Here are 99 books that Sir Fig Newton and the Science of Persistence fans have personally recommended if you like
Sir Fig Newton and the Science of Persistence.
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I’m an avid reader and writer of children’s literature, though I find it difficult to read anything that isn’t diverse these days. Being able to experience the world from the perspectives of other cultures is a true delight, and I learn something every time. After having read dozens of these diverse books, especially diverse fantasies, I find that nothing inspires my creative soul more. That’s why I’m able to speak on this topic for large conferences and schools, spreading this inspiration to others. And, as a published author of diverse children’s literature, I’ve done the same in my writing with praise from Kirkus, Booklist, Publisher’s Weekly, and many others.
It’s a timeless story of a kid healing, but with a twist where Sal can pull things out of alternate dimensions.
He navigates the weirdness of his abilities with a grace and humor that is as refreshing as it is endearing. It’s hard not to root for this troublemaker with a heart of gold.
Not to mention, the book has a seriously great main character counterpart to Sal in Gabi Real.
Best-selling author Rick Riordan presents a brilliant sci-fi romp with Cuban influence by Carlos Hernandez, winner of the 2020 Pura Belpré Award.
"I love this book in every possible universe! With a surprise on every page and two of the most cosmically awesome, vividly unique heroes I've ever read, this sweet, hilarious book made me so happy."--Tui T. Sutherland, author of the New York Times best-selling Wings of Fire series
What would you do if you had the power to reach through time and space and retrieve anything you want, including your mother, who is no longer living (in this…
I was a smart kid myself – I even have the report cards to prove it—and I always loved reading about other smart kids. As I got older, I realized that good grades and study habits are only part of the picture, because it’s emotional intelligence that helps us navigate the complicated parts of growing up. That’s why I wrote a book about a brilliant kid who learns to be part of a super-family, and that’s also why I love middle grade novels about clever kids who have to grow something other than their “book smarts” to figure out what they need to thrive. The books I’m recommending all get an A+ in that category.
Who doesn’t love a good pre-teen mystery, and this one is different because the “crime” is totally current. Drew Leclair is a clever girl who adores true crime content with her dad, especially after her mother runs off with Drew’s school guidance counselor. Ouch! But when the school’s anonymous cyber-bully starts targeting her and other kids at school with cruel posts revealing their secrets, Drew leans on her deductive reasoning to expose the perpetrator. Along the way, she’s dealing with friend drama and eventually comes to see that sometimes, her brainy ways are really just a way of avoiding some tough emotions. Does Drew catch the bully? Does she make new friends, or lose the only friend she has? You gotta read to find out.
In this modern take on Harriet the Spy, twelve-year-old Drew uses her true crime expertise to catch the cyberbully in her school—only to discover that family, friendship, and identity are the hardest mysteries to solve.
Drew Leclair knows what it takes to be a great detective. She’s pored over the cases solved by her hero, criminal profiler Lita Miyamoto. She tracked down the graffiti artist at school, and even solved the mystery of her neighbor’s missing rabbit. But when her mother runs off to Hawaii with the school guidance counselor, Drew is shocked. How did she miss all of the…
I was a smart kid myself – I even have the report cards to prove it—and I always loved reading about other smart kids. As I got older, I realized that good grades and study habits are only part of the picture, because it’s emotional intelligence that helps us navigate the complicated parts of growing up. That’s why I wrote a book about a brilliant kid who learns to be part of a super-family, and that’s also why I love middle grade novels about clever kids who have to grow something other than their “book smarts” to figure out what they need to thrive. The books I’m recommending all get an A+ in that category.
Most space adventures for middle grade readers are totally sci-fi fantasies, but this one is so realistic and well-researched, it’s like a genre of its own. The main character, Fin, is 12 years old and he’s surrounded by other brilliant kids who are part of the StellarKid Project for young inventors. They all have the opportunity to go to space with NASA, but someone is trying to sabotage them. It takes a lot of brain power for the kids to save themselves when everything goes wrong in orbit, but even more than that, it takes teamwork, which requires each of them to face their fears. I felt like I was holding my breath for the entire second half of the book, so you know I was into it.
I’m pretty sure I’m about to die in space. And I just turned twelve and a half.
Blast off with the four winners of the StellarKid Project on a trip to the International Space Station and then to the Gateway outpost orbiting the Moon! It’s a dream come true until space junk collides with the ISS, turning their epic trip into a nightmare of survival. Alone aboard the Aether starship, the kids have to work as a team to save the adults before the ISS is destroyed. Suit up, cadet, and launch into adventure with One Giant Leap!
While one-off stories are fantastic, I love that children's series lets readers return to trusted characters. Series allow children to see a wider arc of character development and decision-making—often imperfect and in transition—when they are trying to figure out how to identify and connect with the world themselves. That shared experience over time is why I only write series myself—to let kids evolve alongside their favorite characters.
An orphan who lives in the ceiling of New York's Natural History Museum, an oddball detective, a society of secret sleuths, and a race to find a stolen rare jewel to prove one's innocence, The Curious League is a love letter to classic middle-grade detective stories.
