GENRE: STEM/STEAM, Non-Fiction
WORDS: 1,126
Query:
Dear Judges, Agents, and Editors,
Thank you for contributing to the success of Picture Book Party 2024!
Counting snacks. Navigating home. Telling time. These are animal activities! Like people, animals use math every day, but for them, it’s a matter of survival. Meet the mathematicians of the animal world in this awe-inspiring nonfiction picture book with a question-and-answer structure that challenges readers to predict how calculating critters use math to survive.
MATHIMALS is a 1,126 word expository nonfiction picture book with a dual STEM focus – science and math. It promotes cross-curricular connections similar to MIMIC MAKERS by Kristin Nordstrom (Charlesbridge 2021) and mirrors the suspenseful guessing game format and surprising animal facts of Amy Cherrix’s ANIMAL ARCHITECTS (Beach Lane Books 2021) and ANIMAL SUPERPOWERS (Beach Lane Books 2024). This book is the first in a potential STEAM-imals series.
As a former fourth grade teacher and owner of an education publishing company, I have developed award-winning K-5 science curriculum materials for 20 years—including editing hundreds of articles and creating over 600 teaching guides for STEM-themed nonfiction picture books. My debut middle grade nonfiction book, VEGGING OUT: THE PROBLEM SOLVING, SECRET SPILLING, INSIDE SCOOP ON IOWA VEGETABLE FARMS, will be released in July 2024 from the Iowa Agriculture Literacy Foundation. I will graduate in May 2024 from Hollins University with my Master of Arts in Children’s Literature. I am an active member of SCBWI and Julie Hedlund’s 12 x12 picture book authors’ community.
I have additional nonfiction picture book manuscripts available upon request. Thank you for your time and consideration. I look forward to hearing from you.
Excerpt:
Have you ever asked a bee the time? A monkey to do your math? A turtle to lead you home?
Maybe you should!
Just like you, animals use math. But for them, math is a matter of survival.
Let’s examine math in the wild, and see if your number skills are as sharp as these mathimals!
A female Tungara frog hops along a mossy pond’s slimy shore.
What inspired you to write this story & what do you have in common with it:
A crab conga line in a nature documentary inspired this manuscript. How did they know to order from smallest to largest? Research revealed a surprising variety of mathimals! I wanted to share the sense of awe and wonder I felt as I discovered animal after animal with math abilities I had wrongly assumed were exclusive to humans. I knew teachers, like myself, would be thrilled to read aloud a cross-curricular STEM book. As a parent, I imagined adults snuggled with their children, sharing in the delight of guessing then discovering exactly how those clever crabs claim their spots in line.
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