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I am not a gardener. I put plants in my yard with thought and care, then I had my third child and started working full time. I love plants, I love gardening, I just don't have time for it and thus haven't shared that love with my kids. However, I work at an elementary school with a project based learning curriculum where the second grade crew took on a year long project that involved a garden, milkweed and monarch butterflies. Using a micro-space, four big planter boxes and a compost pile, these kids became experts over the course of the year. And when, near the end of the school year their garden was vandalized, plants and chrysalises crushed, the spirits of our kids were not. There were tears, for sure, but they rallied. You can read about it here. I tell you about this by way of explaining my personal education on the power of the plant and the good of a garden and I am especially happy to be able to share Gardening Lab For Kids: 52 Fun Experiments to Learn, Grow, Harvest, Make, Play and Enjoy Your Garden by Renata Fossen Brown with the students at my school and my readers here.
Brown believes that gardening is the combination of art and science, and her book is a collection of activities that she has used professionally at the Cleveland Botanical Garden, where she has been vice president of education. Her introduction covers plant basics, from plant parts, hardiness and heat zones, annual versus perennial, watering, materials and even gardening with pets. Each lab takes up a two page spread, with the materials and instructions starting on the verso, and a "Dig Deeper!" box on the recto that gives scientist-gardeners the chance to go one step beyond. Units include getting started, theme gardening, green gardening, garden art and enjoying your garden and the variety and breadth that Brown brings to her book surprised and delighted me.
There are labs for soil percolation, making a rain gauge, making a sprinkler, using catalogs to create a garden design, and even making seed tape which I didn't know was a thing but is a brilliant idea. The entire unit on Theme Gardening is inspiring and I even found a project I think I can take on with my own kids - the Herb Spiral, using bricks like building blocks to build a very cool planter.
The labs featuring art projects, gifts and garden goodies are especially fun. From stepping stones, plant labels and wind chimes to fountains, bird baths, luminarias, Gardening Lab For Kids is packed with great ideas. My favorites? The Garden Journal, the colorful, portable cushions for sitting and enjoying the garden and the lab on Garden Poetry are right up there, but the Garden Fort has to be my absolute. How magical to create a garden, decorate it and then enjoy it from the privacy of your own, handmade fort?
Source: Review Copy
Liz Lee Heinecke clocked ten years of bench work in research labs before starting a new career - mom to three children. When her youngest was two, she started Science Wednesdays with her kids, but often encountered experiements that required specialized equipment, prompting Liz to begin customizing traditional science experiments and making up new ones. You can check out the brilliantly fun experiments she came up with at Kitchen Pantry Scientist, but I am sure that you will want to buy Kitchen Science Lab for Kids: 52 Family-Friendly Experiments from Around the House. 
The format of Kitchen Science Lab for Kids is perfect! Each experiment unfolds over two pages, so you can prop open the book and see everything you will be doing, from beginning to end. The verso page contains a materials list and safety tips and hints and the start of the protocol (instructions). The recto finishes the protocol and ends with a "creative enrichment" block that encourages scientists to take experiments one step beyond. My favorite part of Heinecke's book, and one that she says are now treasured keepsakes in her house, is the Science Journal. Instructions are laid out for keeping a notebook to document and detail studies and experiments, which is a vital part of scientific exploration and a skill that is just plain useful across the board.
Kitchen Science Lab for Kids breaks the 52 experiments into 12 units. Chemical reactions, crystals, physics, life science, polymers, colloids and misbehaving materials are some of the units. Acids and bases, microbiology, botany and rocket science round out the 52 labs in the book. Children as young as five and as old as thirteen (or higher) will find these experiments engaging, exciting and fun. And even occasionally edible! Best of all, these experiments are all, 100% kid tested over a range of ages.
This is the experiment that I want to try with my kids - LAB 14: Standing on Eggs
Also by Liz Lee Heinecke:
Source: Review Copy
Years ago I bought Illustration School: Let's Draw Cute Animals by Sachiko Umoto and loved everything about it, from the simplicity and clarity of the instructions (this is definitely a book kids can use without an adult's help, even if they can't read) to the, well, the cuteness of the animals. My kids have outgrown this book, so I put it on the shelf in my library at school and it is very popular. I am SO excited to be reviewing Illustration School: Let's Draw a Story!
