Additional review: World Geography, World History, science... and some creative fictional characters as well! All in a beautiful information Picture Book.

The story of the legendary Leaning Tower of Pisa experiment by Galileo is brought to life here around the story of a boy, Massimo, who was very clever, and dropped his father's lunch from a bridge everyday in calculating motions... until a passer-by professor named Galileo witnesses it and rethinks the whole Aristotelian notion on the subject!

The pictures are colorful, warm and very pleasant, and some of the angles are taken from delightful perspectives!

A gem. A very nice way to introduce children to Galileo and to some concepts of Physics.

See our other review of Galileo's Leaning Tower Experiment here.

This sweet book is about Little Sea Otter saying good night to all sorts of ocean friends. While it makes a wonderful bedtime book, the illustrations deserve some time to be admired as you read through it. The story is straightforward, and yet contains enough tidbits to include it in an ocean study. The illustrations are full of color, bringing alive Little Sea Otter's story. You can preview the book at Star Bright Books: http://www.starbrightbooks.org/details.php?id=300

Baby Bat learns about the importance of guano to a cave's ecosystem in Janet Halfmann's new book "Home in the Cave." Children learn about bats and other creatures that live in caves through the exploration of Baby Bat and his pack rat friend. As with all Sylvan Dell books, the last pages contain more information and activities related to the story. Don't let the insects and guano deter you from this fun and informative book!

This book offers thirty-six stories about God's amazing world that very nicely brings science back to its creator and helps children make connections between faith and reason. We've had the earlier edition of this book for a number of years and I have found many tidbits about nature that were new and very interesting to me - especially information about why God made things the way that he did and what is good and useful about his creation.

This new edition includes many new stories and looks more like a grade school workbook - in size and appearance as well as having space for the students to answer the chapter questions right in the book. In addition to the Catholic content I really like this book because 1. it is loaded with interesting content, 2. it is written in an appealing story-like format, 3. it is not "dumbed-down" or written in a condescending tone like so many textbooks. Here's a brief excerpt to give you a sense of the style and content:

"God has a similar system for supplying water to places that don't get much rain in the summer. Instead of a freezer, God uses tall, snow-covered mountains to store up icy snow. In some mountain ranges, like the Rocky Mountains that stretch north and south across Canada and the United States, peaks often receive thirty or forty feet of snow each year. That is nearly enough snow to bury a Ferris wheel! Even after winter has passed, the cool mountain air allows the snow to melt very slowly. Melting snow slips into creeks and rivers that carry needed water to farms and cities far away. Some of those farms and cities don't get much rain in the summer. Some of them don't even have snow in the winter. But the people who live there are happy to drink and swim in the water that came from God's faraway frozen mountains." (from "Merciful Rain" pgs. 59-61)

This book can be used as a science supplement or as a non-fiction reading comprehension workbook.