Attack of The Blob: Jellyfish by Judy Wearing

The largest jellyfish is called the lion's mane.

It grows up to 8 feet wide. Its tentacles can be as long as 100 feet.

The world below the ocean's surface is a fascinating and widely diverse place. And few sea creatures are more visually arresting or varied than the jellyfish.

They can be as small as a dime, but live in a swarm of over a million individuals. They can be clear and colorless, or bright lavender, red or pink. They can be found in shallow tidal pools, or they can be found in the deepest deeps of the sea. They can be deadly enough to kill an adult human, yet they have no heart, bone, or brain.

In just twenty-four pages, Judy Wearling's Jellyfish (Wow World of Wonder) (Weigl, 2010) has plenty of eye-popping color photos and fascinating facts to keep young readers engrossed in each well designed double-page spread. Scientific terms such as polyps and arctic are introduced in boldface and repeated in the glossary. Four web sites, including National Geographic Kids, activities, and an index round out the essential appendix for this introductory level nonfiction.

Other books in the Wow World of Wonder series include Manta Rays (World of Wonder: Underwater Life), Seahorses (Wow World of Wonder), and Sea Turtles (Wow World of Wonder), all great for browsing or for early elementary research.

Rounding Third! Baseball by Rennay Craats

Spring will come. There'll be new grass on the field and the crack (or ping) of the bat against a ball will be heard again in the land.

For baseball beginners just tying up their first cleats, Rennay Craats' Baseball (In the Zone) (Weigl, 2009) is a slim manual which presents the basics in a series of double-page spreads illustrated with full-color photographs.

Throwing out the first pitch ("What Is Baseball?), Craats sketches a brief history of the sport, from way back before the Knickerbocker Rules, and then swings into sections on equipment, the layout of the playing field, positions and rules. She tosses out a discussion of the basics of the sport's organization into major and minor leagues, school, recreational and Little Leagues, and her lineup of chapters also includes "Superstars of the Sport," hitting such greats as Jackie Robinson, Ted Williams, Manny Ramirez, and Derek Jeter. Craats closes with "Staying Healthy," quick advice for the young player on nutrition and keeping muscles and joints loose for those "quick stops and starts" required by baseball.

The author backstops her text with a brief appendix which includes quick questions and answers ("Baseball Brain Teasers"), a glossary of baseball terms, and a brief index. For a quick scrimmage on the sport of baseball,
Baseball (In the Zone) is a quick and easy read to get the youngest players on deck for spring training.

Other books in Weigl's In the Zone series include Basketball (In the Zone), Skateboarding (In the Zone), Football (In the Zone), Hockey (In the Zone), and Soccer (In the Zone).

Nonfiction That Makes the Grade: Downsized--Pluto from Planet to Dwarf by Elaine Landau

In lieu of an Introduction, Elaine Landau's new Pluto: From Planet to Dwarf (True Books) offers a FIND THE TRUTH! page which begins

Everything you are about to read is true except for one of the sentences on this page.

Which one is true?

T or F Pluto was named by an 11-year-old girl.

T or F Pluto is a planet.

FIND THE ANSWER IN THIS BOOK.

In August of 2006 Pluto was officially downsized and downgraded to the status of dwarf planet, rendering countless science books and millions of styrofoam science fair solar system models obsolete.

Into this breach comes the grandaddy of beginning chapter nonfiction series, Childrens Press True Books to fill the void. Under new management (the overlord Scholastic Press), the venerable True Book (formerly known as New True Books) series is being updated even as Pluto has fallen into the status of solar system benchwarmer.

Actually, in veteran science writer Elaine Landau's hands, even as a lowly dwarf planet Pluto still has quite a bit to recommend it. The author not only provides the usually facts and figures about this far-out body, but includes the Pluto trivia that makes it an intriguing place to visit--as the already launched space probe New Horizons will do in 2015.

Even though Pluto was bumped from the Big Nine (now Big Eight) planets for lack of sufficient gravity to clear its orbit, it boasts an almost horizontal axis, a lopsided, "overly oval" ellipse, three moons, one of which, Charon, at half its size, is big enough so that it and Pluto orbit each other in a curious do-si-do which keeps Charon at a standstill in Pluto's sky. Pluto even has a new neighborhood, the Kuiper Belt, a new acronym as a KBO, or Kuiper Belt Object, and a new big sister, KBO Eris, to hang out with out there.

Landau adds a double-page timeline in the book's midsection, titled The History of the Mystery, and the back matter provides a glossary, an appendix made up of The Statistics, a Resources section, including books, organizations, web sites, and places to visit, and a very detailed index. Wrapped up in 48 pages, with plenty of cool space photos and an Accelerated Reader level of 4.9, that science report is as good as done.

For similar content at level 2.2, see Childens Press's 2008 Pluto: Dwarf Planet (Scholastic News Nonfiction Readers: Space Science) by Christine Taylor-Butler or Capstone's 2008 Pluto (The Solar System) at level 2.1.

Oh, BTW, Pluto was indeed named in competition by eleven-year-old Venetia Burney of Oxford, England, after the Roman god of the underworld. Contrary to popular belief, Mickey Mouse's dog Pluto was named after the (dwarf) planet, not the other way around.