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National Geographic Kids Almanac 2016
National Geographic Society & National Geographic Kids Magazine
National Geographic Society        5/12/2015
978-1-4263-1921-1
352 pages         Age 8—12
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“This New York Times bestseller is packed with incredible photos, tons of fun facts, crafts, activities, and fascinating articles about animals, science, nature, technology, and more. New features include a special section on animal friends; an updated “Fun and Games” chapter filled with all-new games, jokes, and comics; a new “Dino Myths Busted” feature; all new weird-but-true facts, crafts, and activities; a new special “15 Facts” feature in every chapter; updated reference material, and much more! And, this is the only kids’ almanac with mobile media features that allow kids to access National Geographic videos, photo galleries, and games.” [publisher]

Review
National Geographic Kids Almanac 2016—Wow, where do I start? Color blasts out from every page. The photography is as spectacular as National Geographic photography has always been—brilliant, intimately detailed, knock-you-off-your-feet fantabulous. Divided into ten sections, the Kids Almanac 2016 begins with a section on interesting things happening in 2016, and then it explores the usual topics of history, culture, science, geography, nature, and animals. The almanac also includes a section on green technology and its effect on Earth, and a section about exploration and survival. Most likely, a favorite for kids will be the section on games. Actually, the Kids Almanac 2016 contains a game throughout the entire 350 pages. In each chapter is a clue. Find all ten clues and you can open up digital extras.

In reading the Kids Almanac 2016, I think National Geographic has covered all the subjects kids will find interesting and all those they need to know about. Adults can get a lot out of this almanac as well. There is a tremendous amount of information in this relatively small book. I loved the animal topics, of which there are many. Kids interested in dinosaurs will find a prehistoric timeline, nine “Bet you didn’t know” facts, and myths. Each section ends with a quiz on that section’s subject. When you cannot get to a place, or want to know what is happening in different places around the world, the Kids Almanac 2016 is a tremendous aid. Kids can also dig a little deeper in subjects they love and learn about subjects they never thought about or thought were dull. There is not one tedious word or picture in the Kids Almanac 2016. Here are a few subjects I found to be amazing:

“Secrets of the Blue Holes”
Animal photography and how to get the shot.
“The Wonders of Nature: the Oceans”

“16 Cool Facts about Coral Reefs”
The jokes and comics in Fun and Games
Orangutan to the Rescue (Survival Story)”

What would a National Geographic book be without its gorgeous maps? The Kids Almanac 2016 has plenty of maps and flags. I think the National Geographic Kids Almanac 2016 is a must read, if not a must have, for kids, especially middle graders who will learn a lot without realizing they are learning. The Kids Almanac 2016 is fun, exciting, and interesting. The pages are colorful, the photographs and images extremely detailed, and the subject matter is diverse.

Though kids are just now beginning to enjoy their summer school breaks, the Kids Almanac 2016 will keep them reading through the summer, which will help kids during their next school year, make them more informed about their world. Parents concerned about the books their kids read will have not one worry about this almanac. Every word, every subject, and every article is kid-friendly. The National Geographic Kids Almanac 2016 is an interesting read that will keep kids hooked long past summer vacation.

NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC KIDS ALMANAC 2016. Text and images copyright © 2015 by National Geographic Society. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, National Geographic Society in partnership with National Geographic Kids Magazine, Washington DC.

Purchase National Geographic Kids Almanac 2016 at Amazon—Book Depository—National Geographic.

Kids! Join the National Geographic Kids Book Club HERE!
Teachers and Librarians can find additional information at: http://www.ngchildrensbooks.org
National Geographic Educational site is HERE.

Learn more about National Geographic Kids Almanac 2016 HERE.
Check out the National Geographic Society website: http://www.nationalgeographic.com
Find other National Geographic books at: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/books
Learn more about the National Geographic Kids Magazine at the website: http://www.kids.nationalgeographic.com

Kids Almanac 2015 
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Copyright © 2015 by Sue Morris/Kid Lit Reviews. All Rights Reserved

Review section word count = 496

Filed under: 5stars, Books for Boys, Children's Books, Favorites, Library Donated Books, Middle Grade, Series Tagged: and animals, culture, fun, games, geography, going green, history, liss instructive information, maps, National Geographic Kids Almanac 2016, National Geographic Kids Magazine, National Geographic Society, nature, science

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Even if you don’t work in a school media center, I’m guessing your life still tends to run on an academic schedule when you work with teens. So welcome to the new school year! Here’s what I think might be interesting, useful, or intriguing to you and your patrons this month.

