Here are 100 books that Something Rotten fans have personally recommended if you like
Something Rotten.
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As an award-winning author of nonfiction books for kids, I’m passionate about discovering titles by other authors that introduce a topic innovatively and engagingly. I obtained a B.S. in Biology, with an emphasis in Ecology, from the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. I received the 2023 Stephen Fraser Encouragement Award and a 2023 finalist for the Russel Freedman Award. I feel that it’s important to plant seeds of curiosity and encourage children to look at the world around them through a different lens. I love reading books that present complicated ideas in a way that young readers (and adults!) can understand.
This book was a really interesting read highlighting insects' role in feeding people worldwide. There were many times I said, “Eww,” while reading this, but I also had many opportunities to examine what is typical in other societies compared to what we consider normal in our own.
I love that the included recipes provide an interactive element to this book.
Most North Americans would rather squish a bug than eat it.
But mopane worms are a tasty snack in Zimbabwe, baby bees are eaten right out of the can in Japan, and grasshopper tacos are popular in Mexico. More than one-fourth of the world’s population eats insects—a practice called entomophagy. Bugs for Breakfast helps middle-grade readers understand the role insects fill in feeding people around the world.
Readers will be introduced to the insect specialties and traditions around the globe. They'll discover how nutritious bugs can be and why dining on insects is more environmentally friendly than eating traditional protein…
As an award-winning author of nonfiction books for kids, I’m passionate about discovering titles by other authors that introduce a topic innovatively and engagingly. I obtained a B.S. in Biology, with an emphasis in Ecology, from the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. I received the 2023 Stephen Fraser Encouragement Award and a 2023 finalist for the Russel Freedman Award. I feel that it’s important to plant seeds of curiosity and encourage children to look at the world around them through a different lens. I love reading books that present complicated ideas in a way that young readers (and adults!) can understand.
This book took hold of my heart and has yet to let go. I was immediately sucked in with the engaging narrative, which was thoughtfully blended with facts to highlight the current crisis surrounding the population of Southern Resident orcas of the Pacific Northwest.
I felt like I was getting to know each of the featured orcas personally, which made me care about their struggles even more. This book is perfect for orca lovers and anyone interested in marine science.
Meet the playful and beloved Southern Resident orcas and the people working to save them from extinction using tactics that vary from medicine and laws to drones and dogs
The endangered Southern Resident orcas whistle and click their way around the waters of the Pacific Northwest in three small family groups while facing boat noise, pollution, and scarce food. Superpod introduces young readers to the experts who are training scat-sniffing dogs, inventing ways to treat sick orcas, quieting the waters, studying whales from the air, and speaking out. Author Nora Nickum also discusses her own work on laws to protect…
As an award-winning author of nonfiction books for kids, I’m passionate about discovering titles by other authors that introduce a topic innovatively and engagingly. I obtained a B.S. in Biology, with an emphasis in Ecology, from the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. I received the 2023 Stephen Fraser Encouragement Award and a 2023 finalist for the Russel Freedman Award. I feel that it’s important to plant seeds of curiosity and encourage children to look at the world around them through a different lens. I love reading books that present complicated ideas in a way that young readers (and adults!) can understand.
It’s hard to imagine our world looking any different than it does today, but this book will take you back millions of years to a time when camels, elephants, and, of course, rhinos roamed North America.
That is, until a volcano buried them in ash. I found the discovery, excavation, and study of these animals captivating. The chapters are short, and the illustrations are engaging.
This book left me curious about what other fossils are buried beneath our feet and what story their discovery might tell.
Twelve million years ago, rhinos, elephants, and camels roamed North America. They would gather at nearby watering holes - eating, drinking, and trying not to become someone else's lunch. But one day, in what we now know as Nebraska, everything changed. The explosion of a super volcano a thousand miles away sent a blanket of ash that buried these animals for millennia.
Until 1953, when a seventeen-year-old farm worker made an unbelievable discovery.
This is the first book to be published about the Ashfall Fossil Beds, where more than 200 perfectly preserved fossils have been found. Step into the past…
As an award-winning author of nonfiction books for kids, I’m passionate about discovering titles by other authors that introduce a topic innovatively and engagingly. I obtained a B.S. in Biology, with an emphasis in Ecology, from the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh. I received the 2023 Stephen Fraser Encouragement Award and a 2023 finalist for the Russel Freedman Award. I feel that it’s important to plant seeds of curiosity and encourage children to look at the world around them through a different lens. I love reading books that present complicated ideas in a way that young readers (and adults!) can understand.
