Back to School with DK - How to be a Math Genius by Mike Goldsmith

It's the most wonderful time of the year! No, not Christmas. It's back to school time and DK is celebrating by offering discounts on many of their educational reference books.

Need to know more about English, math, science or history or another subject? DK probably has a book for you. Whether your child is taking his or her first steps to school or entering their final year, these books can start the school year off right. By the way, many of these books aren't just for kids. Even adults can learn a thing or two.

Click here or on the icon to the left to see the list of books in the Back to School Boutique.

Today, I have a review of one of those books.

How to be a Math Genius talks about the brain and math while using games, logic problems, puzzles, and activities to boost your brain power.

This is such a fun book! It's very similar to How to be a Genius also by DK Publishing (my review), but this book focuses on how your brain tackles math. Therefore, the brain games are math related.

The book features terrific illustrations that are bright and exciting. It's filled with interesting facts about the brain and uses some fun exercises (labelled "Brain Games") to explain a point and emphasize the information that's presented. The main things I loved about this book is that it made math accessible and showed how much of our daily lives revolve around math. There's mapping, probabilities, sequences, patterns, measurements, shapes, codes and ciphers...it goes on and on. There's even a little history thrown in.

All of the brain games were fun, but many of them were challenging. However, math isn't my best subject. It's written for 10-14 year-olds and I think kids will love this book. I think adults, like me, might enjoy this book, too. However, those poor in math might be discouraged and find the puzzles and games too hard. I love that the book has some tips on how to be better at math. I sure could use these. Regardless, it's filled with amazing information and facts about the brain and math.

One of my favourite pages is about the Big zero (page 30-31). It talks about how important 0 is. Who knew that nothing was something? ;)

The book also features many famous math geniuses. These include: Pythagoras, Archimedes, Karl Gauss, Leonhard Euler, Isaac Newton, and Alan Turing. I had heard of some of these people, but not all of them. The information presented was interesting nevertheless. I found the two-page spread of historical women, who broke into the mostly-male-dominated field of math, particularly interesting.

The table of contents lists the major sections and topics within each of those sections. The back of the book contains a glossary, index, and answers to the brain games.

Highly recommended.

For more information about this book or to browse inside, please visit DK's website.

I'd like to thank Chris at DK Canada for this review copy.

How to be a Math Genius by Mike Goldsmith, Dorling Kindersley (DK), ©2012. ISBN 9780756697969(Hardcover), 128p.

Back to School with DK - How to be a Genius by John Woodward

It's the most wonderful time of the year! No, not Christmas. It's back to school time and DK is celebrating by offering discounts on many of their educational reference books.

Need to know more about English, math, science or history or another subject? DK probably has a book for you. Whether your child is taking his or her first steps to school or entering their final year, these books can start the school year off right. By the way, many of these books aren't just for kids. Even adults can learn a thing or two.

Click here or on the icon to the left to see the list of books in the Back to School Boutique.

Today, I have a review of one of those books.

How to be a Genius explains how the brain works and presents lots of puzzles, games and optical illusions to exercise and train your way to being a genius.

I loved this book. It's wonderfully illustrated with bright and exciting colours. It's filled with interesting facts about the brain and uses some fun exercises (labelled "Brain Games") to explain a point and emphasize the information that's presented. I particularly liked how the section on the parts of the brain and how it works with the rest of the body. I also liked the games and puzzles as they are intended to get your mind working. The book is written for 10-17 year olds, but older kids (aka adults) might also find this book useful and/or interesting.

There's also little tidbits of interesting information scattered throughout the book. Here are two examples: "There is a theory that it takes 10,000 hours of work to be an expert at anything - that's around ten years of practice" (page 20) and "The six basic facial expressions of emotion are the same in all human cultures worldwide" (page 158).

The book also has pages featuring many famous geniuses. These include: Mozart, Einstein, da Vinci, Gandhi, Darwin and a few others I hadn't heard of like Wernher von Braun (a rocket scientist), Jean Francois Champollion (master of languages, decoded the hieroglyphs on the Rosetta Stone), Mary Anning (pioneer in geology), and George Washington Carver (fought racism and improved the lives of the poor by focusing on agriculture). I actually had heard of Carver, but I didn't know what he did. All of these features were extremely interesting.

All of the brain games were fun, but many of them were challenging, at least for me anyway. A genius I am not. I think kids will like them. It was especially amusing to read the pages for training your pet (page 178-179, follows the pages on animal intelligence). Even though I don't have any pets, I loved learning how to train the various pets; dog, cat, hamster, guinea pig and goldfish.

