Seymour SimonRecensioni

Informational text on a black background balanced with large (often full-page) photographs. Details information about the moon and lunar exploration.

Sharks

EducatingParents.org rating: Approved

As an amateur entomologist and critter collector, I reference this book a lot.
It also gives adequate advice for temporary housing of larger creatures, like frogs and newts. It specifies in the book that some of these setups are only meant for temporary housing, or for short-term observation before release. I appreciate that!

Full of vivid and colorful pictures showing various rocks and minerals found on earth. Teaches kids about how rocks are formed, and how some even come from space. Explains hardness scales as well.

Exactly the type of book my eldest would have loved as a young child. Giants of air, land, and sea await!

4/5 Giant Scorpions

This book is appropriate for kindergarten-3rd grade. This book is all about the heart and how it helps circulate blood through our organs and keeps us alive! I really enjoyed this book and thought it was very educational. I would use this book in a science unit in my classroom!

A great educational work about the natural beauty of our world's oceans. It's easy to read and loaded with so much information. It's a great addition to any collection of nature themed works. If you want a quick read with educational merit, this is a great pick. If you're like me, you'll end up buying. It's worth every re-read.

Primary to Intermediate
I love the real life photographs of this book, they are very engaging. The text is a bit heavy and long; I wish there were fun text features like bold or italicized words. I probably wouldn't have this book in my classroom because kids might get bored if I read all the pages out loud to them. Or, maybe I could just read a page a day.

This book is good for a primary or intermediate age group. It answers fifty questions the reader may or may not be wondering about different kinds of poisonous and venomous animals with clear explanations and relevant photos. I would definitely have this in my classroom, as I think it could draw in students with more sort of "gross out" or sensationalist interests.

This book would be good for primary or intermediate. This book is full of commonly asked questions about poisonous and venomous animals and the answers to said questions. This is another book that would be great for independent reading or science units. This could also be used to introduce the idea of the food chain.

This book is good for an intermediate age group. It contains fairly dense explanations of the purpose, structure, and types of bones in the human body. I wouldn't prioritize having this in my classroom, as I think many students would find its walls of text boring or intimidating.

This book is an information books about cats. This book is very descriptive and tells you what cats look like when they're happy, mad and scared etc. This book is a good book to have accessible in the classroom for young children who may be interested in knowing more about cats. This book is targeted towards primary grade kids.

3 copies

ICFS6P29

I have to wonder about Simon’s choice of title: Is it actually possible to have mysteries that aren’t “strange”? Perhaps the “strangeness” really lies in the explanations that people give for these unusual events or phenomenon. The paranormal, aliens, and even sea monsters are invoked. (Superstition and irrationality appear to be the default mental settings for humans).

Now to the book itself: Simon presents nine “mysteries” in total. Six of them, which rely on newspaper and magazine reports, concern phenomena which have convincing scientific explanations, even if some of the nitty-gritty details haven’t been fully settled. These include—among others—

(1) stories of storms in which fish and frogs have rained down from the sky, sometimes miles away from the nearest body of water These strange occurrences are attributed to the strong winds from storms, tornadoes, and hurricanes that lift animals out of their natural habitats;

(2) accounts of unusual nighttime lights, which change size and colour and seem to be able to move While not all can be explained, those occurring near swamps may be related to the methane gas emitted as plant matter decays;

(3) reports about about a massive explosion that occurred in Siberia in 1908 Most scientists agree this was due to a comet’s entering, slowing, and exploding within Earth’s atmosphere; and

(4) a discussion of the experiences of barefooted fire walkers who step on yards of hot coals without receiving burns This one is admittedly harder to explain, but some scientists say wood coals are poor conductors of heat, and others allude to the “Leidenfrost effect”, which occurs when a cold moist object (a foot) touches a hot dry one (a coal), and a steam barrier is created between the objects. Steam is a poor conductor of heat.

I found the three historical mysteries more interesting to read than those related to natural phenomena. The Oak Island treasure, the Mary Celeste “ghost ship”, and the (supposedly Mayan) crystal skull have morphed into tall tales over time. Simon writes them up as longer, coherent narratives, with a plots, casts of characters, and even conflict(s) of a sort. The edition I read, with a copyright of 1997, is now quite dated, and aside from the story of the crystal skull, the “mysteries” remain unsolved. While there is now a better theory about why an undamaged ship was found floating crew-less with its valuable cargo still intact, I’m not sure anyone really believes treasure will ever be found at the bottom of a deep, centuries-old shaft on Oak Island off the coast of Nova Scotia. (A British Columbian Company, Ideon Technologies, and the History Channel are apparently aiming to find out for sure by the end off 2022) The quartz skull is now known to be a hoax; there’s evidence that the adventurer, whose daughter apparently found it, actually purchased the skull in London in 1943.

As mentioned, this edition of Simon’s work is now pretty dated and not all of his explanations are likely to be accessible to the intended readership. Nevertheless, the book is still likely to entertain readers aged ten and up.

A great informational text for children ages 6 to 8. I love all the facts that this books includes. It talks about important parts of the human body (bones), how they work (function), and how they can be damage. I think this book would be great to teach children about the skeletal system.

This book is great for 5th or 6th graders. It's a great book full of facts about brian and how the brain works. The illustrations in the book also help the readers understand what the text is saying. Great book for kids who want to learn about the brain early on.

This is an informational picture book about how to fight fires. The book describes various techniques that firefighters would use. This would be a good book for younger children to practice reading because the reading level is easy, and it would be especially good for them if they were interested in fires. The illustrations added to the book and made it more eye catching. However, they were more just pictures of different ways to fight fires rather than drawings.

This book is a book full of space jokes and riddles. There is not a lot of science content that can be pulled out of this book. This would be a great read aloud or anticipatory set. If I were doing a unit of space, I could see myself sharing a joke or riddle out of this book at the beginning of science to get students engaged in the learning that is about to be done. This book was super fun and had lots of AWESOME illustration. I think students of all ages would love this book. This would not be a great book to try and teach science, as it is not content heavy. But this would be a great book to get students engaged.

Destination:Mars is a great informational text about Mars. While, this is not the narrative I expected it to be it does provide many different facts and stories about Mars. I appreciated how each page was a different topic surrounding Mars. Each page does contain a lot of text that wouldn't work well with younger students. This book is also jam packed with information. I gave it only 3 stars because while it is a cool informational text I wouldn't use it to read aloud or just have students read. I could see myself using this in 3-5 (mainly 4-5) for research projects/essays. Also, if a student was super interested in Mars I would of course recommend they check this book out. I would include this to have in my classroom but can't see any other pedagogical ideas besides research which is another reason it's 3 stars.

I loved having a Spanish option in my library, especially one that is Spanish. This book was not anything overly engaging because it was just space photographs of Saturn and writing. No labeled photos and no story to go along with, but it just nonfiction, informational writing about the planet Saturn. The biggest part of this is just having a Spanish option for my classroom so students do not feel left out of science lessons. There tends to be a lot of numbers and measurements so I'm guessing there is data after data which is why I could see this not being the MOST engaging read, but it is still an option.

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