Richard Spilsbury

Weather and Seasons by Richard and Louise Spilsbury is a nonfiction book that is organized with flowcharts throughout the book. The book is organized into six different chapters. The first chapter really goes into what weather actually is. Then the second chapter talks about the sun. The third goes into seasons and the forth talks about wind. The fifth chapter talks about clouds and rain and the last chapter talks about understanding the weather. Different ideas like the greenhouse effect are introduced as well as wet and dry seasons and even global warming. It has a great glossary in the end that would be great to use in a chart for the classroom if there is a unit about weather and seasons.… (mehr)

Landforms by Richard and Louise Spilsbury is a scientific nonfiction book about all sorts of landforms that is done appropriately for the children’s audience. It is one of the six different science topics books these two authors have published. This book first dives deep into what land is and it’s different features. Then it goes through and talks about different landforms in the rest of the chapters. Hills and mountains, plateaus and plains, canyons and valleys, costal landforms, and island are all in separate chapters. There is a lot of pictures in the pages and they use flowcharts to keep the information aesthetically pleasing as well.… (mehr)

I picked this up because I noticed a picture of a bass clarinet while I was checking for damage, and I just wanted to look at the bass clarinets. Now that I see what the book is, though, I'd like to find others in the series. I can't imagine that very many children would read these books before deciding on an instrument to play—which happens as early as fourth or fifth grade—but I think that's a shame, because there's a lot of interesting information here. Lots of pictures, a very short history of the instrument, and spotlights of famous musicians and pieces that feature it (for the clarinet, of course, it was "Rhapsody in Blue," by George Gershwin). I'm hoping our library has more of the series.… (mehr)