Light Is All Around Us

by Wendy Pfeffer, Paul Meisel (Illustrator)

Overview

Read and find out about light in this colorfully illustrated nonfiction picture book.

Light is all around you! It comes in many forms: Light from the sun brightens our day, firelight flickers in the night, electric lights fill our homes—and some animals even make the sea glow.

With lively illustrations and diagrams and clear, engaging text, this Level 2 Let's-Read-and-Find-Out picture book is an engaging look into the many ways that light brightens our world.

Now rebranded with a new cover look, this book features rich vocabulary and uses simple, fun diagrams to clearly explain concepts like light speed. This book also includes a find out more section with activities that show why plants need light to grow and why our shadows look different throughout the day.

This is a clear and appealing science book for early elementary age kids, both at home and in the classroom. Both text and artwork were vetted for accuracy by Russell P. Leslie, Professor and Associate Director of the Lighting Research Center at the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

This is a Level 2 Let's-Read-and-Find-Out, which means the book explores more challenging concepts for children in the primary grades. The 100+ titles in this leading nonfiction series are:

• hands-on and visual
• acclaimed and trusted
• great for classrooms

Top 10 reasons to love LRFOs:

• Entertain and educate at the same time
• Have appealing, child-centered topics
• Developmentally appropriate for emerging readers
• Focused; answering questions instead of using survey approach
• Employ engaging picture book quality illustrations
• Use simple charts and graphics to improve visual literacy skills
• Feature hands-on activities to engage young scientists
• Meet national science education standards
• Written/illustrated by award-winning authors/illustrators & vetted by an expert in the field
• Over 130 titles in print, meeting a wide range of kids' scientific interests

Books in this series support the Common Core Learning Standards, Next Generation Science Standards, and the Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) standards. Let's-Read-and-Find-Out is the winner of the American Association for the Advancement of Science/Subaru Science Books & Films Prize for Outstanding Science Series.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062381903
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	10/13/2015
Series:	Let's Read and Find Out Science Series: Level 2
Pages:	40
Sales rank:	94,597
Product dimensions:	10.00(w) x 8.00(h) x (d)
Lexile:	610L (what's this?)
Age Range:	5 - 8 Years

About the Author

Wendy Pfeffer enjoyed early careers as a teacher and a nursery school director. She now devotes her time to writing and conducting workshops on creative writing for both adults and children. She is the author of the Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science book Sounds All Around as well as The Gooney War and Popcorn Park Zoo. Ms. Pfeffer lives in Pennington, New Jersey.

Paul Meisel has illustrated many books for children, including Why Are the Ice Caps Melting?, Energy Makes Things Happen, and What Happens to Our Trash? in the Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science series. He lives in Newtown, Connecticut.

Editorial Reviews

Meisel’s amiable ink drawings, brightened with colorful washes, help make the concepts accessible to a young audience… An attractive addition to the dependable Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Science series.

Booklist

Meisel’s amiable ink drawings, brightened with colorful washes, help make the concepts accessible to a young audience… An attractive addition to the dependable Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Science series.

Booklist

02/03/2014
This addition to the Let’s-Read-And-Find-Out Science series explores light—what it is, how it moves, how humans measure it, and how it allows us to see. In plainspoken prose, Pfeffer breaks down complex ideas to make them readily comprehensible (“You see a cat because light waves reflect off the cat to your eyes”), while introducing terms like electromagnetic radiation, lumens, and octillion—as in the 35 octillion lumens the sun puts out. Meisel’s active cartoon scenes contribute to the book’s accessibility and pull in some surprising parallels (a giant glowing octopus appears beside trick-or-treaters carrying glow sticks, both examples of artificial light). It’s a smart introduction to the topic, and a handful of concluding experiments encourage further investigation. Ages 4–8. (Mar.)

Publishers Weekly

Meisel’s amiable ink drawings, brightened with colorful washes, help make the concepts accessible to a young audience... An attractive addition to the dependable Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Science series.” — Booklist

From the Publisher

03/01/2014
K-Gr 2—Light is not an easy concept to convey on a beginning-to-read level, but Pfeffer does a credible job of incorporating just the right amount of detail for these readers. She relates the science concepts she's introducing to scenarios that are in the everyday experience of young children; for example, when explaining lumens, or the units used to quantify brightness, she first discusses how temperature and length are measured. Readers will also enjoy the two easy experiments appended at the end. The colorful illustrations, created with pen and ink, watercolor, liquid acrylic, pencils, and pastels and which include children of diverse races, extend the text well and are marked by several appealing details, such as costumed children carrying glow sticks at Halloween and a glowing octopus. Another book in this series, Franklyn M. Branley's Day Light, Night Light: Where Light Comes From (HarperCollins, 1998), presents the concept of reflective light even more clearly than this title, but Pfeffer's text is shorter and features much more white space on each page, making it especially attractive for beginning readers.—Maralita L. Freeny, District of Columbia Public Library

School Library Journal

2014-01-04
Inquiring minds in primary grades can gain understanding about a seemingly ever-present subject in this title about light in the Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science series. Pfeffer begins her straightforward text by discussing sources of light from the sun and stars, as well as those powered by electricity. Soon readers are discovering how light travels to Earth from the sun 93 million miles away. The challenging concept of how fast light travels is made clear by Meisel's appealing spreads comparing the speeds of various vehicles (car, plane, etc.) to light. The notion of measuring a particular light's brightness in lumens unfolds alongside a series of spot illustrations showing how length, time, temperature and weight are measured. Bioluminescent creatures, such as common fireflies and the more exotic glowing octopus, get a quick mention before an accessible and informative explanation of how the eye works is impressively executed by both author and illustrator. Simple experiments proving how necessary light is to living things and suggested activities about shadows are provided at the title's conclusion. A note states that this book "meets the Common Core State Standards for Science and Technical Subjects." Newly independent readers will appreciate how closely the pictures reflect and extend the text, while younger students will gain much from listening to the book read aloud and poring over the details on each page. An illuminating choice for the science shelf. (notes on experiments) (Informational picture book. 5-8)

Kirkus Reviews