Security Blanket: The Magic School Bus videos

We always feel a bit guilty when we let our two sons sit watching videos for long periods of time. But let's face it: Sometimes it's unavoidable, when we have to be certain they'll be completely engrossed in something while we repaint the porch, or install the new ceiling fan, or figure out how the new oven's convection feature actually works.

Since all three of those examples come from recent experience, I feel our family has been a good test lately of distracting videos that don't make parents feel too guilty. And we were lucky enough to stumble over the new champion series during this period: the animated adaptations of the Magic School Bus books, which recently came out in a new box set from Scholastic. (I vaguely knew of the books themselves, but these videos were made in the late '80s—the new edition celebrates their 25th anniversary—and so hit our generation's sweet spot of ignorance: We were too old to ever have seen them ourselves, but too young for them to be current when we had kids of our own.)

The shows, for those unfamiliar even with the books, follow the adventures of the class of Ms. Frizzle, who with the aid of the wonder vehicle of the title leads the kids through all sorts of expeditions into scientific knowledge. The bus in question being magical, this often involves some improbable journeys and transformations—to learn about bats' echolocation, what could be better than becoming a bat, after all?—as well as not a few close calls, until the unflappable Ms. Frizzle calmly puts everything right again. It's sort of like Scooby-Doo crossed with Carl Sagan and Jacques Cousteau, and the fact that Ms. Frizzle is voiced by the great Lily Tomlin (clearly enjoying herself quite a bit) is the icing on top.

Our boys love every minute of the series, and now we find them talking to each other at odd moments excitedly about the facts they learned from the shows about snakes and volcanoes and penguins. We got that massive early-fall home-improvement agenda done, and got to overhear the wry Tomlin's voice rather than SpongeBob's in the process. And sure, we still feel a little guilty about all the screen time, but sometimes mitigating that guilt can go a long way toward everyone's feeling better. (Especially if you pour a few dark-and-stormies over that mitigation.)

[Box image courtesy of Scholastic Media/New Video]

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New Books: Awesome Snake Science!

OK, I know not every kid likes snakes. A lot of adults don't like snakes, not even a little bit. But our older son does, and so when—just a few days after he'd proudly finished his first-grade year-end report on snakes—we came across Cindy Blobaum's new book Awesome Snake Science, well, it just felt like it was meant to be. (Luckily, he's not quite old enough yet to have felt cheated at not having encountered this book before he had to write his report....)

Because if Dash were to describe the perfect nonfiction snake book for a kid his age, he'd come up with this one. It's not merely full of snake facts and figures—though it certainly has enough of those to be suitably comprehensive for even the most obsessed child—but it also includes 40 fun snake-themed activities, from making a set of foldable fangs that demonstrate how the real things work with snakes' malleable jaws, to (safely) simulating cytotoxic venom. (Most parents will be pleased to know that no actual snakes are required for any of these activities.)

It's exactly the kind of hands-on learning book that takes what could be dry subject matter and makes it nearly irresistible to children—really a great achievement by Blobaum. Not that Dash cares about that; after we take this book on vacation to Canada with us, I expect he'll be mimicking rattlesnake noises all month long. (Let's hope he doesn't get too good at it.)


[Cover image courtesy of IPG]

New Books: Black Gold

Since my sons are still just seven and three years old, my coverage of history books for kids doesn't usually get out of the picture-book genre. But I'm enough of a general nonfiction reader myself that occasionally I run across something for older readers that I have to mention here (and save for my own children till they're a bit older).

The history of oil—that is, the petroleum kind—doesn't seem at first like much of a topic for a children's-book author. It's complicated, chemistry-laden, and politically, well, explosive. But the subject is, one must admit, one of the vital ones of our time, and writer Albert Marrin has taken a crack at a short history for middle- and high-schoolers of the greasy, precious stuff and humankind's interactions with it in Black Gold: The Story of Oil in Our Lives.

It's an ambitious crack at that, starting with the geological and chemical science of how oil and the other fossil fuels come to exist. Marrin then moves chronologically through man's first fleeting brushes against these powerful energy sources, up through the explosion (that word again) of their use beginning in—fueling, actually, if you will—the Industrial Revolution.

