What if you Found a Thingity-Jig?

The Thingity-Jig 

by Kathleen Doherty; illus. by Kristyna Litten 

32 pages; ages 4-8

Peachtree, 2021   

theme: mystery, fun, invention

One night, under the light of a silvery moon, all of Bear’s friends were deep asleep.

But not Bear. He wandered about tapping, poking, and sniffing things until he found a Thingity-Jig! It was bouncy! So Bear decides to take it home – but he needs something to pull it or drag it or roll it home. So he builds that thing, and then realizes he needs help lifting the Thingity-Jig onto his contraption to carry it home. But no one will help, so Bear builds a lifter-upper.

What I like about this book: I love the language! Smack. Wallop. Whack. That’s the sound of Bear building something. He clinks and clanks, fiddles and whittles… until he’s built a rolly thing, a lifter-upper thing, and other things with fun-to-say names that describe their function.

I love that Bear invents Rube-Goldberg-type things to help get the job done. I love that he runs into problems trying to get the Thingity-Jig back to his home. I love that Kathleen Doherty puts the best, most fun words to say into her text. I love that I actually have a Thingity-Jig at my house, and my kids used it in much the same way Bear does. 

Beyond the Books:

Bear has to move a huge Thingity-Jig and has no one to help him. So he invents a way to move it. Design and – if you can – build your own thingity-jig mover. Raid the recycling bin for materials, put old wagons into use, think about pulleys and rope. But mostly, have fun!

Build a crazy contraption. Need ideas? Check out this video.

We’ll join Perfect Picture Book Friday once they resume. It’s a wonderful gathering where bloggers share great picture books at Susanna Leonard Hill's website. Review copy provided by the publisher.

Gardening is More Fun with Friends

Nina Soni, Master of the Garden

by Kashmira Sheth; illus. by Jenn Kocsmiersky 

192 pages; ages 7-10

‎Peachtree Publishing Company, 2021

It’s “take a daughter to work” day, and fourth-grader Nina is going to work with mom, who is a landscape architect. They are going to build a garden – raised beds. Little sister, Kavita has been working on a picture of a garden plan for a week. Nina, a list-maker, has yet to start.

 

One of the things I like in this book is that we see Nina’s lists – even when they’re in her head. Occasionally there are text-boxes, as though Nina is explaining something, such as what a word means, to her sister.

Before the first boards are nailed together, Nina is thinking how they can sell extra veggies to earn money. She’s even got a plan. It involves her friend, Jay and Kavita, but when is the right time to tell them?

The plants start growing and everything is going well until…

• A rabbit eats Nina’s chard. All of it.
• Slugs! Yuck.
• Japanese beetles nibble plants.
• And the birds are attacking the beans.

As a gardener currently engaged in hostilities with a woodchuck (he ate Every. Single. Sunflower!) I liked that author Kashmira Sheth does not spare her young gardeners from the realities of beasts and bugs. I love how she brings readers into Nina’s family life – I can almost smell the cheesy-methi parathas toasting in the kitchen. And I really like that Kashmira includes some Q&A at the back-of-the-book, where she talks about her inspiration and why it is important for readers to be exposed to diverse books written by people who share those diverse identities. Full disclosure: Kashmira was one of the instructors for the Highlights Foundation workshop on “writing chapter books” that I took last summer. Because of Covid-19 it was a remote class; I know we would have had many fun discussions about gardening around the lunch tables had it been in-person.

Thanks for dropping by today. On Monday we'll be hanging out at Marvelous Middle Grade Monday with other  bloggers. It's over at Greg Pattridge's blog, Always in the Middle, so hop over to see what other people are reading. Review copy provided by the publisher.

When it's Hot Enough to Fry an Egg on the Sidewalk...

 

This book was published three years ago, but because of the heat wave in the northeast, it seems like a perfect pick for today. It got so hot in Oregon that roads buckled and Portland shut off the streetcars because heat was melting the cables. Scorching temperatures soared to 116 F in some places – hot enough to fry an egg on the sidewalk!

Iqbal and His Ingenious Idea: How a Science Project Helps One Family and the Planet 

by Elizabeth Suneby; illus. by Rebecca Green 

32 pages; ages 5-10

‎Kids Can Press, 2018

theme: STEM, sustainability, problem-solving

Iqbal lives in Bangladesh and it’s the monsoon, when “gusts of rain whip across your face and make you squint your eyes.” At home, Iqbal’s mother cooks the meals over an indoor fire. The smoke irritates her lungs, causing her and the baby to cough.

Iqbal wants to win the prize at the science fair so he can use the prize money to buy his mother a gas cookstove. He’s got a month to come up for a project that fits with the theme of sustainability.

What I like about this book: This is a fun story to read, while broaching a serious topic at the same time. We see Iqbal trying to come up with ideas. He sketches gadgets with gears, he conceives of contraptions, he dreams of devices. Could he build a smokeless cooker? With help from his teacher, they get ideas from the internet, and Iqbal designs a solar cooker from things most people have in his village: broken umbrellas. He lines his umbrella with foil, borrows a soot-blackened cookpot, and is ready to test his stove. All he needs is a sunny day to test it.

Beyond the Books:

Can you really fry an egg on the sidewalk? Probably not. Eggs need to reach a temperature of 158 F to cook through – hard to do on a white surface. A better idea would be to fry an egg on the hood of a car sitting under the hot sun (remember: eggs will run, and car hoods are curved). One Arizona girl had a brilliant idea: put the greenhouse effect to use and fry an egg inside a car on a hot day. You can watch her video here. It’s also a good reminder of why you don’t leave pets – or people – inside cars.

Make your own solar cooker. Here’s how to turn a pizza box into a solar oven, and here’s how to turn any kind of box into a cooker.  You can also use an old umbrella and lots of shiny foil, like Iqbal. A good test is to use your oven to make s’mores.

We’ll join Perfect Picture Book Friday once they resume. It’s a wonderful gathering where bloggers share great picture books at Susanna Leonard Hill's website. Review copy found on the library shelves.