INK STEM

No, this is not some type of plant that produces ink. This is the last of the INK Recommends lists, focused on STEM: Science, Technology, Engineering and Math. Because we have previously compiled lists that focused on math and science, I have tilted this list toward the technology and engineering side of things.

This list is also a bit different from other STEM lists you might find in two ways:  While animals show up on this list, they do not dominate it the way they do many science lists (unless they have something to teach us about engineering). And while there are some hands-on activities found in some of these books, many are what I would call storytelling STEM in the sense that they delve deeply into a STEM topic by telling gripping stories of people who have done something compelling in a STEM field.  The books on this list that don’t take this approach have found other clever ways to bring science, technology, engineering and math to life.

Happy reading. Thanks for reading. Linda, thanks for everything.

Elizabeth Rusch

PreK-5 STEM

Animals in Flight by Steve Jenkins

Dreaming Up: A Celebration of Building by Christy Hale

The Boy Who Loved Math: The Improbable Life of Paul Erdos by Deborah Heiligman

Building our House by Jonathan Bean

Energy Island: How One Community Harnessed the Wind and Changed Their World by Allan Drummond

Electrical Wizard: How Nikola Tesla Lit Up the World by Elizabeth Rusch

Lifetime: The Amazing Numbers in Animal Lives by Lola Schaefer

Marvelous Mattie: How Margaret E. Knight Became an Inventor by Emily Arnold McCully

Rosie Revere, Engineer by Andrea Beaty

Snowflake Bentley by Jacqueline Briggs Martin

Things that Float and Things that Don’t by David Adler

Toilet: How It Works by David Macaulay with Sheila Keenan

The Shocking Truth about Energy by Loreen Leedy

Middle Grade STEM

A Black Hole is NOT a Hole by Carolyn DeCristofano

Birds: Nature’s Magnificent Flying Machines by Caroline Arnold

Earth-Friendly Buildings, Bridges and More: The Eco-Journal of Corry Lapont by Etta Kaner

How Do You Burp in Space? And Other Tips Every Space Tourist Needs to Know by Susan E. Goodman

The Mighty Mars Rovers: The incredible adventures of Spirit and Opportunity by Elizabeth Rusch

Team Moon:  How 400,000 People Landed Apollo 11 on the Moon by Catherine Thimmesh

Technology by Clive Gifford

Try This!  by Karen Romano Young

Wheels of Change: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom (with a few flat tires along the way) by Sue Macy

Young Adult STEM

Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream by Tanya Lee Stone

Bomb: The Race to Build – and Steal – the World’s Most Dangerous Weapon by Steve Sheinkin

The Boy who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba and Bryan Mealer (also available in a young readers edition)

The Boy who Invented TV: The Story of Philo Farnsworth by Kathleen Krull

Junkyard Science  by Karen Romano Young

The Longitude Prize by Joan Dash

Something out of Nothing: Marie Curie and Radium by Carla Killough McClafferty

Steve Jobs: The Man who Thought Different by Karen Blumenthal

The New Way Things Work by David Macaulay and Neil Ardley

Women of Steel and Stone: 22 Inspirational Architects, Engineers, and Landscape Designers by

Anna M. Lewis  

Not enough STEM titles here for you? Check out Bank Street College of Education’s STEM list at:

http://bankstreet.edu/center-childrens-literature/childrens-book-committee/further-resources/stem-titles/

Or the annual lists of Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students K-12 put together by the National Science Teachers Association and the Children’s Book Council:

http://www.nsta.org/publications/ostb/

Girl Geek Chic: --Let's Change What's Cool

Last month on National Astronomy Day, I was at the Clay Center Observatory signing copies of How Do You Burp in Space? And Other Tips Every Space Tourist Needs to Know.  After inscribing a copy for a young boy, I looked up at his older sister.  

“Do you want to go to space, too?” I asked.

“I did once,” she said.

“What happened?”

She gave me a small smile, a Mona Lisa smile—that is, if Mona L. were a just-budding adolescent proud of her newly acquired sense of condescension. 

“Oh…other things took over,” she said in a tone that implied I couldn’t possibly know what she meant.

Oh…but I do. Having been there and done that, I was actually thinking about something else.  Do these other things that "take over" really have to edge out wanting to go into space or a daily check on favorite animal cams?  Is this really an either/or situation? Do the hormones make us want to pack away those childish things?  Or, despite so many strides, do we still think there’s only one type of girl that does those hormones justice?

This last question still on my mind, I later googled “nerds becoming popular” and immediately clicked on the images page.  I already knew that Sheldon’s chic and Zuckerberg’s billions have brought those three words in close company.  What I wanted to know was how many pictures of girls I would see sprinkled in among the guys wearing pocket protectors and suspenders.

