This is Children’s Book Week—and 2014 is, incredibly, the 95th year for the annual celebration. A bit more recently—in 1954, a mere 60 years ago, Sister Marian taught her entire first-grade class of 66 students how to read. I should know—I was one of that good woman’s lucky pupils. By the way, the sheer size of that single classroom (Sister Madeline’s first grade across the hall was even bigger, with 70 kids) certainly illustrates the term “Baby Boom” better than any other example I could possibly cite.
Anyway, since Sister Marian got me launched on a lifelong exploration into the realm of books in particular and the world of words in general (Hey, some of my favorite reading in the ’50s ran to the backs of cereal boxes or magazine ads for “X-ray Goggles” that I ordered by mail and waited for for weeks), countless children’s books have been written and illustrated to lure generations of children into embarking upon the very same journey.
In celebration of this special week, the Huffington Post created an honor roll of the 50 best kids books published in the last 25 years. In addition, the New York Times Book Review devoted several pages of its recent issue to 26 of the best new books for kids.
Both resources are rich in stories—fictional adventures touchingly told and illustrated with almost magical artistry.
But, over time, I’ve become a bit of a science guy (Amateur Division)—working for decades at the National Geographic Society, then for the past dozen years or so as the publisher at the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA). So I look at these resources from that perspective, and they both come up… a little short. The Huff Post list includes, at best, a half-dozen nonfiction titles of any sort, with little focus on the honest, true-facts wonders of the world we actually live in. The special Times section on kids’ books does better on the nonfiction side—their half-dozen includes a history, a couple biographies, and three charming works that take young readers step-by-step through the annual cycle of seasons. Well-done.
But hardly enough, especially with the heavy emphasis on nonfiction reading in classrooms today. Which is why I took keypad in hand today to write my first-ever blog post.
Because I need to tell you that, since 1973, NSTA has worked with the Children’s Book Council (anchor sponsor of Children’s Book Week) to identify an annual list of Outstanding Science Trade Books for children. For my more-knowledgeable colleagues at NSTA, this is a yearly (and impressively well-informed) labor of love. We gather some of the best volunteers in the field of science education, people who’ve been in the trenches and know what they’re talking about, to review hundreds and hundreds of books each year. Then, every fall, they come together in our offices to whittle their final selections down to just a few dozen of the best of the best.
Of course: They look for accurate, informative, and engaging science content. Even more important: They only award top honors to books that will truly help encourage kids to love reading. Precisely what Sister Marian (and Sister Madeline, for that matter) set out to accomplish decades ago.
Just yesterday, New York Times columnist Frank Bruni wrote touchingly of the importance he placed on instilling a love of reading in his young nieces and nephews (Read, Kids, Read). But he also went beyond emotion to the realm of research, citing “a recent article in The Guardian by Dan Hurley, who wrote that after ‘three years interviewing psychologists and neuroscientists around the world,’ he’d concluded that ‘reading and intelligence have a relationship so close as to be symbiotic.’”
In my case, that’s no doubt an over-statement. But for the young people in your life, it’s comfortably close to incontrovertible fact. So, please, to help them along their path, check out our latest list of Outstanding Science Trade Books. You—and all the dedicated teachers of today—will be glad you did.