Innovative Kids sent us a couple of titles from a great series of science books called "Little Pirate: Science Made Simple" to review. We've been reading them to Z and they've had quite an impact. One of the things that I really like is that although the main characters and background images are illustrated, the object of the story (the trash in the bookWhy Do We Recycle? or the animals in the book Is That a Bat?) are photographs.

Each book features three main characters: Little Pirate - the curious explorer, Parrot - the bird with the answers, and Mystic - a mermaid/girl character who makes keen observations and is always ready for adventure.

The books state that they are for ages 3-6 and I think young kids could engage with this book somewhat due to the bright, interesting illustrations, but the books are really best for kids ages 4-7 or so. There is enough information in the books to last for several years of readings - the younger kids will get the superficial, surface level information and the older kids will really enjoy relating the books to real world topics.

At the end of the book Why Do We Recycle, there are a couple of pirate craft suggestions. We read the book as a bedtime story - just glossing over the crafts since it was bedtime - and were so confused when Z woke up the next morning asking to make a pirate ship out of a plastic bottle. (She finally showed us the project in the back of the book.)

We highly recommend this series! At under $10 on Amazon.com and with their buy three, get the fourth for free deal, these are a great buy. Other titles in the series include: What's in the Egg?, Is a Shark a Fish?, and Why Does the Wind Blow?.

In accordance with our Keep No Stuff policy, we'll be donating these books to charity. - Jennifer

Z has recently been interested in different things about how the human body works so we've spent some time looking at children's books about the functions of the human body. The Usborne Flap Book See Inside Your Body by Katie Daynes and Colin King, shown above, has quickly become a favorite. There are 14 different two-page spreads that each address a different function of the body - from eating and excreting to breathing air and pumping blood. Each spread is printed on thick, board book type pages and feature flaps that offer magnified views of the topic at hand or . The information is accessible even for children as young as five but the book offers enough detail for older children to use as a starting point for further investigation.

Other children's books on the human body we've enjoyed include:

• The Children's Book of the Body by Anna Sandeman: Includes more topics about a wider variety (like the genetics of hair color, how you learn, and how the senses work) but for an older audience.


• Your Skin and Mine by Paul Showers: This Let's-Read-And-Find-Out Science book focuses on the largest organ in the body - the skin - covering topics such as sweating, how the hair grows, fingerprints and melanin.


• Your Insides by Joanna Cole, Illustrated by Paul Meisel Basic body reference book but includes 4 overlay prints that layer from the skin to the muscles and bones, to the heart and lungs, stomach and intestines, and brain and nerves. (Much like the fabulous Beleduc Body Puzzle we reviewed.)


• Skeletons! Skeletons! All About Bones by Katy Hall, illustrated by Paige Billin-Frye. This book covers not just the human skeletal system but that of different animals as well.


• The Skeleton Inside You by Philip Balestrino: Another Let's-Read-And-Find-Out Science book, this one about skeletons, focusing on the human skeletal system. This book had Z and another five-year-old sprawled out on the floor of the bookstore poring over its illustrations for a good 20 minutes.

- Jeremiah

Unless you are an extremely rare human being, you can probably quickly identify a person in your life, probably a boy, who is fascinated by bodily functions. If this person is seventeen or seventy-seven, there is no help for them. But if they are between the ages of four and twelve, it is not yet too late to help them blossom into a non-flatulence-obsessed member of adult society who will offer only a halfhearted chuckle over the late comedies of Eddie Murphy before their mind wanders on to more interesting things.