Discounting “popular” girls torturing geeks, here’s the first “nerd girl” picture I came upon.  I was hopeful.  What a fool I was.  Once I clicked through to its home site, here are the words I found:  Who would have thought that being a nerd would be cool?  Well the time has finally come. There is nothing more fashionable that an over-sized pair of geeky glasses.  PS-When I saved the picture to my computer to easily transfer to this post, I noticed it was labeled, "pretty nerd."

Little Mona Lisa Girl at the Clay Center, the deck has been stacked against you.  Come on, STEM books, cool geek girl role models, Neil Degrasse Tyson.  Help girls aspire to go to space and wear cool nail polish in orbit, if that’s what they want.  Help everybody feel as if science and smart is back in fashion and sexy.

I spoke to astronaut Sunita Williams when writing Burp in Space, but never asked her if she felt she had to choose between lipstick and her dreams.  I wish I had. Maybe I would have been primed to say something to this young girl.  Even if she couldn’t hear me now, perhaps it would plant a seed. I know lots of girls get reacquainted with previous interests as women, but I hate to think of what has been lost in the meantime because their intellectual passions couldn’t coexist with the teenage definition of femininity.

On June 20, Liz Rusch is publishing I.N.K.’s last recommended booklist.  This time it focuses on STEM-related topics.  Let’s all take a second look.

 * * * * *

Thank you, Linda.  Thank you, I.N.K. Thanks to all of our readers. It’s been a pleasure.

Making Multimedia Connections with Books

Recently I was invited to present at a conference of the Northwest Association of Independent Schools on connections between books and technology. Perhaps because I’m a writer married to a technology guy, I see the potential for a rich marriage between books and multimedia resources on a given topic.

For one thing, because of the Internet, students can get a behind-the-scenes view of the research and writing that went into a book.  Websites, Facebook pages, and blogs can (miraculously, I think) connect students directly with authors. Many authors have websites (try the author’s first and last name.com or do a google search by using the author’s name and the word “author”). Author websites also often contain links that can deepen students’ understanding of a book or topic. 

For example, after reading Muckrakers by Ann Bausum, they can stop by her website and click on the "photo research" link for an interactive tutorial on how to conduct photo research using the online collections of the Library of Congress.

After reading Bausum’s Unraveling Freedom, they can visit the page for that book and click on the "political cartoons" link to begin an interactive session about decoding political cartoons, using six cartoons from World War I.

Many authors also have Facebook pages which can give readers insights into the on-going life of writers, updates on developments related to their books, and play-by-play descriptions of their current work on new writing projects. (I’m just getting mine going at https://www.facebook.com/authorelizabethrusch). Some even write blogs or contribute to group blogs like this one. (Try googling the author’s name and the word “blog,” or check author websites, which will have links to their blogs.)

Many nonfiction authors write about current topics that are still unfolding after the book has been published. The internet can continue the story.  For instance, after reading Loree Griffin Burns’ The Hive Detective, students can watch a TED talk about the plight of the honeybee or learn about pollinator conservation at the Xerces Society’s website. Likewise,

after reading Steve Jobs: The Man Who Thought Different by Karen Blumenthal, students can check out what’s happening with the company now at http://www.apple.com/hotnews/ or read recent articles about the company at www.techspot.com.

After reading my book, The Mighty Mars Rovers: The incredible adventures of Spirit and Opportunity, students can explore what the rover Opportunity is up to now (10 years after landing!) at JPL’s website, which includes regular mission updates, press releases, photos and videos; and follow the newest rover Curiosity, too.

And after reading one of my volcano books—Volcano Rising; Will it Blow? or Eruption! -- students can learn more about current on-going eruptions at Earthweek; Volcano Discovery, which includes a map of recent eruptions and  webcams at active volcanoes; and Smithsonian’sGlobal Volcanism Program, which has both weekly updates of volcanic activity and an amazing searchable database of past and current eruptions.

Think this only relates to current events? Think again.  Fascinating additional reading and other resources such as audio, films and websites related to American history, 1492 and onward, can be found on the website of the Zinn Ed Project, which is searchable by theme, time period, document type and reading level. You can also search by book. For instance, the entry for Gretchen Woelfle’s Mumbet’s Declaration of Independence, (https://zinnedproject.org/materials/mumbets-declaration-of-independence/) links to actual court records from the lawsuit Mumbet brought against her owners to win her freedom.

Multimedia experiences can bring a book to life. After reading A Home for Mr. Emerson by Barbara Kerley, students can visit thehome online. They can view a slideshowfrom the New York Times about the caretaking of the home, which Emerson bought in 1835; the site includes interior shots of the home, including the rocking horse in the playroom and Emerson's hat, hanging on the wall. To dig even deeper into Emerson’s life, readers can go to an online exhibit by the Concord Free PublicLibrary with photos and essays about Emerson, which also features many primary source documents.

