“Hilarious, witty” – Midwest Book Review

Did you know? We always have free books offered on Amazon Kindle (follow Karl Beckstrand there).

Laughter Laughter: Now & After

There are 24 circles (plus partial circles on T's Time Travel Treasure Trunk and Polar Bowler)

Samuel Sailing: The True Story of an Immigrant Boy

7 modes of transportation (8 if he had enough balloons at the end:) Horse carriage, horseback, boat/ship, hiking/walking, bicycle, railroad train,  sled, airplane. 4 continents: Africa, America, Europe, and Asia. 6 countries: South Africa, England, Holland/The Netherlands, Belgium, France, The United States. 7 states: New York, Utah, California, Washington, Wisconsin, Iowa, and Nebraska. 6 cities: Cape Town, London, New York, Ogden, San Francisco, and Chicago (in Epilogue). Can you find 3 dogs in the story (one seems to have two heads) and 3 horses? Sam had 7 siblings: Clara, Mabel, Doris, Ethel, Theo, James, and Frank.

Agnes's Rescue: The True Story of an Immigrant Girl

Agnes was born in 1847. She had 3 older brothers and 2 older sisters: Mary, William, John “Robert,” Thomas, and Elizabeth. Her parents were William Caldwell & Margaret Ann McFall. 2 Rivers named: Clyde and Sweetwater; 4 cities: Glasgow, New York, Iowa City, and Salt Lake City; 4 modes of transportation to Utah: ship, train, walking with a handcart, riding in a wagon; References to feet: 4 (plus “toes,” “foot,” “walk,” “jump,” “run,” and “dancing” [in the epilogue]); Did you see FamilySearch.org to search for your ancestors?  The Willie Handcart Company had 400 people, 6 wagons, 87 carts, 32 cows, 6 oxen, and 5 mules. This may be Agnes's snake-jumping companion's  (Mary) story. https://latterdaysaintmag.com/how-the-experiences-of-a-thirteen-year-old-girl-strengthened-the-faith-of-thousands/ 

Gopher Golf: A Wordless Picture Book

Did you find the FIND the rodents (gophers, groundhog, squirrel), bird, and fish? Which two animals ended up with golf balls? (second and third animals above). Which ended up with the acorn the gophers golfed with? (fifth critter above)

GROW: How We Get Food from Our Garden

Did you find the FIND the bird, butterflies, bees, ladybugs, ducks, goat, and slugs? SEE gardening tips under lesson plans

Ida's Witness

On page 27, Ida wears her mother's shawl--the same one later wrapped around Anna (in Anna's Prayer) when the sisters sail to America. The author appears twice in the story (representing his own great-great grandfather ["man from the town"] and Ida's brother, Oskar). See also: https://www.kellysclassroomonline.com/2020/10/idas-witness-karl-beckstrand.html

It Came from under the High Chair: A Mystery

"It" appears 21 times (22 counting the one on the cover [it's on the last page too]). It takes the form of a puddle, a shoe, a critter with mop hair, and a teddy bear. See also: https://www.kellysclassroomonline.com/2020/10/it-came-from-under-highchair.html

Great Cape o' Colors - Capa de colores

How many careers? 11: Magician, judge, actor, acrobat, matador, daredevil, wrestler, monk, pop star, political leader, professor. How many cultures? More than seven! What else is called a cape? A prominent mass of land that extends into a body of water (like Cape Canaveral in Florida). How many "o"s are on the cover? 10 (two of them, separated by an l look kind of like a face.) Can you find 10 circles (and some ovals) in the art?  See ChildrenEarn.com and https://www.kellysclassroomonline.com/2020/10/great-cape-of-colors.html for more great information.

Muffy & Valor: A True Story

Scroll down to see a photo of Muffy! Did you count? There are 7 different dogs in the book.

The Bridge of the Golden Wood: A Parable on How to Earn a Living

Who was the old woman? Perhaps the matriarch of the school of fish. The furry animal in the story is a red panda--but it's not a panda at all. It's more related to racoons and skunks than to pandas. For Earning tips, see ChildrenEarn.com. More secrets below! 

Butterfly Blink: A Book Without Words

The characters in this book can also be seen in Crumbs on the Stairs.   

The Bee is on the page with the blue outline of a butterfly.

Monarch butterflies are losing their primary food source!

Milkweed (shown on the last image) nourishes pollinators—including butterflies and honeybees. Pollinators help our own food grow. But milkweed is diminishing. Do what you can to ensure there is milkweed in your community, and use natural alternatives to herbicides and pesticides.* Such products might not only eliminate food sources—but pollinators and people. Blink, and they could be gone.

*In California and other areas, goats are used to control unwanted plants (goats eat lots of plants). Glyphosate, found in herbicides such as Roundup®, has been classified as a probable threat to health by international bodies and the World Health Organization (www.WHO.int). See: Beyondpesticides.org

Polar Bear Bowler: A Story Without Words

The illustrator, Ash Sanborn, has also created art for The Dancing Flamingos of Lake Chimichanga and If Cancer Was a Fish.

The Dancing Flamingos of Lake Chimichanga: Silly Birds

There are 68 flamingos in the book (70 counting the cover). The condor's name is Chuck. There are seven foods listed and 21 dances (flamingos really do dance--or, at least, promenade--in groups).

