Nyxia by Scott Reintgen

Emmett is a humble teen from Detroit. His family has been downtrodden for generations, working menial jobs after menial jobs and he isn't showing much to prove that he can break the cycle that has plagued his family.

One day however, he gets a chance to go to a strange planet to work with an alien people called Adamites. However, there's a catch- he is going to have to compete for his spot against teens from around the world each as hungry as he is to make the cut. Babel, the company who is sponsoring the trip promises a big payout if they can succeed.

Thus begins a gauntlet of events in groups and alone that sees the teens become hardened and their skills improve. The group has many distinct personalities some of which don't mesh and the inevitable conflicts arise.

The tasks the kids are asked to do test their limits in many ways but perhaps the most difficult is manipulating the alien substance, nyxia. For some reason the substance also reminded me of the alien symbiote that Spiderman encountered in his whole Venom story arc because soon the line between manipulator and that which is being manipulated becomes blurred.

Babel is a mysterious company and the folks in charge seem to have a ton of secrets themselves. There definitely seems to be some larger plan in place-the reason the kids have been recruited is because the Adamites like children. I can't wait to see what else is in store for Emmett on Eden. Some read alikes to this book are the Maze Runner series and Philip Reeve's Railhead.

An Outstanding Series You Must Not Miss: Scientists in the Field

Google “American schools bad” and you get 237 million hits which is simultaneously impressive and depressing. Of course a lot of those hits are thousands of articles repeating the same thing thousands of other articles are saying and a lot of them are dubious conclusions of what “bad” means. (For some folks it apparently means that schools are teaching sex education that includes something other than abstinence; in others it means that American History is too depressing.) But it’s clear that buried in all the hyperbole is a very real concern that much of what is going on in our schools is not nearly as impressive as it should be and as a country, we could be doing a lot better.

The most prevalent topic mentioned to improve schools is a higher focus on STEM subjects (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math). The desire to increase enrollment numbers in these fields of study has drawn the attention of political figures across the spectrum and the targets are everyone: Boys with short attention spans! Girls with low self esteem! Minorities from under privileged backgrounds!. Programs encouraging STEM are discussed ad nauseam but what much of that coverage lacks is perhaps the very thing teens need the most: a reason to want to become actual scientists.

Science itself is a popular discussion topic—”robotics” will get you 65 million+ hits; space travel will get you 439 million and “plastic in ocean” will get you 80 million—but what individual scientists do on a daily basis to tackle these subjects and others like them is a mystery when compared to more straightforward professions like doctor, lawyer or airline pilot. Science is just so big that unless Neil deGrasse Tyson is being interviewed about Pluto again, it’s hard for most adults (let alone kids) to name an actual living scientist. 

Quite frankly, the whole thing can get very frustrating.

But before panic sets in, the Scientist in the Field series needs to be checked out. Launched in 1999 by writer Sy Montgomery and photographer Nic Bishop, these books aimed at older middle grade and teen readers, combine curious writers with talented photographers and the fieldwork of a host of scientists around the world. Winners of dozens of awards highlighting their wide appeal, timeliness and whip smart content, the series shows readers not only some of the interesting and important science happening today but also what actual scientists look like (which is, happily, pretty darn diverse).

Scientist in the Field books tackle a wide range of subjects from volcanic eruptions and ocean trash to the invasion of North America by the destructive Asian long horned beetle, the search for intelligent life in the universe, the dangerous impact of pesticides on frogs and conservation efforts to save animals like the sea turtle, snow leopard, tree kangaroo and bees.

In the 40+ books to date, readers visit urban, suburban and wilderness destinations as the profiled scientists do their work. There are a lot of physically uncomfortable situations (it gets very hot in Brazil while tracking tapirs for example and very cold in Alaska while studying bowhead whales). But the hands-on nature of the jobs requires these men and women be out in the world getting close to their subjects. While labs certainly feature in many of the books, the scientists are clear that they can not find the answers they are looking for online—you have to get outside and, more often than not, you have to get dirty.