The table of contents lists the major sections and topics within each of those sections. The back of the book contains a glossary, which includes some fascinating definitions as well as an adequate index. Of course, there are several pages of answers to the brain games.

Highly recommended.

For more information about this book or to browse inside, please visit DK's website.

I'd like to thank Chris at DK Canada for this review copy.

How To Be a Genius by John Woodward, Dorling Kindersley (DK), ©2099. ISBN 9780756655150(Hardcover), 192p.

Back to School with DK - The Big Idea Science Book by DK Publishing

It's the most wonderful time of the year! No, not Christmas. It's back to school time and DK is celebrating by offering discounts on many of their educational reference books.

Need to know more about English, math, science or history or another subject? DK probably has a book for you. Whether your child is taking his or her first steps to school or entering their final year, these books can start the school year off right. By the way, many of these books aren't just for kids. Even adults can learn a thing or two.

Click here or on the icon to the left to see the list of books in the Back to School Boutique.

Today, I have a review of one of those books.

The authors of The Big Idea Science Book know that learning science can be daunting with lots of stuff to learn about. Therefore, they try to show that science is all connected by presenting 24 big ideas of science and building off those principles. There's also an online portion with material that's related to what's presented in the book.

I really enjoyed this book. It's well organized and has stunning photographs, illustrations, and graphics as well as interesting topics with easy to read font and easily accessible language. It's written for 8-17 year olds, but even adults can get a lot out of this book. It's not the most comprehensive science book around, but it certainly encompasses lots of topics and presents them in a wonderful exciting way. Not at all like a dry old boring textbook.

The book starts off by presenting the 24 key concepts of science or "the big ideas of science." Some examples:
1. Genetic information passes from parents to offspring
13. Earth is a continually changing planet
17. Atoms are the building blocks of matter

These "connect and help explain everything you need to know about science". It shows that everything in science is connected and not just a bunch of random facts.

Even though I think the "big idea" concept is an interesting and novel approach to learning science, I still had a hard time wrapping my head around the whole idea. I could see how some of the ideas could be applied to each of the topics, but that wasn't the case with all of them. I also couldn't see how this made learning science better. Some of the information still felt like random facts that would have to be memorized. Besides, now I had 24 more things to remember. Having said that, I'm sure that once I spent some more time learning about the big ideas, it would probably make a lot more sense.

The book is divided into 3 key areas of science: life, earth and physical. Many different topics are presented within each of these areas. For each topic, the "big ideas" are listed on the upper right hand side of the page.  It's handy to see which topics are connected.  For future editions, it might be useful to include a reverse-lookup, much like an index. That is, a list of "big ideas" with the page numbers where they were referenced. For example, #1 is mentioned on the following pages: 12-13, 14-14, 22-23, 30-31 etc. So if I wanted to learn about genetic information passing from parents to offspring, I could reference those pages.

Most topics, if not all, have "Did You Know?" asides which contain fascinating snippets of information about the subject. For example, on DNA connections "Did You Know? - Humans carry the DNA sequence for a tail! But during early development another sequence overrides it." Another example, On sharks - "Did You Know? - Sharks can grow, lose and replace up to 30,000 teeth during their lifetime." I loved all of these bits of information, but my favourite one was about the Amazon River. "Did You Know? - Although the Amazon cuts all the way across Brazil, not a single bridge crosses the river." I did not know that!!

The table of contents lists the major section as well as all of the individual topics within each of these sections. The index is adequate and should help the reader find the information they are looking for. The book also includes a glossary with definitions various terms, from alloys to wavelengths.

There's also an online component with lots of information that expands upon what's already in the book. There are interesting videos, questions to answer and cool graphics. I didn't go through everything online because it's quite extensive. It looks really good, though, and is definitely a good accompaniment to the book.

Highly recommended.

For more information about this book or to browse inside, please visit DK's website.

I'd like to thank those nice people at DK Canada for this review copy.

The Big Idea Science Book by DK Publishing, Dorling Kindersley (DK), ©2010. ISBN 9780756689025(Softcover), 304p.

Needlework Tuesday - A brief update

I guess it's been quite awhile since I posted something for Needlework Tuesday. Today, I figured I've give you guys an update on a few things I've been working on. It's not much, but at least it's something.

About a week and half ago, we took a quick trip across the US border to do some shopping and I scored some craft books that were under $3 a piece (regular price $15-$30). Most of them are scrapbooking-type books that I don't do a lot of, but they are filled with tons of inspiration for other projects.   There's also a book on altered books, one on handmade books, and one on paper quilling.  The knitting one on top is actually a box of pattern cards.  A few of the projects look interesting.  At that price, I figured I couldn't lose.    

