How Many? Spectacular Paper Sculptures, by Ron Van der Meer, $24.99 | Only 12 pages long, but what pages! This pop-up book comes with a caveat – “Not suitable for children under age 6” – because toddlers would see the exquisite paper engineering as an open invitation to destruction.
This is a math book that even the math-challenged will love. The first page opens to an explosion of colorful triangles that fly up like kites. The text poses problems: How many triangles are hollow? How many are solid? Can you count all the triangles in the pop-up?
The next page springs with festive spirals of circles, some centered with reflecting mirror-like rounds, and more questions about counting and calculating.
Math teachers, engineers and stagecraft technicians will love this book, and it belongs in the research library of anyone involved with Destination ImagiNation, Odyssey of the Mind and other creative problem-solving programs. Ages 6 and up.
Amazing Rubber Band Cars, by Mike Rigsby, $12.95 | Here’s another book perfect for budding engineers adult DI/OM coaches, and others who teach building skills. The author is an electrical engineer who offers logical directions and templates to build cars powered by rubber bands.
His helpful lessons cover bearings and friction, pulleys and using car bodies to form moving toys. Plenty of photographs illustrate each project. All the building materials are cheap and readily available – recycled cardboard, glue, pencils, rubber bands, old CDs, push pins and paint. Age 8 and up.
Howtoons: The Possibilities are Endless! by Saul Griffith and Joost Bonsen, illustrated by Nick Dragotta, $15.99 | Here are the Tools of Mass Construction, with more kid-friendly how-to projects presented manga/comic style. The format is upbeat and more than accessible, and the imaginative projects include making a marshmallow shooter, a pressure-powered rocket and a turkey baster flute.
Two young characters walk readers through the steps of each project. It doesn’t take a young Einstein to see the possibilities here for science fair projects and other extracurricular activities.
This would be an excellent gift for inventive young people, and many parents would be especially thankful if the gift arrived (and was opened) early in the upcoming school holiday season. Ages 8 to 15, but adults will find this interesting, too.
The Girl’s Like Spaghetti, by Lynn Truss; illustrated by Bonnie Timmons, $15.99 | The witty “Eats, Shoots and Leaves” team created this scaled-down, but not condescending, picture book that illustrates why apostrophes matter. The cover hints at the inside, with a noodle-legged ballerina and her teeming tresses. Someone who says, “We’re here to help you” offers more help than the message “Were here to help you,” with a forbidding door labeled “Closed” and “Gone Fishing.”
And “Those smelly things are my brother’s” may be a perjorative description of pungent sneakers, but hardly as insulting as “Those smelly things are my brothers,” which refers to siblings in desperate need of a wash.
The illustrations, by a former Denver Post staff artist, are as winsome and pointed as the text. Ages 9 and up.
What’s Eating You? Parasites: The Inside Story, by Nicola Davies; illustrated by Neal Layton, $12.99 | Anyone who loved the 2005 Grossology exhibit at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science will enjoy this lively narrative about fleas, lice, tapeworms, hookworms, pinworms and other unwelcome guests.
Davies also explains how potential hosts foil parasites with natural defenses, medicine, water filters and other strategies. Her tone in describing these little pests is oddly admiring:
“They are not just villians, but an amazing group of animals that have evolved complex and inventive ways of surviving in their chosen habitats.” Readers who come around to this point of view should check out “Parasite Rex,” Carl Zimmer’s excellent (adult) treatise on exquisitely dangerous creatures that have made evolution into a form of high art. Ages 9 and up.
Claire Martin: 303-954-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com
