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.

Wile E. Coyote Experiments with Energy

Smash!: Wile E. Coyote Experiments with Simple Machines (Wile E. Coyote, Physical Science Genius) helps kids explore the types of energy with fun examples, illustrations, and age appropriate science vocabulary and concepts.

The books is divided into chapters, energy in motion, electrical and chemical energy, heat energy, and renewable source energy. In each chapter Wile E. Coyote ends up badly abused in his efforts to use the various types of energy to attack the Road Runner, who makes fewer appearances in this graphic picture book.

One of the strongest examples was the explanation of springs and coils. The author doesn't just entertain with the characters, he uses them to explain the concepts in a clear and concise manner.

Mummies and Sound

Mummies and Sound is another entry in the Monster Sound series.

I was glad to see sound covered as while it is often taught as an elementary science topic, finding age appropriate material that students can access independently isn't always as easy as one would hope.

This book follows the previous books in the series using a graphic novel format, humor, and lots of science vocabulary and concepts to create a book to teach students about sound. This book didn't tie the mummies as directly to the science material as I would like. The best attempt was made in using mummies to explain frequency. In the rest of the book the mummies are mostly used to provided illustrations and humor.

The science descriptions are thorough but accessible for children. The pictures do help illustrate the topics and keep children engaged. I just think it would be more engaging if the mummies were more directly involved with demonstrating science material. I also think this could be a great book for older students needing to review the topic. The graphic novel format and the humor might be attractive and make the material accessible without it being too childish.

Zombies and Electricity

Zombies and Electricity is another addition to the Monster Science series.

This was not quite as strong as the Zombies and Forces and Motion (Monster Science)which made stronger ties between the comedy and the science.

This book still works to put the scientific concepts of electricity into age appropriate language, but it doesn't use the zombies to illustrate the concepts in the same creative way the first book achieved. In the force and concepts books the author managed to describe the science concepts using zombies to illustrate each idea. Unfortunately, in this book the zombies are used more as background comedy to keep the kids looking at the pictures and hoping they'll also engage with the information. The book fails to blend the zombie theme with the electricity topic. It is much more heavily focused on scientific language boxes rather than engaging students by telling a story of zombies exploring electricity and embedding the language in that story. The zombies become more of an after thought, not a main part of the story.

The topic was harder than forces and motions to combine with the zombies, but there were places where direct connections between the zombies and the ideas being illustrated could have been made and were missed. I still think it is a worthy book for bringing important concepts into age appropriate terms. However, I was disappointed that the zombies were not as embedded in this graphic picture book as they were in the previous one.