If you want to offer your students a multimedia experience, most likely you don’t have to do the research on the best resources yourself. Many nonfiction authors include a list of the best multimedia resources in the back matter of their books or on their websites. Check them out – and send your students to them, too. You’ll both be enriched by the experience.

Elizabeth Rusch

www.elizabethrusch.com

https://www.facebook.com/authorelizabethrusch

www.vivascriva.com

Happy TENTH Anniversary to the Mars rover Opportunity!

On July 7, 2003, tucked into a Delta 2 rocket, the rover Opportunity blasted into space headed to Mars.

On January 24, 2004 PST (Jan. 25 Universal Time), the rover was dropped onto the surface of Mars wrapped in airbags, where it bounced 26 times before coming to rest in a crater.  This little rover, about the size of golf cart, was designed for the three-month mission to find signs of past water on Mars. 

Tomorrow marks the 10-year anniversary of Opportunity’s mission on Mars. TEN YEARS!!! HURRAH! WHOOT WHOOT! I MEAN, CAN YOU BELIEVE IT PEOPLE??? TEN YEARS!!! It was a three-month mission and this little robot, which was not designed to survive even one Martian winter, is STILL EXPLORING MARS TEN YEARS LATER! It is a miracle. This is perhaps the most successful space mission EVER!

I don’t get to write like this, in all caps and with multiple exclamation points, in my books for children, but this is how I feel about this mission and this rover. I am astounded. I am in awe. I cannot believe that a dream and the work of a bunch of scientists and engineers have given us a ten- year tour of another planet.

Opportunity was designed to only travel on flat terrain but has explored crater after crater after crater and is currently climbing the tallest hill of its mission. This is where Opportunity has traveled so far:

 

Opportunity is currently exploring the rim of Endeavour Crater, near an outcrop that may contain clay laid down in a watery past. Signs of past water have been found before, but evidence suggests that unlike the battery-acid-like water present on other parts of the planet, the water here may have been neutral enough to have once sustained life.  LIFE!

I hope you can find a little time to celebrate the incredible success of this mission, especially with your children and students. You can:

Watch a live broadcast from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory today Thursday, Jan. 23, 11 a.m. PST (2 p.m. EST) which will include appearances of two of the heroes from my book The Mighty Mars Rovers, Steve Squyres and John Callas. (Webcast live at http://ustream.tv/NASAJPL and on NASA TV streaming at http://www.nasa.gov/nasatv.)

See Space.com’s slide show of the top ten discoveries from Spirit and Opportunity’s mission.

Enjoy these stunning photos from a decade of exploration.

Check out a slideshow about why the rover lasted so long, at NASA’s 10-year anniversary page. 

Print out free posters, calendars and stickers.

Read the story of girl who was in eighth grade when Opportunity landed on Mars and is now an engineer on the mission.

Teachers, there is so much this mission offers to inspire your students. As the mission continues to unfold, Opportunity gives you an incredible opportunity to connect reading, writing, science, history, news, books, videos, and primary source material easily available on the internet. A teachers’ guide to my book The Mighty Mars Rovers offers discussion questions, hands-on activities, and resources. You can also find good ideas in two Common Core guides, one short  and one long.

When I started writing The Mighty Mars Rovers, my husband bought me a little scale model rover to keep on my desk as inspiration. But my model kept falling off my desk and breaking.

Perhaps my desk is a more hazardous place than Mars. 

Or perhaps we humans are capable of much more than we can even imagine.

Long live Opportunity!

Elizabeth Rusch

Images courtesy of NASA/JPL, except for the last one, which I took myself.

Eruptions Rock the Globe…Again and Again and Again

Science is an on-going story, an on-going quest. That’s a theme that I explore in all my science books.  But the Earth itself has been making the point for me since the release of my book Eruption! Volcanoes and the Science of Saving Lives. 

Mount Pinatubo erupts in 1991.

Eruption! tells the story of a small group of volcanologists who help locals predict dangerous volcanic activity so officials can get people out of harm’s way. The eruptions I describe in Colombia, the Philippines, and Mount Merapi in Indonesia are dramatic and might seem extreme but they are far from it.  Since Eruption! came out in June, volcanoes have been erupting all across the globe, testing scientists and endangering lives. Here is a sampling:

In July, 200 people were evacuated when Ecuador’s Tungurahua volcano shot a plume of hot ash, gas and rocks eight miles into the sky.

In the same month, residents of Mexico City woke to find a layer of volcanic ash spread across town from Popocatepetl. Residents were warned to cover water supplies, use face masks and stay indoors. The volcano has been emitting steam and gas intermittently ever since.

Colima, in Western Mexico, experienced some lava flows in July, but in November, activity has ramped up. On November 22, the volcano began exploding every half hour with plumes reaching almost a mile into the sky.