The structure for each title is similar: a writer and photographer generally match up with a small group of scientists engaged in single project. Sometimes the books focus on one individual and while in other cases they follow the work of several scientists who are attacking a project from multiple angles. With in-depth interviews and overviews of the scientific methods used, backgrounds of the team members and unique aspects of the problem like history, geography or cultural impact, the series fully immerses readers in places familiar, (a pond in Wyoming or neighborhood in Massachusetts), and foreign, (the cloud forest of Papua New Guinea or mountains of Mongolia). While American scientists often play a part even in the international settings, local scientists are always significant to the narrative as well, sometimes even risking their lives to find answers as in “Eruption!” which is about volcanoes in the Pacific Ring of Fire.

Diversity is, in fact, a byword for every aspect of the Scientist in the Field series. The subjects and locations are diverse, the type of science, (astronomy, geology, biology, forensics, entomology and on and on), is diverse and most refreshingly, the men and women involved cover a vast range of ages and ethnicities. Readers will see themselves in these books simply because somewhere within them is someone who looks like they do.

So what kind of scientists do you meet here? People like Curt Ebbesmeyer who tracks sneakers and toys lost at sea to map and track ocean currents in Tracking Trash; volcanologist Supriyati Andreastuti, who collects and measures volcanic ash in Eruption!; Tyrone Hayes who leads his graduate students out to collect pond water samples so they can study the impact of pesticides on frogs in The Frog Scientist and Hazel Barton who hunts in underground caves for microbes that might hold the secrets to life under the harshest of circumstances in Extreme Scientists.

Mysteries figure large and small in the books of this series, and so do adventures and surprises. The authors don’t sugarcoat the record keeping or statistical analysis that is necessary for good science, but they can’t keep the excitement out of their narratives. More than anything though, they make readers believe that science is possible for anyone; you just have to find the subject that gets you excited and then get out there to learn more about it. The Scientist in the Field series proves you can do it; no matter who you are or where you come from, you can have a life like the people in these books and you can change the world while you are living it. And more than anything, that is a pretty amazing (and inspiring) message for any teenager to discover.

Fuller's Earth: A Day with Bucky and the Kids

Imagine a guy figures out that the geometry he learned in school was not nature's geometry. Buckminster Fuller did that. He called nature's geometry "synergetics," to distinguish it, maybe, from the wrong-headed ancient mathematicians.

Their geometry was based on a flat earth, with trees and buildings that were perpendicular to it, and therefore parallel to each other. Guess what? The earth is not flat, and the trees are not at right angles to it. Bucky also objected to school geometry's basics - the point, which has no length, width or depth, the line, which is a collection of those nonexistent points, and the plane, described by those lines. Who cares? Well, nature's geometry doesn't use squares or cubes very much. Fuller shows how triangles and tetrahedra (a four-sided figure, all of whose faces are triangles) are much more stable and less likely to collapse because of a self-reinforcing structure that squares and cubes do not share.

NASA's construction of the International Space Station is based on this, using his invention, the octet truss. Quick quiz: 1) Looking at the sky, what direction is the moon? 2) On the moon, looking at the sky, what direction is earth? Bucky informs us that there's no "up" or "down" in Universe.

He was a most original thinker, and Fuller's Earth is the best introduction to his mind-altering ideas. Richard J. Brenneman deserves a lot of credit. He gives the reader a transcript of Fuller explaining his "explorations in the geometry of thinking" (Fuller maintained that thought has shape.) to three youngsters, and then answering questions they put to him.

If you want more, other books by Fuller himself include Intuition; And it Came to Pass, Not to Stay; and I Seem to Be a Verb. R. Buckminster Fuller was known as the planet's friendly genius. I cannot recommend Fuller's Earth highly enough.

We are recommending science books.....

.....because science does not change depending on your political persuasion. It never has, and it never will. If you choose not to believe in science then we here at Guys Lit Wire would appreciate it if you would please remove yourself from all conversations on the subject. (And also all science-related Congressional committees.) (And also all cabinet level positions that involve running departments staffed with scientists.)

GOT IT?

Now onto the recommendations!

1. The entire SCIENTISTS IN THE FIELD series. These books work for a wide age range and are notable not only for their stellar content but outstanding design as well. The author/photographer combo embed with a variety of scientists working in areas from sharks to frogs to volcanoes and space travel. The chapters are concise, the photos clear and intense and the focus is always on the fascinating work being done by scientists (male, female, all races, American & international) in the field. A personal favorite for me is Tracking Trash which was a page turner for everyone who saw it on our coffee table a few Christmases ago. (And got us all talking about the garbage in the oceans.) Check these titles out - I can't recommend them enough.