But, before I delve into the very cool format for this book, I want to share some a passage from the letter to readers at the start of the book. Umoto encourages readers to "put your heart and soul into it, and just draw," telling readers that even if they copy the drawings or trace the designs, "each version will be different - it will never be the same story twice!" I LOVE that advice. Kids (and even adults) hassle each other about tracing and copying drawings, but this is in fact one of the best ways to learn how to draw. Tracing and copying are like training wheels and eventually artists will take off on their own. Umoto ends with words I especially like, telling readers that by "drawing your own world, it becomes part of reality and connects it to the world that we all share. . . You can make connections with lots of people by sharing the joy of creating something with your own hands."
Illustration School: Let's Draw a Story begins by getting artists set up, even noting the best way to erase something from the page. Then she covers the basics, with tips like draw larger shapes first, apply different pressure to the tip of your pen and let the colors inspire you. The rest of the book is comprised of a story about a princess who escapes from her story to get help from twins Pen and Rayon and their dogs, Book and Marble. The princess, who is to be named by the artist, begs Pen and Rayon to return order to her world, where the Eraserheads have erased everyone on her island home.
There are 29 scenes in the book, and each one has a similar format. The story unfolds while at the same time artists/readers are invited to engage with the story by adding text and replacing lost illustrations. Artists can trace over existing illustrations, but there is also room for them to add their own artwork to the story.
Umoto's illustrations are in color when she is in storytelling mode and grey and light grey when engaging with readers. Incorporated into the story are spreads where Umoto gives step-by-step instructions on how to draw everything from animals to food to weather to facial expression, all with the clarity and simplicity of her previous books. The story itself travels through many scenes, giving artists experience drawing an array of things, from a desert to a castle to a monster island and a robot island as well as inviting them to decorate a room, draw a meal and draw a costume contest. Illustration School: Let's Draw a Story is the perfect book for any creative kid in your life, but it is ideal for travel, snow days and sick days.
Source: Review Copy
More-igami is the debut picture book from Dori Kleber, illustrated by longtime favorite G. Brian Karas. More-igami is a fantastic picture book for so many reasons. The main character shows perseverance or, grit, to use the hot new word in the world of education, as he struggles to master a skill. More-igami is a marvel of diversity in a picture book, featuring African American, Asian and Hispanic characters. But, best of all, More-igami is just a really great story with marvelous illustrations that is a joy to read our loud.
Joey loves all things folded, from maps to accordions to tacos to, of course, foldaway beds. When Joey's classmate, Sarah, brings her mother to school to teach the class how to make origami cranes, Joey's mind is blown. Mrs. Takimoto tells Joey that she can teach him the folds, but if he wants to be an origami master, he'll "need patience and practice." No problem! Joey practices everywhere with everything, including folding the $38.00 he found in his mother's purse. Frustrated and out things to fold, Joey heads to the restaurant next door because "fajitas always made him feel better." There, he finds a place to practice folding and help out Mr. Lopez. Even better, he finds a new friend to share his talent with - as long as she has patience and is willing to practice!
Karas's illustrations are perfectly matched to Kleber's text, which wonderfully, simply shows the frustration and determination that Joey possesses. The hand drawn texture of Karas's illustrations add to the creative feel of More-igami, which will undoubtedly inspire readers to do some folding of their own, especially since there is a two page spread at the end of the book that shows you how to fold an origami ladybug!