In August, Japan’s Mount Sakurajima shot an ash plume three miles high over the city of Kagoshima (population 600,000), darkening the sky and forcing locals to employ umbrellas, raincoats, and masks to shield themselves from falling debris.

Also in August, nearly 3,000 people were evacuated from Palue Island when Mount Rokatenda in Indonesia erupted, spewing plumes of white and gray smoke and ash. Five people were killed in the evacuation zone when red-hot ash seared a beach.

Mount Merapi, which I cover extensively in the book, has been keeping VDAP and their colleagues busy. In September a volcano observer noted hot glowing material and a hissing sound at the crater. Then on November 18, the volcano rumbled and shot ash and gases more than a mile in the air, which poured down on villages as far as 18 miles away. The volcano shot steam on Sunday Dec 1, but scientist are particularly worried about the recent growth of a large crack in the lava dome, which raises the risk that the dome could collapse, causing an avalanche or dangerous flow of searing hot ash and gases called a pyroclastic flow.

Mount Merapi erupts in 2010.

 Another volcano in Indonesia has been even more threatening.  In September a flurry of eruptions at Mount Sinabung chased 10,000 people from their homes. The volcano settled down for a little while and people returned to their villages.  But Sinabung is back at it again, with strong explosions in early November gaining intensity in mid- November. The volcano erupted eight times on November 24 and more than 18,000 people have been evacuated from a 3-mile radius around the volcano. Though the volcano has thrown coin-sized volcanic rocks, some residents have been returning to their farms from evacuation shelters during the day to check on livestock.

The story of the human quest to understand volcanoes and protect ourselves from them continues.  To me, this means that teachers across the country have many opportunities to share this on-going quest with students. When a volcanic eruption is in the news, teachers could share Eruption! with students so they can learn more about the geologic processes behind the activity and the exciting science done in the field to better understand volcanoes and protect people from their dangerous power. Likewise, after students have read the book, teachers can connect students to recent eruptions. Since the Common Core asks students to look at topics across a variety of media, teacher could send students to these amazing websites:

Earthweek (http://www.earthweek.com/volccat.php), which has a page dedicated to current volcanic eruptions.

Volcano Discovery (http://www.volcanodiscovery.com/volcanoes.html) where students can see a map of recent eruptions, a log of recent volcanic activity around the world, thorough descriptions of ongoing eruptions, and even webcams at active volcanoes.

Smithsonian’s Global Volcanism Program (http://www.volcano.si.edu/) gives weekly updates of volcanic activity around the world and an amazing searchable database of recent and historic eruptions.

Teachers could even ask students to use their research on an active volcano to write another exciting chapter of Eruption! After all, science is an on-going story. By no means do I have the last word.

Elizabeth Rusch

Teaching resources for Eruption!, including a half-page Common Core guide, are available at: http://elizabethrusch.com/ForYou/ForTeachers.aspx

Fresh Angles Create Interest

One of the big advantages of using nonfiction trade books in the classroom is the variety of approaches we authors use for our topics.  We don't just write the usual straight and often boring chronology of events the way a textbook does.  We choose a fresh angle on a familiar topic, which allows us to integrate the basic information into a new framework that can inspire a child's curiosity or lead her into an important fundamental topic through a different door, one that she wants to open because of her own interests.


Vicki Cobb's book, "Science Experiments You Can Eat," teaches children fundamental principles of physical science through something everyone is interested in, their food.  This book has been so popular that it has remained in print since its first publication in 1972.  Readers discover that science doesn't need to be serious or daunting--it can be lots of fun, and the book encourages them to pursue the subject matter even further.  Vicki is hoping to expand and revise the book within the next year.  With this book, readers can have lots of fun as they learn about important principles that they won't easily forget.






Elizabeth Rusch's book, "For the Love of Music," informs children about life in Europe during the last half of the 18th century and about classical music through the story of Mozart's older sister, Maria Anna, who was also a child prodigy.  She had to live in Wolfgang's shadow once she was of marriageable age.  She did her best to stay in touch with music even after marrying and taking care of stepchildren as well as her own children.  Girls today who struggle with traditional family expectations will identify with Maria Anna and enjoy reading about her life and times. learning about music in the process.





Rosalyn Schanzer's wonderful book, "George vs.George," presents the historical facts behind the American Revolution through the personalities of George Washington and King George III, which gives readers the historical context of this pivotal event in our history.  They learn the British point of view as well as the American one, which helps anchor the revolution in its times and deepens understanding of what life was life back then.

Because I'm a zoologist by training and interest, my history-related books often present a topic through an animal-related theme.  For example, my two books exploring western Native American Indian culture and how it intertwined with the Westward Expansion Movement both use iconic animals for their focus--"The Buffalo and the Indians: A Shared Destiny" and "The Horse and the Plains Indians: A Powerful Partnership."  The curiosity of a reader interested in wildlife could be stimulated by the buffalo book while a horse lover would pick up the horse book instead.  Both would learn a great deal about Native Americans and the Westward Expansion Movement as they learned more about the animals they love.

