100 Days of Perseverance?? :)

After posting a review of Bruce Goldstone's book, 100 Ways to Celebrate 100 Days, he sent me the following to share with you. Besides being fascinating, it's an excellent example of perseverance!

"I had a blast putting 100 Ways to Celebrate 100 Days together. This was the first book for which I took my own photos--for the Great Estimations books, I set up all the objects in a studio and a very helpful and patient photographer, Arnold Katz, took the pictures. But taking my own photos gave me a lot more leeway--and time. That turned out to be important because several of my ideas were a bit trickier than I imagined.

Probably the most challenging was Jiggle 100. I originally had the fine idea of placing 100 Swedish fish in a Jello aquarium. I'm a big fish fan. I knew that I'd want a pale blue so that the red gummy fish would be easily visible, so I started with clear gelatin and added food coloring. I carefully poured a gelatin layer in a baking pan, let it set a bit, and lined up the fish. Then I added the top layer and waited until the next day to take the shot, so that it would have time to set up.

Well, it turns out that Swedish fish dissolve in gelatin. Who knew? Instead of a beautiful school of shimmering fish, I uncovered the mold to find a hideous, whitish mass of oozing fuzz between two layers of slippery blue slime. Not very photogenic.

I was determined to get the fish-in-an-aquarium idea, so I scoured the Internet for other fish-shaped candies. Nada. Then I came up with a brilliant idea--I'd make my own. So I bought a candy mold and made tiny white chocolate fish.
This idea worked perfectly. The finished mold held a beautiful school of one hundred glowing white fish. I was about to take a photo of it when I finally came to my senses. This book isn't supposed to be about 100 cool things I could do with the number 100. It was fun activities for kids, parents, and teachers to try. And while I didn't mind making dozens of white chocolate fish, I could hardly expect my readers to be so patient.

So I reluctantly gave up on the fish idea. Next was grapes. An obvious choice, but high on the do-able scale. Since the idea was a bit less exciting, I decided the mold shape should be more interesting. I got a fancy ring mold, arranged my grapes, and waited.
It unmolded just fine and I actually set it up for the photo, when the next problem hit--the curve of the mold shape acted as a lens and distorted the grapes like faces in a funhouse mirror. My goal in all of the photos was to have items be as clear and countable as possible. So another mold went slipping down the drain.

Next I took a decent photo of grapes in the rectangular mold. It was a little drab, but at least you could count the grapes. I was relieved to be done with Jiggle. That photo was in the book until almost the very end. When the book was put together, I was happy with nearly everything...except Jiggle. So I got my steam back for one more try and came up with the idea of berries. At last I took the shot that's in the book: 48 raspberries and 52 blueberries in yellow gelatin. The photo is cheerful and even offers a bit of subliminal addition support, too.

You'll notice that I managed to feature fish elsewhere, as a rubber stamp for Stamp 100. That stamp is from my own rubber stamp collection, which I gathered when I was in elementary school myself. Sometimes a bit of hoarding does pay off." -Bruce Goldstone

Children's Math Book Review: 100 Ways to Celebrate 100 Days

Several months ago, I received a review copy of Bruce Goldstone's book, 100 Ways to Celebrate 100 Days. Having read a lot of "100 Days" books, I doubted that there could be "anything new under the sun."

I was WRONG.

I LOVE this book. It's totally unlike anything I've ever seen for 100th day celebrations. In his usual, stunning photographs, Goldstone celebrates 100 with a single verb and 100 on each page, with suggestions to do something...  For instance:

"Brush 100" with photos of:
*100 toothbrushes and a suggestion to brush teeth 100 strokes in the morning
* 100 brushes and idea to brush hair 100 times at night.

"Lick 100" with photo of:
*lollipop and suggestion to lick one 100 times and see what's left

"List 100" with photo of
*book page listing 100 places, with suggestion to make your own list of 100 things: foods, animals, names, places, etc.

"Print 100" with photo of
*100 fingerprints and idea to turn them into bugs, birds, animals (shown)

"Seek 100" with photo of
*100 numbers photographed at various places with suggestion to find your own 100 numbers on a scavenger hunt.

My favorite page?

"Speak 100" with picture of "hello" written in 100 languages with pronunciations.

The photos are bright, beautiful...as I've said of Goldstein's books before (here and here), they are "I Spy" on steroids. The visuals ROCK!

Disclaimer: I received a review copy which I LOVE!!!  THANK YOU!! If you order from Amazon, all commissions go toward foster care through Grace and Hope at no additional cost to you. THANK YOU!