Tag Archive: wonders and marvels
By Holly Tucker
As we ride off into 2010, here’s a look at the 10 most visited posts on the site this year. Happy New Year everyone!
As we take stock of this past year and look forward to the next, I’d like to send a hearty THANK YOU to the folks who have helped make this website possible:
Jennie S.
Melissa S.
Cole G.
Diane Saarinen
Our fabulous guest writers and their publishers
Our wonderful and every growing number of inquisitive readers
And last, but not least, the inimitable Tina Caldwell…who is the glue who holds it all together.
Ho, ho, ho. Happy Holidays! HT, editor
A new report out from Washington University-St. Louis shows that movies depicting historical events can increase recall of facts in classroom settings. The problem: The recall goes both ways. Students will remember historical information 50% more often; students recall both accurate AND inaccurate information depicted in the movies.
So word to the wise…always get your facts straight!
And if you are a university science news junkie like me, you absolutely must subscribe to the new site, It’s a news consortium for some of the United States’ top universities (including Vanderbilt University…)
Holly Tucker is the Editor of Wonders and Marvels. Read more about Holly here.
By Melissa L.
With stacks of YA and children’s historical books being published, looking through them and choosing which ones to feature here can be quite a task. So what exactly does it take for a book to catch my eye?
First, it helps a lot if the book is about a period in history that’s rarely been covered. You have to admit that there have been stacks of books, both fiction and nonfiction, written about World Wars I and II, the Civil War, and the Revolutionary War. I’d rather see a book that takes me to a time and place I’m less familiar with, so I can learn something new rather than going over what I already know.
That isn’t to say I’m not at all interested in books about perennial topics—they just have to be different in some way. I would probably ignore a biography that rehashed the usual facts about its subject, but if the author can introduce a lot of little-known tidbits, I’m intrigued. The same goes for fiction. Ann Rinaldi, an author whose work I really admire, does an excellent job of looking at events from a new angle. Her novel The Secret of Sarah Revere covers the beginning of the Revolutionary War from a unique viewpoint: Paul Revere’s daughter.
So, essentially, I try to choose books by authors who see things differently. And in the end, I think that’s what history is all about.
Melissa L. is the YA Editorial Assistant for Wonders and Marvels. You can read more about her here: Editorial Staff.
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