Former Contributor to the Huffington Post
Vicki Cobb's Blog
  • Vicki Cobb's Blog
  • About
  • Contact

A Taste to Whet the Appetite for More

21/3/2018

 
Picture
Full disclosure: I am about to review a book that is a collection of Nonfiction Minutes, which have been published on the Nonfiction Minute website.   This is the second collection of Minutes published by Seagrass Press Imprint, Quarto Books, pub date: April 3, 2018.  The first one, 30 People Who Changed the World  was named a Notable Social Studies Trade book by the NCSS and the CBC.  iNK Think Tank, the nonprofit company I founded in 2009, has the mission to bring high-quality children's nonfiction into the classroom so that children and teachers rediscover the love of learning.  So obviously, I'm giving this book high marks.  Let me give you five reasons why:

1.  It's a PRINT book, beautifully illustrated and formatted, with suggestions of links and other books to follow up each selection.  Books have a sense of permanence  that shows in the care the publisher took to make something you want to pick up.  It's an honor to see that others validate our work and our mission.  So thank you to our far-seeing publisher, Josalyn Moran, who had the vision and creativity to take a piece of the Internet (where publishing costs nothing and writing is ephemeral) and turn it into something familiar and established but with a new twist. It is astonishing to see how much format contributes to value. And hats off to our intrepid editor, Jean Reynolds, who has pulled together a disparate collection that makes cohesive sense.

2. Students are being overwhelmed with Too Much Information.  It's positively numbing and eye-glazing.  The bite-sized essays in 30 Animals that Share Our World are true hors d'oeuvres.  Delicious, unique, a lot of what you didn't know you didn't know.  Yes, it's a book but you don't have to read it from beginning to end, you can skip around, put it down, pick it up.  No rules.  Lately, when I go to a restaurant, appetizers are my dinner. Yum!

3. We learn from many voices.  Fourteen authors, all iNK members, created these Minutes.  We all have different passions and we filter our writing to create memorable presentations of content.  
This is not the sterile, everything-you-need-to-know encyclopedic treatment of information. It is not the once-over-lightly, cover-the-subject with the obvious and mundane. In rereading these Minutes I learned about a fish that sees red, many instances where wild animals ask for help,  an animal that is now sadly extinct and another that has been saved from extinction.  Make no mistake, this is a book about LIFE and DEATH writ large.

4. Revealed humanity is behind all good writing. When a fiction writer grabs your attention, you make note of the author's name.  In fiction, the author's name is his/her brand.  All of an author's books are shelved together.  Nonfiction is cataloged and shelved by topic. We're all over the nonfiction part of the library. So when a student returns a book he/she liked and asks for another one like it, librarians usually pull out another book on the same topic.  It seldom occurs to give them another book by the same author.   We're hoping you rethink that.  In colleges, the most popular professors' classes are standing-room-only, regardless of the subject.  

5. And finally, when it comes to food, an appetizer is supposed to get your digestive juices flowing for what is to follow.  30 Animals that Share Our World  is a  like dazzling tray of culinary morsels, and maybe one of them is soooo good you'll run to the library to dish up more.   
Aline Alexander Newman link
23/3/2018 09:18:06 am

Vicki makes a great analogy here. This beautifully produced book is great fun to read, and I am so proud to have two of my stories included in it.


Comments are closed.

     Vicki Cobb

    *Award-winning author of more than 90 nonfiction books for children, mostly in science.
    *Former Contributor to the Huffington Post
    *Founder/President of iNK Think Tank, Inc.
    *Passionate advocate for the joy of learning for every child and teacher.


    Disclaimer: All opinions, typos, and grammatical errors are my own,  especially small word omissions which I often don't notice in my fervor.  

    RSS Feed

    ​​​​Archives

    March 2022
    November 2021
    August 2021
    February 2021
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018

    ​Categories

    All
    Abuse
    Achievement Gap
    Adkins Jan
    Albee Sarah
    Anti Bullying
    Anti-bullying
    Art
    Author Driven Nonfiction
    Author-driven Nonfiction
    Authors On Call
    Biology
    Birds
    Black History
    BLC2018
    Book Review
    Child Abuse
    Children As Political Pawns
    Children's Nonfiction
    Citizenship
    Civics
    Civil Rights
    Class ACTS
    Climate Change
    Clinton Chelsea
    Collard III Sneed B.
    Common Core State Standards
    Conversation
    Coronavirus
    Costaldo Nancy F.
    Covid-19
    Critical Thinking
    Data-driven
    Definition
    Democracy
    Dewey John
    Dogs
    Dunphy Madeleine
    Ecology
    Education
    Educational Standards
    Electron Microscope
    Empowerment For Children
    Endangered Species
    Excellence
    Extinction
    Fact-checking
    Fleming Candace
    "flow"
    Galileo
    Girls' Education
    Global Warming
    Greenberg Jan
    Grit
    Gun Violence
    History
    History Of "school Reform"
    Home Libraries
    Hurricanes
    INK Database
    INK Database Of Books
    Insects
    Interactive Video Conferencing
    Isaac Sally
    Jeopardy Winner
    Learning
    Lesser Carolyn
    Leveled Reading
    Levinson Cynthia
    Lexiles
    Listening
    Literacy
    Literature
    Liu Eric
    March For Our Lives
    McClafferty Carla
    Mentor Texts
    Montgomery Heather L.
    Montgomery Sy
    Motivated Reasoning
    Motivation
    Munro Roxie
    Nathan Amy
    Nonfiction
    Nonfiction Minute
    Nonprofit And Education
    Opening Schools
    Patent Dorothy Hinshaw
    Pedagogy
    Picture Books
    Podcasts
    Primary Source
    Pringle Laurence
    Pundits Of The Pandemic
    Rap Music
    Reading
    Rules
    Rusch Elizabeth
    School Choice
    SchoolTube
    School Visits
    Science Experiments You Can Eat
    Science Teaching
    Semple Heidi E.Y.
    Social Skills
    Socrates
    Speaking
    Spring Fling
    Standardized Testing
    STEM
    Studies On Education
    Swanson Jennifer
    Teaching
    Technology And Children
    Thomas Peggy
    Trump
    Truth
    Voting
    Warren Andrea
    Washington George
    Weatherford Carole Boston
    Webinars
    Work With Us
    World War II
    Writing

    RSS Feed

Links

The Nonfiction Minute
​

​iNK Think Tank website

​Vicki Cobb's Kids' Fun Page

We Dare You Videos


Company

iNK Think Tank, Inc. is a nonprofit with the mission of using nonfiction children's literature in classrooms

Contact

vicki@inkthinktank.org
​

© 2019


© COPYRIGHT 2019. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.