• If your teens are interested in what’s new in the going green movement, have them look more globally to see what’s going on. In coastal Ecuador, young people from farming families are heading up efforts to save, cultivate, and redistribute heirloom seeds to revitalize the environment and help farmers prosper. Part of an organization called FOCCAHL, 20-year-old Cesar Guale Vasquez travels throughout nearby areas collecting seeds from farmers and also hosts swapping events so that farmers can trade seeds with each other in order to have more vibrant and diverse crops. Now take that for inspiration and add to it your own library’s resources on climate change, farming, and nutrition and plan an interesting program that combines science with activism and see what your advisory board wants to do with it. Many libraries now are creating their own seed libraries, and whether they’re for wildflowers or corn, they can be a great way to bring communities together, get young people to work with older people, and freshen up your local environment while doing your small part to keep the world cleaner and greener.
  Matthews, J. (2012). Ecuador’s seed savior. World Ark, May 2012: 10-15.
• At the beginning of the school year, many teens are interested in refining or experimenting with their personal style. There is generally no shortage of mainstream fashion and beauty advice in the magazines and books you have in your collection already, but there might be a population you’re missing, and they’re getting bigger and more vocal. While the natural hair trend has been growing for years, the recent O Magazine cover presenting Oprah Winfrey with her hair relaxer-free has sparked a lot of talk. The social news web is blowing up with discussions of hegemony (the prevalence of hair relaxers in the African American community has been linked to unrealistic standards of white beauty), harassment (nearly everyone with natural curls, regardless of race, has experienced strangers touching their hair without asking first), and self image (who decides what’s beautiful, and is it more important to do what you think is pretty on you or to make a political statement with your hair?). Take a look at the reports of the Oprah cover at Sociological Images and Jezebel (it’s worth taking a look at the comments, too, but they’re probably NSFW and can get heated), and then consider hosting a discussion club or making a display of books on beauty. If you’re not sure where to start, I suggest Naturally Curly, one of the premiere websites (with social components, news, and shopping) for natural hair of all textures.
• STEM, STEM, STEM. Everybody wants students to engage with science, technology, engineering and math. Federal money is pumped into it. Grants support it. But do teens and tweens care for it? In a study of middle school students, researchers analyzed both boys’ and girls’ wishful identification with scientists on television shows to see what factors influenced positive feelings (possibly indicating an interest in pursuing a science career or hobby). They found that boys were more likely to identify with male scientists and girls with female scientists, which is unsurprising. What was more interesting is that the genre of the television show affected the positive feelings. Scientist characters on dramas were more likely to elicit wishful identification than those on cartoons or educational programs. What can you do with this information? Plenty. For your next film screening, try a drama or documentary that presents scientists in a good light, like Cool It, And the Band Played On, or Einstein and Eddington. If you want to take a crack at those who think that being good at science or math makes you a loser, connect STEM with the things teens already love, like working out, YouTube, and the Web by taking a look at the 35 fittest people in tech, videos by Vi Hart, who turns mathematical concepts and history into snarky audiovisual narratives, or how-tos at Lifehacker.
  Steinke, J., et al. (2011). Gender Differences in Adolescents’ Wishful Identification With Scientist Characters on Television. Science Communication, 34(2): 163-199.
• Whether you’re in library school or you’ve been working for years, you might find Hack Library School’s new starter kit series interesting, especially their post on services to children. Anyone want to volunteer to write the starter kit for youth services? On a related note, Teen Librarian Toolbox has a post on what to do about all that stuff they don’t teach you in library school (I’m taking notes).
• If you’ve been trying to find a way to collaborate with nearby schools, see if you can get an advisory group to have a meeting with local teachers (it might be a good idea to make sure that the teachers are not teachers of the teens in your group so as to encourage openness and honesty) and start a dialogue. The topic? Standardized tests. Students may feel like teachers are against them, while teachers probably feel as if it’s administrators who are forcing them to be uncreative. So how do you get all sides to understand each other when schools are still tied to federal standards? For background information, try the journal Rethinking Schools‘ spring 2012 issue, which featured a special section on standardized tests. After a good discussion, maybe everyone can take fun “standardized tests” on personality types, books, or any other fun topics. Then see if students, teachers, and you can work together and form some sort of coalition that bridges the gaps between inside- and outside-of-school education, engagement, and issues. Start a collaborative blog. Take turns hosting book clubs at different places that feel like home to the different stakeholders in your group. What might be an interesting year-long project is to get everyone in the group to develop their ultimate standardized test to replace the ones they’re taking or proctoring in school. What skills do teachers and students think are most important to have before leaving the K-12 system? What topics do people in the real world need to know? Is it better to test knowledge orally? With essays? With student-led, student-designed creative projects? With their perspectives and your skills with information seeking, along with your vast collections, you should be able to create a really interesting partnership. And if you need more inspiration, check out these roundups of education blogs by both students and teachers, both here and here.

