The Kids’ Book of Awesome Stuff

By Charlene Brotman and illustrated by Jeila Gueramian
Biddeford, ME: Brotman Marsh-Field Curricula, 2004
Review by Pat Hoertdoerfer
Children, Family and Intergenerational Programs Director, UUA
Boston, MA

Author Charlene Brotman provides children, families, UU religious educators, and camp educators/guides with an excellent resource to engage them in an awesome adventure in ecology education as religious education. From the book’s first message, children know they are on a fascinating journey of discovery.

Dear Star Kid,
Did you know … you wouldn’t be alive today if ancient stars had not died and blown apart? Even earth would not exist! And did you know … you’re made of star-stuff, the chemical elements that were once inside the stars that died? Those exploding stars hurled their elements out into space in gigantic clouds of dust and gas. Over time, some of the elements from the stars formed the Earth and the Sun. Some of that star-stuff ended up in YOU!

The Kids’ Book of Awesome Stuff embodies the Unitarian Universalist Seventh Principle – Respect for the interdependent web of existence of which we are a part – with the theme that each child is part of that connectedness. It is designed to nurture a sense of wonder while actively engaging children as caregivers of living things and stewards of earth cycles and systems. Children will learn that death is a natural part of life and life is a precious gift. This book is appropriate for eight- to eleven-year-old children to use at home, in RE programs, and at UU summer camps.

Chapters are: (1) You’re Made of Star-Stuff; (2) You’re Saved By Something Green; (3) The Awesome Thing about Poop and Pee and Dead Stuff That Rots; (4) If There Were No Bugs to Bug You; (5) The Ancestor of All Your Ancestors Was Invisible; and (6) You Live on a Speck in a Spinning Spiral. There are activities in every chapter for children to experience outdoors. Every page has illustrations to engage participants of all ages to think and wonder, live and learn.

This kids’ book is complete with hero/ines – “No Peace in Keeping Silent: How Rachel Carson Helped Save the World” and “When People Didn’t Know: Copernicus’s New Ideas” – and great stories – “The Secret Goings-on Inside a Leaf” and “Cats, Rats and Bugs in Borneo.” There are many science experiments and activities, puzzles and games, poems, earth prayers, and wonderings about the universe. Some pages have beautiful photos of planets and stars, snowflakes and frost crystals; other pages have designs to color, and some pages invite you to draw or write a poem.

The Kids’ Book of Awesome Stuff is available for $15 plus shipping and handling from the UUA Bookstore (1-800-215-9076 or www.uua.org/bookstore). The following link includes a sample activity, “Go Buggy on a Bug Safari .”