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Naughty or nice: Gifts for all the young readers on your shopping list
TECHNOLOGY REVIEW BY MICHELLE JONES
By Chris Woodford DK, $24.99 256 pages ISBN 0756614651 POETRY REVIEW BY CAROLINE RICHARDSON
Though Kennedy selected these poems for children, you'll find no Dr. Seuss here; this is classic poetry, timeless poetry, great poetry. Both famous and little-known poems by Alexander Pope, Ted Hughes, Yeats, Seamus Heaney, Walt Whitman, and many others are carefully arranged in sections that speak to a child's view of the world: About Me, That's So Silly!, Animals, The Seasons, The Seashore, Adventure and Bedtime. Jon J. Muth's rich watercolors draw the reader in, adding insight and suggesting parallels between poems. A Family of Poems is a collection to be cherished by young readers and savored in the company of the ones they love.
By Caroline Kennedy Hyperion, $19.95 143 pages ISBN 0786851112 MYSTERY REVIEW BY JAMES NEAL WEBB
Anna Nilsen has created a mystery, a puzzle and an art lesson, all rolled into one. Cleverly illustrated and presented, Art Auction Mystery enables children ages 9-12 to peruse a gallery of famous paintings while comparing them with "photographs of the originals" to ferret out the forgeries (not to worry, it's not as difficult as it sounds). If you have a child with an inquisitive streak, one who likes puzzles as well as art, then Art Auction Mystery is a winner.
By Anna Nilsen Kingfisher, $16.95 48 pages ISBN 075345842X ACTIVITIES REVIEW BY LYNN GREEN
By Cranium® LB Kids, $19.99 ISBN 0316011932 PHOTOGRAPHY REVIEW BY JAMES NEAL WEBB
By Alan Buckingham DK, $19.99 72 pages ISBN 0756614716 Winter wonderland REVIEW BY MICHELLE JONES
A thick coating of white mixed with a dusting of glitter stands in for the deep, crunchy snow of the forest and adds texture to the pages. Just as in 2004's America the Beautiful, Sabuda uses silver for water, this time adding an iridescent element to mimic frozen crystals on the surface (kids will love the escaping fish). Of the wonderful spreads in Winter's Tale, especially impressive are the owl flying straight at the reader and the majestic moose standing amid logs in a swamp. For pure holiday spectacle, however, nothing can match the final spread with its myriad pine trees, candy cane-like birches and little house, complete with snowman and twinkling lights.
By Robert Sabuda Little Simon, $26.95 12 pages ISBN 0689853637
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Cool Stuff and How It Works has got to be one of the most aptly named books ever. Former IBM information designer Chris Woodford leads a team of writers with a marvelous knack for explaining technical concepts in an accessible manner. Cool Stuff is divided into six chapters exploring themes ranging from "Connect" (cell phones, fiber optics, pet translators) and "Move" (submersibles, black boxes, space shuttle) to "Survive" (laser surgery, bionic limbs, bio chips). The writers frequently draw connections between technology and nature, mentioning the bioluminescence of fireflies and jellyfish in a discussion of neon, for example. They also highlight new spins on "old" tech devices—a digital pen, a Swiss Army knife/flash memory drive.
These colorful pages are packed with diagrams, images and text boxes, perfect for the way today's kids process information. The book uses scanning imagery—colored X-rays, MRI and thermal—to show the inner structure of such things as an electric guitar, an MP3 player, a washing machine and even a head listening to headphones. Cool Stuff would make the perfect gift for the kid in your life who likes to dismantle household gadgets and try to put them back together (not always successfully).
On holidays, Jackie Kennedy told her children that rather than buying presents or cards, they should illustrate a poem to give to family members. Later, these hand-decorated poems were pasted into a special family scrapbook. Now an adult with children of her own, Caroline Kennedy presents A Family of Poems: My Favorite Poetry for Children, her loving gift to poetry readers of all ages, but especially those young enough to prefer sitting in a loved one's lap to reading on their own, splashing in puddles to carefully treading the sidewalk and making mud pies to baking the real thing.
Henry Hammer is in big trouble, and he needs your help. Henry is the auctioneer at a big art auction house, and the night before a major auction, he receives an anonymous tip with horrible news—some of the paintings in his auction have been stolen and replaced with fakes! He has received crucial information to help identify the thieves, but he needs to know which paintings are the forgeries. That's where you come in. Take out a pencil and paper, and sharpen the lead as well as your eyes; you're about to embark on an Art Auction Mystery.
Any parent who has tried to keep a child occupied during a long wait in a doctor's office or a cross-country drive will appreciate the wonderfully self-contained entertainment to be found in The Cranium® Big Book of Outrageous Fun!. Based on the board game of the same name, The Cranium® Big Book is actually much more than a book—it's a reusable, well organized playset sure to keep school-age children entertained for hours (or at least minutes). The activity book has write-on/wipe-off pages (a special pen is included), and a pull-out game board with cards, game pieces and a timer adds to the fun. Sharing all the fun may be difficult, however, so for siblings, we recommend you consider buying more than one!
With so many children getting digital cameras this Christmas, why not make sure they know how to use them? An excellent introduction to digital photography is available in Alan Buckingham's Digital Photo Magic. With easy-to-understand instructions, Buckingham guides novice photographers through taking good pictures, editing them to enhance the quality and adding sophisticated, artful special effects. Let's say your best friend runs like a gazelle. Using handy pictures of animals (provided on a companion disk), you can cut out the head of an African deer and paste it over the head of your friend. Print it, and voila—your friend is now deer-boy! The book also includes a 30-day trial copy of Adobe Photoshop Elements 3.0, a top-notch photo-editing program.
What would the holiday season be without a new offering from pop-up wizard Robert Sabuda? This year, Sabuda celebrates nature in Winter's Tale. Known for his astounding white paper sculptures that rise from vibrantly colored pages, Sabuda brings in darker colors appropriate for winter scenes in this latest book. Browns and purples suggest depth in the cave where the foxes live, the tree stump home of the mice and especially in the squirrel-filled tree.