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Hey Zoobooks Fans! Our Zoobooks digital magazine name draw raffle ends March 8th! Don’t forget to enter by visiting our Digital Magazine Giveaway page and confirming yourself as a Zoobooks Facebook Fan! Earn additional entries by following us on Twitter (@Zoobooks).
Want To Win a Free Zoobooks Digital Magazine Subscription? Here’s Your Chance!
Starting now through March 8, enter for your chance to win a free subscription to the newly offered Zoobooks digital magazine! Confirm yourself as a Zoobooks Facebook fan by visiting the Digital Magazine Giveaway page on our Facebook profile. Even gain additional entries by following @Zoobooks on Twitter!
Usually, we share animal stories for children – that’s the Zoobooks mission afterall – but in the 21 March issue of The New Yorker “Back to the Harbor” by Ian Frazier is a seal story adult animal lovers will enjoy. Frazier, with loopy humor and a rambling style, relates how seals are making a comeback in New York harbor.
Besides discovering Frazier’s musings on molded-plastic lawn chairs and “The Godfather” movies, you’ll read why seals were hounded out of New York harbor in the 1900’s and how they are now moving back in. You’ll learn the range of the harbor seal and the difference between Phocidae (“true” seals) and Otaridae (sea lions and other “eared” seals). Then, share all this with your children through the Zoobooks Seals & Sea Lions, Zootles Seals and Critters Up Close Seals books available online at our webstore.
Frazier throws out a bait bucket full of fascinating tidbits, such as, how talking seals are being studied at the New England Aquarium, and how the interplay of sharks and seals periodically closed beaches at Cape Cod the last two summers. Frazier also explains “[Seals] are what environmentalists call ‘charismatic megafauna’; staring with big brown eyes into a camera lens proved to be a survival advantage for them.” So go for a fascinating swim with Frazier and the seals of New York harbor.
New research about hibernating black bears may someday help sick people. Researchers at the University of Alaska have discovered that hibernating black bears are able to keep their body temperature up even while their metabolism slows. If researchers can learn how to transfer that trick to people, it could help in the treatment of strokes and heart attacks. Share the new research with your kids at the KidsPost section of The Washington Post or translate the adult version at The New York Times .
Once you’ve learned about bears hibernating in your latest Zoobooks Bears, visit the North American Bear Center website for a video of the first time researchers watched a black bear dig a den for winter hibernation. The video clip comes with sub-titles explaining what the bear is doing and why. It is engaging for kids of all ages. And don’t miss the comparison of hibernation for a chipmunk versus a black bear. It will give you the tall and the short of it.
We just finished the audio recording for the second habitat for our new ZooWho iPhone/iPad App. The new habitat will feature the African Savanna and include such kid-favorite animals as elephants, zebras and lions among many others.
Like the current ZooWho Jungle, kids will play and learn about African Savanna animals in the ultimate sticker book. Kids collect and place the animals in different scenes, switch the scenes from day to night, then share their creations with friends and family. The animals roar and trumpet and can be moved around, made bigger or smaller and, unlike paper stickers, can be re-used over and over.
And it’s not just fun, like Zoobies, Zootles and Zoobooks magazines, the idea is for kids to learn as they play. Games such as What’s My Voice and Animal Match interactively teach kids about the diets, communications, and survival strategies of the animals. And in a favorite feature, The Talking Parrot, a parrot repeats everything you say only in a parrot voice!
The new African Savanna habitat should be ready to go any day now. In the meantime, if you haven’t tried ZooWho jungle, go to www.zoobooks.com/fun. As always we welcome your suggestions.
What features would you like to see in an interactive digital version of Zootles or Zoobooks magazines? Mulling over how Zootles and Zoobooks magazines can read on an iPad or other electronic readers, there are lots of options. So many, in fact, that we need your help. Please share your thoughts on this blog or our Facebook page.
Some possibilities to prime the brain pump:
Zootles: Combine the audio book version of Zootles magazine that is posted every month on the web www.zoobooks.com/audio with the turn-the-page digital Zootles issue www.zoobooks.com/digital-subscription , so in an interactive version kids can turn the pages and hear Zootles read out loud to them. Add a feature where the printed words are highlighted as they are read out loud. Research suggests this can help kids learn to read. And how about a dictionary feature, so kids can always look up what a word means? What else?
Zoobooks: Turn the wonderful anatomy pages in Zoobooks magazine into a reveal “game” where animals electronically shed their skin to show the muscles and skeletons inside. Kids can go back and forth from skeleton to skin to understand how the anatomical parts fit together. Add a quiz on the different parts of the animal and a pick-up-sticks game where kids “build” the animal skeleton from individual bones. What else?
