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A cool tool can be any book, gadget, software, video, map, hardware, material, or website that is tried and true. All reviews on this site are written by readers who have actually used the tool and others like it. Items can be either old or new as long as they are wonderful. We post things we like and ignore the rest. Suggestions for tools much better than what is recommended here are always wanted.
Noisy Night is a delightful read aloud for the preschool set. The book takes readers up, up, up through the floors of an apartment building and into the noisy nighttime goings-on of a silly cast of characters. For anyone who lives, or has ever lived, below someone in a building, this book breathes some fun into a familiar story.
Mac Barnett’s rhythmic, onomatopoeia-ic prose and Bigg’s illustrative sneak peeks make guessing the inhabitants of each floor easy for excited little ones, while the characters themselves (drawn to look just as loud as they sound) keep the story fresh. It’s easy to embellish the book with self-made sound effects since you can practically hear the music, not just of the actual musicians like the trumpet player and opera singer, but also of the sounds bouncing around the bright rooms in which guffawing cowboys, raucous cheerleaders, and elated cha-cha dancers let loose. The story ends with a final racket to quiet all rackets, the shouts of a grumpy old man. The book ends with the old man snoring soundly, and it’s hard not to imagine his now-shushed downstairs neighbors clutching pillows over their ears as this final nighttime noise echoes down to the ground floor.
THE EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO ACE SERIES IS LIKE BORROWING NOTES FROM THE SMARTEST KID IN CLASS
Everything You Need to Ace … The Complete Middle School Study Guides by Workman Publishing Abrams ComicArts 2017, 240 pages, 6.9 x 1.0 x 9.4 inches, Hardcover
Looking through these books, I find myself wanting to shout out phrases I haven’t thought of in decades: the Triangular Trade! Crispus Attucks! Isthmus of Panama!
The “Everything You Need to Ace…” series aren’t text books; they’re supposed to be the notes you failed to take in class. Flip through them before a test, or keep them by the sofa to pick up from time to time.
My middle-school informant feels they’re roughly accurate for what he’s studying in school. An adult informant — okay, me — feels they’re also useful if you find yourself parenting a middle schooler and want to not seem completely ignorant, but it’s been a really long time since you studied the Meiji Restoration.
The breezy format can lead to oversimplification: for example, the overthrow of Queen Liliʻuokalani by American businessmen and the US Marines, which destroyed the Kingdom of Hawaii, has an anodyne description here. Each book has a detailed table of contents, but no index.
