How? The Most Awesome Question and Answer Book About Nature, Animals, People, Places and You!
How? The Most Awesome Question and Answer Book About Nature, Animals, People, Places and You!
How do I get sick?
It all has to do with germs. Germs are microbes – tiny living things that are too small to see without a microscope. While some microbes are helpful, such as the ones that live in your tummy and help digest your food, germ microbes make you sick. Like all microbes, germs are always trying to multiply, or make more of themselves, to keep living. When germs move into your body and start multiplying – FAST – your body fights back. You run a fever, which helps fight off the germs. But it sure makes you feel yucky. Sniffle! Cough! Ah-choo!”
How do you follow-up a best-selling book that answers “Why?” With a book titled How?, that’s how of course.
The author/illustrator team of Catherine Ripley and Scot Ritchie have done it again with How? The Most Awesome Question and Answer Book About Nature, Animals, People, Places and You!
Ripley and Ritchie know how to make a nonfiction book appealing with both verbal and visual humour. How? uses a storyline that involves a visit from Jake and Lizzie’s Oma. Oma arrives in time to celebrate Jake’s birthday, and so the first theme/chapter answers questions about “Happy Birthday”. Other chapters are “Off to the Library”, “Pets, Pets, Pets!”, “Feeling Sick”, “Road Trip”, “At the Beach” and “Airport Good-byes”.
Jake’s birthday gift from his Oma is a scrapbook so each chapter ends with a scrapbook page that Jake has created of his memories. The colourful illustrations of the scrapbook page are a nice review of the topics covered in that chapter.
How? The Most Awesome Question and Answer Book About Nature, Animals, People, Places and You! answers lots of who and what questions as well as how. Most questions are presented on a double-page spread, but occasionally the text and illustrations cover multiple pages, such as to answer, “How are roads built?”
The colourful illustrations by Ritchie show a family engaged in everyday activities. The cartoon-style illustrations avoid many stereotypes. Oma is a spritely grandmother with a youthful haircut and lots of enthusiasm and love for her family. The dad bakes the birthday cake that answers the question, “How does batter turn into cake?” The illustration accompanying the question, “Does every library have a restroom?”, shows a wheelchair accessible sign on the restroom door. The text explains, “Public restrooms usually have at least one stall that works for someone who is disabled.”
This book will appeal to students who enjoyed the companion book, Why? The Best Ever Question and Answer Book about Nature, Science and the World Around You. How? The Most Awesome Question and Answer Book About Nature, Animals, People, Places and You! is a great read for young people with inquiring minds. The short answers will help parents and teachers answer questions in a way that will encourage more inquiries about the world around us.
Suzanne Pierson is a retired teacher-librarian and former instructor of Librarianship courses at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario.