Vampires and Light

Vampires and Lightis another book in the Monster Science series. I was curious to see how Joby Jensen Shaffer would attack the topic because it is a complicated one.

The vampires provided an entertaining frame for the subject because of the vampire lore that they don't like light. The book begins by defining what light is and why we need it, even convincing the vampires that while it is a problem for them, they can't live without it. The author continues to explain the elements of light defining and illustrating vocabulary terms in clear, concise and humorous terms.

The author moves from discussing wavelengths to the electromagnetic spectrum. The author cleverly uses the vampires to illustrate the concepts giving students another way to view the material.

From there the author discusses the characteristics of light including speed, traveling in a straight line, why it passes through some objects and not others, light reflection and absorption. There was an interesting description of how the human eye processes light.

This was a challenging topic and I thought the author did a great job breaking it down and making it accessible for children. I continue to be excited by this series.

Vampires and Cells

Vampires and Cells is an impressive entry in the Monster Science series. Vampires are a logical choice to teach children about types of cells and cell structure.

These are friendly vampires, not likely to frighten children. The book covers a remarkable amount of material. It begins slowly with a definition of cells and a history of their discovery. From there it moves on to describing how cells work together and what I found to be a rather detailed discussion of types of cells and diagrams and descriptions of plant and animals cells. This was all done with vampire humor and illustrations helping to illustrate the vocabulary and science concepts being taught.

The vocabulary and concepts covered here are the most advanced of all the books I've reviewed in the series so far. While it might be a good chance to introduce the concepts to elementary students, I'm not sure how much they will process and remember. However, this would be a great resource for Middle School students as the information is fairly detailed and there is an emphasis on accurate science terms and descriptions.