Tag: Elizabeth Zechel

Posted in picture books, Preschool Reads

Scampers teaches kids the scientific method!

Posted on by Rosemary Kiladitis

Scampers Thinks Like a Scientist, by Mike Allegra/Illustrated by Elizabeth Zechel, (March 2019, Dawn Publications), $8.95, ISBN: 9781584696438

Ages 4-8

Scampers is a curious little mouse who wants to know what it will take to get a menacing-looking owl out of the vegetable garden, so he and the other mice can go back to getting food. With the help of Scampers’s friend, Nibbles, the two proceed to conduct a few experiments, including waving a rag doll and making noise that will startle the owl, and building an egg catapault to scare it off. No reaction. (Have you guessed yet?) When Scampers and Nibbles figure out the owl’s secret, they let their fellow mice know: the owl isn’t real! Will the mice believe their two scientists?

Scampers Thinks Like a Scientist is an adorable, abbreviated introduction to an scientific method. Scampers has a theory about the mouse, so she conducts some tests, considers her conclusion, and shares her results. The tests are amusing and let caregivers and educators work with readers to reason out the conclusion. It’s a cute way to introduce scientific thinking to younger readers, and publisher Dawn Publications has a free, downloadable companion activities for kids. Add this one to your science storytime.

Posted in Fiction, Intermediate, Realistic Fiction

In Lucy’s Lab, science is everywhere!

Posted on by Rosemary Kiladitis

Sky Pony has a new series for intermediate readers that incorporates a fun science component into each tale. Lucy’s Lab is a series about a second grader named Lucy, and she loves science! Her cousin and best friend, Cora, is in class with her, and is more of the purple and pink princess type, but she’s always up for a stint in Lucy’s Lab. Now, if only she could get that annoying classmate Stewart Swinefest, to behave himself…

Lucy’s Lab: Nuts About Science, by Michelle Houts/Illustrated by Elizabeth Zechel,
(Sept. 2017, Sky Pony Press), $13.99, ISBN: 978-1510710641
Recommended for readers 7-10

In Lucy’s first science adventure, Nuts About Science, we meet the science-loving second grader at the beginning of her school year. She likes her new teacher, Miss Flippo, and she really likes that there’s a science lab in her classroom! Miss Flippo even has lab coats and goggles for the students to wear in the lab! One thing doesn’t sit so well with Lucy this school year, though: the big oak tree outside her classroom is gone, and Lucy’s worried that the squirrels that lived there will have nowhere to go! She and her friends manage to find out what happened, and lobby the principal and the PTA for a new tree. In the meantime, Lucy turns an old playhouse her father built in the backyard into her very own lab!

 

Lucy’s Lab: Nuts About Science, by Michelle Houts/Illustrated by Elizabeth Zechel,
(Sept. 2017, Sky Pony Press), $13.99, ISBN: 978-1510710672
Recommended for readers 7-10

Lucy and her classmates learn about the states of matter in Solids, Liquids, Guess Who’s Got Gas, which may be the best Intermediate book title ever. Miss Flippo believes in science being fun, and teaches them about solids, liquids, and gases by using balloons, frozen water, and a school trip to the apple orchard! Kudos to author Michelle Houts for slipping the fourth state of matter – plasma – into the story, as well as its recent inclusion into science textbooks. Lucy discovers a new science hero in this story, and Stewart Swinefest gets some payback for being obnoxious.

The Lucy’s Lab series is easy reading, with bite-sized information slipped into the narrative. Lucy has her own lab time in each book, and we return to Room 2-C for adventures in the science lab during school hours; we also get interesting tidbits throughout each story, whether it’s about the origin of some last names, tree diseases, or the scientist who studied plasma. There’s always something interesting happening in Lucy’s world, and we’re invited to come along. Black and white illustrations keep the reader’s interest and keep the pace moving for readers transitioning from beginner chapter books to intermediate novels.

This is a nice series to give to your readers who like exploring the world around them. I’d display this with the Girls Who Code chapter books and Jon Scieszka’s Frank Einstein books to give kids a nice introduction to STEM fiction.