Truly madcap, this book will have kids in stitches and is a perfect read-aloud. It's also a series, so readers can jump right into book 2.
Hilarious, non-stop adventure, a mysterious jewel heist, and a detective team like no other make this a must-have middle grade series starter. Perfect for fans of A Series of Unfortunate Events and Enola Holmes.
After twelve-year-old John Boarhog’s mom dies, the last thing he wants is to be schlepped off to the Jersey Home for Boys, where kids are forced to make skinny jeans for hipsters and are fed nothing but kale. Instead, he makes himself a snug home in the ceiling of the New York Museum of Natural History, where he reads anything he get his hands on and…
I was homeschooled from the beginning until I graduated from high school, and I’m now homeschooling my family. I also teach writing and English to kids from around the world, many of whom are homeschooled. As a kid, I loved fantasy and adventure stories, but I didn’t really like realistic stories because I wasn’t familiar with things like homeroom or class periods. I have loved finding books with characters who are homeschooled, especially if homeschooling is portrayed accurately. I also love stories about relationships, so stories with strong family ties and deep friendships are meaningful to me. I hope that both homeschoolers and other schoolers can enjoy these book picks!
Chicken Friend is another story about friends and family. Becca is taken out of school to be homeschooled in the country. She struggles to adjust and make friends with the cool kids who are her neighbors. I could definitely sympathize with that feeling of trying so hard to make friends and yet feeling so out of place. It also reminded me of my move at the beginning of high school. Becca is a fun character with a wacky but loving family. She also has things she hides from everyone, even the reader, that made the story a little bit of a mystery.
And now that I have chickens myself, I enjoy the story even more.
A funny, sharply observed story about peer pressure and the desire to conform. "You wouldn't want a family like mine - they're straight out of Crazyville." Becca is feeling sorry for herself. Ever since her family moved to the country, she's missed London and her best friend Stella. And her eccentric parents don't believe in school, so Becca only has her annoying twin brothers for company. Oh, and the chickens. Enter Jazz and Mel. They're cool and streetwise and they seem to want to be friends - especially when Becca says she might have a party. Without adults. But that's…
Since childhood, I’ve wanted to find out how things work. The human body is an amazing combination of mind and body. As Professor of Medicine and Metabolism at Newcastle University, I’ve been fortunate to be able to find out what goes wrong to cause type 2 diabetes. It was not the complex mystery believed by other experts, but just one simple process. A little too much fat inside the liver caused insulin not to work properly, and an overspill of fat prevented enough insulin to be made. Growing a wild idea into a proven NHS programme involves sleepless nights, disbelief of colleagues, gratitude of patients, and hugely enjoyable team-working.
‘Counting’ calories at every meal is not a recipe for a sane or happy life. But knowing the approximate calorie content of what you regularly eat is certainly wise. This is a look-up book, not a reading book. So—how about the blueberry muffin you have been led to believe is the healthy option? What! 393 calories? But that is about a quarter of the daily calorie requirement for a smaller person. Orange juice? Ah yes, one of my five-a-day—so healthy. But at 90 calories per 250 ml glass it is easy to cut without bothering appetite. Taken in addition to a weight neutral diet, it would cause around six pounds of weight gain in a year. This is a book of information. Information useful for life.
MANAGE YOUR DIET AND DIABETES THE CARBS & CALS WAY, WITH OVER 1,800 FOOD & DRINK PHOTOS!
The Carbs & Cals & Fat & Fiber Counter is the FIRST diet and diabetes book to show hundreds of photos of popular USA food and drink items in up to 6 portion sizes, with the carb, calorie, fat, and fiber values clearly displayed in color-coded tabs above each photo.
Simply compare the food on your plate with the photos in the book. With this unique book, carb and calorie counting has never been easier!
This revolutionary, easy-to-use guide to diet, weight loss,…
Since childhood, I’ve wanted to find out how things work. The human body is an amazing combination of mind and body. As Professor of Medicine and Metabolism at Newcastle University, I’ve been fortunate to be able to find out what goes wrong to cause type 2 diabetes. It was not the complex mystery believed by other experts, but just one simple process. A little too much fat inside the liver caused insulin not to work properly, and an overspill of fat prevented enough insulin to be made. Growing a wild idea into a proven NHS programme involves sleepless nights, disbelief of colleagues, gratitude of patients, and hugely enjoyable team-working.
Michael Mosley was the one of the first best-selling authors to disseminate the new knowledge about how type 2 diabetes could be put into remission. It is all the more authentic in that he describes his personal battle with rising blood sugar levels. "Once you tip from prediabetes into diabetes you will be slapped on medication faster than you can say 'Coca-Cola'." And it worth avoiding that fate. This is an eminently readable book which brings you onside with the author—a confident not a teacher. Just look at the section "Sort out your head". It’s the mind and body thing, often overlooked by well-meaning advisers. Just glance down the three sections of the book—The Science, The Diet, The Menus. Where will you start? This book bubbles with well-informed enthusiasm.