Anna's Prayer: The True Story of an Immigrant Girl

In the prequel, Ida's Witness,  Anna's sister, Ida, wears the same shawl their mother wraps around Anna. Anna had a brother. You'll see him in her sister's story: Ida's Witness. See also: https://www.kellysclassroomonline.com/2020/11/annas-prayer.html

Ma MacDonald Flees the Farm: It's Not a Pretty Picture ... Book

Did you find the animals/reptiles/insects depicted, but not mentioned? Elephant, birds, zebra, octopus, ants, spiders, tiger, deer, duck. Did you find the same mouse on every page? 

Crumbs on the Stairs - Migas en las escaleras: A Mystery:

Many of the background illustrations came from articles of clothing (hint: look for denim and other patterns).

Bright Star, Night Star: An Astronomy Story

There are 18 and a half constellations to find (two not named). 

Before different cultures mixed in their own names, the days of the week were: Sunday, Mo[o]nday, Marsday, Mercuryday, Jupiterday, Venusday, Saturnday. (Some languages/culture preserve the heavenly names better than others. 

The following star-related poems/songs are alluded to:   Baird, Robert B. Improve the Shining Moments. Circa 1900;   Frost, Robert. Choose Something Like a Star. 1943;    Phelps, William W. If You Could High to Kolob. 1842;   Taylor, Jane. The Star (Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star). 1806;   Washington, Ned and Lee Harline. When You Wish Upon a Star. 1940.

GLOSSARY - Some definitions from Wikipedia:

Asteroids are minor planets, especially those of the inner Solar System. The larger ones have also been called planetoids [Pluto is an example].

A comet is an icy small body that, when passing close to a star or sun, heats up and begins to outgas, displaying a visible atmosphere or coma, and sometimes also a tail.

A blazar is a very compact quasar (quasi-stellar radio source) associated with a presumed supermassive black hole at the center of an active, giant elliptical galaxy. 

A black hole is a region of spacetime [so dense that] gravity prevents anything, including light, from escaping [it].

A blue giant is an unusually large or massive star (that doesn't live very long).

Blue stragglers are main-sequence stars in clusters that are more luminous and bluer than other stars in the cluster.

Brown dwarfs are substellar objects too low in mass to sustain hydrogen-1 fusion reactions in their cores, unlike main-sequence stars, which can. (They don't lite or stay lit up!)

A falling star or shooting star is the common name for the visible path of a meteoroid [rock from space] as it enters the atmosphere to become a meteor. If a falling star survives impact with the Earth's surface, then it is called a meteorite.

A gas giant is a large planet that is not primarily composed of rock or other solid matter.

A light year is an astronomical unit of length (not time) equal to just under 9.5 trillion kilometers (or about 6 trillion miles), according the International Astronomical Union. A light-year is the distance that light travels in vacuum in one Julian year. 

A nebula an interstellar cloud of dust, hydrogen, helium and other ionized gases (often a star-forming region).

A protostar is a large mass that forms by contraction out of the gas of a giant molecular cloud in the interstellar medium. The protostellar phase is an early stage in the [very long] process of star formation. 

A pulsar is a highly magnetized, rotating neutron star that emits a beam of electromagnetic radiation, (which can only be observed when the beam of emission is pointing toward the Earth, like a lighthouse can only be seen when the light is pointed in the direction of an observer).

A red giant is a luminous giant star of low or intermediate mass in a late phase of evolution. The outer atmosphere is inflated, making the radius immense and the surface temperature low.

A shell star, is a star having a spectrum that exhibits features indicating a circumstellar disc of gas surrounding the star at the equator.

A starburst is a generic term to describe a region of space with an abnormally high rate of star formation.

A supernova, is a stellar explosion that is more energetic than a nova (a cataclysmic nuclear explosion in a white dwarf, which causes a sudden brightening of the star). 

A variable star is a star whose brightness, as seen from Earth (its apparent magnitude), fluctuates.

This variation may be caused by a change in emitted light or by something partly blocking the light.

A white dwarf is a dense stellar remnant composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter. A white dwarf's mass is comparable to that of the Sun, and its volume is comparable to that of the Earth.

Sounds in the House - Sonidos en la casa: A Mystery

Can you find the dog, moth, cat, flowers, mouse, and boy?

 Spanish vowels have only one sound each:

In Spanish, the letter J is pronounced as an English H (and the letter H is silent). Qu has a K sound, ñhas an ny sound (año, then, sounds like “ah-nyo”), and the letters ll sound like a Y.

Aunque se escriben diferente, todas las palabras que encuentres en inglés en este libro y que terminen en -ear, -ere, -air(s), -are(s), y -aire tienen el mismo sonido al terminar: -er. En inglés, la H no es muda; 

se pronuncia como la J de español. Crumbs se pronuncia: Kramz. 

Bad Bananas: A Story Cookbook for Kids

4011 (on banana stickers) is the Universal Product Code for "banana."

Why Juan Can't Sleep: A Mystery?

Sounds in the House (our first book) is in Juan's illustrations. See if you can find it! Did you find the bear, dragon, dog, bird, cat, camel, crickets, lamb, and mosquito? How about the rabbit?

Arriba Up, Abajo Down at the Boardwalk: A Picture Book of Opposites

Did you count the ball--and find the sand dollar (urchin), seal/sea lion, dog, birds, cat, and (wooden) horses? The author (surf champion--not!) and many of his relatives appear in this book. 

She Doesn't Want the Worms - Ella no quiere los gusanos: A Mystery

Unless

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down!

David Hollenbach used real images of food (and other things) to make these creepy crawly book illustrations. Hungry now?

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