Welcome back to STEAM Stories. Today’s book reviews include math, plants, rocks and engineering. Right now I have been choosing books that I have personally enjoyed recently. This process is difficult because I read a lot of picture books and wow it is so hard to decide. I have a long list to try and get to but I hope you will keep coming back to check out my favorite STEAM stories.
Title: Friends Beyond Measure: A Story Told with Infographics
Author/Illustrator: Lalena Fisher
Publsiher/Year Harper Collins 2023
First, this book is a story about friendship and how hard it is when a friend has to move away. But the author uses charts, graphs, maps and other infographics to demonstrate her memories, her plans, her feelings. Kids that are uncomfortable with math won’t even realize they are learning about math concepts and hopefully they will see how useful infographics can be at communicating. Though you can read the main text and get the story, kids will love digging into the varied and interesting infographics, and may even laugh at a few. A sweet story that accomplishes a lot.
Title: A Stone is a Story
Author: Leslie Barnard Booth
Illustrator: Marc Martin
Publisher/Year: Margaret K. McElderry Books 2023
Some of my students used to say “rocks are boring.” There is nothing boring about this book, A Stone is a Story. First, lyrical language and creative illustrations are a visual and auditory feast. In this 40 page picture book, Booth covers the entire life cycle, weathering and erosion, epic time scales and keeps you interested the entire time. I wondered how she was going to bring such a big story to an end, but she found a very satisfactory and person way to end. I plan to read this to my eighth grade science classes before we start our Earth Science unit. It also ties it to a lot of curriculum in the elementary grades.
Title: Powered By Plants: Meet the trees, flowers and vegetation that inspire our everyday technology
Author: Clive Gifford
Illustrator: Gosia Herba
Publisher/Year: Wide Eyed Editions The Quarto Group 2022
Talk about a book that is just plain fun. The illustrations are adorable. The plants have expressive eyes and cute faces but don’t let that fool you. This book is packed with interesting plants and information about them, where they live and how they are adapted. Even better than that, it also tells how scientists and engineers are using many of these plants to solve real world problems. The plants are talking in first person which I think will really pull the kids in. Amazon recommends it for grades 2-5. At 110 pages it is pretty long, but for avid readers and those kids that like browsable books, that will not be a problem. Here is a quote from the Friction-Free Fern Salvinia spread, “Now scientists have produced a copycat material with tiny hairs to cover the hulls of ships.” “As a result, the ship uses up to one-fifth less fuel. Awesome!” It also includes an index so you can go back and find topics to revisit.
Title: The Wild River and the Great Dam
Author: Simon Boughton
Publisher/Year: Christy Ottaviano Books
I really wrestled with whether to include this book. Is it about STEAM? History? Environment? Water management? People who lived through it? It is all of those things. Boughton includes a lot of personal accounts that make it more personal for the reader. History and economics of the timer period give background information. Descriptions of the work brings in engineering. Later chapters include issues around water shortages, discussion of whether dams are effective, and how important water management is today. A great read.