I was hooked (pun intended) after reading only a few pages of this book! It tells the story of the hookworm, a parasite that caused thousands of Americans living in the South to become deathly ill in the late 1800s, and the efforts of scientists to educate those individuals in order to prevent even more from becoming sick.
The photographs of real people infected with hookworms allowed me to connect even deeper to the story.
Included on NPR's 2022 "Books We Love" List Finalist, 2023 YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction ALSC Notable Children's Book
What made workers in the American South so tired and feeble during the 19th and early 20th centuries? This exciting medical mystery uncovers the secrets of the parasite hookworm, commonly known as the “American Murderer,” and is the latest title in Gail Jarrow’s (YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults award-winning author) Medical Fiascoes series.
Imagine microscopic worms living in the soil. They enter your body through your bare feet, travel to your intestines, and stay there for years sucking…
I have always been fascinated by statistics (I’m a statistician by profession), and anything that tells a story of actual people and events has always captured my imagination. I have a particular affection for the quirky and offbeat, something that illustrates catastrophic failure, lack of common sense, a misplaced sense of entitlement and people who repeatedly tried but always fell short. I have a passion for black humour as it helps me to realise that, no matter how dark things look in my own life, there are others who have it much worse.
I was truly astonished to read a book that celebrates the dark side of life. It is full of unsavoury facts and includes many amazing lists. I found them really appalling, but at the same time was taken in by the sheer depravity of people from history.
In fact, I found myself reading this large volume twice as it was easy to forget just how nasty some of these characters were. I have recommended it to my friends, who also found it as fascinating as I did.
Prepare to be even more revolted, flabbergasted, appalled and entertained by this incredible follow-up collection of bizarre but absolutely true trivia. Nothing is too distasteful for this astonishing compendium, including scores of eclectic lists to amuse, astonish and appal your friends.
Entries include: 10 Road-kill Recipes History's 10 Most Murderous Regimes 10 Historic Sex Toys 10 People who Married Their Nieces 10 Deaths by Sex 10 People Killed by Falling Animals 10 Ancient Remedies Containing Body Parts 10 Flatalogical Facts 8 Most Violent National Anthems 15 Premature Obituaries 10 Unusual Royal Deaths 10 Cruel and Unusual Punishments 10 Notable Executions…
I am a British crime writer with a love of American crime fiction, particularly books with dark plots and quirky, unique characters. I am the author of the Sunday Times bestselling, multiple award-winning, Washington Poe series and the new Ben Koenig series but am first a reader—I read over a hundred books a year. I love discovering a new-to-me series that has a back catalogue for me to work through, and I appreciate recommendations. I’ve been a full-time author since 2015 and, as I suspected, it’s my dream job.
Carl Hiaasen’s Florida-set books are dark, clever, and ever so funny, with his perfectly drawn characters being eccentric, shady as hell, or just plain whack-a-doodle.
Sometimes all three at the same time. Most of his books are standalones but his one recurring character, the sidekick to lots of the books’ protagonists, is Clinton Tyree, the ex-governor of Florida. Tyree was one of the few honest men to hold that office, until one day, sick of the corruption, he simply vanished into the Everglades.
He appeared later as Skink, a one-eyed man at one with nature who dined on roadkill and engaged in the occasional act of ecoterrorism. He’s frequently the protector of Florida’s downtrodden. In Stormy Weather, he befriends Bonnie Lamb, an unhappy honeymooner, and kidnaps her new husband.
A hilarious and scathing novel from the author of Squeeze Me about a crazed and determined man who has devoted his strange existence to saving southern Florida from con artists and carpetbaggers after a hurricane hits.
'Hysterically funny.... Hiaasen at his satirical best' - USA Today
When a ferocious hurricane rips through southern Florida, insurance fraudsters, amateur occultists, and ex-cons waste no time in swarming over the disaster area. And caught in the middle are Max and Bonnie Lamb, honeymooners who abandon their Disney World plans to witness the terrible devastation. But when Max vanishes, Bonnie, aided by a mysterious…
Saying just the right words in just the right way can cause a box of electronics to behave however you want it to behave… that’s an idea that has captivated me ever since I first played around with a computer at Radio Shack back in 1979. I’m always on the lookout for compelling ways to convey the topic to people who are open-minded, but maybe turned off by things that are overly technical. I teach computer science and study artificial intelligence as a way of expanding what we can get computers to do on our behalf.
The book offers a stark choice: (a) Learn how computers work and the language we use to tell them what to do, or (b) Become digital roadkill.
