March 8, 2010
I took this photograph while walking on the beach in Florida over the weekend. My wife thought it was a jellyfish (and most people would say the same). What do you think it is?
In fact, this is a baby Portuguese Man-of-War. The balloon-like bladder you see here is called the pneumatophore (pronounced new-MAT-oh-fore), and it is the part of the Man-of-War that floats above the water, acting like a sail. They were named after Portuguese sailing ships for that reason.
There is a lot of the Man-of-War that you don’t see in this photograph. M-O-W are really colonies of different kinds of animals which act together as a single living thing. Their long tentacles trail behind them, underneath the water. These trailing tendrils are are covered with venom-filled nematocysts used to paralyze and kill fish and other small creatures. That’s why, if you’ve ever encountered one of these creatures in the ocean, you get a painful sting.
The animals that make up the Portuguese Man-of-War are all invertebrates, which means they do not have a backbone or spinal column. Insects, worms, and shellfish are all invertebrates.
Click this link to see an excellent video from National Geographic about the Portuguese Man-of-War.
Posted by: Seymour Simon
March 5, 2010
I posted yesterday about a Barnes & Noble clerk who insisted to my sister that Seymour Simon is "not a real person." Thanks to the many friends (some fellow authors or illustrators) who weighed in on my behalf. Here are some of the funny things they wrote.
Jerry Schwarz
Need a new PR person?
Michael Hague
Speaking as one of the walking dead myself…You are very real…Welcome to the Zombie World of Publishing and Bookstores.
Diane deGroat
My brother lives in Boynton Beach. I’ll send him in.
Eric Kimmel
I know they forget all about you after you’re dead, but this is ridiculous!
Lee Bennett Hopkins
Is this the same Simon whose LUNGS—THE MUSICAL might
be a future Broadway production? Or was it GUTs—the musical?
Kate Nealon Slawta
He looked and acted real when he stayed with us in DC this week! And we had a wonderful time, by the way. I vote Yes, he’s real.
Fran Manushkin
Seymour, are you sure you’re not a figment of your imagination?
Diane Stanley
Well it’s good you finally found this out after all these years.
Laura Grosvenor
I was reminded of this quote from the Velveteen Rabbit.
"Real isn’t how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real."
Well, children love you and so do many of us, so you must be real!
Posted by: Seymour Simon
March 4, 2010
My sister, Miriam, went into a B&N bookstore in Boynton Beach, Fl, the other day and went to see the display of my books in the children’s book section. The salesperson saw her looking at the books and assured her that there was no such person as "Seymour Simon." She said that all the books were written by different people and "Seymour Simon" was just the name they used. Miriam sputtered indignantly and said, "Of course there’s a Seymour Simon! He’s my brother and he wrote all these books." The B&N salesperson was unconvinced. So let me assure her and everyone else reading my blog: I’m real, really really real. Lots of you reading this blog have met me in person either at your school or at reading conventions and other places. Anyone I know care to cast a voice in my behalf that I’m real???? Drop a note to my blog and I’ll post it!
Signed: The real Seymour Simon (honestly!)
Posted by: Seymour Simon
March 4, 2010
A teacher wrote to me this week asking a good question.
When some of my students were using your book entitled Oceans, we noticed that the NASA photo located on page 4 was published upside down. It is a photo of the Earth from space and Antarctica is at the top of the page. Was this a mistake?
Simon, Seymour. OCEANS. New York: Collins/Smithsonian, 1990, pg4.
ANSWER:
There is no "top" of the Earth in space. There IS a north and south pole but it’s not that the north pole is on "top" and the south pole is on "bottom." In space, it all depends upon one’s orientation. The customary way that the maps are published is that North is at the top of the map and South is at the bottom. But that’s only a convention. If the Southern Hemisphere had been publishing Earth maps before the Europeans got around to doing the maps, the South Pole might very well have been on "top."
The map in my book is printed exactly the way it was released for publication by NASA. It is not an error.
Your students have very sharp eyes - good question!
