Assuming the blubber to be the skin of the whale; then, when this skin, as in the case of a very large Sperm Whale, will yield the bulk of one hundred barrels of oil; and, when it is considered that, in quantity, or rather weight, that oil, in its expressed state, is only three fourths, and not the entire substance of the coat; some idea may hence be had of the enormousness of that animated mass, a mere part of whose mere integument yields such […]
Barkonauts are the best!
Greg Van Eekhout is now one of my favorite authors thanks to his Daniel Blackland series, starting with California Bones. In it he created a fascinating magic system called osteomancy, where one gets magical properties through consuming the remains of magical creatures. Magical creatures also being fellow spell casters. Not exactly fit for the tween and under set. However, Greg has just had Voyage of the Dogs come out and it is all ages. If you know a child that loves dogs and thinks outer space […]
Turns out astronauts are massive nerds
Every child grows up wanting to be an astronaut, but few people ever succeed. Most people abandon the dream quite organically, but I think everybody wonders sometimes what it’s like out there. Mike Massimino’s dreams of space were first ignited when he watched Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon. This book covers his journey from small kid, to university, to NASA. It’s filled with loads of obstacles, he flunks exams, his application is rejected twice before he makes it through only to fall short […]
It’s the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine
So I really liked this book. I read a series either earlier this year or last year by Joe Hart, and it was very different from this book. I guess that series was still science fiction-y, like this one, but it still felt very different. We begin this book by meeting Gillian, as she’s basically getting into a car accident with her husband. We learn that he has this terrible brain disease called Losian’s, that’s similar to Alzheimer’s, but affects all ages. He’s starting to […]