2. The books of Mary Roach. From Grunt, (on the science of war), to Packing for Mars and Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers (+ more), Roach has carved out a fascinating niche as an author who immerses herself in a subject and then presents it in a highly engaging and readable fashion. Check all of her work out & read this recent interview with Wired on Grunt.

3. Next of Kin by Roger Fouts & Stephen Mills on years of researching chimpanzees (and development of sign language communication with them) which led to Fouts's turn against biomedical research using  chimpanzees.  With a forward by Jane Goodall, this will appeal strongly to animal lovers. (And younger teens should also check out Jim Ottaviani's graphic novel Primates for short bios of Goodall, Dian Fossey and Biruté Galdikas.) Jane Goodall has written a slew of books, all worth checking out - 50 Years at Gombe is especially impressive.

4. Multiple Exposures by Catherine Caufield and The Age of Radiance by Craig Nelson both take a long look at the history of the Atomic Age and the "use, misuse and control of the power of radiation from the discovery of x-rays and radium to the present day." Also check out Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout by Lauren Redniss which combines a biography of their tragic research into radioactivity along with Redness's unique artistic presentation. Jonathan Fetter-Vorm has an outstanding graphic novel history of the Manhattan Project with Trinity and Jim Ottaviani's Feynman is everything you would ever want to know about what of the greatest physicists of all time. (Also see Richard Rhodes's definitive history, The Making of the Atomic Bomb.) Finally, Shelly Emling (who wrote the wonderful Fossil Hunter about Mary Anning) has a biography of the Curie family: Marie Curie and Her Daughters which covers the decades-long period after her husband's death and Curie's constant battles against sexism as she continued to work.

5. The Radioactive Boy Scout by Ken Silverstein. Tons of accolades for this one &amp, as it chronicles of the story of a teen, it has been appeal for readers in his age group. From Booklist: "Silverstein recounts how Hahn, while a high-school student in the early 1990s, tried to assemble a breeder nuclear reactor in a garden shed. Seeking the origins of such audacity, the author extensively interviewed Hahn and worked backward from the day in 1995 when EPA personnel clad in ventilated moon suits took away Hahn's radioactive material. To Silverstein, Hahn was two things at once: a kid out of time who imbibed 1960-style nuclear optimism from a chemistry book published that year and a kid of the times, the product of divorce. Neither parents nor stepparents, consumed by work and personal problems, supervised young David, who, utterly heedless of danger, re-created the experiments of Marie and Pierre Curie with a monomania that fed his fantasy of going nuclear. Aghast at Hahn's recklessness but amazed by his mad-scientist resourcefulness, Silverstein regales readers with an irresistible tale."

6. The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot.  It should be on high school reading lists everywhere, not only for the science issues it tackles but the moral issues that demand classroom discussion. Skloot has written a masterpiece, plain & simple. Read about what she is doing for Lacks's descendants in this NY Times article. And then just buy it. Really. Just buy the book.

(Here's a bit from the NYT review that really stayed with me: "But The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks is much more than a portrait of the Lacks family. It is also a critique of science that insists on ignoring the messy human provenance of its materials. “Scientists don’t like to think of HeLa cells as being little bits of Henrietta because it’s much easier to do science when you dissociate your materials from the people they come from,” a researcher named Robert Stevenson tells Skloot in one of the many ethical discussions seeded throughout the book.")

7.  Hidden Figures by Margot Lee Shetterly. I reviewed this one for Booklist and I'm so glad it has been made into a movie. It's a classic example of forgotten/hidden history and along with Margaret Hamilton receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom last month, an excellent stab at shining light on the historic record. From my review for Booklist: "....many of the women, particularly African American women, were employed not as secretaries but as “computers”: individuals capable of making accurate mathematical calculations at staggering speed who ultimately contributed to the agency’s aerodynamic and space projects on an impressive scale. Shetterly does an outstanding job of weaving the nearly unbelievable stories of these women into the saga of NASA’s history (as well as its WWII-era precursor) while simultaneously keeping an eye on the battle for civil rights that swirled around them. This is an incredibly powerful and complex story, and Shetterly has it down cold. The breadth of her well-documented research is immense, and her narrative compels on every level."

