101 Freaky Animals

101 Freaky Animals
     written by Melvin and Gilda Berger


REVIEW

Get a head start on your animal reports this year by reading about 101 Freaky Animals. Maybe after sampling animals and facts about them you'll find one that you want to go into depth and research more about it.



 

Did you know?
38. The Great Indian Hornbill males use their casques on their beaks as an inflight weapon.


24. The Fennec Fox's ears are almost 1/2 as long as its body.


51. Komodo Dragons smell with their tongues.

65. Octopuses have a bag of tricks they use to escape their predators: they can flee by squirting water out of their bodies to jet away, they can change their skin color to camoflage themselves, they can spread dark ink in the water to confuse their enemies, and they can squeeze themselves through cracks and rocks to escape quickly.

84. Sphynx Cats have no fur and they are not Egyptian.

88. Star-Nosed Moles use their 22 tentacled noses to "see."

That's just six of the 101 animals featured in the book with interesting information to learn about.

Each page has an animal named and numbered to locate easily. There's an index in the back of the book to check to see which animals are featured.

Included with each animal factoid is a full photo of the animal being discussed and a thumbnail for easy reference and connection to the text.



The facts are interesting, the photos detailed and stimulating...so this book should peak your interest and leave you wanting to find out more!

We'll be building a Wallwisher Wall this Spring with interesting animal facts and Discovery Streaming videos to watch so be sure to keep checking back on our Media Center website. When we launch the wall we will also launch a page to recommend good books to read and you can bet that this one will be on the list!

ISBN: 978-0-545-23758-1


Happy Reading!

A Hero's Guide to Warriors

A Hero's Guide to Warriors
     written by Deborah Murrell

REVIEW

Now you can learn facts about 4 of the major types of warriors through history. Learn about the Greek Warriors, Gladiators, Samurai, and Knights. This is a brand new book just published in September and was a great seller at the Fall BookFair!

Greek Warriors. Learn about Hoplites, training, weapons and armor, war machines used, the War with Persia, Defeating the Spartans, Alexander the Great, battle tactics, and the decline of Greece.

Gladiators. Gladiators defined, Gladiator school, Gladiators of the Empire, Provacatores, Equites, and Velites, the Colosseum, Gladiator Events, Win or Lose, and the end of the Gladiators.

Samurai. When Samurai lived, becoming a Samurai, the Pen and the Sword, weapons used, armor, ninjas, early clans, the Rise of the Samurai, three great men, the last Shoguns, and the dcline of the Samurai.

Knights. Knights defines, when they lived, training, weapons used, armor, horses, battle tactics, battlefields, heraldry, castles under attack, off the battlefield, tournaments, and the decline of Knights.

If you don't like the heavy reading of regular history textbooks we use, then try this book!  If you are interested in weapons, fighting, and war, this is the "history text" for you, right here in our Media Center.

The book has a full table of contents and index, not just for the book, but complete contents for each chapter so you can easily find the information you are most interested in. We'll be using this book to show examples of how using contents and indexes, and glossaries really help you get the most out of content reading, especially when researching for reports! There is also a glossary for the terms used throughout the book.

The information is organized into tidbit paragraphs with stylized text and graphic boxing to offset and separate clusters of information, which makes the information so much easier to locate and read without pages of text you find in a regular textbook.

So if you are interested in warriors throughout history, watch the trailer below, and then find the book in our nonfiction section and check it out soon.

ISBN: 978-1-59566-802-8

A Hero's Guide to Warriors-Trailer from Roxanne Clement on Vimeo.

The Klutz Book of Paper Airplanes

The Klutz Book of Paper Airplanes
written by Doug Stillinger

We were so glad when the Klutz Book of Paper Airplanes was at the Fall Book Fair! Our copies of this book are so worn out from circulating we needed the replacement! (Multiple copies of course!)

This book  shares 10 different types of planes. The only supplies necessary are 8 1/2 x 11 inch sheets of photocopy or printer paper.

And while you're busy making "The Hammer," "The Professional," "The Space Cruiser," the "Hurricane," and others, you'll also learn about symmetry, wing angle, elevators, and ailerns, dihedrals, speed, thrust, and drag, angle, gliding, flight dynamics, and more.

Best of all, you can organize a paper airplane challenge during snack recess and have a great time!

Happy Reading!

ISBN: 978-1-59174-900-4

Around the World: An Amazing World

Around the World: An Amazing World
   written by Heather E. Schwartz and Tammi Salzano

REVIEW.
I love this little interactive, 3-D Travel Book I found on one of the shelves of our fall bookfair at only $4.99! I see so many uses for this book in the classroom and Library Media Center! The photos are simple and iconic.

