Shelf Life – What Makes Day and Night by Franklyn M. Branley & Illustrated by Helen Borten

Teaching science to young children can be pretty challenging, especially trying to explain something as complex as the Earth’s rotation in the solar system around our sun. Franklyn M. Branley realized this and decided he was going to write a series of books for children explaining these scientific anomalies. In the series called “Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out” Branley explains different things such as earthquakes, the phases of the moon, gravity, and even humans exploring Mars! He uses simple language and activities for children to better understand these discoveries and get them excited learning about science.

Helen Borten is a Philadelphia born illustrator with a unique screen print type style who’s illustrated as many as 30 books in her career and written 9. Her style of illustration fits perfectly with this book What Makes Day and Night and its mission to teach younger children. It is simplistic yet refined and allows children to easily digest the information within the book. By using simple colors like yellow and red with black line work, the illustrations remain bold yet open, allowing the type to breathe and sit comfortably on the page.

It has been a long time since I’ve taken a science class, so this book even gave me a refresher! Plus, who wouldn’t want to look at these gorgeous illustrations all day? This is a fabulous book if you’ve got younger children in the house and will definitely get them excited about science.