Posted by: Seymour Simon
March 2, 2010
Here is an excerpt from a lovely note and photograph that I’ve received from Renonia West, the librarian in Miles, Texas. We met when I spoke down there in February.
I am the librarian in Miles, Texas. I just wanted you to know how much I enjoyed listening to you at the Literacy Conference in San Angelo. I came back to school and made up a center featuring your books, with pictures. The kids loved all the stories that you told about flying the paper airplanes out of the window in New York, and your going up in the plane in Alaska.
I have really been encouraging all the kids to write and be authors, so I told them about you writing your first book about space aliens, in elementary school. Also they were thrilled to see your autograph in two of our books that I brought for you to sign. The kids have really been reading your books especially the "Hidden Worlds" book. I hope you enjoyed your extra day in San Angelo. We actually had some snow here on Tuesday!
I love it that Ms. West is encouraging all her readers to be writers, as well. My "first book" that she refers to was indeed titled SPACE MONSTERS, and I wrote it when I was in second grade.
If you want to be a writer, the most important thing to do is write as often you can. Just as athletes begin playing sports when they are kids and grow into professional athletes, writers also begin writing when they are kids and grow into professional writers. If you want to be an Olympic hockey player someday, you join a team and start going to practice early every morning. If you want to be a writer, get yourself a blank notebook and start writing every day. And you don’t have to get up at 4am to do it!
Posted by: Seymour Simon
March 2, 2010
Many kids (adults, too) are asking what is happening inside the earth, with January’s devastating earthquake in Haiti followed so quickly by a near record-breaking quake in Chile over the weekend.
In fact, the two earthquakes happening within a few weeks of each other are a coincidence. Each quake was independent and happened along different fault lines and for a different reason. There should be no particular reason for another earthquake to happen now along a different fault line. That’s not to say that there won’t be many aftershocks along the same fault lines that the Haiti and Chile earthquake happened. There will be many of those. But there is no particular "earthquake time" happening now. Every moment of the year, someplace on Earth the ground is shaking and we call that an earthquake.
My family sometimes jokes with me that whenever anything happens, I pipe up and say "I’ve written a book about that." At this point in my writing career, it’s nearly true!
Here are some relevant words and definitions from my EARTHQUAKES book.
FAULT: A crack or break in the earth’s crust. A fault is caused by movement of the rock formations that make up the crust. The San Andreas fault in California stretches for one thousand miles from Mendocino to the Gulf of California. Earthquakes often occur along faults. [Fault comes from a Latin word meaning "to fail."]
FOCUS: The origin of earthquake waves, or the location inside the earth where rocks shifted during an earthquake. From this point the energy of an earthquake speeds outward through the surrounding rocks in all directions. [Focus is the Latin word for "hearth", the center of the ancient Roman household.]
STRESS: The application of forces, such as tension, that tend to cause an object to change its shape or size. Stress is expressed in force per unit of area, such as pounds per square inch or grams per square centimeter.
SEISMIC: Having to do with earthquakes or other movements of the earth’s crust. Seismic waves are waves of motion in the ground produced by earthquakes. [Seismic comes from a Greek word meaning "to shake."]
SEISMOLOGY: The scientific study of earthquakes and other movements of the earth’s crust.
With the earthquakes in Haiti and in Chile in recent weeks, some people are wondering if something special is going on inside our planet Earth. Is there a reason for all the earthquakes in the news at the same time? Probably not. The earthquakes in Haiti and Chile are on different faults and of different kinds. Both are huge quakes and the results have been terrible. But each happened independently and they are related to each other only in the sense that they both demonstrate the enormous forces within our planet.
Posted by: Seymour Simon
March 1, 2010
It has been snowing for days where I live in New York State. The roads were clear by Sunday morning and we took a drive and photographed the incredible sights, with wet, heavy snow coating everything. 
This photograph got me thinking about a fascinating exception that exists in nature. Most non-metallic substances contract as they get colder. Not water, though. Water contracts until it gets down to about 39 degrees F. Then it begins to expand until it freezes and turns into ice. So why is that important? Well, it means that when water turns to ice, the ice forms at the surface rather than at the bottom of a pond, lake or ocean. The warmer water sinks. That’s why ice floats. And that’s one of the reasons that living things in ponds and lakes can survive the winter at the bottom where water is still liquid and not frozen solid.
