The Little Spacecraft That Could by Joyce Lapin and Simona Ceccarelli

The Little Spacecraft That Could by Joyce Lapin, illustrated by Simona Ceccarelli, is about the spacecraft that traveled to Pluto and then onward to view a snowman-shaped object in the Kuiper Belt called Arrokoth, sending back photos of both our most distant planet and a unique object that nobody even knew existed when the spacecraft left the Earth. 

If you're thinking of the story with a similar name (The Little Engine That Could), throw that idea out the window. It's not about huffing and puffing through space but a nonfiction book with lots of facts about the spacecraft New Horizons — its size, how it used another planet's gravity to slingshot outward at a faster rate, how important it was to get the trajectory of New Horizons just right, how long it took to get to Pluto, what kind of information it sent back to Earth and how long it took for the spacecraft to communicate with NASA as it traveled farther away, etc.

The Little Spacecraft That Could also talks about Pluto's journey from being called a planet to losing its "planet" designation, and then back to being a planet but now called a "dwarf planet" and how that all came about. I confess, this is the part that interested me the most because I'm old enough to have been a child who had to memorize the nine planets and do projects with them. Like most folks, I was shocked when scientists announced that Pluto had been taken off our list of planets. How and why did that happen and why did it get its designation back, but slightly altered? It's satisfying to finally have the answers. 

I call this kind of book a "picture book for young readers" because it's a book for slightly older elementary level children but which is still picture-book sized and loaded with gorgeous illustrations.

Highly recommended - The Little Spacecraft That Could would make an excellent resource for either an elementary school library or a science classroom, a nice addition to the library of anyone who has a passion for astronomy and/or NASA, or just a fun read for anyone curious about the journey of a spacecraft to our most distant planet and what exactly it found upon its arrival. It contains a very nice, 2-page glossary. 

There are so many fascinating bits of information about Pluto, our solar system, the spacecraft's journey, and what it found when it arrived in The Little Spacecraft That Could that I'm going to have to muzzle myself a bit. It's just the size of a piano! It's powered by plutonium! The only thing I found a little uncomfortable (at first . . . but I got over it) was the anthropomorphizing of a spacecraft in a nonfiction book. But, it makes the book a little more palatable for youngsters, I'm sure, and makes for cool spreads like this, showing the little spacecraft crying, "Wheee!" as it uses Jupiter's gravity to increase its speed (click on image to enlarge): 

Fun and educational! Many thanks to Sterling Children's Books for the review copy! 

©2021 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

If You Had Your Birthday Party on the Moon by Joyce Lapin and Simona Ceccarelli - Children's Day #5

This is the final post for Children's Day! Thanks for reading! 

When you're weightless, there's no up or down. 

In fact, if your birthday cake floats upside down, it'll

be just as safe as it is right-side up. 

If You Had Your Birthday Party On the Moon takes young readers and listeners from a little after take-off to the return flight to Earth as author Joyce Lapin imagines what it would be like to celebrate a birthday on the moon. Topics discussed are gravity or the lack of it (on Earth, in space, and on the moon), how long it takes to fly to the moon, what it's like to experience weightlessness, how astronauts sleep, what the moon looks like up close and why it looks that way, light from both the Earth and the sun, how long a moon day lasts vs. the length of an Earth day, why the sky is black instead of blue when you look up from the moon and much more.

As impressively informative as If You Had Your Birthday Party on the Moon is, I think my favorite thing about it is the illustrations, which I absolutely love. They're such happy images. Children jump in low gravity, sit on boulders to watch the Earth rotate, play ball, make angels in the moon dust, play freeze tag, and try to hit a piñata. In every case, the science behind what happens (balloons fall because there's no air on the moon; balls fly six times as far because of the lower gravity) is described. There's even a two-page spread about things that were left behind on the moon by astronauts, why they're still exactly where they were left, including the footprints, and why the flags have faded.

Highly recommended - A delightful way to present a science lesson about the moon and space travel. When I signed up to review If You Had Your Birthday Party on the Moon, I expected something a little more silly and less informative. I was definitely pleasantly surprised.

My thanks to Sterling Children's Books for the review copy of If You Had Your Birthday Party on the Moon!

