Here are a couple of newly published titles which might interest young readers at your next booktalk.
100 Marvels of the Modern World by Various
It’s kind of a hefty volume, but worth it’s weight in picturesque photos and fascinating facts about the world’s most amazing engineering marvels. From bridges, buildings, tunnels, to dams every man made engineering feat from around the world is covered in this fascinating book. Some of my personal favorites were Egypt’s Alexandria Library, The Ice Hotel In Sweden (you can connect this to Missy Elliot’s/Tweet video), and the Asahi Super Dry Hall in Japan.
99 Ways to Cut, Sew, Trim, and Tie your Shirt into Something Special by Faith Blackney et al.
I’m a Project Runway addict and thought this book would be fun for aspiring designers. And you know what? It totally is. Like the title states, it’s 99 projects and patterns to turn a mundane t-shirt into a fabulous skirt or any other clothing article. You could also pair this book with Generation T: 108 ways to transform a T-Shirt by Megan Nicolay.
(Shepard Fairy’s Obey)
Sticker City: Paper Graffiti Art by Claudia Walde.
Ever notice that random sticker placed on the exit sign on the freeway? Well this book chronicles the artists who create the graffiti sticker art you may see all over your urban jungle.
What if..? 75 Fascinating Questions and Answers by HowStuffWorks.com.
This book is an easy crowd pleaser for boys and girls from 7th to 12th grade. Brought to you by HowStuffWorks.com it is a plethora of interesting and fascinating questions and their scientific answers. For my booktalk I started off with the question “What if the Hoover Dam Broke?” and related it to the movie Transformers, where in the finale the evil robots threaten to blow up the Hoover Dam. Other questions that tickled their fancy were “What if we had no eyebrows?” and “How would you un superglue yourself?”
Villainology: Fabolous Lives of the Big, the Bad, and the Wicked by Arthur Slade
A great book to bring along if you’re doing a booktalk around Halloween. Slade takes a humorous look at some of the most meanest and creepiest Villains in history. (Real and fictional.) Personal favorites included The Invisible Man(who apparently tried to date the Invisible women, but they were never able to find eachother), The Headless Horseman, and Mephastopheles. You could also pair this book with How to Be a Villian: Evil Laughs, Secret Lairs, Master Plans, and More!! by Neil Zawacki, which shows you how to formulate your own villainous name, I’m Mistress DoomHeart.