I've also been keeping up with my temperature scarf. The colours represent: Red = +30C, Orange = 29C - 22C, Yellow 21C - 15C. We had a cooler patch in July (the block of yellow) and now it's starting to warm up again (red and orange at the top). I'm not entirely happy with the results so far, but the bands of colour do represent the temperatures we've had.   It is what it is.
 

The last thing I've been doing is some Zentangle inspired drawings. I'm still learning new tangle patterns and mostly sticking to one pattern, one tile. These all have names, but I'm not going to list them here.   I'm still working out how I'm going to proceed with this "art" and what I'm going to do with it.  So far, I've been tackling tangles that I encounter on the internet.  I found a couple that were a bit too complicated (for me at least, I didn't find them zen-like at all) so I skipped those.  Here's a sampling of my work:


















While in the US, I purchased some official Zentangle pens and a couple of paper stumps for shading/smudging. I didn't really need the pens and wasn't looking for them, but I stumbled upon them in a craft store and decided to treat myself.

Needlework Tuesday is hosted by Heather over at Books and Quilts.

Time Killer by Todd M. Thiede

In Time Killer, a killer is on the loose. He's tired of waiting and decides to kill those who've wasted his time. Two young detectives, Max Larkin and Jesse Fairlane are on the case and soon realize that they have a serial killer on their hands, one who's been operating for a long time. They have to get past their mutual dislike for each other in order to piece this mystery together.

I have mixed feelings about this book. On one hand, it had a pretty good storyline. I'm one of those people who gets frustrated when the person at the front of the line holds it up because they are digging for change or can't decide what they want. I don't really get angry and certainly haven't resorted to murder like this guy, but I do find it annoying. I think lots of people can relate. Having said that, perhaps the author went a bit overboard in having the killer torture these people over very minor transgressions.

The story also contains a few fairly clever connections and plot lines that I didn't see coming. I probably should have expected some of the twists, but the author really surprised me. I don't want to say too much or post any spoilers so I'll just leave it at that.

On the other hand, I just didn't like the writing. The dialogue was the most annoying. It felt more like a series of monologues with very little back and forth between the characters. It was pretty formal, too. I don't think anyone really talks like this. Also, there were many instances where I found the characters' actions or reactions to be unbelievable. For example, when Max discovered the secret his parents had been keeping from him, he should have been upset...really upset. He said he wanted to put on a happy face for his parents, but how about the readers? He just seemed to carry on as though he were happy. Also, Jesse's career with the police force and her powers of deduction seemed too good to be true.

I did manage to finish the book, so I guess that's something. However, I don't think I'll be recommending this one or reading the next in the series. The book and author have received a number of glowing reviews on Amazon.com and Goodreads.com. I only read a few of them, but it's almost as though we read two different books. I guess to each his own.

For more information about this book or to browse inside, please visit the iUniverse website.

For more information about the author, please visit Todd Thiede's website. (For what it's worth, the website is really well designed. I liked it more than I liked the book.)

Time Killer by Todd M. Thiede, iUniverse, ©2013. ISBN 9781475972351(Trade paperback), 193p.

Lighthouse Bay by Kimberley Freeman

Lighthouse Bay features two love stories separated by 100 years. In 1901, Isabella Winterbourne is the sole survivor of a ship wreck off the coast of Queensland, Australia. With her she carries a jewelled mace, a gift for the Australian parliament. With her husband drowned, she's free to start a new life. That is, until the rest of Winterbourne family catches up with her. In the present day, LIbby returns to her home town of Lighthouse bay after the death of her lover. While there, she tries to reconcile with her sister, Juliet. Because of a tragic event, the two haven't spoken 20 years. Libby meets a man that is Juliet's sworn enemy. That doesn't make their reunion any easier. In order to move on, both Isabella and Libby have to let go of the past.

One of the reasons I wanted to read this book is that Kate Morton, who is one of my favourite authors, is a close friend and supporter of this author. Morton's recommended carried lots of weight for me. I'm so glad I decided to follow her advice, because I really enjoyed this one.

With books like this, I sometimes favour one story over the other, but in this case, I liked both equally as much. The whole book was well written and filled with great characters and interesting storylines. I really liked reading about Australia in the present and the past. It sounds wonderful.

My favourite character was Isabella. I really felt sorry for her before the shipwreck. Her first husband was horrid! Matthew, the older man who takes her in in Australia, was a much better match for her. However, I didn't get a really good sense of who he was. He figured prominently in the story, so I should have been able to figure him out. I guess he just didn't grab me.