One little note:

Today is my 13th bloggiversary at Bookfoolery. I usually don't say much about it — I usually just post a picture of a slice of cake with the right number of candles (or number-shaped candles) beneath a photo and a few words about the anniversary of D-Day. But, I forgot to make or buy cake and I feel a little speechless at the thought that this is the 75th anniversary of the landing at Normandy. I was born less than 20 years after the end of WWII, watched the first moon walk from the dining table on a tiny black-and-white TV, and I remember the end of the Vietnam War.

Even in blog years, I'm feeling old. 13 years ago, I had a child in junior high and one working on his first college degree. Now, my eldest child has 4 (yes, 4!) university degrees, a wife, and two children. My youngest has just set a wedding date and is finishing up his second degree. We do love learning in this family. Both of my grown children are avid readers and that is, I think, the best thing about my life. I raised two readers. Bloggiversaries make me all sappy, obviously. To those who are still reading my blog, I appreciate you!

©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Hedy Lamarr's Double Life by Laurie Wallmark and Katy Wu and a Fiona Friday pic

Even as a child in Austria in the early 1920s, Hedy's curious mind wanted to know how things worked. What powered automobiles? Which type of motor worked best in an airplane? How could she improve a machine's design? At age five, Hedy took apart her music box to examine the mechanism. 

Hedy Lamarr's Double Life: Hollywood Legend and Brilliant Inventor by Laurie Wallmark is the second book I've read by Wallmark about women in STEM and I hope this is just a beginning of a lengthy series. This children's biography tells the story of Hedy's interests in science and invention, as well as her love of acting. Wallmark describes how these interests grew from her childhood onward, how she became a famous actress but continued to invent, and how she and another scientist came up with frequency hopping, an invention that is used today as a security feature in modern electronics.

Written for ages 5 and up, Hedy Lamarr's Double Life is loaded with quotations by Hedy about her life.

"(My father) had encouraged me by telling me to hold fast to my dream and that if I held fast it would come true."

The book includes a timeline of Hedy Lamarr's life; a separate, more in-depth description of Hedy and her friend George's frequency-hopping invention (so the book can grow a bit with your child); a selected bibliography of books about Lamarr and additional suggested reading about women in STEM; and, a list of Hedy Lamarr's film credits.

Highly recommended - Books about women's accomplishments and bios of women in STEM seem to be among the new, big things in publishing and I couldn't be happier. It's wonderful to read about smart, talented, driven women. I wish books like this had been available when I was young but I'm happy they're around, now. I have two granddaughters and I'm thrilled that they'll have access to books that will help encourage them early if they choose to go into fields that are still, in many cases, male-dominated.

Also by Wallmark and Wu:

Grace Hopper: Queen of Computer Code by Laurie Wallmark and Katy Wu

Updating: Completely forgot to add the line about who I got the book from. I received a copy of Hedy Lamarr's Double Life from Sterling Children's Books for review. Thank you, Sterling! Please keep this series going for a long, long time!!!

***********

And, for Fiona Friday I give you a sadly out-of-focus photo (it was over too quickly) of Fiona climbing my knees and peeking over to say hello.

©2019 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

All Are Welcome by Alexandra Penfold and Suzanne Kaufman

Pencils sharpened in their case.

Bells are ringing, let's make haste.

School's beginning, dreams to chase.

All are welcome here. 

All Are Welcome is a cute rhyming book that takes place at a school and shows the children arriving, doing their everyday schoolwork, going to lunch, playing on the playground, being read to, drawing, raising their hands to be called on, playing musical instruments, etc. Each verse ends with, "All are welcome here," and the characters portrayed show a vast diversity, as you can see from the cover image.

This is one of my favorite spreads (you should be able to click on the image to enlarge it):

The inside of the book jacket is also a poster that says "All are welcome here" and shows a diverse range of children holding hands, great for classroom use.

Recommended - A lovely story about embracing diversity with bright, cheerful illustrations that show happy children enjoying learning. I love it!

©2018 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Gloria's Voice by Aura Lewis

Gloria's Voice by Aura Lewis is the story of Gloria Steinem: "Feminist, Activist, Leader," as the subtitle says. I read one of Gloria Steinem's many books, last year, for my feminist reading project and never got around to writing a post about it, but I was fascinated by Gloria and thrilled to see that someone has written a children's book about her.

