Books by Anna Membrino and Patricia Brennan Demuth
This week, we bid farewell to Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Associate Justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. A tiny woman with a huge presence. Her 87-year journey from Brooklyn, NY to Washington D.C. left deep imprints in this country. She worked hard for true justice till the very end. Although she was a woman, she worked relentlessly for all genders and races.
Not only did she have that powerful inner strength, she was also physically strong. Check out the RBG workout: https://rbgworkout.com/
One of her greatest gifts was a simple one that many of us have, but forget to use often: the ability to listen and learn from others. Sometimes we have so much to say that we can’t hold back. Sometimes we are so uncomfortable with silence we rush to keep the noise going. Sometimes we want to dominate the conversation and shut others out. We forget that taking a pause after listening is okay.
This ability to listen helped Ruth Bader Ginsberg hear what changes were needed and allowed her to make decisions based on fairness. Now it’s time for us to take a pause and remember her.
Metallica announced this week that they will be releasing a children’s book – The ABCs of Metallica, co-authored by Howie Abrams with illustrations by Michael “Kaves” McLeer (from my old neighborhood – Bay Ridge, Brooklyn!).
Three decades later, the well-known 80’s heavy metal band is still holding
strong with their performances and now trying to teach a whole new generation
the alphabet in a fun and interesting way. Even if heavy metal was never your cup of tea,
you may still be able to appreciate the book’s unique
blend of music, history, art, and education.
According to Metallica’s website, “Including rhymes and illustrations, The ABCs of Metallica looks back at the history of the band from, duh, A to Z! Each letter of the alphabet highlights a moment along our journey from Garage Days to Master of Puppets to fun facts about us.”
The book is set to be released on November, 26 2019. You can pre-order it from the Met Store or Amazon. A portion of the proceeds will go to Metallica’s All Within My Hands Foundation to support communities with workforce education and fighting hunger.
On another note, if you want to bring some live music into your house, have your child try out this Hape Kid’s Wooden Toy Ukulele. It’s not quite an electric guitar, but it’s a great start for those tiny hands that want to pluck some strings.
Chris Ferrie is a Canadian physicist, mathematician, and researcher who has written over 20 children’s books. His books have been introducing curious little minds to the very complex world of science. My son is a huge fan of his! I recently had the great privilege of interviewing Chris:
When and how did your passion for science start? My parents never pushed my brother and I one way or another when it came to academic and extracurricular interests. My dad ran his own construction company and so I would see him building things all the time and it fascinated me. I still have some visible scars from trying out the saws myself.
My parents were both avid readers and had lots of encyclopedias
and atlases that I remember spending hours reading. I remember doing well in
mathematics throughout school which mostly came from positive reinforcement
from my mum. Science per se wasn’t something that interested me. Though, I
didn’t really understand exactly what the word meant. In hindsight, I was
always a scientist. I was constantly testing and breaking things, tinkering
with toys and software, and observing and improving on methods.
What led you to start a children’s book series? I started writing children’s books because I wanted to read something about physics and mathematics to my own children. At the time, there wasn’t anything available. So, I wrote some myself! I had never planned on writing the whole series, but the early positive feedback led to writing more.
What else is Chris Ferrie interested in besides science? A lot of my interests—including reading, movies, and games—involve science or science fiction themes. But science is a fairly broad term. Apart from all the science, I enjoy traveling with my family.
What are some of your children’s favorite books at the moment? My 9 and 7 year old absolutely love graphic novels. Some series’ we recently finished are The Bad Guys, Lumberjanes, Phoebe and Her Unicorn, and Amulet. My 5 year old will still continue to pull The Book With No Pictures off the shelf—though, let’s not discount my performance when reading it! The youngest, who is 2 years old, will listen to anything.
Do you feel that there is more pressure on kids today to know and learn more at an early age? I don’t think there is pressure for kids to learn or know anything specific at earlier ages. But there is immense pressure to perform well, whatever the task may be. This comes mostly from parental fears of “falling behind”. Now, children have 24 hour schedules curated by parents to ensure the child has a competitive application for the best schools. This, of course, will not create happy and healthy adults.
What one piece of advice would you give to parents and educators today? Freedom. Children need free time to explore their own interests and guide their own learning. They need to be bored and learn how to cure that for themselves. They need to test boundaries, argue, lie, fight, get hurt—all while they are still young and have the time to learn and heal from it.
Thank you Chris! We look forward to reading more of your books!
The journey for “Jeopardy James” Holzhauer has come to an end after 32 games with a total winning of $2,464,216. He lost to Emma Boettcher, a 27 year old librarian from Chicago. What a great achievement! Holzhauer, a professional Vegas sports gambler has been very open about the strategies he had used to win which included going after the Daily Double questions first.
In an interview with the New York Times, when asked how he knew so many facts, James answered by saying “I have a strategy of reading children’s books to gain knowledge. I’ve found that in an adult reference book, if it’s not a subject I’m interested in, I just can’t get into it. I was thinking, what is the place in the library I can go to get books tailored to make things interesting for uninterested readers? Boom. The children’s section.”
So was it a coincidence that the person James lost to was a
librarian?