Take a minute and check out the trailer for the upcoming movie which looks AWESOME:


Also check out Rocket Girls by Nathalia Holt on the women who were employed early at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and T-Minus, another great graphic novel from Jim Ottaviani, on the race to the moon and, if you can bear to have your heart broken, Laika, by Nick Abadzis, the story of the little Russian dog who became the world's first space traveler. (I prefer the ending to that tale found in the picture book Laika: Astronaut Dog by Owen Davey. It's wonderful.)

8. Elements by Theodore Gray is both visually stunning and very well written (even funny). Gray has a ton of fans and for good reason. He actually collects the elements which seems...impossible, but is true and is a great way in which to make the whole Periodic Table a real thing and not some abstract poster that hangs on a classroom wall (which is how most of us see it). Gray has also written Molecules and fans can get a puzzle of his version of the Periodic Table and a photographic card deck which allows users to create their own table. 

I'll be adding more to the post in the coming days. (I haven't even gotten to the Darwin books yet!) And please feel free to make your science recs in the comments. Thanks!

Pet Bugs: A Kid's Guide to Catching & Keeping Touchable Insects

I was not able to upload a picture of this book for some unknown reason, but here are the section headings in Pet Bugs: "Bugs that eat other bugs," "Bugs that have special tricks to avoid being gobbled up," "Bugs that look like something they're not," "Bugs that live and work in groups," "Bugs that communicate with each other in special ways," and "Bugs that multiply - before your eyes!" You'll find out about praying mantises, walkingsticks, spittlebugs, monarch butterflies, tent caterpillars, lightning bugs, stag beetles, cicadas (some people call them locusts), crickets, Japanese beetles,and even mealworms (hungry?)

Unstoppable by Bill Nye

I have been a huge fan of Bill Nye for a really long time. He has always seemed like a very reasonable voice for good in the world and as I read this book, that held true. In Unstoppable, he talks about the history of energy, our current energy crisis, and a ton of possible ways individuals can make a difference in the world through his "try everything all at once" attack on global warming. The faith in humanity that Nye shows is astounding, calling on the young people of today to grow into the next "Greatest Generation" and tackle head on the problem of climate change.
In order to achieve this he calls on nations to adjust their thinking and social structures to really focus on educating girls in the areas of science and technology because, as he points out, girls are half the population and why should we limit our problem solving minds to only one half of the population!?
Nye discusses the friendly competition he has with his neighbor and fellow actor and activist Ed Begley Jr. showing that change can be fun. I found this to be very inspiring and motivating to do my own part.
I may not agree with everything that he proposes, but I think that at least trying is better than the alternative - dying, as in our whole species.
This is funny, thought provoking and timely. Truly a great book for dreamers and doers, even those only wanting to do in their very own small scale changes. It all helps.

Grunt by Mary Roach

In the yawning dog days of Summer, last chance for those still on vacation for some lazy summer reading, and a perfect time for last-minute escape to those who might already be back to the school year grind. When you don't have time or energy or the concentration for a novel, nonfiction makes for a good choice.

Mary Roach is the author of Stiff: The Curious Life of Cadavers, Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void, and the book I want to talk about, Grunt: The Curious Science of Humans at War. If there was one word to describe Mary Roach's approach to her subjects I'm going guess... curious?

As you can surmise from the title Roach like to take her curious mind and delve into the more unusual scientific aspects of warfare and its side effects. Told with occasional humor but always tactfully factual, boys will no doubt go into the chapter on genital transplants with a smirk and come out sobered about exactly the sort of "collateral damage" you don't learn in a first-person shooter game. Along the way are chapters on testing shark repellent, how one learns to drive around and over bombs, and the medical benefits of maggots on wounds.

Not for everyone, but for that particular boy out there, this is a goldmine of great nonfiction.

The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean by Susan Casey

“History is full of eyewitness accounts of giant waves, monsters in the hundred-foot range and beyond, but until very recently scientists dismissed them. The problem was this: according to the basic physics of ocean waves, the conditions that would produce a hundred-footer were so far beyond rare as to virtually never happen. Anyone who claimed to have seen one, therefore, was engaging in nautical tall tales or outright lies.” 

As we now know, waves seventy, eighty, even over a hundred feet high are real, and they are not unusual. Most people would want to avoid such waves as much as possible--waves much smaller than these monsters are dangerous and contain the potential for massive destruction, after all. Other people seek them out, and these are the folks Susan Casey meets in The Wave.