Source: Review Copy
In seven years, I have never reviewed a coloring book here, although I have reviewed more than a few doodle books. That said, coloring books for adults have become enormously popular in the last couple of years, fueled by the self-proclaimed Ink Evangelist, Johanna Basford, and in this season of gift giving her books are especially worth noting. More than a year ago, I was perusing the coloring book section at Barnes & Noble, looking for a gift for my son to take to a 10 year old girl's birthday party and Basford's first book Secret Garden: An Inky Treasure Hunt and Coloring Book jumped out at me. Besides being dead gorgeous, her illustrations are intricately playful magically creative. Best of all, beyond being a beautiful coloring book, Secret Garden is, as Basford says, filled with challenges like "mazes to solve, patterns to complete and lots of space for you to add your own inky drawings. Secret Garden is also a look-and-find book, with a host of creatures and other things, like a message in a bottle, a treasure chest and keys, hidden throughout the pages. The final pages of the book include a key to the Secret Garden, showing the locations of all the hidden goodies.
The Enchanted Forest: An Inky Quest & Coloring Book by Basford was published this year and offers more of the same amazing illustrations to color and a search for nine symbols that will unlock the castle door at the end of the quest, revealing a surprise. Of course, since this is a coloring book and not a computer game, finding all the symbols and unlocking the castle door is all about the honor system. The reveal are two intensely intricate gatefold spreads that are worth the effort!
Creating an Inky Wonderland: Behind the scenes with Johanna Basford
Books, note cards, post cards and artist's edition of Basford's books that are very fun:
Source: Review Copy
Susan Schwake
is an artist with over two decades worth of experience teaching in a diverse number of educational settings, running her own art school and creating and curating a permanent installation of children's artwork for a new wing of her local library. As a bookseller, I was immediately drawn to her first book, Art Lab for Kids: 52 Creative Adventures in Drawing, Painting,
I am SO in LOVE with The Paper Playhouse: Awesome Art Projects for Kids Using Paper, Boxes and Books by Katrina Rodbaugh for SO many reasons. The only thing I don't like about it is that it did not exist 10 years ago when my kids were little and would have loved the projects inside. First, though, I have to commend publisher Quarry Books, creators of "high-end, beautifully designed, visual
Crazy for Science with Carmelo the Science Fellow by Carmelo Piazza and James Buckley Jr with illustrations by Chad Geran (be sure to check out Chad's board book, Oh, Baby!) is by far the BEST science experiment book for kids I have seen in my two decades of children's book selling and parenting. Visually, Crazy for Science with Carmelo the Science Fellow is infinitely more engaging
The Messy Monster Book by Rachel Ortas had me with the title alone. Even better, I discovered that Ortas is the co-creator and Creative Director of OKIDO, a very cool art and science magazine for kids. Follow the link above and you can see a sample of the bi-monthly, which is packed with activities (experiments, songs, recipes and crafts using cutouts from the magazine and found items) and
Make Map Art by Nate Padavick and Salli Swindell, the brother and sister creative design and illustration team otherwise known as Studio SSS is my latest, greatest bookstore find. I have been fascinated by maps for a very long time and am always partial to a kid's book that has a map in it. The idea of making maps to tell a story, to mark a memory and, as the introduction notes, to "define
There are so many great things about Sticky Fingers: DIY Duct Tape Projects - Easy to Pick Up, Hard to Put Down by Sophie Maletsky, artist, crafter and professional party planner (Sophie's Stress-Free Soirées) but the best is her YouTube channel - Sophie's World! When making something crafty, I do much better when I have someone showing me how to create and I do best when I have visual and
Bart King is the undisputed master when it comes to writing fact-filled books for kids that are incredibly fun to read - and do. With The Big Book of Superheroes, illustrated by Greg Paprocki, King covers new territory, exploring the ins and outs of this semi-secret occupation. The Big Book of Superheroes is perfect for any kid with a great sense of imagination and drama, but it is also great
Photoplay! Doodle, Design, Draw by M.J. Bronstein is the coolest doodle book I have seen in quite a while! Bronstein, who is known for her hand-colored images and work with the photographic negative is also an art educator at ArtLab, a hands-on education program at the center for Maine Contemporary Art. Her website, This Playground, a fantastic resource. Besides the chance to see Bronstein's
Hot on the heels of the fantastic 642 Things to Write About and 642 Things to Write About: Young Writer's Edition are these brilliant books to keep the artists sketching! 642 Things to Draw and 712 More Things to Draw are exactly what you would expect - a creative collection of prompts. The pages are divided in half, diagonally, horizontally, vertically, and into four quarters - each
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I know that the name Martha Stewart and all that it conjures up can be polarizing. Some people love her her style, and some people...
