Learn the funny and fascinating story of Charles Darwin and the groundbreaking discoveries his love of the humble worms led to in this hilarious illustrated book.
Charles Darwin is widely known for his “Origin of Species” book, yet Darwin had another great love, and that was for worms.
Told for the first time for children, this is the silly and fascinating true story of how Charles Darwin came to discover that the humble earthworm is the most important species on our planet .
Darwin suspected worms were special but his scientist friends laughed at him . In a quest to find out the worms’ special talent, Darwin played the bassoon to the worms to see if they could hear, laid out a picnic treasure hunt for them to see how well they could smell, among many other bizarre but entirely true experiments.
But so far Darwin didn’t find anything extra special about worms. Until, one day he realised that worms do have a superpower. They POO! Without their life sustaining, nutrient rich poo, there would be no plants and no animals on earth.
Darwin’s 40 years studying worms is still essential to our understanding of worms today, and ever since, scientists have taken him VERY seriously, and never again laughed at his love of worms.
Told in a humorous and engaging way with non-fiction information on each page to help educate alongside the story, curious minds will love this fact-filled, laugh-out-loud title.
The story of Darwin and the worms not only centres around the perennially brilliant subject of poo, it teaches children about a key historic figure, the food cycle and deductive scientific thinking. It is also a heartwarming story of the triumph of a zany underdog who won’t let bullies get in the way of his love for worms.
It’s almost Lunar New Year, and Chloe can’t wait to celebrate! But first, Chloe and her family must prepare for the new year. They buy new shoes, lay out good-luck oranges in a bowl, decorate the red envelope, and make a crispy turnip cake. Everyone comes together to cook a fantastic feast, saving a plate for A-ma, of course. Chloe enjoys the festive celebration and yummy food, but most of all, she loves spending time with her family.
Lily LaMotte and Michelle Lee have created a tender, warm, and uplifting holiday story about tradition and the importance of being with those you love.
The backmatter contains educational facts about the Lunar New Year celebration in Taiwan and a fun recipe for a yummy fortune cake!
Now in paperback, this sweet tale follows Yasmeen, a seven-year-old Pakistani-American girl, as she celebrates the Muslim holidays of Ramadan , “The Night of the Moon” ( Chaand Raat ), and Eid . With lush illustrations that evoke Islamic art, this beautiful story offers a peek into modern Muslim culture-and into the ancient roots of its most cherished traditions.
After a whole year of waiting, it’s finally Spring’s turn to wear the Weather Crown and create her own special season. Her friends can all remember how beautiful spring was last time.
But this time, as Winter places the crown on her head, Spring starts to feel anxious. Can her friends help by showing her that not everything has to be perfect?
Meet four magical friends who control the seasons in this irresistible new series from debut author-illustrator Jo Lindley.
Each title centres on a different seasonal character and gently explores key social and emotional themes, such as anxiety, self-belief and resilience.
Set in an enchanting natural world that readers will love to return to again and again!
Young children love festivals! And what better way than have them read about all sorts of festivals through books?
About the Chinese New Year Festival
The Chinese New Year is celebrated by over a billion people world-wide every year. The practices and rituals around the celebration have remained similar since it was first celebrated more than 3,500 years ago during China’s Shang dynasty (1600-1046 BCE).
The first day of the year falls on a different day each year. The Chinese New Year occurs on a new moon annually between the end of January and mid-February. The Chinese calendar is a lunisolar calendar, one that follows the cycle of the moon, unlike the Gregorian one which is a solar calendar and one that everyone in the world follows. Ordinarily, the Chinese have been following the Gregorian calendar since 1911, but not when it comes to celebrating the first day of the lunar year and other traditions, like the mid-Autumn festival.
The festival is known by several other names: Spring Festival (specifically in China and Taiwan), Lunar New Year (generally all over the world). In Southeast Asia, where there is a large population of Chinese immigrants, who have been there as early as the 1500s, it is known as the Chinese New Year, or simply new year. In Vietnam, it is called Tet and in Korea, Seollal.
The Great Race
How time was invented in China has been mythologised and retold in a tale known as the Great Race. It’s because of this race that each new year is presided over by an animal. There are twelve animals in the Chinese zodiac. The Chinese diaspora, known also as the global majority, will be ringing in the Year of the Rabbit on 22nd January 2023. The rabbit is the fourth and the luckiest animal in the zodiac.
Each animal has their special characteristics or special powers. The rabbit is known to be gentle with a high EQ. Parents in China, Taiwan, Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines, Korea and Vietnam plan their families around this set of twelve animals. A Dragon child is energetic and charming. One born in the Year of Dog is loyal and generous.
Family Traditions
Photo credit: Ee Ling Goh
In I LOVE CHINESE NEW YEAR, Mai-Anne, a six-year old girl, celebrates the festival with her family. She helps to clean and decorate the house before the new year and waits impatiently for her Nai Nai (her paternal grandmother) to arrive for the most important meal of the year — the Reunion Dinner. It starts on the night of the eve when families reunite to eat. The young and old will stay up way after dinner to ring in the year. There will be firecrackers popping and in some villages in ancient days, a dragon dance will take place.
Every dish that is placed on the table during the Reunion meal is a lucky dish. There will be fish for abundance, jiaozi (dumplings) for prosperity, a whole chicken for unity, and noodles for longevity.
Symbols at Chinese New Year
The Chinese culture and heritage thrive on symbolisms and their meanings. There is plenty of word play or punning since a character may be written differently but could sound similar when spoken (homophones), like nian gao, for example. Nian gao (年糕) is a sticky rice dessert, eaten during the new year celebration. Nian (年) means year in Mandarin, but it sounds very much like sticky (黏); gao (高 ) means high, but when said, it also sounds like cake (糕). So when we eat nian gao, we are hoping to climb higher and higher up the ladder of success, or for our children to grow older and bigger each year. The Chinese are aspirational people.