These are just a few examples of nonfiction trade books teachers can pull off the shelves of their school libraries to engage their students with learning by way of books that take a fresh look at subjects that can seem boring when approached by way of textbooks' dry and uninspiring approaches.

The Joy of Exploring Book Structure with the Common Core

Like many fellow INK bloggers, I don’t think about the Common Core while writing my books. Yet when I read the Common Core anchor reading standards, I get a sense that they are designed to get kids to explore some of the things that I DO think about when I write a book.  Maybe that is not such a bad thing.

Take, for instance, structure. The reading standards (especially CCRA.R.5) ask students to think about how a piece of writing is structured and why the author might have structured it that way.  I think about structure. I obsess about structure.  Considering how to structure a book is the most fun, the most creative, and perhaps the most important part of my writing process.

Structure is a the-world-is-your-oyster kind of thing.  The options for structuring a piece of writing to inspire, entertain, and inform are endless. I can be creative, literary, artistic, poetic, humorous, vivid, and suspenseful. I can use metaphor, imagery, narrative arc, voice, or any other tool I’d like. When I write, I’m like a curator at a museum. I get to decide what to focus on and how to present it. So half the fun is figuring out: What is the best way to tell this story? What interesting or clever structure will make this amazing material come to life for readers?

Let me give you an example. Since the release of two new books this year, I now have three books for young readers on volcanoes. Each has a completely different structure.

VOLCANO RISING, a picture book for young kids, age five to nine, focuses on the creative force of volcanoes, how volcanoes shape the landscape, building mountains and creating islands where there were none before. The book is organized around an idea: creative eruptions. I introduce the concept, explain it, and then give eight vivid examples. The book also has two layers of text. In the first, I employ lyrical language so that it’s lovely to read aloud. The second layer offers more detailed descriptions of fascinating creative eruptions for parents or teachers to share with kids or for independent readers to explore on their own.

WILL IT BLOW? is designed to be a fun, interactive way for kids age six to ten to understand and use cutting-edge volcano monitoring by drawing a playful parallel between volcano monitoring and

detective work. The book introduces Mount St. Helens as the suspect, and the chapters describe

clues that volcanologists gather. Each chapter ends with a real case study from Mount St. Helens’ 2004-2008 eruption where kids apply what they learned about clues to guess what Mount St. Helens might do next. WILL IT BLOW? offers pretty hefty scientific material presented through the lens of detective work.

ERUPTION! VOLCANOES AND THE SCIENCE OF SAVING LIVES is for older readers, kids age ten and up. It’s a no-holds-barred immersion into the destructive power of volcanoes and the intense challenge of predicting deadly violent eruptions. I follow a small team of scientists as they work on the flanks of steaming, quaking, ash-spewing volcanoes all over the world—from Colombia and the Philippines to Chile and Indonesia—as they struggle to predict eruptions and prevent tragedies. I chose some historical eruptions and some current ones to show how the scientists' work has evolved over time, and tried to weave together the scientific process with suspenseful, nail-biting material to pull readers through.

One topic, volcanoes, with three very different structures.  What does this mean for what might happen in the classroom with my volcano books? Teachers could have students look at all three of these books and describe their structures and what they accomplish.  To explore the structure of VOLCANO RISING, a teacher could ask: Why did the author chose the eight volcanoes that she features in this book? What is the purpose of the two different layers of text? How do the layers affect how the book might be used?  To delve deeper into the structure of WILL IT BLOW? a teacher could ask: How is the theme of volcanology-as-detective-work reflected in the structure of the book? How does the opening chapter set the stage for the rest of the book? What is the common structure found in each chapter and what does that structure accomplish? For ERUPTION, students could explore: Why does the author tell the stories of several eruptions? Why those eruptions? What does each add?

Why stop with my volcano books? Students could check out three more volcano books and describe how they are the same and different. Teachers could even ask students to brainstorm ideas for three more ways one could structure a book about volcanoes. To me, structure is about both creativity and synthesizing information, so exploring structure can offer both hard-core analysis and a creative outlet.

I’m a little obsessed with structure, so teachers and students probably have lots to talk about by picking apart the structures of my books.  My nonfiction picturebook biography THE PLANET HUNTER: THE STORY BEHIND WHAT HAPPENED TO PLUTO explains why Pluto is not considered a planet anymore by telling the true story of the astronomer behind it. I use the structure of a narrative arc, which is commonly used in fiction, with a character (astronomer Mike Brown) who wants something (to find more planets in our solar system), rising tension, a climax and a resolution. Teachers can explore narrative arc structure with students by having them find these parts in the story.