Traveling with big wave surfers like Laird Hamilton, and talking to mariners and scientists, Casey investigates what we’ve learned and what we still don’t know about waves. Also, what we might need to worry about in the future, considering how much of the world's population lives near the ocean, how much stuff is transported in massive cargo ships across oceans, not to mention climate change. Casey blends firsthand experiences on the ocean with scientific research and historical accounts of big waves (the Lituya Bay chapter, in particular, is hair-raising) into one engrossing book. Although The Wave was published in 2010, prior to the tsunami that hit Japan in 2011--and I don't think it's possible to read it now without wondering how the book would be different had it been written post-Japan tsunami--it is very much still worth reading, especially if you're interested in the ocean. Or surfing.

As one scientist tells Casey, “People have been studying waves for so many years, and we’re still struggling to understand how they work.” But Casey does a fine job of explaining is known to the rest of us, conveying the power and the beauty of the ocean's waves to readers of this book.

Book info:
The Wave: In Pursuit of the Rogues, Freaks, and Giants of the Ocean by Susan Casey
Adult Nonfiction
Published in 2010 by Random House/Doubleday (ISBN 9780767928847)

Earth + Space: Photographs from the Archives of NASA

In case you're feeling the need for a bit of the music from 2001: A Space Odyssey (I know I was, upon seeing this gorgeous book), here's a link to the opening, complete with a cosmic image (not from the book, alas): Also Sprach Zarathustra by Richard Strauss opening.

With a warmly written preface from Bill Nye (the Science Guy), this book is chock-full of photographs that will take your breath away. The photos are all from NASA (the National Aeronautics and Space Administration). They prove that the Universe is a dynamic, fantastic place, full of more galaxies than most people ever thought to imagine, and with more stars being born - or dying - at any given time than most people would think to count. And while we refer to the night sky as black or dark blue with white or yellow pinpoints of light, these photos make plain that the Universe is far more vast, active, and colorful than we give it credit for.



The text, written by Nirmala Nataraj, a science writer and photographer, explain what each photo depicts using clear, descriptive language that help to put the workings of the known Universe in context. The photos come from various telescopes and spacecraft over the years; some are produced using different wavelengths, allowing scientists (and now, lucky readers) to detect and observe cosmic activities that would otherwise be invisible using standard visible wavelengths of light.



More than a coffee-table book (although it's pretty awesome for that purpose), it's a must-see/must-read for anyone interested in space or science. And isn't that most of us?



A stellar, or should I say "out of this world"?, addition to anyone's library.

How We'll Live on Mars

We're going to Mars. We'll be there within 20 years. The technology is there and NASA is training for it. The question is, once we're there, how will we survivie? This isn't merely a question of figuring out how astronauts can maximize their stay for research purposes but how we will expand our human footprint beyond the Earth once we've exhausted the resources of this planet. Or in the event of a galactic calamity.

Unlike the last great space race this isn't about Cold War enemies flexing their muscle, there are plenty of private citizens with more funds than NASA funding research and development to get us there. Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Paul Allen, and Richard Branson all have their multi-billion dollar fingers in this pie, and the technology is there. Tereforming a new planet is possible right now, the technology is already available, we just have to get there.

In under 100 pages How We'll Live on Mars lays how we'll probably get there, what we'll face in terms of establishing an initial base, and how efforts are already underway to colonize Mars within 50 years. And the numbers are staggering: Elon Musk is talking about getting 10's of thousands of people there by the mid-century mark. What seems crazy at first Petranek makes feel very real in a clear and factual tone. A solid, quick read that at the end will leave you believing the inevitable.

We're going to Mars.

How We'll Live on Mars
by Stephan L. Petranek
TED books, Simon & Schuster 2015

Zombies & Calculus by Colin Adams

I saw Zombies & Calculus by Colin Adams in the Princeton University Press catalog and it caught my eye (for obvious reasons). I have no idea how it reads but the premise is so unique that I had to share it. If you're teaching Calculus, it seems like this might be worth taking a look at and then sharing with your students.

Adams is the humor columnist for the Mathematical Intelligencer and a professor of mathematics at Williams College.  