I also liked Libby, but her estrangement from her sister hit too close to home for me. It brought back some unpleasant memories and made me a little uncomfortable. It made me realize, though, that family estrangements aren't uncommon and that life does go on.

I have two minor complaints about the storyline. First, I really wanted the stories to be more connected. Without that strong connection, either story could have stood on its own. Second, I thought Libby was supposed to be looking for the Winterbourne mystery, yet she didn't do much to find it. I know she was focusing on starting over with her life and Juliet, but the mystery part, the part I found really interesting, sort of got lost. I guess that ties in with my first complaint. Had she done more to solve the mystery, it would have tied the two stories together more. So, perhaps I only have only complaint. ;)

I encountered some new-to-me words while reading the book. Here they are:
slattern (page 56): an offensive term that deliberately insults a woman's standards of hygiene and grooming
unctuous (page 56): creepy
venality (page 199): corrupt

Highly recommended. I'd definitely read another book by this author.

For more information about this book, please visit Simon & Schuster's website.

I'd like to thank those nice people at Simon & Schuster for this review copy.

Lighthouse Bay by Kimberley Freeman, Touchstone (Simon & Schuster) ©2012. ISBN 9781451672794(Advance Reader Copy),415p.

The Book of Even More Awesome by Neil Pasricha

The Book of Even More Awesome presents a bunch of things that are, well, awesome.

I picked it up awhile ago at Costco. I heard/saw all of the hype on the internet about the first book, The Book of Awesome and while I was able to resist for awhile, I figured I should see what the fuss was about when the second book came out.

Maybe I'm missing something, but the book was just okay. I was really enjoying it at first, but it got old fast. Granted we are not all going to find awesomeness in the same things, but just maybe the author was trying to be all things to all people. Or maybe the book was written for young people. Or maybe it was written for adults, but I'm outside of the demographic.

Some of these "awesome" things seemed juvenile; others were way too specific to apply to many people; some encompassed both. For example, Rocking out on air instruments (page 231). I guess some people do this, but it didn't resonate with me. Another example: When your friends working in fast-food restaurants give you a little extra (page 100). I'm all for free stuff at the drive-thru (I've been there and it is indeed awesome), but I'm almost 50 years old and I don't have friends who work at fast food restaurants. Some of the items were so un-awesome to me that I didn't bother reading further and just skipped to the next page: Interspecies action-figure wars (page 332). Huh?

Some phrases in the book were in bold face text. I couldn't figure out what that was all about because it appeared to be totally random. It's not a big deal, but it was a bit distracting.

Having said all of that, there were a couple of items that I loved:

Coming back to your own bed after a long trip (page 3)

Finally getting that tiny piece of popcorn out of your teeth (page 10)

Seeing a license plate from home when you're somewhere really far away (page 71)

Getting through right away when you call a big company (page 49)

When you drive from a rough road onto a smooth one (page 303)

I don't really know if I'd recommend this book to others. It would probably depend on the person and how I felt that day.

For more information about this book, the first book, and other awesome things, please visit the 1000 Awesome Things website.

The Book of Even More Awesome by Neil Pasricha, The Berkley Publishing Group (Penguin) ©2011. ISBN 9780425245552(Trade paperback), 390p.

Hollyhocks!

Normally, I would post these photos on my photography blog, Daisy's Photography. However, since I got these hollyhocks seeds from my friend and fellow blogger Tami at Just One More Thing... in Nebraska, I figured this was the place for this post.

We have hollyhocks!! I love hollyhocks, especially these old-fashioned single ones.   Besides being beautiful, they are taller than me!  I love that about them.    

The hollyhock plant is a biannual. That means it needs two full growing seasons to bloom. I planted these last year and have waited since then to see the blooms.   They are so gorgeous that it was well worth the wait.   

When we got the first blooms, I assumed that the rest would be the same colour. Not. However, I couldn't be more thrilled.   What a great variety!  

Pink with light pink tips and purplish centres:


Pink:


White tips with purple centres:

Purple:


They have been blooming for 3-4 weeks now and it looks like they'll probably be going for a bit yet. You'll notice in the photos below that they are surrounded by chicken wire. As it turns out, deer love hollyhocks. I didn't know that until one morning when I woke up to find that one plant had been munched on, the whole side and top were missing. No way, no how were the deer going to eat these guys. The "fence" went up that day.

Here's a shot from July 15:

The same hollyhocks this morning, August 4:



Aren't they awesome? We love them so much, we've planted two more small patches so we'll have blooms again next year (hopefully.)