Lauren Simone Blogs

Imani talks to Red Clover Reader about her book, Disco Balls of the Universe. Visit link to learn details.

Reviewed by Amy Raines for Readers’ Favorite The Tale of Princess Alicia, written by Yvette Phillips and illustrated by Simonne-Anais Clarke, is a short story about a young princess named Alicia who loved to sneak away to spend time outdoors with her animal friends. Her father, King O’Neil, did not allow her to play outside because he and others were afraid of the wicked witch in the woods that liked to capture and eat those who got lost. Princess Alicia, concerned over her missing friends, made her way into the woods to find them but was captured by the witch....

Reviewed by Mamta Madhavan for Readers’ Favorite Elijah has been talking to his invisible friend and his mom is wondering who it is. Mom quietly follows Elijah to his room to see what he and his sister Madison are doing. In Elijah and His Invisible Friend (Madison and Elijah Book 1) by Sabrena Bishop and Elijah Bishop, Elijah is talking to his friend, Rex, who is a Tyrannosaurus. He is large, has green skin, and small eyes. His mother warns him that dinosaurs are dangerous. Elijah is confident Rex will not hurt him as they are good friends. They go...

Kozy Korner invited Lauren Simone Pubs to host a Space Party. Melissa-Sue John read "Disco Balls of the Universe" written by child author, Imani Ariana Grant and illustrated by teen artists, Simonne-Anais Clarke and Zachary-Michael Clarke. After reading the story, Melissa asked the children "What was your favorite planet?" Joshua said "Jupiter because it is the largest planet". Tiana said "Mars because it is red, my favorite color" Marleigh said, "Uranus because it sounds like anus"After the story, children were invited to a craft table to color the planets, cut them out and create a Space Mobile. The children seemed to...

So you are an educator and you want to introduce more STEM activities to your students? Picture books provide perfect opportunities for teaching the problem-solving skills that are the basis of engineering?I recently attended a workshop entitled “Engineering a Story” at the STEM Education Center at Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI). The workshop focused Engineering Design Process (EDP) — or problem solving — applied to any fiction or nonfiction text.”When generating a list of picture books to examine problem solving, of course you want that list to feature diverse main characters. You can find these books through the Diverse BookFinder. Click on Search and type in “problem solving.” You could do a similar search on another STEM topics,...