In my nonfiction picture book biography of Maria Anna Mozart –Wolfgang Mozart’s older sister who was also a child prodigy – I used the structure of a piano sonata, the type of music Maria Anna played most often, as the structure for the book. So in FOR THE LOVE OF MUSIC, I divided her story into movements and employed other other musical notations to highlight events in Maria Anna’s life.  The Mozart children’s whirlwind musical tour of Europe is in a section called Allegro (the fast tempo of the first movement of a piano sonata). When Wolfgang climbs into a carriage headed for Italy, leaving his sister behind, the section is Coda (an ending.) In a section titled Fermata (in which everything stops), Maria Anna's piano warps in the frigid weather, and in Cadenza (a passage for a soloist to improvise), Maria Anna weeps for Wolfgang, who dies so young. Classroom discussions about this structure could address: How does the sonata structure shape the book? What constraints did using this structure put on the author? What did the structure add?

Basically, I think the standards open the door to asking readers to notice a book’s structure, to think about why a book is structured the way it is, to imagine how it could have been structured differently and to consider a variety of ways to structure their writing, too. 

What might this look like in the classroom more generally? Talk about books with interesting structures. Find books on the same topic or subject matter with different structures and discuss how the structures differ and how that affects the book.

To develop writing skills, kids could brainstorm at least three different possible structures for a piece of writing. (I do this before writing my books, though I don’t limit myself to only three.) Student could write about the same topic more than once, employing very different structures. (I often write multiple drafts of different parts of my books, testing out different structures.)

Encouraging students to consider creative ways to structure a piece of writing can give kids a way to really engage with the material and make it their own. To me any topic becomes more interesting if I ask myself: How could I structure this to be the most interesting and most effective?  If teachers encourage kids to think creatively about structuring their writing, students may engage more deeply with the material and, ultimately, write pieces that are more interesting to read.  

Elizabeth Rusch

P.S. While my books offer good opportunities to discuss structure, I think they can also spur discussions around other elements of the Common Core, such as theme (R.2), word choice (R.4),  and point of view (R.6). To give teachers ideas on how to use my books to support Common Core learning, I have created a short, half-page Common Core Bookmark for each of my books based on the reading anchor standards. Click on a title to get the short guide:

Electrical Wizard: How Nikola Tesla Lit Up the World

Eruption! Volcanoes and the Science of Saving Lives

For the Love of Music: The Remarkable Story of Maria Anna Mozart

Generation Fix: Young Ideas for a Better World

The Mighty Mars Rovers: The incredible adventures of Spirit and Opportunity

The Planet Hunter: The Story Behind What Happened to Pluto

Volcano Rising

Will It Blow? Become a Volcano Detective at Mount St. Helens

If you happen like the format I created to distill my Common Core-related ideas about my books into a half-page bookmark, please feel free to use this blank version. 

Inventors Then and Now

This month, we INKers are highlighting books that influenced us. A Weed is a Flower by Aliki Brandenberg changed the way I read as a child and inspired the books I write today. 

I remember being riveted by the story of a small, weak boy named George Washington Carver, the son of slaves, who was kidnapped as a baby and orphaned. Plants and insects fascinated young George and he began observing life on the farm and in nature and asking questions.  This boy grew up to revolutionize farming in the south. George noticed that cotton depleted the soil and convinced farmers to grow peanuts by inventing clever uses for peanuts, including butter, paper, ink and shampoo. What a fascinating, quirky story, I thought.  Then I realized that this amazing story was all true. It was not made up! Yet I had never heard of George Washington Carver. How could that be?

A Weed is a Flower taught me, as a young reader, that there are many stories of fascinating, important people who we won’t read about in textbooks, who we won’t read about in newspapers and magazines, who won’t be on TV. But I could read all about them in books. I felt like I had discovered a mysterious, hidden world below or behind or under the worlds of school culture and popular culture.  I also learned that those books, called biographies, could be really interesting. Instead of just a list of facts or a boring summary, I could read a real story, a story as interesting and thought-provoking and gripping as A Wrinkle in Time or any of the other novels I devoured.

This is the very kind of book that I strive to write today. In fact, my newest biography, Electrical Wizard, just released two days ago, tells the story of another important inventor, someone whose ideas and inventions have transformed kids’ lives (and our lives) even more than peanut butter, if you can believe it.

When kids think of inventors, the first to pop into their minds is often Thomas Edison.  (Kids believe, because textbooks have told them so, that Edison invented the light bulb. But it turns out that Edison was just one of a number of inventors who contributed to the invention and development of the light bulb.)  I would argue that one of Edison’s contemporaries, a little known Serbian-American inventor named Nikola Tesla, has had a bigger impact on our lives.

