We are so excited that Zapped! authors, Jewel and Lynelle have been invited by the Port Discovery Museum to take part in their STEM in Spring initiative designed to encourage children’s interest in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. It is quite an honor and a challenge. The challenge? To turn a 12ft by 12 ft. room into a cell! Read more about it and make a contribution to this effort here.
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CaribbeanReads Display
CaribbeanReads participated in the Baltimore Book Festival in October. It was on the beautiful Inner Harbor in Baltimore, a promenade that attracts a lot of people, so in addition to people who came to the festival, there were many others just wandering by.
Build a Cell From Candy
Many of these people stopped to take a look at the CaribbeanReads booth. We had a display put on by Zapped! author, Jewel Daniel. We invited children to make a model of the cell using candy. This drew a big crowd, but most of the people who stopped just to ask questions about the books were people with Caribbean roots. One elderly couple drifted near the booth and as they moved away I overheard the woman say:
“Oh, those are books for people who want their children to go to the beach.”
Really?
“These are books for people who would like to expose their kids to Caribbean culture,” I retorted. Perhaps not the most professional approach, but my aim is to educate.
She kept walking.
I wish that I could convince myself that her attitude was a minority one, but the evidence did not bear this out. People who took our cards and flyers were sure to promise to pass the information on to their Caribbean contacts. Why not to their American, European, African, and Asian friends? I really hope that our customers can break the mold, share Caribbean books with their non-Caribbean friends and bring a little Caribbean warmth into the lives of the rest of the world.
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If your house is like mine, you still have some candy hanging around from Halloween. If you do, we have the perfect craft for you and your kids. You can build a model animal (eukaryotic) cell with candy.
What you need:
Plate
Jello
Assorted candies for the parts of the cell (organelles)
What you do:
Tootsie rolls: these make great mitochondria. Mitochondria create energy in the cell. They look like boats and might be great for riding on if you ever find yourself shrunk into a cell.
Twizzlers, rainbow licorice, gummy worms or sour patch kids: Use any thin, tube-like candy to make the Endoplasmic Reticulum (ER), a maze of tubes in the cell. Proteins go through and are modified (changed) and sorted. Be careful, you can get lost in there.
Jolly ranchers hard candy: : These hard candy work well for the centrioles, which are usually found in pairs at right angles to each other and get to work when the cell begins to divide (Mitosis). If you don’t have Jolly Ranchers, a short piece of twizzler, tootsie roll or any cylinder shaped candy will work fine.
Orange slice candy or any rectangular or curved candy: These make great Golgi, the post office of the cell where proteins are sorted and sent to different sections of the cell. This could be one way to find your way out of a cell, just make sure you don’t end up in a lysosome. They are deadly.
Gumballs: for the nucleus, the brain of the cell … only one of these, please.
Skittles, Nerds, M&M’s: sprinkle your cell with an assortment of colorful round candy to represent other organelles such as ribosomes (protein makers), lysosomes (which clean up waste in the cell), etc.
Be creative. You can use any candy that you have. Use an apple cut in half or pineapple slice for a healthier cell.
After the authors presented at one school, Jewel’s five year old son was so excited that he came home and made this cell out of candy, without any guidance. He was creative using an apple and gumball for the nucleus and nucleolus and shredded coconut for the microtubules.
After he proudly displayed it for his sisters, he promptly ate his cell. Mmmm….Mmmmm delicious!
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Lynelle and Jewel presented Zapped at a Baltimore elementary school on Friday 14th November
. The school culminated their celebration of National Youth Reading Week by inviting them to discuss Zapped with their students kindergarten through fifth grade. This was eleven year old Lynelle’s first experience doing a school visit, so it was both exciting and nerve-racking.
From the teachers:
“We had an excellent presentation by Authors Jewel Daniel and her daughter Lynelle Martin on Friday. Students were able to hear parts of the story, act out a scene, and complete an interactive activity constructing a cell. Students who didn’t pre-order a book asked about possibly purchasing the book after hearing about what the book is about.” 1st grade teacher.
“Thank YOU! You were both awesome and inspirational!” Kindergarten assistant.
From the authors:
Jewel: Having taught at the college level for the past few years and knowing the difficulty adults have in understanding the biology of the cell I never thought kids so young could be so receptive and excited over things they cannot see. But the kids at Our Lady of Mt Carmel were really wonderful, curious and imaginative. Zapped really turned them on, not only to reading but stimulated their interest in learning about the cell.
Lynelle: It was interesting to talk to the kids from my old school. Some of them were my classmates last year. They were really enthusiastic. We wanted only four kids to volunteer for acting out of the scene from the book, but we had so many volunteers it was hard to choose. When we presented to the younger kids it brought back memories of the times I used to read to first graders and kindergartners when I was in fifth grade.
Visit our book store to purchase your copy of Zapped! Danger in the Cell today.
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It’s been just a couple of months since the release of Zapped! Danger in the Cell but the book has been attracting high praise from educators and children alike.
Get your copy from our book store in print or kindle and let us know what you think.
If you’re in Baltimore this weekend, we’ll be at the Baltimore Book Festival at Inner Harbor.
Here’s just some of the feedback that we’ve received.
“We’ve read the book and love it! So creative!” Representative of Port Discovery Children’s Museum, Baltimore.
“I loved it. What a wonderful concept and great read. Congratulations. I think it is really a great book for middle schoolers. It is a very complicated and complex topic. You made it much more accessible.” Susan Magsamen, Senior Advisor, Brain Science Insitute and Science of Learning Institute, Johns Hopkins University and Creator of Curiosityville.
“Zapped! Danger in the cell” written by Jewel Daniel and Lynelle Martin was a delight. The way they illustrated the function of our cells made it easy to understand. My daughter, …, rated the book as an excellent read. In fact, it was so enticing to her that she read through the entire book about three times. It has given her a new found appreciation for the essential role cells play in the body. Zapped, really zapped me. I will recommend this book to all children of specific target age to read. They will develop a most profound understanding of their biological make up. As a matter of fact, I know teachers will utilize this book as a reference material in their class rooms. Thanks Jewel and Lynelle for sharing your interesting insights with us. I anxiously look forward the sequel.” Happy parents and children.
About Zapped! Danger in the Cell.
When a mysterious machine shrinks Sonya, Lynelle, and Giselle to microscopic proportions they become so small that they slip through the walls of a cell and the three girls find themselves caught up in a roller coaster of an adventure that has them running for their lives.
Do they ever escape?
Get your copy of Zapped! Danger in the Cell to find out!
Zapped! is the first book in the Small Worlds series written by Jewel Daniel and Lynelle Martin. The book is being published by CaribbeanReads and is illustrated by Ann-Cathrine Loo. It is aimed at middle-grade readers and will be available in July.
St. Kitts born Jewel is a cell biologist, author and educator who combines her love for science and books to teach kids about the exciting microscopic world of the cell. She already has three publications under the pen name Jewel Amethyst, A Marriage of Convenience, Holiday Brides, and Pretty Little Liars: Indiscretion. Zapped is her first children’s novel.
Lynelle is the star of this show. She is a rising middle school student with an avid interest in science and adventure. Zapped is her debut novel, but she has already written the sequel and plans to work on book 3 this summer.
Buy your copy today on Amazon. For bulk orders please email orders(at)caribbeanreads[dot]com.
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