Here, little ones can get an introduction to her life. Beginning with childhood, the book talks about her wishes and dreams, how she wanted to be famous and help others, and how she was sidelined by her need to take care of her mother when her parents separated and her mother's mental illness meant Gloria had to act as the adult. It then moves on to her trip to India, followed by her decision to become a journalist and the frustration about having to write about things she didn't consider serious, how she came to realize that women everywhere just wanted to be heard, and the creation of Ms. magazine.

Gloria's Voice is for ages 4 and up, so it's told in very simple terms with gorgeous illustrations that have "flower power" coloring similar to the stage prop in the Sixties show Laugh-In (we've recently started occasionally watching an old Laugh-In episode, now and then, or I might not have recogized the similar coloring). But, there's a  more in-depth one-page bio at the end of the book, followed by a page of references for further reading and page-by-page notes on the details of each spread. So, even after one has grown past the picture book phase, there's a lot more learning material and ideas to read further for young feminists.

Highly recommended - One of the things I love about Gloria's Voice is that there are almost no men illustrated in the pages of this book. It's about a woman trying to bring attention to women's voices and that's reflected in the illustrations, which are gorgeous, by the way. The exception is a single man standing in a line to get a copy of Ms. magazine. The page-by-page notes at the end of the book explain that the image is of Gloria's husband, to whom she was married for three years (till his death). Those details and their explanations take the book from a picture book about a feminist leader to an educational book that can long be used as a reference or a starting point to learning more. I love that.


©2018 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.

Grace Hopper: Queen of Computer Code by Laurie Wallmark and Katy Wu

There's a little rhyme in the end papers of Grace Hopper: Queen of Computer Code by Laurie Wallmark and Katy Wu:

Software tester. Workplace jester.
Order seeker. Well-known speaker.
Gremlin finder. Software minder.
Clever thinker. Lifelong tinker. 
Cherished mentor. Ace inventor.
Avid reader. Naval leader.
Rule breaker. 
Chance taker. 
Troublemaker. 
AMAZING GRACE. 

It's just a hint at what a brilliant thinker and accomplished woman Grace Hopper was. A picture book for young readers, Grace Hopper: Queen of Computer Code is an easy but comprehensive biography of Grace Hopper's amazing life. A tinkerer at a young age, Grace's early years sound very much like the kind of story I've heard from the many engineers I've known throughout the years. Curious how her alarm clock worked, she took a look at the inside of her clock but accidentally dismantled it. And, when she couldn't figure out how to put the clock back together, she taught herself how by taking apart every other clock in her house. She moved on to building an elevator for her dollhouse.

Grace's insatiable curiosity continued throughout her life and she was a trailblazer. After earning bachelor's and graduate degrees, she taught for many years then went on to join the U. S. Navy, where she spent time writing early programs in machine language and then teaching computers how to understand words. She inadvertantly came up with the term "bug" - meaning a computer glitch - when a moth was discovered in a computer that wasn't working. She contributed to the development of early computer languages like COBOL. And, she was so important to the work of the Navy that after she was forced to retire, they brought her back and she continued to work for 20 more years.

All of this is covered in Grace Hopper: Queen of Computer Code. I don't know what age this book is geared to but my family has never felt constrained by age limit suggestions and I'd happily read this book to my 3-year-old granddaughter, although she probably will need another year or two to really start to grasp it. Peppered with wise quotes by Hopper, the book is a wonderfully succinct bio of a brilliant woman, the kind of book little girls need to read as early as possible.

Highly recommended - What a wonderful book! While I particularly think this easy bio is a great way to introduce little girls to a strong and brilliant woman's career, don't ignore the boys. They need to learn that women are every bit as intelligent and capable as men as early as girls need to start hearing about successful women. Lucid prose, stylish and cheerful illustrations, and a deeply respectful tone make for an excellent true story of an extraordinary woman.

Addendum: I'm adding on a note because I had a conversation with my youngest son (who has a degree in Management Information Systems) and discovered something I would not otherwise have known. When I asked him if he was familiar with Grace Hopper, he said, "Admiral Grace Hopper? She's one of my heroes." The book doesn't mention the fact that she rose to the level of admiral in the Navy but I think it's worth mentioning that her full title was Rear Admiral Dr. Grace Hopper.

Last post for today. There will be more children's book reviews coming up, tomorrow!

©2017 Nancy Horner. All rights reserved. If you are reading this post at a site other than Bookfoolery or its RSS feed, you are reading a stolen feed. Email bookfoolery@gmail.com for written permission to reproduce text or photos.