From the catalog copy:

Zombies & Calculus is the account of Craig Williams, a math professor at a small liberal arts college in New England, who, in the middle of a calculus class, finds himself suddenly confronted by a late-arriving student whose hunger is not for knowledge. As the zombie virus spreads and civilization crumbles, Williams uses calculus to help his small band of survivors defeat the hordes of the undead. Along the way, readers learn how to avoid being eaten by taking advantage of the fact that zombies always point their tangent vector toward their target, and how to use exponential growth to determine the rate at which the virus is spreading. Williams also covers topics such as logistic growth, gravitational acceleration, predator-prey models, pursuit problems, the physics of combat, and more. With the aid of his story, you too can survive the zombie onslaught.

I had a brutal time in calculus and anything I could have done to make sense of it all would have been welcome. Zombies? Might as well!

The Art of Space

Growing up, most of my impressions of what space looked like came from the art on the cover of sci-fi paperbacks. This was the work of illustrators, individuals whose job it was to interpret the concepts presented inside. Movies tried to do the same but very few could capture the imagination the way one good interplanetary landscape could; the mystery of multiple suns and moons, space stations the size of continents, and colonies of people living in universes that seemed to defy gravity. 

This is what The Art of Space is all about.

Let's take a look, shall we? This is from Ron Miller himself:

Mummies: The Newest, Coolest & Creepiest from Around the World

I picked up Shelley Tanaka's Mummies: The Newest, Coolest & Creepiest from Around the World because it was featured on a "spooky book" shelf and because it looked like a fun, quick read. I wasn't expecting to get completely wrapped up (ha ha) in it, much less to be murmuring "Wow!" every time I turned a page.

Little green men at the Mercury inn by Greg Leitich Smith

This is a cool little book that I stumbled upon (I think it was in the new book cart at work) and I was glad that I did read it. Aliens walk among us is the overarching theme of this book which details the adventures one summer of a twelve year old Aidan who lives in a motel that his parents own. The motel is open to the public but also has its share of long term residents.  Cocoa Beach is in close proximity to and the hotel occupancy rate increases whenever there is a rocket launch as curious folk want to see the goings on. Neeedless to say Aidan has seen a lot of weird things and if you ask him some of the motel guests are as weird as any extra terrestrial!

Amazing Food Hacks by Peggy Wang

Have you ever looked at a bottle of sriracha hot sauce and thought "You know what would make that better? A spray bottle head!" How about dumping the crumbs from a party bag of Doritos into an empty pepper mill? Ever wanted to make a peanut butter, jelly, and banana sandwich but the only bread you had was a hot dog bun... and you went for it?

Maybe you haven't, but when the hungries happen and you're scrounging for something, necessity becomes the mother of invention. Of course these days re-purposing and finding new uses for things generally gets the term "hacked" in front of it, so why not food? Amazing Food Hacks is, perhaps, the ultimate afternoon snack-hacker's bible, complete with ideas that range from the mild (hash browns in a waffle iron) to the wacky (leftover pizza crust nachos) to the sophisticated (frozen yogurt dots). Peggy Wang, a founding editor of the website Buzzfeed and a non-foodie mom with kids to keep happy, packs a lot of interesting and (mostly) healthy ideas for breakfasts, main courses, snacks and sides that would make any kid rethink that plain old package of ramen taunting them from the pantry.  

THE GREEN TEEN COOKBOOK: Recipes for All Seasons--written by teens, for teens

The Green Teen Cookbook, edited by Laurane Marchive and Pam McElroy, is both a cookbook and a resource for thinking about and shopping for food. The first of the book includes essays/articles on things like how to eat healthfully and/or seasonally, eating organic foods, levels of vegetarianism, how to be a locavore, and what fairtrade means. Between the title and the first chapter, I expected it to be a vegetarian cookbook, but it isn't-- it includes all sorts of recipes, including some for meat, chicken, and fish. All of the recipes focus on the use of fresh foods.

The second chapter includes recipe for making staples such as mayonnaise, pesto, salsa, and chicken or vegetable stock, and more. It also has a non-staple in the form of chocolate spread (not called Nutella, but still...) The remainder of the book is organized into sections by meal types: Breakfast & Brunch; Soups, Salads & Sandwiches; Snacks & Sides; Main Courses; and Desserts. Each recipe submitted by a teen includes a picture of the teen cook at the top of the page, along with a quote about the recipe and why they like making it or recommend it.