Put on your 3-D glasses included in this book and take a quick journey around the world learning some trivia about amazing landmarks we all hope to be able to see sometime in our lives face to face!

Teacher Note: The book is written for younger readers but I will use this book K-6 and believe the true power of the book is in the higher grades. There is just enough information and beautiful photographs to peak interest to pursue more information. Each student can pursue content knowledge that appeals to them, while learning access and internet skills I introduce to them... differentiated instructional lessons. Even my most reluctant readers will become involved with partners or small group investigations. I will use this book and several others in this blog as a "text" along with important WebTools that assist learners to locate, organize, and synthesize information using content selected to release motivation.

I plan to use this book as a project launch with my upper grades to learn and utilize Google Earth to develop an online travel map for younger students to experience later on, addressing social studies standards both lower and upper grades, 21st century skills, and Library/Media Center standards, all within one project.
Authentic projects researched, developed, and published by older students as a learning tool for younger students is a favorite learning process I use through my Library/Media Center program to maximize learning experiences.

Watch for the project to appear on our Media Center webpages at some point. It will be an ongoing and constantly evolving project building collective intelligence as it grows.

ISBN: 978-0-545-17229-5

The Aspiring Writer's Journal

The Aspiring Writer's Journal
   written by Susie Morgenstern

If you like to write, or would like to make your writing stronger while having fun writing, then this is the book for you.


The author, Susie Morgenstern shares her best secret about writing with you...that if you want to be a writer, you have to write. 

Set up as a Journal, this book has a page for every day of the year with writing prompts to keep you writing daily to improve your skills as a writer.

A  21st century learner must to be able to speak and write clearly and precisely when using social networks like Twitter and Wallwisher with limited character allowances.

I think that these writing prompts are so good many of them can be used individually as stand-alone projects and blogposts. I plan to use them on our website so students can submit their responses through the comment box mechanism on the page. We can then discuss and improve our writing skills together to make blog and web responses stronger. I would love to use this journal as a "textbook" resource support for my students.


ISBN: 978-0-8109-7058-9

Weird But True!

Weird But True!
written by National Geographic

This book is full of weird but true factoids about everything under the sun. 300 Outrageous Facts about animals, nature, physics, people, places and more. 
 
Watch the book trailer to see some of the interesting facts the researchers and photographers at National Geographic have put together to peak your interest in finding out about the world around you.

Already a hot title from last Spring's Book Fair, Weird But True2 was on the hot table at our Fall Book Fair "Reading Saves the Day" and Book 3 is on the way!








ISBN: 978-1-4263-0594-8

Would You Rather? Gross-Out

Would You Rather? Gross-Out
   written by Justin Heimberg and David Gomberg

There is a simple 4-Step Process to be able to have fun using this book:
1. Get together with your friends.
2. Read a question from the book and together talk about it taking turns.
3. Everyone has to participate.
4. Once everyone has chosen and shared, move along to the next question.

Here are a couple of samples of gross out choices that I can share here on the blog....others are so gross... you'll just have to read them for yourselves! Guaranteed to be a great read for those who like the gross side of things.

Topics include:
Gross!, You've Been Cursed, Powers and Fantasies, Grosser than Gross, Would you Rather Live in a World Where, Would You, Getting Personal, As Gross as it Gets, Random Play, and a section to Make Your Own Questions!


I'm creating a book trailer and definitely think it's worthy of a webpage on my Media Center site to poll our students using questions from the book. It will be especially fun to use as we explore and learn about online polls and surveys, and how to collect and interpret data.

Watch for this book to be added to our Extremely Popular Binder !

ISBN: 978-1-934734-35-3

National Geographic Kids Almanac 2011

National Geographic Kids Almanac 2011
     written by Nat Geo
This year's Nat Geo Kids Almanac 2011 is full of over 5,000 fun and fabulous facts about the world and who's in it!

Geography, science, history, adventure, it's all here for you to discover through your reading.

You can literally spend hours browsing through the book, but don't take my word for it! Come along with me by watching the vimeo video below and you'll get a special sneak peak of the book!

Happy Reading!


National Geographic Kids Almanac 2011 Book Talk from Roxanne Clement on Vimeo.




ISBN: 978-1426306303

767 Sports Questions Your Friends Can't Answer

767 Sports Questions Your Friends Can't Answer
              edited by Wallie Walker Hammond
              published by Thomson Peterson's
                                                  

There are so many tween sports fanatics at our school and this book presents  a challenge as well as a great read for sports trivia fans.