During the Chinese New Year, you’ll see plenty of red. Red is the colour of auspiciousness. It symbolises good luck. Gold is also a lucky colour because it is the hue of ancient Chinese coins called ingots. Two tangerines or mandarins are exchanged between friends and family during the first day of the year because this fruit symbolises wealth. The Chinese believe that what you give, you get. So in exchange of red envelopes, known as hongbao (红包), containing money, along with two tangerines, you’re giving and receiving good luck.
Every Chinese family sweeps and prepares their home for the new year. This has to be done at least a week before the new year. The symbolism behind this is the belief that all the unlucky things in the past year are swept away to make room for auspicious tidings in the new year. And all good things are symbolised by the character fu (福). Fu means happiness, but it also means wealth. When the character is upside down, it symbolises that Wealth has already entered the door. Wealth is personified by Caishen (财神), or the God of Wealth.
Paying Homage in I Love Chinese New Year
I love nested narratives, so I’ve used this literary device to pay homage to the oral storytelling tradition of ancient China: Mai-Anne’s Nai Nai retells the story of the Great Race to ring in the new year.
You’ll see that Nai Nai is the family dragon when she performs the Dragon Dance for the whole family. Here, I pay homage to strong Asian women who hold up half the sky.
I LOVE CHINESE NEW YEAR is part of Scholastic UK’s series of festival books. There’s one for Eid, Diwali and Christmas.
It’s easy to feel lost in the flood of so many new children’s books available. Each month, our review panel reads scores of new books and we highlight five of our recently published favourites.
Check out our Review Panel’s top books for you to read in January 2023.
Panther is not like the other cats. Leopard has beautiful spots, Tiger has impressive stripes and Lion has a magnificent mane. Panther is small, shy and dark.
One night he decides to go and find out where in the jungle he really belongs. Finally summoning the courage to scale the treetops, he answers the call of moonlight and ink-black night. Perhaps up among the stars he will find out something about his own strength and beauty.
A stunning fable about courage and finding your place in the world, with beautiful illustrations by Greenaway-shortlisted Poonam Mistry. The perfect gift book.
The start of a thrilling new Second World War mystery series from the number-one-bestselling and multi-award-winning author of Murder Most Unladylike.
1940. Britain is at war, and a secret arm of the British government called the Ministry of Unladylike Activity is training spies.
Enter May Wong: courageous, stubborn, and desperate to help end the war so that she can go home to Hong Kong (and leave her annoying school, Deepdean, behind forever). May knows that she would make the perfect spy. After all, grown-ups always underestimate children like her.
When May and her friend Eric are turned away by the Ministry, they take matters into their own hands. Masquerading as evacuees, they travel to Elysium Hall, home to the wealthy Verey family – including snobby, dramatic Nuala. They suspect that one of the Vereys is passing information to Germany. If they can prove it, the Ministry will have to take them on.
But there are more secrets at Elysium Hall than May or Eric could ever have imagined.
I fell back in love with the story of Peter Pan when I re-read it as an adult: the intoxicating wonder of flying over the River Thames and discovering Neverland; the nail-biting peril of battling pirates and outwitting strange beasts; the wit and bravado of Peter Pan himself; the joy and ache of growing up. But much time has passed since the original Peter Pan was published and I knew that if I was going to attempt to write a modern sequel, I wanted to address the more complicated and problematic aspects of the book: namely the sexism and overt racism. So, my aim was to retain what is most precious about J.M. Barrie’s original but make it a more inclusive, compassionate story.
The first thing I did was to reinvent Neverland. I knew that if I transformed Mermaid Lagoon, the Home Under The Ground and the Neverwood into a land of ice-flumes, snow-capped peaks, icicled caves and frosty forests, a new adventure would begin to take shape… My Neverland is locked in the icy grip of a curse cast long ago by Captain Hook. Its rivers and waterfalls are frozen; its forests are full of frost; its mountains are covered in snow. Even the Neversea, an ocean made of the tears mothers shed when their children leave home, is sealed with ice, and the island’s magical creatures are vanishing. The marshchomps are no more and the gulperwhales are long gone. Now frostbears, snowtigers and icesharks patrol Neverland, draining it of magic as they await the return of the ghost of Captain Hook.
Even by Peter Pan’s standards, he’s got a lot on his plate. And I wanted to make sure that the help he enlists from the Mainland came in the form of two children from today’s world, both of whom have agency and appeal. Peter steals through the window of the Pennydrop’s house, where the Darling family used to live years ago. And there he meets ten-year-old Martha Pennydrop and her younger brother, Scruff. Peter whisks them off to Neverland and into the company of the Lost Kids and a woolly mammoth called Armageddon. And when Scruff is kidnapped, Martha – who had, at the start of the book, been desperate to grow up – realises she must rediscover all the imagination, magic and belief she has buried deep inside herself for so long, to save her brother and Neverland itself.
In regards to Peter Pan himself, I toyed with the idea of making him grow up. I thought about getting him to learn humility and self-control. I considered the idea that he might, finally, understand what it means to belong to a family. But he proved too stubborn. And part of his charm, and power, lies in the way he cannot, and will not, be changed.
All of us must grow up one day but Saving Neverland is a story that champions the art of growing down, too, of remembering to keep that bedroom window open so you can reach back through it into your childhood and see the whole world – with all its thrills, possibilities and wonder – at your feet.
About the Chinese New Year Festival