From this point on, the author does a commendable job of balancing the massively positive short-term (no more giant piles of horse waste fouling city streets) and long-term (um...all of modern technology) effects these energy sources have had with their negative counterparts (air and water becoming fouled in different ways; global warming). He concludes with a forthright presentation of the energy challenges facing humanity in the 21st century, from peak oil to melting icecaps to geopolitical power struggles. Somehow he does all this in a remarkably gentle, even-handed, and readable fashion that I think most parents of any nonradical political persuasion will be comfortable with. (Needless to say, those for whom any nonderisive mention of the words global warming is anathema may wish to stay away from this book. As well as most other nonfiction.)

It's a remarkable achievement, presenting this much information in such digestible fashion, and in a mere 181 pages. And when Dash or Griff in future years comes to me saying he has a report to write for school on oil, or energy in general, this is the book I'm going to send him to first.

[Cover image courtesy of Random House]

New Books: A Butterfly Is Patient

 
Spring took a little longer to settle in here in the Northeast this year—at least, the aspect of spring we dreamed about all winter, the part that doesn't involve massive amounts of rain. Now, it seems, the season of balmy but not hot and sticky weather, of flowering trees, of butterflies, is finally here, for a least a few weeks before summer kicks in.

So it's appropriate that the latest book in author Dianna Hutts Aston and prolific illustrator Sylvia Long's ravishing nature series is out now, too. A Butterfly Is Patient follows in the impressive footsteps of An Egg Is Quiet and A Seed Is Sleepy, but it's my favorite entry so far, largely because the subject matter lends itself especially well to Long's vivid aesthetic. As usual, Aston's text is just the right amount of background—she has a great feel for providing enough information for a solid base of knowledge, and then allowing the art to take over. (Which it certainly does.)

So while readers of this book do in fact get a good primer on the life cycle of butterflies, it‘s nothing like a dry biology textbook, thanks to the tapestry-like pages of golds and greens and violets that often seem about to fly off the page. A Butterfly Is Patient makes for a wonderful reading experience for kids with a strong interest in science and nature (and a pretty satisfying browse even for those with less of an interest). Not to mention a great way to celebrate spring.

[Photos: Whitney Webster]

New Books: The Watcher

Biographical children's picture books do not tend to be my favorites. Most are informative, sure, and some are even well-executed enough to get across why the individual's life was interesting and/or important, but there's usually a certain dryness to the approach. Like children's history, biography for kids needs a spark; often the concept behind that spark involves, shall we say, literary license, as in Jonah Winter and Barry Blitt's wonderful (but not, um, entirely historical) The 39 Apartments of Ludwig Van Beethoven and Lane Smith's equally great (and equally imaginative) John, Paul, George & Ben.

But Jeanette Winter (mother of the aforementioned Jonah) has been at this for a while. She's written and illustrated many biographical children's books in her long, illustrious career (including ones on J. S. Bach, Georgia O'Keeffe, and Beatrix Potter), and she knows exactly how to go about it: storytelling. The Watcher, her lovely new picture book about Jane Goodall, is both a factual retelling of the primatologist’s life and a perfectly conceived storybook.

And this book’s storytelling isn't limited to the text, as concise and informative (and factual!) as it is about Goodall’s life and work. Winter’s bright, colorful illustrations, in a sort of American folk-art style, carry the narrative and especially the characterizations forward on their own, imbuing the individual chimps Goodall gets to know with personality. The expressiveness she gives her drawings of David Greybeard, the first chimp to strike up a “friendship” with Goodall, make the progression of their relationship through the years—marked by visible signs of aging in both—all the more moving.

My two-year-old son can't get enough of The Watcher; while I suspect that he doesn't particularly care too much at the moment that it's about a living person, we like that he's being exposed, effortlessly, to the real life's work of this great scientist. (It's especially nice that the scientist in question is female, establishing that possibility as in no way strange.) As a bonus, the subject is of more than sufficient interest to our six-year-old as well, so it's a book we can read with both boys despite their age difference.