Discover the groundbreaking method to defeat diabetes without drugs using the step-by-step diet plans and recipes from #1 New York Times bestselling author Dr. Michael Mosley.
The 8-Week Blood Sugar Diet is a radical new approach to the biggest health epidemic threatening us today...
Our modern diet, high in low-quality carbohydrates, is damaging our bodies—producing a constant overload of sugar in our bloodstream that clogs up our arteries and piles hidden fat into our internal organs. The result has been a doubling in the number of type 2 diabetics, as well as a surge in those with a potentially hazardous…
I’ve been researching treatment harms for 3 decades and founded RxISK.org in 2012, now an important site for people to report these harms. They’ve been reporting in their thousands often in personal accounts that feature health service gaslighting. During these years, our treatments have become a leading cause of mortality and morbidity, the time it takes to recognize harms has been getting longer, and our medication burdens heavier. We have a health crisis that parallels the climate crisis. Both Green parties and Greta Thunberg’s generation are turning a blind eye to the health chemicals central to this. We need to understand what is going wrong and turn it around.
Every book by Annemarie Mol is good but The Logic of Care is simply the best book on what medicine should be. It is short, deceptively simple but leaves no hiding places. Everyone will be able to understand it in the same way from a teenager up through a Professor of Medicine to a Minister for Health but don’t expect any Ministers to admit to reading it any time soon. Mol outlines a relationship-based rather than technology-based medicine. How do we ensure medical techniques help us to live the lives we want to live rather than force us to live lives that suit the companies that make the technologies want us to live? How do we care for people rather than service them?
**Shortlisted for the BSA Sociology of Health and Illness Book Prize 2010**
What is good care? In this innovative and compelling book, Annemarie Mol argues that good care has little to do with 'patient choice' and, therefore, creating more opportunities for patient choice will not improve health care.
Although it is possible to treat people who seek professional help as customers or citizens, Mol argues that this undermines ways of thinking and acting crucial to health care. Illustrating the discussion with examples from diabetes clinics and diabetes self care, the book presents the 'logic of care' in a step by…
Heart disease ravaged both sides of my family. When I was a teenager, my mother developed heart disease and her two brothers died of heart attacks. In response, at the age of seventeen, I gave up meat. Now, after a career writing comedy for the stage and television, I write books on health, and all my extensive research on nutrition has vindicated my instincts from the age of seventeen but taught me that there is far more to a healthy diet than just avoiding flesh foods. I have authored or co-authored eleven books that, in different ways, make the case for the health benefits of plants.
Mastering Diabetes explains the nature of the disease, and why the standard treatment of Type 2 Diabetes in particular is counterproductive. The authors draw from their own personal experience and the experiences of those they have counseled, but they provide evidence from a raft of scientific studies. They have had striking success, which they report with energy and enthusiasm. With confidence born of that success, they stand conventional diabetes wisdom on its head.
A groundbreaking method to master all types of diabetes by reversing insulin resistance.
Current medical wisdom advises that anyone suffering from diabetes or prediabetes should eat a low-carbohydrate, high-fat diet. But in this revolutionary book, Cyrus Khambatta, PhD, and Robby Barbaro, MPH, rely on a century of research to show that advice is misguided. While it may improve short-term blood glucose control, such a diet also increases the long-term risk for chronic diseases like cancer, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, chronic kidney disease, and fatty liver disease.
The discovery of the structure of DNA, the genetic material was one of the biggest milestones in science–but few people realise that a crucial unsung hero in this story was the humble wool fibre. But the Covid pandemic has changed all that and as a result we’ve all become acutely away of both the impact of science on our lives and our need to be more informed about it. Having long ago hung up my white coat and swapped the lab for the library to be a historian of science, I think we need a more honest, authentic understanding of scientific progress rather than the over-simplified accounts so often found in textbooks.
The discovery of insulin in early 1922 was a medical milestone that has since saved countless lives–my own included. Until this moment, a diagnosis of Type 1 Diabetes was a certain death sentence. But as diabetes clinician and historian of medicine, Chris Feudtner points out, the success of insulin has distorted historical accounts of diabetes by marginalising the experience of the patient in favour of narratives that focus on the development of medical technology to treat them. And Feudtner’s diagnosis is confined not just to diabetes but to the history of medicine in general. Following a personal epiphany that patients have an existence beyond X-rays and blood tests, Feudtner set out to address this problem by writing a history of diabetes as told from the perspective of patients. He does so magnificently and offers important insights about our relationship with technology that extend well beyond the treatment of diabetes.
One of medicine's most remarkable therapeutic triumphs was the discovery of insulin in 1921. The drug produced astonishing results, rescuing children and adults from the deadly grip of diabetes. But as Chris Feudtner demonstrates, the subsequent transformation of the disease from a fatal condition into a chronic illness is a story of success tinged with irony, a revealing saga that illuminates the complex human consequences of medical intervention.
Bittersweet chronicles this history of diabetes through the compelling perspectives of people who lived with this disease. Drawing on a remarkable body of letters exchanged between patients or their parents and Dr.…
