Audrey Sauble

Welcome to International Read an Ebook week!

If you are excited to check out the ebook round-up, feel feel to jump to the links below:

Picture Books
Chapter Books (Early Readers & Middle Grade)

But what if you've never read a digital picture book?

Chances are good that you've read at least one ebook before! Even if you don't have a Kindle device or other eReader, you've probably opened a PDF on your phone or computer to read.

What about children's ebooks, though?

Like a lot of parents, I prefer holding a book when I'm reading to my kids. I also love browsing picture books at the library. It's always amazing to see how many books there are, check out different illustration styles, and touch the pages.

It's hard to treat digital picture books the same way . . . but they can still be a lot of fun!

Most of the time, we use digital picture books when we are traveling. They're great for saving space when you need enough books to keep kids occupied for …

I finished up my book project last month and had a bit of a break last week, so it’s time to get back to my (unofficial) coloring page series!
This month, since I’m still taking a break from insects, I decided to go back to an inspiration from a couple months ago. Back then, I posted this photo on my Facebook page, giving people a real-life “What’s Wrong with This Picture” challenge.

Can you figure out what's wrong?
That squirrel looks like he should be chilling on a beach, and it inspired this month's coloring page. Here's how that picture turned out:


You know that stereotype about squirrels eating nuts? Well, I started reading up on squirrels last year and learned that they eat much more than just nuts. I won’t go into details about what they do eat, but they’re not vegetarians. The only things they don't really eat are cellulose materials such as leaves, grass, and woody stems.
Here’s the link to download the free coloring page I created.

Activity Ideas:Find a quie…

It's here! 
This project started last summer, when my family and I were watching a NOVA episode on origami. The video showed a clip of a ladybug's wings unfolding as it launched into the air. In slow-motion, the ladybug's wings slowly, almost magically, opened out from beneath the bug's red shell.
At the time, I wanted to capture that moment of flight. So, I created a coloring page and shared it here, on my blog.

With that small attempt, however, I found the inspiration for Bug, Bug, Spider...a whimsical collection of anthropomorphic insects!


From there, the ideas grew.

I took on an Inktober drawing challenge, trying to complete 30 coloring pages during October. Slowly, though, the project stretched out over an extra two months as I edited and fine-tuned the images, then added science facts and activity pages to the book.

In the end, a couple of my early coloring pages did make it into Bug, Bug, Spider, but my original flying ladybug? She turned into a ladybug on a han…

As I wrap up my current project, it's time to have another book list!

There seems to be a pattern, actually. I start on a project, and we suddenly need to read dozens of picture books on the topic. Since I'm wrapping up my Bug, Bug, Spider coloring book right now, I wanted to share some of our favorite bug books with you, along with a few extras about other types of invertebrates.


I've linked to the books' pages on Goodreads, in case you want to bookmark them for later:

Picture books / read-alouds:Small Wonders: Jean-Henri Fabre & His World of Insects, by Matthew Clark Smith, illustrated by Giuliano Ferri—beautiful illustrations and a nice biography of one of the early entomologists, though it doesn't have not nearly enough information about the discoveries he made!A Beetle is Shy, by Dianna Hutts Aston, illustrated by Sylvia Long—a book that is both fun and gorgeous! This author & illustrator team will probably make it onto any list of nature stories I ev…

I had plans for one of those year-end posts reflecting on how things have changed over the past year. I was also working on another coloring page, specifically for New Year's partying. Then, this week several minor crises hit all at the same time. So, no first-of-the month coloring page this time, and no long-winded reflections either. 
However, I do have a teaser book-cover for my coloring book!


The proof copies for the coloring book came yesterday. I'm wrapping up revisions and planning to publish it January 19th! More information to come!

It takes eight minutes for light to reach the earth from the sun. It takes two years for a rocket to reach an asteroid.

Given how long things can take, you'd think that major events would tend to...space...themselves out a little.

This week, however, we had an incredibly difficult decision: should we watch the NASA live-stream of the new crew members boarding International Space Station? Or, should we watch the latest record-setting SpaceX launch?
It just so happened that the SpaceX launch was scheduled for 1:31 pm (EST), December 3rd. The NASA broadcast for the ISS crew was scheduled to start at for 1:30 pm (EST), on the same day.
How is that for timing?
As it turned out, the crew on the ISS didn’t open the hatch to the Soyuz model until about an hour into the broadcast, so we could have watched both events live, if we’d tracked things better!
Next time, I guess.
At least we were also able to watch probe OSIRIS-REx arriving at the asteroid Bennu. That happened just a couple hour…