madteaparty Posted June 16 Share Posted June 16 This is my perennial quest. We enjoyed Immune as well as the Bomb books. Thinking of giving The way we work a whirl but not sure if there is anything recent that’s great out there. Oh we also enjoyed a bio of Marie Curie (written for kids) which we read because we visited their museum recently. i had the genius idea of getting “best science writing” anthology but it was, down to the last essay, doom and gloom. Nope, I don’t subscribe to that. would love some great science read-together you’ve come across! She loves geology and chemistry but really anything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HomeAgain Posted June 16 Share Posted June 16 We were enthralled by an older book called The Case of the Mummified Pigs. It is a collection of short stories that each explore an incident, the collection of clues, and the conclusion. Well written and gave us a way to springboard into other topics. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madteaparty Posted June 16 Author Share Posted June 16 1 hour ago, HomeAgain said: We were enthralled by an older book called The Case of the Mummified Pigs. It is a collection of short stories that each explore an incident, the collection of clues, and the conclusion. Well written and gave us a way to springboard into other topics. Thank you, you always have such great suggestions ❤️ is the reading age really around 1st grade like Amazon says? I ordered it, because I have a little niece I can share with but was initially looking for DD who’s in 8th Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HomeAgain Posted June 16 Share Posted June 16 2 minutes ago, madteaparty said: Thank you, you always have such great suggestions ❤️ is the reading age really around 1st grade like Amazon says? I ordered it, because I have a little niece I can share with but was initially looking for DD who’s in 8th No, it's not. I'm sure a first grader would enjoy having it read to them, but it's roughly 120 pages of 14 stories with sparse pen and ink pictures every couple of pages. It is written to be accessible to those who are not overly familiar with the material being covered. A sample paragraph: Thus Klein suspected that the Saint Matthew Island reindeer had been unhealthy or had run out of food during the winter of 1963-1964. With this thought in mind, Klein looked for evidence of starvation in the skeletons. An important clue lay hidden inside the bones. A well-fed animal has fat in its bone marrow. This fatty marrow remains in the bones for five years or more after an animal dies. Knowing this, Klein cracked open the leg bones of the skeletons to examine the marrow. Bone after bone, skeleton after skeleton, the marrow was completely gone. None of the animals had fat in their bone marrow when they died. This was clear evidence the herd had starved to death. Quinlan, S. E. (1995). The Mystery of Saint Matthew Island. In The Case of the Mummified Pigs (p. 17). Caroline House. It gets slightly technical but keeps it at a level that encourages exploration of the topic if you want to continue, or lets you drop it if you don't. DS14 really enjoyed it because he didn't feel the need to keep reading if he didn't like a story. We had done The Disappearing Spoon earlier in the year and while it is fantastic, it is also very.........dense? The amount of material covered required us both to slow down quite a bit to digest each and every micro story within, and we ended up reading it twice and listening to it once. But here, the important thing for us was focusing on the methods used to collect data and cross reference it with what was known. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SilverMoon Posted June 16 Share Posted June 16 Disappearing Spoon has a young reader version now. ✌️ We also loved the Itch trilogy during middle school. The actual science is heaviest in the first novel and trails off as the series progresses, so I'd just read aloud the first one and have them read the sequels on their own if they want. The young reader Radium Girls was really well done, but there's definitely some doom and gloom there. My rising 9th grader really enjoyed the young reader version of The Third Chimpanzee this year. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
HomeAgain Posted June 16 Share Posted June 16 3 minutes ago, SilverMoon said: Disappearing Spoon has a young reader version now. ✌️ OH, THANK YOU!! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madteaparty Posted June 17 Author Share Posted June 17 8 hours ago, SilverMoon said: Disappearing Spoon has a young reader version now. ✌️ We also loved the Itch trilogy during middle school. The actual science is heaviest in the first novel and trails off as the series progresses, so I'd just read aloud the first one and have them read the sequels on their own if they want. The young reader Radium Girls was really well done, but there's definitely some doom and gloom there. My rising 9th grader really enjoyed the young reader version of The Third Chimpanzee this year. So she was reading Radium Girls (again, with the Curie theme before we went to Paris) but she “lost” the book half way 😉 when I offered to get her a new copy before our next trip, she said she was too freaked out by the…jaw damage and the graphic detail. So that one is out. Thanks for Disappearing Spoon young reader rec! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
domestic_engineer Posted June 17 Share Posted June 17 9 hours ago, SilverMoon said: Itch trilogy Can you help me find this by providing a few more words in the title or the author, please? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SilverMoon Posted June 17 Share Posted June 17 21 minutes ago, domestic_engineer said: Can you help me find this by providing a few more words in the title or the author, please? The author is Simon Mayo. Itch: The Explosive Adventures of an Element Hunter https://a.co/d/eCiWGT1 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madteaparty Posted June 21 Author Share Posted June 21 On 6/16/2024 at 7:09 AM, HomeAgain said: We were enthralled by an older book called The Case of the Mummified Pigs. It is a collection of short stories that each explore an incident, the collection of clues, and the conclusion. Well written and gave us a way to springboard into other topics. Just received this and it looks good, thanks again for sharing. I wish there were more books like this: like a step above scientist in the field type books but a step below Nature or Scientific American articles 🙂 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Miss Tick Posted June 21 Share Posted June 21 3 hours ago, madteaparty said: Scientific American With respect to this, you might enjoy Science News. It is shorter articles on a wide variety of scientific topics, not really evening-read-aloud so much as share-at-the-breakfast-table. When I was forced to choose between the two publications, I went with Science News. There are kid focused materials and a magazine available now, but I'm not familiar with them. 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lori D. Posted June 21 Share Posted June 21 Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time by Dava Sobol Adult level, but much more accessible than Disappearing Spoon (sorry, I couldn't get past the first chapter of Disappearing Spoon, it was just so boring and couldn't seem to get to the point -- I'll be looking for the younger reader version!) Anyways... Longitude is partly historical biography as it traces the process John Harrison went through to create an accurate chronometer so that longitude could be accurately measured. Lower level than you're looking for (gr. 5-7), but the Science in Ancient _______ (Science of the Past) series was fascinating. Again, more of a history/science text than straight science. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smfmommy Posted June 23 Share Posted June 23 How about the Sassafras Science Adventures? My son read the Biology one on his own just as free reading. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Teaching3bears Posted July 6 Share Posted July 6 We just started What Linnaeus Saw by Karen Magnuson Beil (young teens-adult). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
madteaparty Posted July 20 Author Share Posted July 20 Here to update that the young reader’s edition of The Disappearing Spoon, while not exactly a hit, is in fact being red by DD and every day she shares with me a fact learned. We really could not get past the first couple pages in the original book so this is progress. Finished The Case of the Mummified pigs (thanks again)—was a touch too but great for vacation 😉 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lori D. Posted July 20 Share Posted July 20 (edited) yea! Glad some things are working! Thx for the update. 😄 Edited July 20 by Lori D. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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