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I am not the kind of person who collects anything by any means (books DON'T count, obviously) but I do really dig robots. And I also really,
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Last year I reviewed Create with Maisy by Lucy Cousins, which I adored above all else for the fact that Cousins really did create a craft book with projects
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Modern Cartooning: Essential Techniques for Drawing Today's Popular Cartoons by Christopher Hart is technically an adult book. But it is SO easy to use you don't even have to know
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First, I fell in love with SNEAKY ART: Crafty Surprises to Hide in Plain Sight by Marthe Jocelyn. Then, when I sat down to write this review, I realized (dramatic
POP-UP: Everything You Need to Know to Create Your Own Pop-Up Book with paper engineering by Ruth Wickings and illustrations by Frances Castle is THE COOLEST BOOK EVER!!! I know that I haven't dedicated much time to pop-up books here, but they have always held a special place in my heart, probably from the first time I ever heard the phrase "paper engineering." Although I didn't know
If you have read Yummy! Eight Favorite Fairy Tales by Lucy Cousins, a favorite of mine and many story time attendees, or, for that matter, any of her Maisy books, then you know that Cousins knows her audience (four and under) very well. I know that there are many, many crafty moms and dads out there creating things with their kids as soon as they can grasp a glue stick, nevertheless, I still
Calef Brown, poet, painter and all around funky creator, is now a doodle book maker! I didn't intend for that sentence to be so rhyme-y, but Brown and his new book, Dragon, Robot, Gatorbunny, just inspire that kind of playfulness. For an overview of Brown's work, click here and for a sampling of his poetry, click on poem titles: Snails and Skeleton Flowers. For details on Dragon, Robot,
There are a lot of things I like about Crafty Chloe, the new picture book from Kelly DiPucchio and Heather Ross (crafter and author of Weekend Sewing) and just one thing I don't, so I might as well get if off my chest right now. I don't like the presence of London, the mean rich girl with the tiny dog. I see how a character like London, who exclaims things like, "Your going to make her something
Rosie Flo is the moniker Roz Streeten gave to the line of coloring books that she (and husband Steve Kamlish, both graphic designers) developed after spending hours coloring and creating with her daughters. Of her collection, Streeten says, "I have paid attention to al the things which irritated me as a child, and then as a parent. The paper quality is thick enough to avoid showing through or
The hand-made lunchbox notes were a hits with my children. The children's lunchbox notes for this week were predominately watercolour illustrations. I did use a fine liner for the outlines. The children loved their first notes last week and were asking for them on Monday but I decided to give it to them at the end of the week. This allows me more time to prepare each week.
Today I picked up
I am not a gardener. I put plants in my yard with thought and care, then I had my third child and started working full time. I love plants, I love gardening, I just don't have time for it and thus haven't shared that love with my kids. However, I work at an elementary school with a project based learning curriculum where the second grade crew took on a year long project that involved a garden, milkweed and monarch butterflies. Using a micro-space, four big planter boxes and a compost pile, these kids became experts over the course of the year. And when, near the end of the school year their garden was vandalized, plants and chrysalises crushed, the spirits of our kids were not. There were tears, for sure, but they rallied. You can read about it here. I tell you about this by way of explaining my personal education on the power of the plant and the good of a garden and I am especially happy to be able to share Gardening Lab For Kids: 52 Fun Experiments to Learn, Grow, Harvest, Make, Play and Enjoy Your Garden by Renata Fossen Brown with the students at my school and my readers here.
This looks a little advanced for us (my oldest is 2), but looks pretty sweet. We are in love with robots right now.
Besides being a craft book, ROBOT actually reads really well as a story and the large format and bright colors should capture your two year old's interest. Buy it now and save robot building for next year... Be sure to check out my reviews of the robot picture books CLINK and BOY + BOT!