After all, who invented wireless communication? Tesla.  Remote control? Tesla. Radar? Tesla. Neon lights? Tesla. The modern electrical motor? Tesla. The radio? Tesla. (Yes, textbooks are wrong. If you don’t believe me, ask the Supreme Court, which ruled that Marconi’s work was based on Tesla’s patents.)

Though Tesla has touched our lives in so many ways, Edison gets all the glory. A search on Amazon.com for Thomas Edison, under children’s science biographies, yields 115 titles.  The same search under the name Nikola Tesla yields just a dozen.  But one is not a book, it’s an Amazon page. In three books, Tesla shares billing with other inventors.  And FIVE of the books listed are actually biographies of Thomas Edison (I kid you not.)

I wanted to write a book that would begin to capture for young readers how Nikola Tesla has transformed our lives.  Tesla's most amazing contribution to our world, the thing that truly ushered in the electrical age, was so far-reaching and complicated that it would be hard to explain in a fun word or phrase like light bulb or remote control. It was an entire system of generating, transmitting and using alternating current to power EVERYTHING.* That’s right, we have Nikola Tesla to thank for having electricity in our homes, schools, and businesses.   But how could I distill Tesla’s mind-blowing electrical-engineering revolution into a story for young readers?

As a kid, I was always interested in what important adults did when they were young. So I started with Tesla as young boy. What inspired him? What did he invent or build as a kid? When did he get his first ideas about alternating current?  I wrote about Tesla watching lightning storms and wondering over the sparks he made while petting his cat. I showed him making water wheels and helicopters powered by bugs.  But I wanted kid to be equally interested in Tesla’s later work, too, so I employed the theme and language of wizardry to capture the magical quality of his genius. While sticking closely to the facts, I wove in words such as: conjured, enchanted, and entranced, miracle, magic, and mysterious.

All good stories have conflict, and Tesla’s quest to harness AC offered great fodder there. He faced poverty, anti-immigrant sentiments, and a popular, powerful enemy – Thomas Edison.  So those provided the rising tension in the story.

And Tesla won. He was a true underdog hero. His hard work and the power of his ideas overcame all the obstacles and provided a bright, brilliant climax and resolution. His AC system lit up the 1893 world’s fair, harnessed mighty Niagara Falls, and ultimately electrified New York City and the world.

One of the reasons I was drawn to Nikola Tesla’s story was that he was not trying to become rich and famous.  He worked for the betterment of humankind. George Washington Carver’s gravestone reads: “He could have added fortune to fame, but caring for neither, he found happiness and honor in being helpful to the world.” The same could be said of Tesla.

Thank you Nikola Tesla for powering the lights and tools of my life. Thank you Aliki for inspiring me to write stories that have been overlooked by school and popular culture.  And last, but not least, thank you to whomever invented peanut butter. When I reread A Weed is a Flower, I noticed that Aliki never said that George Washington Carver invented peanut butter. So I looked it up. Turns out peanut butter was likely created much earlier by the Aztecs. Different processes for making peanut butter were patented by several other inventors. So now I'm wondering, where did the peanut butter inventor myth come from? Why do people persist in thinking that Edison invented the light bulb and that Marconi invented the radio? How many more books do we need to get the record straight?

* Technically, AC doesn’t power everything. Generally, AC powers things that are plugged in while DC dominates battery-powered machines. But computers and rechargers and the like have AC-to-DC adapters, so they, too, can get juice from the AC system.

On How Research Can Make You Throw-Up

Being a nonfiction writer is so glamorous! At least that’s what it looks like from reading the jacket flap bios of many nonfiction writers and illustrators.  After all, we’ve trekked with gorillas, dived with seahorses, explored dark caves, and flown up to the Arctic with the Air Force. You might even think that from reading my books and articles. After all, I’ve hung out with rocket scientists at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, hiked to the summit of Mount St. Helens when it was erupting, visited volcano observatories on Mount Merapi with a team of American and Indonesian volcanologists, and spent sunny days bobbing on the ocean with wave energy engineers.  It IS pretty awesome. Except for when it’s not.

I’m going to tell you a story that you’re not going to find any suggestion of in my book Eruption: Volcanoes and the Science of Saving Lives, just released by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on June 18.

Soon after signing the contract to write this book, I got on the horn to the volcanologists at the Volcano Disaster Assistance Program to see if I could tag along on any summer field work. Volcanologist Andy Lockhart told me that his team was helicoptering a small group of Chilean volcanologists onto the upper flanks of Mount St. Helens to do some maintenance work on a monitoring station and to install a new one. And he invited me to go! “Wow,” I thought. “I have the coolest job EVER.”

After a few days, though, he called me back to say that he was mistaken; government rules would not allow unauthorized personnel on the helicopter.  But he said: If you can find your own ride…

So I called Tom Uhlman, the photographer hired to shoot the book, to see if he would be up for splitting the cost of hiring our own helicopter. He was game, so I priced it out, and we booked it.  I was going to helicopter in to meet some American and Chilean volcanologists on the flanks of freaking Mount St. Helens! “Awesome,” I thought. “I have the coolest job in the WORLD.”

