Seymour Simon's Blog

What a strange time this is for many of us…..home from work and home from school. It is a big adjustment, and I know many of you are missing your friends and your normal routine. Still, it is wise to protect yourself, and be sure, even if you feel well, that you are not carrying a virus that might endanger others. This is a time for us all to work together.I know that many authors are reading aloud (which is great!), and I am going to join in so that you have access to nonfiction, too.Every weekday, Mon-Fri, at 9am I will be posting a video of myself reading aloud from some of your favorite books, including ANIMALS NOBODY LOVES, PLANETS AROUND THE SUN, PENGUINS, THE MOON, and WHY DO KITTENS DO THAT? You can check each day and find my videos on myYouTube channel. Feel free to comment on this post with your suggestions about what you would like me to read.Enjoy!

As a special offer for attendees of the Southwest Virginia Early Childhood Conference, we will be making four Seymour Simon Read-to-Me eBooks for iPad/iPhone/iPod/Mac laptops available at a 70% discount. This limited time offer will be in effect from April 12 through April 16, 2019. Here are links to try a preview of each book. Is it true that some cats have no fur? Can you really tell a dog by his nose prints? And what kind of animals are also known as hobs, jills and kits? Find out unexpected and funny things you never knew about pets in this charming, fascinatingfollow-upto Seymour’s Simon’s bestselling eBook, FUN FACTS ABOUT PETS! In typical Seymour Simon fashion,Planets Around the Sunemploys clear, evocative language and stunning visuals to create a compelling, introductory overview of our solar system for the very youngest of readers. Newly Updated 2016. Seymour Simon turns his focus to pre-readers withAnimal ABCs, delivering a lovely alphabet book that is full of thought-provoking bits of information about each animal. This striking photo essay book for the youngest readers (and pre-readers) exploresColors in Nature. Full of gorgeous photographs, the book not only identifies colors, but explores how and why they appear in nature.

I had a good time rewriting my latest book,HOW TO TALK TO YOUR COMPUTER(now part of HarperCollins’ Let’s Read and Find Out series). I have always been interested in the intersection of kids, education and computers, and I wrote the first version of this book in 1985, for Harper & Row. At that time we all thought that kids were going to learn the computer language BASIC (Beginner’s All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code), and that everyone would be writing programs for their own computers. The book was well-received, even getting some starred reviews. But librarians and consumers didn’t buy it, because it turned out that this wasn’t at all how kids were going to use computers back then. Fast forward 35 years, and now coding is considered to be a new, core literacy for today’s young students. I was so pleased when HarperCollins asked me to revisit this book, with current coding practices in mind. This is "coding 101," for the very youngest readers. We introduce preliminary ways to think about "talking" to your computer, and introduce core concepts like conditions, loops and functions. I suspect this book will be useful for parents, too, who want to understand what their children are learning in the classroom. This book is designed to get everyone off on the right foot. I think you’ll love the new illustrations byMike Lowery. The look is fresh, modern, and fun! We’ve included visual aids like charts, sidebars, an infographic, and a computer-less coding activity. The glossary is important in a book like this, as well, so that we can provide clear, simple definitions of basic coding terms. For example, FUNCTION is defined as:A set of instructions in a program that can be called and executed by a specific name. Don’t you love this illustration of the function "Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwich"? Sometimes a picture truly is worth a thousand words, and with this kind of subject matter in particular, I think that visualizing the concepts will be very helpful for readers. Please let me know your thoughts on this book as you use it at home or in the classroom. I hope we’ve hit on a format that works for this generation.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. I was intrigued when HarperCollins asked me to update my NSTA award-winning bookGUTS. It’s always been one of my favorite titles-short, strong, to the point, and just the right kind of "gross" for kids!I try to begin a book in a way that will make the topic relevant to my readers. Here is how I did it in GUTS: You probably eat three meals and several snacks a day. That adds up to hundreds of pounds of food in a year. The digestive systems turns the truckload of sandwiches, milk, salads, and pizzas that you eat each year into the energy and the nutrients that your body needs. That certainly grounds the material in a kid’s point of view. But, our digestive system is still exactly the system of organs that it has always been. So why the update? Science and technology have advanced so much since I first wrote the book that it’s really the imaging that is powerful and new in this updated edition. For example, to get a look inside your stomach doctors can now have patients swallow a pill that is actually a tiny camera-called an "endoscope capsule." As it travels through your digestive tract it takes thousands of pictures for your doctor to see.The way we talk about nutrition with children has also changed. The old "food pyramid" analogy has been replaced, and today’s kids are accustomed to "choosing my food plate," which consists of a large serving of vegetables, equal portions of fruits, grains and proteins, and a small serving of milk or other dairy products. We reflect those newUSDA guidelinesin this updated edition of the book.