The book is a series of set of trivia questions (737) organized by chapter and sports topic including Baseball, Football, Basketball, Hockey, Auro Racing, Women in Sports, Golf, Tennis, Olympic Games, Coaches, Hall of Famers, Boxing, Championship Teams, and Retired Numbers. At the end of each chapter there are sets of answers to the questions presented.

Also provided is a scoring key to rank yourself among other readers of the book according to the publishers.

This would make a great car travel book for a sports-minded family to help pass the time and have a great family read together, or for a group of kids who hang out together after games, scouting, or other activities.

I plan to use the book to post a sports trivia question weekly on my website for students to check in and respond to. I love these kinds of books for browsing and I often see students choosing other books as a result in order to dig deeper into sports content after becoming interested by a specific piece of trivia.

ISBN: 978-7689-2458-9

Nat Geo Kids Almanac 2011

National Geographic Kids Almanac 2011
       by National Geographic

REVIEW.

Each annual release of the Nat Geo Kids Almanac is eagerly awaited and automatically placed on our "hot table" at our Fall BookFair each fall. This popular series is filled with interesting trivia, stats, topics, and articles that guarantee to interest even the most reluctant reader!

A good read of this book can happen in a variety of ways, but very seldom do I observe kids reading cover to cover page by page, although you can bet that the entire book eventually gets consumed!


Start at the Table of Contents with topic areas including Your World, Amazing Animals, Going Green, Super Science, Geography Rocks, History Happens, Culture Connection, Awesome Adventure, Wonders of Nature, and Future World, and you see what I mean....everyone out for their favorite topic! You can also use the index to find your favorite item or photo, or what most often happens, just start flipping through the pages! The format is easily readable, with each topic edged in its designated color,  heading on the right side pages, and subtopic heading on the top left pages. (A Teacher Librarian's delight to teach reference book skills with exciting content kids can't wait to read....they'll go through your lessons patiently just to get to the content!)

The photos leap off the pages thanks to the famous photographers at National Geographic who never fail to please and excite readers with amazing work that draws the reader into the content. And each page has a careful and deliberate customized layout to encourage the reader by deliberately and carefully parsing trivia facts and little known information that often drives my readers into heavier readings once their interest is tweaked.

Once the reader has gotten his/her fill of the "hottest" pages, within this source are articles like "Write a letter that gets results", "You can make a difference," "The Constitution and the Bill of Rights," ""How to write a perfect essay," "How a bill becomes Law," and so many other topics that teachers have to cover, but can become so dry and boring to our students. Presented within this exciting book, with the kind of attention that pop culture magazines use to captivate, we might be able to squeeze in some of the standards work that is so essential to academic success without our students even knowing it!

This weekend I'm respectfully tearing apart two of my copies to put them together to use with my document reader as 5 minute content starters with my students throughout the year to help encourage deeper readings of topics that students are learning in their classrooms.
I'm excited!

A multi-content "textbook" for $13.99 that kids will actually want to take home to read!

National Geographic Kids Almanac 2011 Book Talk from Roxanne Clement on Vimeo.

ISBN: 978-1-4263-0630-3

101 places You Gotta See Before You're 12

This "Bucket List" book for  tweens is one of the hottest books in our 900 section! It is designed as an interactive scavenger hunt including stickers to use as a rating scale when checking off items from the lists within the book, ranking them "Top 20, Loved it, Yawn Fest, No Way, Awesome, Way Strange, Been There", etc. There's a map to help guide exploring and planning, and a note section to add additional ideas and comments. Also included are some websites and links to support the listed items with directories, organizations, and other resources.

Book circulation increases with additional Book Talks and discussions to stimulate uses for this book, as well as potential lessons/activities:

• Google Earth Trips...even better, develop tours based on choices selected individually to share with others
• Keep it local...Take it National...use with social studies units exploring city, state, and country.
• Take a virtual trip...if you can't actually go to a farm...is there a website with a virtual tour?
• When traveling with the family develop a game to play with the list to see if you can name a site that fits the list... name "a very big thing", "a peaceful place" then read what the book has to say about it.
• Make a personal list of the "10 Things I most want to see this year"...share with family
• Find your 10 favorite places using Google Earth and show your friends.

Sullivan, Joanne. 101 Places You Gotta See Before You're 12. New York: Lark Books, 2006.
ISBN: 978-1-60059-147-1