You Are Weird: Your Body's Peculiar Parts and Funny Functions is the fart-lover' passage into the more fascinating areas of biological study. It took a hardcover-to-hardcover reading of Diane Swanson's lovely book of scientific factoid and fact to prove to myself that there was actually no section on any of Chaucer's favorite sources of comic relief, despite two-page sections with titles like "Leaky Body" (how and why we sweat), "Dead-End Tube" (the appendix), and "Holes in Your Head" (sinuses); the closest we get to anything so scandalous is "Claws!", a section about fingernails that includes the timeless tale of that man from the Guinness Book of World Records with nails like distended watch springs. Well-illustrated, well-organized, and well-researched, You Are Weird features food for thought for adults as well as children, delving into topics of evolutionary biology like why we have too many teeth or what more highly evolved future humans might look like (maybe they'll write with their feet!) and making breezy comparisons between goosebumps and shorthairs, canine teeth and tusks, that will teach the scatologically obsessed that there are things more exotic than the bad smells our bodies make.

You can pick up You Are Weird on Amazon for around $14. - Jeremiah

Wendy Pfeffer's A Log's Life is a really, really lovely book. Her illustrations blend three-dimensional papercraft with natural textures that reach towards the hyper-real, and assist in evoking a never-explicit ecological/philosophical point from a "long view" of the myriad purposes to be found in the life, death, and decay of a tree. It's lyrical, epic, and naturalistic, all in the same breath, and is a pleasure to read to young children, who will be captivated both by the many uses nature finds for a single plant and the long-tail fecundity of a thing that has died.

Wood-boring beetles burrow under the bark,
chewing wood and
leaving tunnels.
Water and air seep into the tunnels.

Toadstools and other fungi
such as mildew, molds,
and mushrooms
sprout in these damp places.

Slugs and snails crawl
up the tree trunk
into the tunnels
and eat the fungi

There really isn't a more beautiful introduction to life cycles, food webs, and ecological niches than this lovely book. At under $7, it's a ridiculous bargain, and one of those books we're likely to keep on hand in multiples for last-minute gifts. - Jeremiah

A Mirror to Nature: Poems About Reflection combines the stunning photography of Jason Stemple with simple, accessible poems by Jane Yolen. Focused on nature and water, the photographs are visual poetry in themselves and lend themselves readily to discussion with children about reflections, water, nature and animals.

Yolen's poetry reflects (pun intended) the images in the photographs, in tones varying from somber and thoughtful to light and humorous. I've enjoyed showing the photographs to Z, reading her the poems, and watching her discover which part is the animal and which part is the reflection. I didn't realize before reading this book that Z wasn't really literate in reflections and she surprised me when she pointed out what she thought were two animals in a photo of a solitary animal and its reflection. I explained to her the reflection and she was thrilled to find the reflections in the other photos.

A Mirror to Nature is available on Amazon.com for about $14. - Jeremiah

Deborah Hodge's Who Lives Here? series of animal books explores a variety of habitats - polar tundra, rainforest, desert, savannah, forest, and wetland among them - with bright, detailed, and realistic illustrations, pairing scenes of animals in action with spotlight images showcasing behaviors, adaptations, or closeups of physical characteristics that help animals survive and thrive in niche environments.

Unlike many reference-type books we've seen for young children, the format here doesn't overwhelm with information, offering a simple pattern of insights rather than a collage of many facts; I'm not sure if this desire is general to the age group, but our daughter (age 4.5) loves browsing fiction books (Richard Scarry's Cars and Trucks and Things That Go, for example) but has a hard time with similarly organized nonfiction, where she appears impatient for story elements; simple books like this allow us to move through a subject in a way that seems to spur focus and conversation as we discuss and reflect on animals and their environments.

Based on this personal experience, I'd say this book is thus very well-suited for the youngest naturalists, especially children from ages 3-6 or so, who do not want a large field of information to browse but a clear path for reading. They are also less lengthy than some other science and nature series we enjoy, notably the excellent "Let's Read and Find Out Science" series, and both retail at about $6 per volume; depending on your child's appetite and attention span, this commitment to simplicity may be a benefit or a drawback, and is probably best viewed as a precursor to, or break from, more challenging and in-depth books offered for the same age group.

You can pick up volumes from the Who Lives Here? series on Amazon.com. Both they and the Let's Read and Find Out Science books (we'll highlight a few of our favorites from that series here soon) are eligible for Amazon's 4-for-3 promotion. - Jeremiah