Posted by: Seymour Simon
February 27, 2010
Wet, soft snow sticks to the branches of trees and coats them until the temperature rises and the snow melts and softly falls to the ground.
Posted by: Seymour Simon
February 26, 2010
My new book, GLOBAL WARMING, is in the stores this week. Whenever I write about a new topic, I like to share project ideas and discussion starters that parents can use at home, or educators can use in the classroom.
Almost all scientists think that Earth’s climate is getting hotter. We call that Global Warming. Scientists agree that the burning of fossil fuels like oil and coal cause greenhouse gases to escape into the air and that these gases are causing most of the warming. We call that the greenhouse effect. Another cause of global warming is deforestation (cutting down trees). Trees take in carbon dioxide, one of the greenhouse gases, from the air. The more deforestation, the greater the greenhouse effect, and the more global warming speeds up.
Here’s how you can demonstrate the greenhouse effect with children. Take two quart-sized plastic containers or glass jars. Put two cups of cold water in each jar and add two ice cubes to each container. Put one of the containers inside a large plastic bag and seal the bag (the plastic bag acts like the atmosphere around Earth). Leave both jars in a sunny spot for one hour. Measure the temperature in each jar.
In sunshine, the air inside a greenhouse becomes warm because the greenhouse glass allows the sun’s light energy to get inside and then change to heat. The heat builds up in the greenhouse, in the same way that heat builds up inside Earth’s atmosphere. You just showed a small greenhouse effect. You can also see the greenhouse effect in an automobile parked in the sun. The sun’s light gets inside the car and the heat is trapped inside, like the plastic bag around the jar.
Most scientists say that the burning of fossil fuels is increasing the greenhouse effect and speeding up global warming. Since these fuels are burned for energy, and everyone uses energy, everyone can help stop global warming simply by using less energy. Think about the things you do each day that use energy. The lights in your house use electricity. The TV and computer use electricity. The washing machine, dishwasher and dryer all use gas or electricity. Every time you ride in your car, it uses gasoline. We can’t stop doing all those things, but here are some things that we can do.
1. Wait until you have a lot of clothes or a lot of dishes before using the washing machine or dishwasher. Don’t use the washing machine for just a few pieces of clothing or a dishwasher for just a few dishes.
2. Turn off the lights when you leave a room and don’t leave the lights on all night long. Use energy efficient fluorescent bulbs instead of high-energy incandescent light bulbs.
3. Turn off appliances like the TV, computer and video games when you’re not using them.
4. In the summer, close the shades or blinds to prevent the sun from shining in. Dress lightly. Use a fan instead of an air conditioner. If you have to use an air conditioner set it for two or three degrees higher than usual.
5. In the winter, put on an extra sweater and dress warmly. Set the thermostat two or three degrees lower than usual.
6. Plant a tree. A single mature tree can absorb carbon dioxide at a rate of 48 lbs. every year and release enough oxygen back into the atmosphere to support 2 human beings. If every family in the United States planted just one tree, the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere would be reduced by one billion lbs annually. That’s almost 5% of the amount that human activity pumps into the atmosphere each year.
7. Bike or walk short distances instead of going for a ride in a car.
Whenever we talk with children about topics that can be disturbing, it’s important for them to feel that there are things that they can do to make the situation better. In the case of global warming, they really can!
Posted by: Seymour Simon
February 25, 2010
Many teachers have been asking me why my website is not available right now - they miss the interviews, biography and other features that are available there.
www.seymoursimon.com is forwarding to this blog because my website is under construction. It will be relaunched in about two weeks with many new, kid-friendly features that both kids and adults will be able to use.
Thank you for your patience. If you’d like to be notified when the new site launches, please email me at simon@seymoursimon.com with your email address and we will let you know.
Best regards,
Seymour
Posted by: Seymour Simon
