In Exploring the Elements, my periodic table fangirl side entered overdrive. Earth's elements are a regular fascination but this deep dive, sans too-boggling jargon, will cram young heads with wows.
‘Pew pew.’
That's the call of an eastern whipbird, one of the many wonderful birds I hear living in the Blue Mountains in NSW.
Also full of vibrant native birds is a new book called, This Bird: Noticing Our Urban Birds, created to help identify and celebrate birds in our backyards, local parks and streets.
This Bird is written and illustrated by Astred Hicks in collaboration with Dr Holly Parsons, an ecologist and community educator. The book is a stunning way to connect with nature and be in the present moment.
What an absolute pleasure it is to be able to review this
wonderful, and very important, new book with its roots in Wiradjuri Country and
its language.
Author, Belinda Bridge, has a strong matrilineal connection
to Wiradjuri land and has long been passionate about preserving the language
and culture of her mob. She is well qualified to be sharing knowledge as she
holds a post-grad in Wiradjuri Language, Heritage and Culture, along with her
degree in Creative Writing and Professional Writing, and her TAFE teaching of
Wiradjuri Language.
This new book can provide entry level language for students
new to learning Wiradjuri across the year levels, and even adults. The six
cycles of Wiradjuri Country are determined by the moon and the calendar months
paired to each in this book are indicative only. These cycles can be changeable
when impacted by weather events.
The animals most active during these cycles are named and
illustrated but this may also change due to those fluctuations of the cycles.
For example:
dinawan = emu
galing-galing bu niganaga bu ganhang-girri = wet and hot and
becoming warm [December & January)
yili gariwang-girri = dry becoming cool [April & May].
Your jarjums will find it fascinating but all children,
whether on Wiradjuri lands or not, will also be intrigued. And what an
opportunity to explore the weather and wildlife of the Country on which your
kiddos live and learn. My middle daughter, Aunty Kim at her school on Country
(Lithgow PS), is passionate about teaching her students their language and
culture, and even though she has learned so much over the past six years she's
been living and working there, this will be still be of great value to her.
For those who are focused on a future of walking together,
and who are developing their own First Nations collections mindfully, this is
an extremely valuable resource.
The design is really engaging as well - with striking
illustrations from Peta-Joy Williams and a sense of connection and flow
throughout the book which, after all, is exactly what the learning is about -
from ancestors to the present to the future, from year to year, cycle to cyle.
It's a fabulous book conceived and executed with skill by
two Wiradjuri creators, making this even more significant, particularly for
those little fellas who are growing up in their own Wiradjuri culture.
An outstanding 5 🦘🦘🦘🦘🦘rating
for this one.
The cover illustrations draw readers into a beautiful world full of wonder and knowledge.
The artwork by Raxenne Maniquiz and Jiatong Liu, is stunning. So is their innovative design and use of colour.
The end pages give a clue to all that she became.
Once again, Mark Greenwood's trademark sharp and detailed prose, surprises.
Jessie’s life is laid out in entertaining words and actions that match her countless abilities.
She was a legend; feisty and fearless. A girl who travelled in a bush circus from an early age and learnt many skills. She got to be known as the Amazing Miss Jessie!
Her earliest feat was to walk the tightrope before she was ten.
Wind Atlas, the third in the amazing weather series by Thames & Hudson, consolidates that appreciation and then some.
Like its predecessors, Wave Atlas and Cloud Atlas, this guide into the world’s fascinating zones of pressure and air movements is both refreshingly informative while simultaneously easy to assimilate.
Filled with a sequence of facts that inform and educate, this collection has set the stage for a new encyclopedic type of book, accessible to readers of all ages.
It's a stunning publication that
While it deals with an episode of history that is
both terrifying and confronting, the format and the narrative from a child’s
perspective means it is less so for younger readers, while still delivering
factual information.
Peter Lantos, a Hungarian Jew, was 5 years old when he and his parents were deported to Bergen-Belsen, where his father subsequently died.
Through many adverse and frightening situations, Peter and
his mother survived Belsen, and while they were liberated by the US Army, they
were, by that time, in Magdeburg which became Soviet occupied territory.
The greatest scientist of the twentieth century is, without a doubt, Albert Einstein.
Einstein’s amazing reasoning and powers of observation brought us the photoelectric effect (key to solar panels), special relativity (E=mc2) and general relativity which describes our current understanding of gravity.