 

[Cover image courtesy of Random House; interior photo by Whitney Webster.]

New Music: Songs from the Science Frontier

Tom Lehrer's occasional forays notwithstanding, I've never thought of science as particularly compelling musical subject matter. And when it's children's music we're talking about, the inevitable educational overlay would seem destined to make songs downright stultifying. Sure, They Might Be Giants tackled the topic a few years back on their typically brilliant Here Comes Science—but they can apparently write catchy songs about anything at all. I certainly wasn't expecting to hear any more decent kids' music about science anytime soon.

But Monty Harper, an Oklahoma-based artist I hadn't been familiar with, proved me wrong at one listen. (I really must remember not to underestimate the current crop of children's musicians.) His Songs from the Science Frontier, released late last year (and produced by Chris Wiser of Sugar Free Allstars fame), may not have TMBG's rep and Disney's marketing power behind it, but it's fun and smart and apparently irresistible to kids—our sons wouldn't stop asking to hear it again once they'd discovered it.

That's a testament to two things: First, Harper really knows his subject matter. Wanting to make science more interesting to kids than it often is in introductory textbooks, he started a musical educational program in 2007 in which scientists came to talk to kids about their work—and then he proceeded to write a song about it. So his topics aren't the mere generalities you might expect; he focuses on specifics of bacteriology, say, right down to the scientific names. (And while I wondered at first if that might put it beyond young kids, turns out it's precisely that aspect that both my sons have glommed onto.)

Second, and more important, this guy is a crack songwriter. It's not easy to write snappy songs about the intricate details of where wind energy comes from (starting, naturally, with the sun); Harper not only manages this, but makes it feel effortless. He seems to have an endless supply of infectious, surprising melody lines up his sleeve, incorporating influences that range from Justin Roberts to, well, Pink Floyd. And while his lyrical skill almost flies under the radar—a big part of writing good lyrics is making sure they don't stick out where they're not supposed to—once you notice that Harper is singing about some pretty complex subjects in rhymes that always fit together naturally, you grow more and more in awe of his talent.

The end result is just what the artist must have intended: learning that doesn't feel like learning, but like easygoing fun. If we end up with a scientist or two in the family (who knows?), we'll owe Harper a nod.

[Cover image courtesy of Monty Harper]

New Books: How Animals Work

There are a lot of science and nature books for kids out there—nearly every publishing house, large and small, seems to have its own line. Unlike with most other genres with this kind of volume, though, most of them are pretty good, covering their chosen subject (bats, say, or animals of the jungle habitat) with the right depth for the age level they’re aimed at and, of course, lots of great full-color photography. We probably own 10 or 15 of these little volumes, all told, all from different series but nonetheless quite similar, and entirely satisfying to our five-year-old.

But I haven’t written about them much, mainly because there’s often so little to distinguish one line of books from another. All of them are good, but it’s rare to find one that stands out. DK’s How Animals Work does, and not solely because it’s a much larger volume than the rest. It’s kind of a coffee-table book for kids, really, 192 pages long with a hard cover, and featuring enough really big full-color photos  to keep a kid happy for months.

But as the title suggests, there’s another reason this book will be especially appealing to the science-minded youngster. It uses all that extra space not only to load up on more amazing images, but also to go beyond the basic factoids you usually find in kiddie science books, and delve into how and why animals do the things they do. So alongside that amazing closeup of a snake, you find out exactly how snakes slither. (No spoilers here.) To Dash’s delight, there are in-depth diagrams of the bodies of those bats, too, demonstrating how each anatomical feature that’s vital to the creature’s survival functions.

It goes on and on like that for pages, in something of a parent’s dream: a long, attractive-to-behold book that even a slightly science-minded child can get lost in for stretches of time, learning all the while. The book’s official age range from the publisher is 8 to 12, and some of the biology discussed will be over the heads of children younger than that, but at five, Dash adores this book. Better still, I think he’s going to treasure it for years.

[Cover image courtesy of DK Publishing.]