by Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 15, 2005
Safe and easy-to-do science-fair experiments for the novice investigator using household items, including the familiar “Make a battery with a lemon,” and the less familiar “Show that a grape repels both poles of a magnet” (because it is diamagnetic). Each two-page project begins with a catch title, a list of what experimenters need, procedure, what they should notice, what happened, digging deeper, a line drawing and more things to try. Some projects are so briefly described that the reader may wonder, for example, how do you know the white gunky stuff you get from blending fresh spinach, salt and detergent is spinach DNA? While most projects will need significant elaboration and further research to qualify for a science fair, there’s plenty here to intrigue, and it’s attractively packaged in a sturdy binding with a zingy yellow lemon battery on the cover. Includes a word on safety, guidelines for setting up a science-fair project and an index. (Nonfiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: May 15, 2005
ISBN: 1-4027-1138-7
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Sterling
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2005
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by Kate Messner ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 12, 2017
Middle school worries and social issues skillfully woven into a moving, hopeful, STEM-related tale.
Following the precise coordinates of geocaching doesn’t yield the treasure Kirby Zagonski Jr. seeks: his missing father.
Geeky eighth-grader Kirby can’t understand why his mother won’t call his dad after their generous landlady dies and they’re evicted for nonpayment of rent. Though his parents have been divorced for several years and his father, a wealthy developer, has been unreliable, Kirby is sure he could help. Instead he and his mother move to the Community Hospitality Center, a place “for the poor. The unfortunate. The homeless.” Suddenly A-student Kirby doesn’t have a quiet place to do his schoolwork or even a working pencil. They share a “family room” with a mother and young son fleeing abuse. Trying to hide this from his best friends, Gianna and Ruby, is a struggle, especially as they spend after-school hours together. The girls help him look for the geocaches visited by “Senior Searcher,” a geocacher Kirby is sure is his father. There are ordinary eighth-grade complications in this contemporary friendship tale, too; Gianna just might be a girlfriend, and there’s a dance coming up. Kirby’s first-person voice is authentic, his friends believable, and the adults both sometimes helpful and sometimes unthinkingly cruel. The setting is the largely white state of Vermont, but the circumstances could be anywhere.
Middle school worries and social issues skillfully woven into a moving, hopeful, STEM-related tale. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Sept. 12, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-68119-548-3
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Bloomsbury
Review Posted Online: Aug. 6, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2017
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by Kathi Appelt ; illustrated by Jennifer Bricking ‧ RELEASE DATE: July 23, 2013
A rollicking, ripping tall tale with ecological subtext.
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When rogue feral hogs and a greedy developer threaten to wipe out Sugar Man Swamp, two raccoons know it’s time to rouse the legendary Sugar Man.
Mythic Sugar Man has reigned over Sugar Man Swamp for a “gazillion yesterdays.” Raccoons Bingo and J’miah descend from a line of Official Scouts Sugar Man designated to watch over the swamp and alert him in an emergency. Twelve-year-old Chap has also grown up along the swamp, where his mother operates Paradise Pies Café. Like his recently deceased grandfather, Chap cherishes the swamp. When the swamp’s sleazy owner, Sunny Boy Beaucoup, threatens to evict them to convert the swamp into Gator World Wrestling Arena and Theme Park, Chap takes his grandfather’s place to preserve what he loves. When Bingo and J’miah discover feral hogs descending on the swamp to pulverize the native sugarcane, they risk Sugar Man’s wrath and wake him. Set in the east Texas bayou, like The Underneath (2008) and Keeper (2010), this playful tale teems with bayou flora, fauna and folklore. In a honeyed dialect, the omnipresent narrator directly engages readers, ricocheting between the hilarious human and critter dramas to a riotous finale.
A rollicking, ripping tall tale with ecological subtext. (art not seen) (Fantasy. 10-14)Pub Date: July 23, 2013
ISBN: 978-1-4424-2105-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: April 13, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2013
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