microbes

Review: Do Not Lick This Book by Idan Ben-Barak

| Tasha

Do Not Lick This Book by Idan Ben-Barak

Do Not Lick This Book by Idan Ben-Barak and Julian Frost (9781250175366)

Min is a microbe that lives in this book. Readers get to look at the page closer and closer, until with a micron microscope they can see the individual strands that make up the paper. Resting there, very bored indeed, is Min. The readers pick up Min on their finger and then move her to their teeth. The next page shows the surface of a tooth very, very close up with the microbes creating cavities. Min moves on, but one of the tooth microbes comes along too. This pattern continues to the reader’s shirt and then finally their belly button, each place close up and full of microbes.

Shown in such a playful way, children will enjoy the lesson on microbes without realizing they are learning science. The interactive piece of the book is also a pleasure, though it will limit using the book with a very small group or one child at a time. There are more microbial facts at the end of the book to enjoy. The illustrations are a delightful mix of images from an electron microscope and cute little microbes that are different colors and shapes from one another.

A smart choice for libraries looking for great STEM reads. Appropriate for ages 4-7.

Reviewed from copy provided by Roaring Brook Press.

Review: Tiny Creatures by Nicola Davies

| Tasha

tiny creatures

Tiny Creatures: The World of Microbes by Nicola Davies, illustrated by Emily Sutton

There are tiny creatures all around us that do the most amazing things!  Microbes are too small to be seen by the human eye, but look through a microscope and you enter a world of them.  There are microbes like viruses that cause diseases or colds.  And there are others that are very good for our health and turn milk into yogurt and compost into dirt.  Microbes may be very small but their impact on our world and our lives is very big.  This book shows the huge impact they have and how much we need to appreciate them.

Davies has written very engagingly about microbes in this book.  When talking about something like microbes, the numbers can get too large to understand, but Davies nicely ties these huge numbers to others that make sense.  She shows how quickly a microbe can reproduce using the page of the book.  The entire book is cleverly done, exposing the facts about microbes in a friendly and approachable way.

The illustrations by Sutton show both the microbes and their effect on the world.  The pages with the tiny microbes are fascinating as one gets to see the different types up close.  The illustrations have a friendly charm about them that makes the subject matter even more fun to read.

A great book on microbes, this will encourage children to pick up a microscope and learn even more about these tiny little creatures.  Appropriate for ages 6-9.

Reviewed from library copy.