It's a sentiment that I agree with wholeheartedly, but would never assert so aggressively. The book was written during the early days of the rise social media and the author presciently was aware that society was being overtaken, programmed, by this development. Again, I think he was totally right and our relationship with computers has degraded significantly in the years that followed. We need a revolution!
The debate over whether the Net is good or bad for us fills the airwaves and the blogosphere. But for all the heat of claim and counter-claim, the argument is essentially beside the point: It’s here; it’s everywhere. The real question is, do we direct technology, or do we let ourselves be directed by it and those who have mastered it? “Choose the former,” writes Rushkoff, “and you gain access to the control panel of civilization. Choose the latter, and it could be the last real choice you get to make.”
In ten chapters, composed of ten “commands” accompanied by…
Of all my university courses, the one that had the greatest impact on me was called "Informal Logic." Accurate, but misleadingly dry and academic. One of the assignments in that course—and the one I remember most, of all my university assignments—was to prepare a "Crapbook": a collection of ten bits of crap—ads, arguments, whatever—that were full of crap (essentially, incorrect reasoning/logical fallacies). I loved it. So when, twenty years later, I was hired by a small university to teach Critical Thinking …
Most people are led through life by their feelings. Feelings are fine, they enrich our lives, but as the sole guide for making decisions, they fall short. Ruggiero, a huge name in critical thinking, starts from this point, the point of being led by our feelings. And that alone makes this a very good guide to critical thinking.
This succinct, interdisciplinary introduction to critical thinking successfully dares students to question their own assumptions and to enlarge their thinking through the analysis of the most common problems associated with everyday reasoning. The text offers a unique and effective organization: Part I explains the fundamental concepts; Part II describes the most common barriers to critical thinking; Part III offers strategies for overcoming those barriers.
My journey as a writer began in correlation with my career as a family doctor. After reading Dr. Jacques Ferron’s, books, I knew I wanted to be an author as well as a doctor. While pursuing my medical career, I wrote medical articles and books. My husband and I have also been featured in Chicken Soup for the Soul of Quebecers with the story Witness of the Last Breath. This is the story of the last night of my daughter-in-law dying of lung cancer. Before she died, I promised Marie-Noëlle that I would pursue my writing career to change the world one young reader at a time. And I did.
The author of this short and easy-to-read chapter book goes beyond the story. I recommend this book because I like the last page of the book title “Notes for Adults.”
In busy life, it is easy to let our children read by themselves. It is easy to forget that books contain valuable lessons. It is easy to miss the opportunity to challenge reading skills and make the children read between the line to develop their critical thinking skills.
In this book, the author proposes before, during and after reading activities to support literacy skill. Wow! If you do all of them, this book is worth the money you have paid for it.
All parents and teachers should aim to develop children’s critical thinking.
Ella's next door neighbour, Mr Willis, is seriously mean. She stays out of his way as much as possible. But when she accidentally catapaults her baby brother's favourite teddy bear into Mr Willis' garden, Ella is forced to go over to his house. And Ella is in for a SHOCK!
Race Ahead with Reading is the perfect introduction to reading chapters with brand new page turning reads in five short bite size chapters, to encourage children to take the driving seat with their reading.
I have been working in critical thinking since 1987. This work has taken me to many countries in the world, working with both teachers and students, business people and other decision-makers, and it continues to excite me greatly. I always stress that critical thinking shouldn’t be seen as just a set of technical skills, but that it should make a real difference to people. For example, I’ve used it in working with juvenile offenders who had committed violent crimes and was impressed by how it got them to look at their lives in a much more positive way. These books provide a range of ways into and around the subject.
This book appealed to me when I first read it many years ago because of the way in which it explains the skills of critical thinking in a very approachable and interesting way.
It does this by using simple and everyday examples such that the reader develops the skills through applying the theoretical aspects of critical thinking to them. In addition, there are plenty of ‘self-tests’ for the reader to check and reinforce their learning.
It is clear that the author’s experience with teaching students gives him a good understanding of how critical thinking should be approached.
William Hughes's Critical Thinking, recently revised and updated by Jonathan Lavery, is a comprehensive and accessible introduction to the essential skills required to make strong arguments. Hughes and Lavery give a thorough treatment of such traditional topics as deductive and inductive reasoning, logical fallacies and how to spot them, the importance of inference, how to recognise and avoid ambiguity, and how to assess what is or is not relevant to an argument. But they also cover a variety of topics not always treated in books of this sort - special concerns to keep in mind when reasoning about ethical matters…
