Baby Loves Lunar Phases on Chinese New Year!

by Ruth Spiro, Irene Chan (Illustrator)

Overview

Celebrate Chinese New Year with a big, brainy STEM board book. Satisfy your baby’s growing curiosity of their world, with the science behind it!

While celebrating Chinese New Year, Baby discovers the science behind lunar phases! Accurate enough to satisfy an expert, yet simple enough for baby, this clever board book explores the lunar calendar, the moon's orbit, and the reason the moon seems to change shape.

Beautiful, visually stimulating illustrations complement age-appropriate language to encourage baby's sense of wonder. Parents and caregivers may learn a thing or two as well.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781623543068
Publisher:	Charlesbridge
Publication date:	11/23/2021
Pages:	20
Sales rank:	222,073
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 7.00(h) x 0.46(d)
Age Range:	3 Months to 3 Years

About the Author

Ruth Spiro is an award-winning children's book author and freelance writer whose articles, essays, and stories have appeared in magazines and anthologies. Her debut picture book, Lester Fizz, Bubble-Gum Artist (Dutton), won awards from Writer's Digest and Willamette Writers and was a Bank Street College of Education Best Book of the Year.

Irene Chan enjoys making beautiful things. She is an art director, designer, artist, amateur photographer, and illustrator.

Editorial Reviews

01/01/2022

PreS-Gr 2—Both board books introduce a holiday with short descriptive sentences, and then segue into a related science concept prompted by the text—the lunar calendar for Chinese New Year and clovers for St. Patrick's Day. Each title concludes with more about the holiday and the caveat that not all celebrate it. The description of the lunar month in Lunar Phases, supported by illustrations of a smiling moon, makes the science accessible and capably ties into the narrative of the holiday: "Chinese New Year begins on a new moon. It's the start of the lunar year!" The science in Photosynthesis strains to tie into the narrative by asking "What makes clover and other plants grow?" The narrative bogs down with the scientific concept and advanced vocabulary, such as chloroplasts, chlorophyll, stomata; though the illustrations do an admirable job using arrows, lines, and simple shapes to depict the inside of a cell and how light interacts with it. The return to the holiday description afterward is an abrupt shift in the narrative. While babies may be the intended audience for this series, the scientific concepts and holiday descriptions will be more useful as simple introductions for older children. Babies will enjoy the bright, uncluttered illustrations and hearing the rich language, though comprehension will be a challenge for those under three. VERDICT Simple sentences with advanced vocabulary packaged in a board book format succinctly explain holidays and scientific concepts with uneven success.—Ramarie Beaver

School Library Journal