy stuff to know.

 The writer behind this book is Christy Mihaly. I called her a couple weeks ago to ask about national parks and the cool facts and fun activities she stuffed between the covers if this book.  First thing Christy said was, "There's a White House initiative to get kids into parks this year. Fourth graders and their families get a free pass. Check out Every Kid in a Park's website, and think about visiting a park before August 31st.

Even if you don't have any fourth graders, there are sixteen fee-free days this year. The idea: to encourage people to explore our nation's parks. Given that 2016 is the big year, when did Christy start working on the book?

Christy: About a year ago (April 2015). National Geographic Kids conceived the idea for this book and then Bender Richardson White, a book production company, contracted with me to do this project. By June I'd finished the first draft, and worked on revisions over July and August. Some of the materials are National Geographic Kids, and I created other things, notably themes for some of the pages, like "arts in the Parks" and "Rocks in the park". It was really a team effort.

Archimedes: I like the "Name that (fill in the blank)" pages - like the one with images of feathers. They're fun and the sort of thing a kid could do anywhere, not just a national park.

Chris enjoying nature from a canoe

Christy: Yes, the idea behind all the activities was to make sure they were accurate, kid-friendly, educational, and FUN. That meant challenges for me as well as the graphic designers - especially with the feathers page, because so many feathers are brown or earth colors. Think turkey feathers, owls, hawks... so we were looking for colorful feathers. What birds have brilliant feathers that kids might see in a national park? The challenge is to make the information engaging and inspire kids to get outside and pay attention. And while many pages feature activities that can be done anywhere, there are a lot that are park-specific. There are also maps of trails and battlefields.

Archimedes: You mention GORP, the stand-by trail mix for hikers everywhere. What's your favorite recipe?

Christy: GORP is short for "good old raisins and peanuts" - but my recipe includes granola and M&Ms in addition to peanuts and raisins.

Archimedes: What's one thing you learned while working on this project?

Christy: I learned a great deal about our national parks - like the fact that there are more than 400 national parks, historical sites, and monuments. I also learned lots of cool animal facts, such as grizzly bears can smell food from a great distance away.

You can catch up with Christy at her website. After our talk, I realized that it's been awhile since I've visited a national park. So this summer I plan to shake the dust out of my hiking boots and join the national park birthday celebration. But first I'll make some Peanut-Free GORP with pepitas, sunflower seeds, raisins, dried papaya, dried cranberries and some M&Ms. 
 Review copy provided by the publisher. 

Brain Games!

Brain Games ~ The Mind-blowing Science of Your Amazing Brain
by Jennifer Swanson
112 pages; ages 8-12
National Geographic Kids, 2015

"Your brain is the most powerful and complex supercomputer ever built," writes Jennifer Swanson. It's about the size of a softball, weighs about three pounds, and looks like a wrinkled up sponge - but it pretty much runs this show we call our body.

Every chapter focuses on a different aspect of the brain: how it creates memory, controls emotions, makes decisions, and solves problems. There are plenty of challenges (can you solve a Rubik's cube?) sidebars filled with fun facts and fancy words, and cool trivia. You'll learn about earworms - which are delightfully different from earwigs, but just as annoying - and why heart-pumping music helps you make better decisions.

I especially like the Brain Breaks - diverse puzzles and games that provide a break from reading and a chance to kick back and play - and the "try me" activities. Want to try an experiment right now? Smile. Yup, that's all: just smile. Smile for as long as it takes you to count to 10. Feel any better? (if not, smile longer)
What happens if you smile at other people? How do they respond? For a real challenge: try smiling instead of yelling at your brother... and observe what happens to you and to him.

There's even a section for people with busy busy crammed full busy lives - about multitasking. Our brain might do better if, instead of trying to do lots of things at once, we do one thing for a short period of time and then move to a different task (sequential tasking). Jennifer's "Rule of 20" goes like this: focus on one task for 20 minutes (set a timer). When it buzzes, take a breath, stretch your legs, then set the timer for 20 minutes and go on to a different task. Try this with your homework... your brain  cells will thank you. But remember Archimedes' Rule of 40: after 40 - 50 minutes of sitting, get up and move around for 10 minutes. Your body will thank you for that!

Today's review is part of the STEM Friday roundup. Drop by STEM Friday blog for more science books and resources. Review copy from the author & the folks at the GROG blog.

What in the World? Look Again

What in the World? Look Again: Fun-tastic Photo Puzzles for Curious Minds
by National Geographic Kids
48 pages; ages 8 - 12
National Geographic Kids, 2015

This is not your average book. For one thing, it's good for your brain. For another, the format is completely different: it's a 10-inch (plus a smidgen more) square. And that makes it interesting.

There are pages of amazing photos: birds, frogs, ocean creatures, unusual architecture, feathers, scales, stones and bones.... and more. Some close-up; some from a distance; some not even real. And all of them are pieces of puzzles - that's where the "good for your brain" part comes in.

Your brain, it turns out, is a muscle just like your heart and your biceps. You exercise your arms to get strong, and your heart to stay fit. So why not exercise your brain, too? Picture puzzles help strengthen your visual perception. They also strengthen cognitive skills - that's the ability to think and process new information.

This book has different kinds of puzzles. "What in the World?" pictures challenge you to think about what you're looking at. It might be a piece of a photo, like an animal's nose or a snake eye. Each puzzle has an anagram clue, in which the letters of the word(s) are all mixed up.

"Real or Fake" asks puzzlers to determine which photos are real and which are faked. It's not as easy as it sounds, especially in this age of digital photography. So be skeptical about what you see. "Take a Look" puzzles require time: you have to search for things in a large picture. Think: "I Spy" or "Where's Waldo".

"Up Close" puzzles are photos taken with microscopes. A scanning electron microscope can magnify something 50,000 times - so it may look a lot different than the way you see it in the real world. The challenge is to match a photo (like magnified pollen grains) with a flower.

"Hidden animal" puzzles challenge you to find spiders, butterflies, and other critters that blend in with their background - and that calls for attention to detail. "Optical Illusions" trick your brain, while "Double Takes" make you take second - and third - looks to determine what the differences are between two photos.

What makes this a STEM pick? Well, if you want to be a spy (or a biologist or an explorer or an engineer, astronomer, geologist) you have to be really good at observing and remembering details. And a good scientist doesn't believe everything he - or she- sees in a photo - especially if someone else takes the photo. Today's review is part of the STEM Friday roundup. Drop by STEM Friday blog for more science books and resources. Review copy from the publisher.

Anyone can Learn some Computer Code...

 

This week - December 9 through 13 - is Computer Science Education Week. It's also a great week to celebrate Grace Hopper, an American pioneer in computer science.

What better way to celebrate than to learn how to write computer code? If you've never written any code before, don't worry. The folks at the Hour of Code site have some videos and puzzles to get you started. All you've got to do is click on the GO button in the "write your first computer program" button.

And it's FUN! There are puzzles with angry birds and zombies ...and lots of opportunities to run into walls or flesh-eating plants. These are great puzzles to get your brain thinking about logic (if ___, then ___) and spatial orientation (how many spaces/ turn right or left?)

Go. Have fun. Play with computer code for an hour... even if you think you'll never use it again.