Math and cooking have always gone hand-in-hand, but McCallum takes it to a whole new level that allows young number lovers to explore (and eat!) a wide range of mathematical topics.
While the supply list and preparation time may preclude these from actually being assigned as homework, kids who are mathematically minded will enjoy snacking and learning their way through the recipes. Well-written and easily followed, the recipes include Fibonacci snack sticks based on the famous sequence of numbers, fraction chips made from cut-up tortillas, tessellating two-color brownies, milk and tangram cookies, variable pizza pi and probability trail mix. McCallum does not shy away from using appropriate vocabulary, defining it both in context and in the glossary at the back. She also includes fascinating historical tidbits that allow readers to see the precursors of today’s math and the mathematicians that first explored them. Hernandez cleverly folds math into her illustrations, too—observant readers will notice the numbers emblazoned somewhere on each character, but only the mathematically informed will figure out their pattern. Her high-energy mixed-media artwork is filled with humorous details, while her cartoon rabbits are likely to remind kids of the Arthur cartoons. Excellent backmatter helps review concepts.
A yummy way to get parents and kids to more deeply understand math…and spend some time together in the kitchen. (index, table of contents) (Nonfiction. 7-12)Pub Date: July 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-57091-779-0
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Charlesbridge
Review Posted Online: April 5, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2011
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
Did you like this book?
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A compendium of paranormal doings, natural horrors, and eerie wonders worldwide and (in several senses) beyond.
Maladroit title aside (“…in Bed” would make more sense, cautionwise), this collection of hauntings, cryptids, natural and historical mysteries, and general titillation (“Vampire bats might be coming for you!”) offers a broad array of reasons to stay wide awake. Arranged in no discernible order the 60-plus entries include ghostly sightings in the White House and various castles, body-burrowing guinea worms, the Nazca lines of Peru, Mothman and Nessie, the hastily abandoned city of Pripyat (which, thanks to the Chernobyl disaster, may be habitable again…in 24,000 years), monarch-butterfly migrations, and diverse rains of fish, frogs, fireballs, and unidentified slime. Each is presented in a busy whirl of narrative blocks, photos, graphics, side comments, and arbitrary “Fright-O-Meter” ratings (Paris’ “Creepy Catacombs” earn just a “4” out of 10 and black holes a “3,” but the aforementioned aerial amphibians a full “10”). The headers tend toward the lurid: “Jelly From Space,” “Zombie Ants,” “Mongolian Death Worm.” Claybourne sprinkles multiple-choice pop quizzes throughout for changes of pace.
A rich source of terrors both real and manufactured, equally effective in broad daylight or beneath the bedcovers. (Nonfiction. 9-12)Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-4263-2841-1
Page Count: 144
Publisher: National Geographic
Review Posted Online: May 15, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2017
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
Did you like this book?
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
In a large, handsome format, Tarnowska offers six tales plus an abbreviated version of the frame story, retold in formal but contemporary language and sandwiched between a note on the Nights’ place in her childhood in Lebanon and a page of glossary and source notes. Rather than preserve the traditional embedded structure and cliffhanger cutoffs, she keeps each story discrete and tones down the sex and violence. This structure begs the question of why Shahriyar lets Shahrazade [sic] live if she tells each evening’s tale complete, but it serves to simplify the reading for those who want just one tale at a time. Only the opener, “Aladdin and the Wonderful Lamp,” is likely to be familiar to young readers; in others a prince learns to control a flying “Ebony Horse” by “twiddling” its ears, contending djinn argue whether “Prince Kamar el Zaman [or] Princess Boudour” is the more beautiful (the prince wins) and in a Cinderella tale a “Diamond Anklet” subs for the glass slipper. Hénaff’s stylized scenes of domed cityscapes and turbaned figures add properly whimsical visual notes to this short but animated gathering. (Folktales. 10-12)
Pub Date: Dec. 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-84686-122-2
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Barefoot
Review Posted Online: Dec. 22, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2010
Categories: CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S
Did you like this book?
BOOK REVIEW
© Copyright 2020 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