Add video clips: Zootles and Zoobooks magazines capture and explain the behavior and communication of animals with award-winning photos and captions. Add video clips where kids can see and hear the animals in action. What else?
Add web links: Zootles and Zoobooks already note websites that offer more information on the animals in each issue. In an interactive version, the links could be live and kids could go right to the site to learn even more. What else?
These are a few ideas for an interactive Zootles and Zoobooks. Again, please post your ideas and, if you don’t think the interactive route is the way to go, let us know that too. Thanks.
“…listening to audiobooks can successfully promote a reading habit and create a lifelong reader.” Dr. Denise Marchionda, AudioFile Magazine
If you are a Zootles fan for children ages 2 to 6, then you already know that reading out loud to childern is a powerful way to create lifelong readers. And similarly, audio books, played while a child follows along with the book, provide an excellent bridge to reading. To learn more click here to read Dr. Marchionda’s article about the power of audio books for children.
The latest Zootles Animal Babies audio book is available FREE for downloading or streaming at www.zoobooks.com/audio. With Zootles audio books your young animal lover can enjoy each issue over and over, even at times when you can’t read it to them, like in the car or before dinner. By following the text with the audio, your child will be developing important reading skills. We hope you enjoy Zootles audio books with every issue.
Slated to premier in April Born To Be Wild is a 3-D IMAX movie promoted as a documentary of efforts to save orangutans of the Borneo rainforest and elephants of the Kenyan savannah. If you caught Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in an IMAX theater you may have already seen the trailer for Born to Be Wild. If not, you can see it on YouTube. The movie is narrated by Morgan Freeman.
The orangutan portion of the movie focuses on the conservation efforts of Dr. Birute Galdikas, who is to orangutans as Jane Goodall is to chimpanzees. Starting out in the early 1970’s as a graduate student researcher in Borneo as part of a project organized by Kenyan paleontologist Louis Leakey, Galdikas has become a world-renowned orangutan expert and advocate.
She founded the Orangutan Foundation International headquartered in Los Angeles, CA. The OFI promotes the preservation of the Indonesian rainforest and the rescue and rehabilitation of orangutans.
If you love the beautiful photographs of orangutans in the current Zoobooks Orangutans, then this may be a movie for you. In advance, you can learn more about Dr. Galdikas’ life in her memoir, Reflections of Eden.
The elephant conservation story in Born To Be Wild is that of Dame Daphne Sheldrick and her work with the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust to save Kenya’s elephants and rhinos. Her memoir is scheduled to come out in spring 2012.
Zoobooks Orangutans are swinging into homes this week and next. If you aren’t a subscriber, they are hanging out at Barnes and Noble and other select newsstands or order one at www.zoobooks.com.
In Zoobooks Orangutans your young explorers will discover the anatomy of the red ape as only Zoobooks reveals it. They’ll learn why orangutans with arms one-and-a-half times longer than their legs are well suited to the canopy of the rainforests of Borneo and Sumatra.
They’ll find a comparison of human and orangutan skeletons and fascinating parallels like humans and orangutans both have 32 teeth, unique fingerprints, and males of each species grow beards.
They will also see how orangutan mothers care for their babies high above the forest floor for up to ten years. Along with spectacular photos of orangutan social behavior including eating, playing, sleeping and nesting.
Of course, they will also learn that orangutan habitat is quickly disappearing due to logging for timber and palm oil plantations. In future blogs, we’ll share information on the efforts to save these beautiful animals and how you and your children can help.
But for now, watch for your postal carrier because Zoobooks Orangutans is swinging your way!
Here is a story that will interest young animal lovers and overlaps areas of healthcare for both humans and animals. If your Zoobooks reader is particularly captivated by the anatomy illustrations in Gorillas (pg 4-5) or wants to become a veterinarian, doctor or nurse, then this is a great article to nurture his or her curiosity. Below is a recap of the article, you can find the complete version at this link: Chicago Tribune.com.
Blood banks for humans were invented in Chicago in 1937 and blood banks for great apes started at the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago in 2005. Now, great ape blood banks are being used to save the lives of gorillas, orangutans, chimpanzees, and bonobos both in captivity and in the wild.
Great ape blood banks serve the same purpose as blood banks for humans. The banks stockpile a supply of blood for transfusions needed to treat illnesses and wounds. Scientists are still learning about the “types” of primate blood. They have more research to do to catch up to what is known about human blood.
New Issue Update: Zoobooks Rhinos should be charging into your mailbox any day, and likewise, Zootles Animal Babies. Zoobies Elephants comes lumbering in the week of January 14th.