However, my favourite observation of Einstein’s – which is pertinent to teachers not just in science, but in all fields – is his assertion that 'If you can’t explain it to a 6-year-old, then you don’t truly understand it.'
This has huge relevance to me in my line of work as a children’s writer and also in my day job as a science communicator.
Monotremes, birds, reptiles, molluscs, crustaceans and amphibians – all produce babies by laying eggs.
Heidi
Cooper-Smith’s latest picture book release, Hatch is a gorgeous
foray into just how and where these (Australian) animals facilitate this egg
laying / hatching phenomena.
It is the next book in her Illustrated Encyclopaedia series: The Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Extinct Animals.
Some of Bayly’s other books include: The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Dangerous Animals and How We Came to Be: Surprising Sea Creatures.
The Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Extinct Animals is a beautifully produced book with debossed (indented) lettering on the cover, cloth quarter binding and in-built satin ribbon bookmark, all features that help to make it both durable and a book worthy of gifting. In addition, the cover and internal design as well as typesetting is by award-winning book designer, Astred Hicks.
Upon opening The Illustrated Encyclopaedia of Extinct Animals, I scan the contents page which features a silhouette of each animal in the book and note a few entries for megafauna. I don’t know about you, but any book with megafauna draws me in straight away. Of course, I’m referring to animals such as the giant marsupial diprotodon, which was related to wombats and koalas. Did you know that the diprotodon is the largest marsupial to have ever walked the Earth and became extinct about 25,000 years ago? Amazingly, these animals lived at the same time as the First Nations people in Australia for more than 20,000 years. Hang on there’s also a giant monotreme! Hackett’s giant echidna was about 1 metre long and weighed around 30 kg (about the weight of a ten-year-old child). Mind-blowing!For each animal in the book, there is a double page spread and information under the subheadings: Description, Extinction Status, Location/Habitat, Diet and Fun Facts as well as illustrations. These illustrations are exquisitely good. Each animal is depicted in watercolour with precision and detail. One of my favourites is the Kangaroo Island assassin spider with its pelican-looking head. Bayly has created rich patterning on the spider’s abdomen and its long, spear-like legs are stunning.
There are not only extinct species in this volume but also near-extinct species, reminding us of human’s impact on other animals. The Kangaroo Island assassin spider is critically endangered so hopefully the curiosity and joy generated by this book helps encourage readers to make good choices regarding the beautiful wildlife that we have around us.
In terms of use in the classroom, on top of inspiring animal lovers, this book provides a great opportunity to model headings, subheadings and tier 2 and 3 vocabulary. There are also teachers’ notes with other ideas. Thank you Sami Bayly for another beautiful book filled with wonderment. My eleven-year-old son adores his collection of your work.
Title: The Illustrated Encyclopaedia Of Extinct Animals
Much of that recent SE QLD tropical cyclone turbulence resulted in storm surge, disastrous beach erosion and record-breaking massive wave heights (12.3 metres off the Gold Coast).
You don’t have to be an ex-sailor, like me, or even a storm chaser to appreciate the wonders of weather however; the pulse and rhythm of waves has a hypnotic pull that most of us find difficult to resist.
Which is why, Thames &
Hudson’s latest atlas-styled publication about the phenomena of waves rates
high on my barometer of brilliant reads.
Following
a similar format to Cloud
Atlas, Wave Atlas: Everything You Need To Know About Waves, takes young
readers (and old sea dogs like myself) through a fascinating journey around our
water dominated planet. We explore the hows and whys of our oceans’ existence
and the global currents, tidal pulls and meteorological conditions that induce
those great oceans to move.
Although not specifically a children’s book as such, the Compact Guide to Australian Birds with 800 species, text and illustrations by Michael Morecombe AM, is worth having on any bookshelf.
Children will eagerly delve into it due to its beautiful images that will certainly initiate interest in the birds that surround us everywhere, daily.
This third edition, revised and updated, boasts a great deal. It includes distribution maps, a guide to family groups, and a colour-coded quick index on front and back end-pages.
Colour
tabs on page edges allow easy reference to bird families.
The lists of vital preparations to be made before setting out to journey though
Wild Australia should be adhered to.
These necessities create an immediate awareness of the environment and our role in its protection, from the first page where it sits in the company of a numbered map of Australia.
Look out for wildlife is a main one.
A gorgeous, sometimes whimsical offering that provides
the seeds of good advice and encourages small people to stand in their power,
it shares ideas and thoughts on useful and fun stuff to know as you’re growing
up!