Exoplanets, my latest book, is about a topic near and dear to my heart. In this BookTalk, an interview conducted by science education professor Wendy Saul, we discuss why I’ve loved the idea of exploring beyond our solar system since I was a kid.

I am so pleased that HarperCollins is doing a special promotion with two of my books for Earth Day. Between now and April 23, the eBook editions of two of my books,GLOBAL WARMINGandWILDFIRES, will be on sale for just 99¢ each.Celebrate Earth Day with your kids. Believe your eyes and scientific evidence, and be a protector of our planet home.

Today is March 27——the long-awaited publication day for Seymour Simon’s new book, EXOPLANETS. Enjoy this 3-minute video in which Seymour reads aloud some of his favorite sections of the book.CLICK HERE TO PLAY THE VIDEO

When I was a little kid I was obsessed with space monsters. I suspected that when they found alien life on Mars, they would BE space monsters. Of course, this turned out not to be true, but throughout my early years I continued to read the multitude of science fiction magazines :that were published in those years: Astounding Science Fiction, Amazing Stories, Startling Stories, Thrilling Wonder Stories, and Fantastic Stories. The stories in these magazines were written by great writers, some of whom also wrote science non-fiction—- writers like Isaac Asimov, E.E. Smith, Fritz Lieber, H.G. Wells, L. Ron Hubbard, Jules Verne, and Robert Heinlein. They were my heroes. So, when I proposed this book to HarperCollins and they agreed to do it, I was thrilled. I’ve written many books about space, but this particular volume goes beyond what we know, to consider the still unknown. In a way, although it is a nonfiction book it has a "science fiction" quality, and I loved writing it. I hope I’ve done justice to those writers whose work I admired, and who influenced me so greatly. While I was writing EXOPLANETS I was simultaneously reorganizing my library for a move to our new house. I’ve accumulated thousands of collectible books over the years, so it was quite a project. I own a beautiful set of leather-bound books which are the collected stories of H.G. Wells. When I opened up a volume titled "Stories of Space and Time," I discovered a neatly folded, hand-written letter from HG Wells, written to a friend in 1927. What a find! We’re having it framed and look forward to deciphering his very tiny handwriting to learn what it says.Seymour Simon’s EXOPLANETS is being published by HarperCollins on March 27, 2018 and is available forpre-order now.

I just sent in my latest manuscript for a book about space exploration, beginning with humans entering The Space Age. When I was a child, my main interests were science fiction stories and space. Of course, I was a voracious reader and consumed books about everything, from astronomy to zoology. But I sure did love science fiction (look at this cover of one of my vintage Astounding Science Fiction magazines!) and anything about space. Almost as interesting as space to me were dinosaurs (like all of the kids I knew). So, I’m happy to report that the next book I will be writing is a book featuring new discoveries about dinosaurs.From Space to Dinosaurs! I started the research today. I’m in heaven.

One of the nicest things that happened to me as a writer in the last few years was being given the opportunity to write younger age books with my wife and companion Liz Nealon. Liz has been very connected to youngsters for many years. She was the Creative Director of Sesame Street as well as an award-winning producer of children’s TV shows such as Ghostwriter and The Famous Jett Jackson. She was also very involved with research into reaching children via words and images.One of the first books we wrote together wasCOLORS IN NATURE. Instead of just showing colors and teaching children what’s red and what’s orange, the book tries to pick out colors in natural surroundings and uses images for each of the colors mentioned. So for example, reds would include strawberries and tomatoes; green would include grasses and pine trees.There were also pages for Rainbow Colors and Black and White. The book is joyful and poetic and is perfect for reading aloud with children. It encourages young readers to actively play along as they look for and call out the wonderful colors that are all around them in nature. So far, the book is only available in adigital edition. Would you be interested in seeing a printed edition? Jot a note to me on my here or onTwitterorFacebook.