Growing With Science Blog

Have you been over to visit the Cybils nomination lists yet?

What are Cybils? The acronym stands for children’s and young adult bloggers literary awards. Bloggers who specialize in childrenâ€™s and young adult books have developed the Cybils awards to highlight some of the best books published in the previous year. Back in September people nominated their favorite books by genre. Now the judges are reading and reviewing all the books to pick one winner from each category.Â Although there is a lot of excitement about which books will be chosen as the best, going through the nomination lists is also a great way to find interesting new things to read.

To save you some time, I went through the list of nominated nonfiction books in the picture book category and selected some science and nature books that you might find useful. (By the way, once again I am a round II judge for nonfiction picture book category.) Soon I’ll tackle the middle grade/young adult books.

Nonfiction Picture Books – Science and Nature
(The titles are linked to take you to Amazon for more information)

ï»¿ï»¿	Pop!: The Invention of Bubble Gum by Meghan McCarthy
	`Never Smile at a Monkey: And 17 Other Important Things to Remember` By Steve Jenkins
	`Moon Bear` by Brenda Z. Guiberson
	`Hurricanes!` by Gail Gibbons We love Gail Gibbons, see my brief bio for more about her.
	`Bugs and Bugsicles: Insects in the Winter` by Amy S. Hansen See my review
	`Astro: The Steller Sea Lion` by Jeanne Walker Harvey See my review
	`Little Black Ant on Park Street (Smithsonian's Backyard Collection)` by Janet Halfmann See my review
	`Growing Patterns` by Sarah Campbell
ï»¿ï»¿	`Little Red Bat` by Carole Gerber
	`Insect Detective` by Steve Voake
	`A Place for Frogs` by Melissa Stewart
	`Bones` by Steve Jenkins
	`Kingdom: Savage Safari` by Nam Nguyen
	`Meet the Howlers!` by April Pulley Sayre
	`Mammoths and Mastodons: Titans of the Ice Age` by Cheryl Bardoe See my review
	`Changing of the Guard: The Yellowstone Chronicles` by Ted Rechlin
	`Come See the Earth Turn` By Lori Mortensen The Story of Leon Foucault
	`Dinosaur Mountain: Digging into the Jurassic Age` by Deborah Kogan Ray
	`EcoMazes: 12 Earth Adventures` by Roxie Munro
	`The Shocking Truth About Energy` By Loreen Leedy
	`The Life of Rice: From Seedling to Supper (Traveling Photographer)` By Richard Sobol
	`The Buzz on Bees: Why Are They Disappearing?` by Shelley Rotner
	`Summer Birds: The Butterflies of Maria Merian` by Margarita Engle Maria Merian was an incredible woman.
	`Yucky Worms` by Vivian French

More Cybils nominees about science and nature:

Have you read any of these books? Do you have any suggestions?

Do you remember the orange dog caterpillar and then the chrysalis from a few weeks ago?

The butterfly that emerged is called the giant swallowtail.

I was so excited when it came out of the chrysalis because I have never gotten a photograph of these speedy and elusive butterflies. They are always fluttering by at the tops of our citrus trees.

Because it had just emerged, it was sitting very still. It was waiting for its wings to finish drying. I was able to take a number of photographs. Here’s a close up of the eye spots on the hind wings.