What are your plans for this upcoming academic year? As always, your questions, comments and suggestions are welcomed and encouraged!

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Happy Earth Day from your friends at Bur Bur and Friends.  Visit our site to learn fun and simple ways to create a healthy and GREEN environment: http://burburandfriends.com/parents-educators/going-green/

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*Picture book for preschoolers through third graders, realistic fiction (based on a true story)
*A nice tugboat driver and the garbage barge as main characters
*Rating: Here Comes the Garbage Barge! is a great book to share with students during any recycling lesson–they’ll laugh but get the point!

Short, short summary:

Jonah Winter has written a picture book based on a true story about the Garbage Barge (1987) that traveled up and down the east coast–trying to find a place to land and dump almost 3200 tons of garbage. Basically, Long Island’s landfills were full and polluting the groundwater. So, some businessmen decided that they should ship the garbage to farmers in the south and pay them to bury it on their land. Burning garbage was expensive, so a city called Islip (near New York City) decided to take the businessmen up on their offer and put their trash on the barge to ship south. In the picture book, with wonderful illustrations by Red Nose Studio, a little tugboat named Break of Dawn driven by Cap’m Duffy St. Pierre, set out to pull the garbage barge from Islip to North Carolina. But when the captain and his smelly barge got to North Carolina, he was turned away–the same thing happened in New Orleans, Mexico, Belize, Florida, Texas, and so on. Finally, with a REALLY smelly barge behind him, Cap’m St. Pierre had to take the garbage back to Long Island. The courts got involved, and finally, the garbage was taken off his hands. But as the author points out, the moral of the story is: “Don’t make so much garbage.” He also tells us that Islip now has a recycling program.

So, what do I do with this book?

1. Many teachers and parents will read Here Comes the Garbage Barge! in connection with Earth Day or even at the beginning of the school year to talk about the importance of recycling and being good to the environment. This book can also be used with a science lesson on “green” living. It has a lot of practical applications to today’s science curriculum and could start a great class or home school discussion as well as classroom or home recycling program.

2. This is a great book to discuss problem solving! Poor Cap’m St. Pierre has a huge problem–how to get rid of the garbage. Long Island and Islip have a huge problem, too–too much garbage. Ask students to use their problem solving and brainstorming skills to come up with solutions to the problem BEFORE you read them the end of the story. When looking at students’ solutions, evaluate each one to see if it is a good solution or not through class discussion. Even though this happened in 1987, students today might have a better idea of what SHOULD have happened to all that garbage.

3. You could use this book to help you teach the six plus one traits of writing. It is a great book for organization–the beginning grabs the readers’ attention with all the garbage and then it is organized by the barge’s trip down the river–trying to stop at different states–before the story and the barge circle back to the beginning–to right where they started–garbage in Long Island. The circle format is one form of organization that many authors and essayists use.

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Yesterday there was an editorial in The Washington Post that lamented the current green consumer trend, arguing that we were getting distracted by our small changes and not fighting for the big changes that are truly needed. The author compared the environmental cause to the Civil Rights Movement, noting that legislative action was needed to enact change, not "10 Ways to Go Integrated."

I see the author's point, but also see the flaw in the argument. With segregation, people had ample evidence of the problem - especially as the growing fight opened their eyes. Certainly African-Americans were well aware, but for the majority of Americans the issue was flying below their radar. It was The Way Things Were. But as the civil rights issues came front and center, the evidence was around to keep reminding people that it wasn't The Way Things Should Be.

So while I agree that bringing my canvas bags to the grocery store isn't going to change the world, it does make me just that much more conscious of the larger issue. I can roll my eyes at the sudden takeover of Go Green shirts at Walmart - probably made in China - but I think that the trend of individual responsibility for the environment helps by making the issue more tangible.

No where do I see more potential for a shift in understanding than with today's kids. They are hearing the message at school and on TV and in books. I recently came across two titles at my library that I was excited to share with my own kids.

True Green Kids: 100 Things You Can Do To Save the Planet by Kim McKay and Jenny Bonnin features a paragraph for each concept with a separate action step. The layout is clean and simple, with lots of white space. Produced by National Geographic, the photographs are engaging and some are truly wonderful. Section dividers are bright with an overall thought on the topic. The end of the book includes a resource section with pages of websites on different topics in the environment.


101 Ways You Can Help Save the Planet Before You're 12! by Joanne O'Sullivan packs in the information on each page with lots of description, facts, ideas, and photos. The photographs are fine for a nonfiction book, but generally more utilitarian than artistic. The book is not divided into sections and the websites are incorporated into the relevant pages instead of a separate resource section.

Comparing the two, True Green Kids runs younger - with the shorter paragraphs and clean layouts making it easier to share with a child, even one who may not be reading on her own. Personally, I preferred the layout and the photographs, meaning as an adult that it would be a book I'd b

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In South Florida, we plant our tomatoes in the fall and enjoy our harvest after January 1st. I planted 12 buckets of tomatoes today and nearly broke my back. The worst part was buying the 10 humongous bags of potting soil, which must be lifted into the cart, then into the car, then out of the car, then into the pots. That is certainly not my favorite part of gardening, but it must be done.

Sometimes I think I should not bother with planting the tomatoes, because it is a lot of work and upkeep. But then all I have to think about is how those pesticide free, vine ripened tomatoes really taste, and I don’t mind all the work. You cannot compare the home grown taste and texture to those gas-ripened Styrofoam tomatoes at the grocery store that have NO flavor. Plus I am helping clean the air by planting so many plants in my yard.

The greatest challenge is keeping insects, namely hornworms and mites off the plants. I spray the tomatoes with a concoction I make in the blender. It contains a dash of crushed red pepper and garlic. I grind it all up, let it sit for a while and then strain it. Then I put it in a spray bottle and make sure I get all the fruit with it. That seems to work well most of the time, and it rinses off well when you are ready to eat the tomatoes.

By the way, did you know that there are almost 40,000 acres of tomatoes grown in Florida every year? It takes well over 30,000 workers to pick those tomatoes. So be grateful for your tomato pickers!

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Lilly Badilly is a lover of the environment. It makes me think about how all this talk about “Going Green” is a step in the right direction. But a lot of the suggestions I read seem to be rather ineffective solutions to the problem. Yes, we should all make sure we have air in our car tires to get better gas mileage – without a doubt. But how about NOT driving cars that get only 5 miles to the gallon to begin with? If all our cars got at least 20 miles to the gallon, we’d be saving oodles of gas. Yes, we should recycle everything we can. But what about NOT consuming so much stuff to begin with? Let’s face it, we are major consumers and a lot of the stuff we buy to use and eat is wasted. Food biodegrades, but non recyclable plastic does not.

I for one would like to figure out how we can stop the use of pesticides in our foods for many reasons. They are bad for the environment and bad for us. And while we are at it, let’s stop the use of growth hormones in the animals we eat. Our bodies should be green as well as the environment as well. Have you ever eaten organic veggies and fruits? They are so much fresher, tastier and better for you that conventional ones that you’ll never want to eat anything but organic once you’ve tasted it and cooked with it. Organic foods are very expensive though. But if everything were grown that way, wouldn’t it be nice?

I could rant about unwanted junk mail (especially those flyers that come in the mail that no one reads) huge bulky newspapers, illegal dumping, disposable products that shouldn’t be and a whole lot more. But that won’t solve any of the planet’s problems.

I am going to keep my eyes and ears open as well as my mind and see what I can do to consume and pollute less. Let me know if you have any ideas.

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Today at the St. Ives Library, I purchased my first souvenir, for the lofty price of two quid. And seriously, never have I been more choughed...

Apparently the Cornwall County Council has bagged the bags. No more will you find plastic bags available in the libraries; instead you have the option of buying this charming burlap tote.

My own library talks about efforts to "go green", and it has been taking certain steps in that direction. Meanwhile, we still give plastic bags to patrons at the circulation desks and during our summer reading program. Canvas bags with the library logo are available, but they cost $10, which is $10 more than a lot of people have or want to spend.

I'll be bringing back my new tote to show off, of course, but also to voice support for moving away from the plastic and toward alternatives that are not only more earth-friendly but affordable.

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D. Michael Lindsay is the author of Faith in The Halls of Power: How Evangelicals Joined the American Elite and is a member of the sociology faculty at Rice University. Lindsay conducted interviews with a variety of prominent Evangelical Americans — including two former presidents, dozens of political and government leaders, more than 100 top business executives, plus Hollywood moguls, intellectuals, athletes and other powerful figures. His book shows who the real evangelical power brokers are, how they rose to prominence, and what they’re doing with their clout. In the post below he ruminates on the role Evangelicals play in popular culture. Read Lindsay’s other blog posts here.

Evangelicals have been making strides in all kinds of places over the last thirty years. We know about their gains in Washington, but they’ve also been quite active in Hollywood. As I conducted interviews with media moguls and artists—all of whom are evangelical—I was struck by the number of times they compared themselves to another group that has also been on the move, the gay and lesbian movement. (more…)

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