A few days later, the helicopter company called. They were mistaken. There was no way they were going to land their helicopter on an ash field where their delicate components would get ground up by the glasslike slivers of ash.

I was heartbroken. There had to be a way…

So I called Andy. “Is there any way we could hike in and meet you?” I asked.

He didn’t think we could take the usual climbing route because it’s too snow- and ice-covered and we’d need crampons and ice axes. But he thought we might be able to go up and around the glacier.

So I called around and found a volunteer guide. He would carry a radio, a GPS and map.  Tom and I packed our backpacks, hiking boots and hiking polls. We were set.

The hike started out mellow, winding through the woods. We hopped on a trail that circles the volcano and the sun shone brightly, the sky was blue, and the wildflowers were everywhere. I thought: “I really do have the best job in the world…”

Soon we headed off trail up some steep hills full of loose volcanic scree. We heard a distant helicopter and caught a glimpse of it far off, but we couldn’t tell where it went.



We checked our GPS reading and the map and trudged up canyons and down canyons. We were winded but happy.

Finally, we found the canyon that we thought would lead us safely to the volcano monitoring station.  We were much later than we thought getting there, but still had many daylight hours ahead of us, so up we went. Up and up and up. Through scree piles that avalanched under our feet. Over large rocks and boulders. And then we faced a huge, steep snow field. The kind where you’d be better off having crampons and ice axes.  

We decided that the guide and I would head up alone, and Tom would stay with his equipment until we were sure we had found the right place. (This is Tom, having a much needed rest.)



We couldn’t see or hear the helicopter or any voices. But it was still a long way up and over a ridge, so we thought maybe it was all hidden from view.

We trudged up, kicking our toes in to the snow to make shallow steps. Did I mention that I’m a little scare of heights? I just kept my eyes on the snow ahead and tried not to look down.  Then, I lost my footing.  I slipped and started shooting down the ice field, picking up speed. I kicked my heels into the snow and grabbed desperately at the glacier with my hands but I just kept sliding. I was nearing the guide, and I reached out my hand.  In what felt like slow motion, he grabbed my arm and stopped my slide. We both sat in the snow for a while, panting.

“Not far now,” I said.

He gave me a gentle look. "I don’t hear anything," he said. "I don't think they are up there. Maybe we should head back."

But we had come this far. So we trudged to the top and over the ridge.

This amazing photo of the America and Chilean scientists working on the volcano monitoring station on Mount St. Helens? I didn’t take it. Neither did Tom, nor the guide.

That’s because we never made it there.

We hiked over the ridge to find nothing. Nothing but a bunch of volcanic rubble.

I actually had a tantrum, stomping my feet up and down, pounding my fists in the air and yelling: “I don’t believe it! Where are they???”  (I was only half joking.)

We estimated that we hiked about 18 miles, with at least 6,000 vertical gain. It was a beautiful day, but I ran out of water long before we got back to the trailhead (and anyone who knows me knows I am a fiend about packing ample water.) We hiked out after dark, tired, hungry, and dehydrated with our legs wobbling from all the vertical (and I run half marathons!)

No one had any energy to drive anywhere. Our guide kindly offered to put us up for the night. We gobbled down some burgers and a beer and stumbled off to bed.

But for me, the ordeal wasn’t over. I woke up in the middle of the night, and I didn’t feel right.  I was surprised to find that my legs felt pretty good as I made my way to the bathroom – but that’s the only part of me that felt good. Let’s just say that I kissed the porcelain god.

I cleaned it all up and crawled back to bed.  I felt a little shaky the next day, but made it back to Portland. An email greeted me when I got home: “Where were you? We had a very successful day and brought you a nice lunch and lots of water.”

To this day, we don’t really know what went wrong. Sometimes things go wrong.

And that isn’t the only time I’ve had to struggle to hold down a meal while doing field research. I’m deep in the throes of researching and writing another Scientists in the Field book about wave energy pioneers – engineers on a quest to transform that up and down motion of waves into electricity.

One of my first trips out was a sparkly blue-sky day with only four foot swells. But stuck inside the boat’s cabin peering out the tiny windows, trying to interview a scientist and take notes, the waves felt a lot bigger. After a while everyone on board started to look a little pale and a little uncomfortable. Someone offered motion sickness medicine and a few popped the pills. Others sipped ginger ale. And one person – I’m not saying who and it wasn’t me – threw up off the back of the boat. Several times.

But that’s all in a day’s work.

Care to share any gruesome stories from your research? I dare you.

Elizabeth Rusch

(Photos courtesy of Tom Uhlman, except the shot at the top, courtesy of USGS scientist Martin LeFevers.)