If you’ve worked in a school or a library, you’ve met kids who absolutely thrive on asking questions, truly listen to responses, and then move on to explore proffered answers more deeply. These are not likely to be the kids who work diligently for high marks (although assignments that pique their interest can invite stellar work), nor do they evince boredom when left to their own devices. Their minds spark from outside ideas to an internal need to wonder, poke, test, even research to discover possibilities. They may not number among the most or even the middle sectors of any peer groups, whether in a class or at a shared table elsewhere. But they are here and they are prime for books that suit their thirst for springboards to personal query.
Two such titles new to North America promise to pique such kids’ engagement with tracing out new ideas, and inviting them to choose where to explore beyond the books’ revelations. Both titles focus on specific factual topics with enough evidence of trails that beckon the inquiring young mind to take off on their own and go beyond the books’ presentations.
From Post Wave, THE CITIES OF THE FUTURE, written and illustrated by Didier Cornille and translated to English by Charis Ainslie, serves up an international smorgasbord of urban innovations created and sustained by forward-thinking architects, activists, and local populations. Ten topical chapters offer illustrated pages, generous white space that invites reflective pauses, and limited text that nonetheless manages to present concepts ranging from renewable energy to local transportation to public aesthetics. While visually slight, that text includes clear statements of the issues, contextual details to understand local concerns and how the issues have been addressed, and the popular and/or professional identities of the creative minds and industrious hands that led to specific urban inventiveness. The cities span Paris, Detroit, Singapore, Rio de Janeiro, and more, and can be found in Europe, Africa, Asia, and North and South Americas. Young autodidacts may find themselves spurred to deeper inquiry upon discovering the existence of ECObox gardens, humane and service-oriented refugee reception neighborhoods, the variety of spaces that can be used for playgrounds and even urban forests. What else did architect Le Corbusier design? Where else in the world, besides Denmark, is pavement a more interesting color than a shade of gray? What’s the current status of flying car development? For the inquisitive and self-directed 8-12-year-old, the sheer joy of finding questions that urge a deeper dive is much more satisfying than fact-requesting imposed by a teacher or quiz.
What On Earth! has published WE ARE ALL ANIMALS in collaboration with the Humanimal Trust. Written by Ben Hoare and Christopher Lloyd, and colorfully illustrated by Mark Ruffle, this volume shares many new ways of seeing humankind within the greater context of the whole animal kingdom. Physiology, survival needs, and interactions with the environment that can inhibit our lives (such as illness) each get a turn. Some may be familiar—that we, and all animals, communicate with our own and between species—while others may serve up surprises that, upon brief reflection, seem both obvious and novel: all animals are shaped, to some degree, like tubes! Each page spread takes on a broad topic, such as creating bodily waste, and then breaks it down into subcategories, such as sweat and gas. A very brief list of selected sources and a one-page index complete this volume, presenting already-found places to go next. However, there is nothing to limit a young explorer from going further than these suggested next steps. The only limit is one of personal interest.
Both THE CITIES OF THE FUTURE and WE ARE ALL ANIMALS include excellent leads for the expeditious young researcher, without enforcing a preset route. Each is a collection of strongly related facts awaiting the reader’s choice of a favorite part to examine in more depth. There are sufficient keys in the texts to allow a middle grade autodidact to find additional sources for searching as well as plenty of possibility for gaining more suggestions from a more experienced researcher. These are books just waiting for discovery outside assigned work or adult route-planning. In short, they are perfect books for middle grade free reading!