The selections include everything from simple dishes like French toast, Green Salad, or Apple Chips to more sophisticated or involved recipes. As a long-time cook and follower of recipes, I found myself wishing that some of the recipes had been proofed better or written just a bit more clearly. The "Summer Lasagna" comes to mind (not, apparently, a teen recipe), where the recipe calls for mozzarella, but doesn't specify that it should be shredded mozzarella, although on reading and re-reading the recipe, it became obvious that was probably what was intended (you mix it with ricotta, and mixing unshredded mozzarella is either impossible or inadvisable. That said, the variety of dishes is excellent, and the personal introductions by the teen chefs who donated the recipes are inspiring -- they explain where they learned to make the dish, or why they like making or eating it. Each recipe also comes with a photograph of the finished dish, and some come with additional "quick tips", like the one for crepes, which says that "Your first crepe will most likely not [] be perfect but don't worry, you will get the hang of it."

Here's a photo of what a two-page spread in the book looks like. It features recipes for "Chicken with Ginger and Broccoli", supplied by Dong Tran, and "Chili Con Carne", from Clare Gosling.



A great book for teens wanting to start cooking or start their own cookbook collections.

Roller Coaster Science

Summer means different things to different people, but as a teen (before I was old enough to get a job) summer was the time I got to do the things I really wanted to do and learn. I took ceramics classes and learned to swim and read the books that I wanted to read. I also came up with all sorts of crazy projects, like tearing apart my bike and rebuilding it as a lowrider chopper. One summer, I made what I called 'ramps' which, essentially, was a marble roller coaster. Through trial and error I learned about drops and turns, what worked and what didn't, and had a great time figuring out what sort of things I could recycle into my amusement.

Who knew I was learning physics in the process?

While Roller Coaster Science hews toward tweens who might be only vaguely familiar with the concepts and principles involved, the text is friendly without being condescending to more knowledgeable readers. Each spread introduces a concept -- acceleration, force, mass and weight, etc -- along with an experiment to demonstrate how it works. Or doesn't work as the case may be. The back half of the book includes pre-printed paper ramps to punch out and assemble. Build the coaster according to directions, get a marble, and let it rip!

Then get some paper towel rolls, funnels, old garden hoses, scraps of wood, whatever you can get you hands on and go crazy with some "practical" physics!

It's all Relative (Almost)

Most of us assume that while relativity is certainly true it's both more strange and more complicated than we can possibly understand and not especially relevant in our day to day lives. Beyond that, we might consider pictures of Einstein with his tongue sticking as cheesy yet amusing, but the details of his theories we tend to put in the Things I don't Need to Worry about Right Now bin along with How my Microwave Works and What is my Spleen For?

Jeffrey Bennett's What is Relativity? (public library) makes Einstein's major theories both understandable and relevant. He makes it clear by building up the stories slowly, first introducing concepts that go down fairly easily, like how measures of speed depend on your point of view. For instance, a plane can appear, from the ground, to be flying at several hundred miles an hour, but the same plane, when viewed from the moon, can look perfectly stationary while the earth travels at several hundred miles an hour beneath it.

To these concepts he adds the fact that the maximum speed of light in a vacuum is always the same (around 300,000 meters per second), no matter what your point of view is. This constant speed of light means that when you start travelling at speeds close to the speed of light, not only do things like speed become relative depending on your point of view, so do things like length, mass and time.

That's where all the weirdness comes in, like space voyages taking hundreds of years to people on Earth but only decades in the spacecraft, or objects freezing in time at the edge of black hole.

Lockstep, by Karl Schroeder

Toby McGonigal is a seventeen year old boy on a routine space mission, heading for a far-off moon of the planet his family has colonized.

But something goes wrong. And when he wakes up, 14,000 years have passed. And everything has changed.

Lockstep is an inventive YA science fiction novel that will appeal to brainy readers who enjoy complicated worldbuilding, and many young men will connect to Toby's fundamental challenges (you know, looking for his mom, taking care of his brother, who by the way has become a dictator ruling over 70,000 worlds, pretty standard stuff).  

The Red Hourglass by Gordon Grice

As a middle school librarian, former high school English teacher, and now mother of a boy, I've been fortunate enough to gain some insight into what sort of reading material is likely to capture the attention of an average young dude. 

One tried and true boy book bait, in my experience, is gross stuff. 

Oh, and sex. (Age dependent, of course.)

Those two criteria makes Gordon Grice’s The Red Hourglass: Lives of the Predators a likely candidate. The clear, accessible, and often hilarious writing makes it a shoo-in.