BOOK IDEAS for Advanced Readers:
From
Booklist
Bringing her proper-punctuation campaign to children for the second time, Truss
follows up her best-selling 2006 picture book, Eats, Shoots, and Leaves: Why,
Commas Really Do Matter! (which shares its title with Truss' bestseller for
adults) with this companion about apostrophes. Mishaps related to the flying
comma (fancifully envisioned as a Good Punctuation Fairy . . . flitting above a
page of words) are set forth in paired statements, with Timmons' lighthearted
cartoons driving home the shift in meaning precipitated by missing or misplaced
apostrophes. The strain of coming up with clever, illustration-friendly examples
occasionally shows, but many of the 13 scenarios successfully find the sweet
spot between kid-pleasing goofiness and perfect clarity of purpose: with one
scenario's play on the two meanings of behind, one referring to a horse's rear
end, kids won't soon forget the crucial distinction between its and it's.
Endnotes provide brief technical explanations. Hide your red pens: if Truss and
Timmons keep this up, the grammar police may have its youngest recruits yet.
From School Library Journal
YA-- Highly readable questions and answers explaining the unusual and heretofore
unanswered questions of life. Researchers can use the index to locate specific
information and browsers can just enjoy. Creative illustrations further entice,
interest, and tickle the funnybone. Readers are invited to submit new
imponderables or to assist in solving ``frustables.''
From Library Journal
This is the sixth in a series of "Imponderables" books by Feldman. Most
questions in this volume have been posed by readers of the previous volumes, and
the author asks his reading public to submit questions for future books. Experts
in the various fields are either quoted or paraphrased in the answer along with
commentary from the author. The final section of the book is devoted to "Frustables"
(unanswerable "imponderables")--new, updated, and those that "will not die." The
index is thorough and useful; however, reference librarians would find a
cumulative index extremely helpful. Buy if you have the other titles or for
browsing and YA collections.
Imponderables : The Solution to the Mysteries of Everyday Life
How Do Astronauts Scratch an Itch?
How Does Aspirin Find a Headache?
What Are Hyenas Laughing At, Anyway?
When Do Fish Sleep?: And Other Imponderables of Everyday Life
Who Put the Butter in Butterfly?...and Other Fearless Investigations into Our Illogical Language by David Feldman
Why Do Clocks Run Clockwise? and Other Imponderables
And if you like the books, try the game! Marlarky (Patch Products)
Players try to bluff answers to Imponderable questions, and opponents try to determine the real answers from the ones that are simply malarky...
Biographies and Memoirs (check/pre-read before using)
Gandhi by Amy Pastan (a DK Biography - about 120 pages, easier read, with the strong photo support)
One Giant Leap: Neil Armstrong's Stellar American Journey by Neal Thompson
Tesla: Man Out of Time by Margaret Cheney
The Radioactive Boy Scout: The Frightening True Story of a Whiz Kid and His Homemade Nuclear Reactor by Ken Silverstein
True Compass: A Memoir, by Edward Kennedy