Part 1 — A personal reflection: waiting for the right words

I worked on a project in 2009 in partnership with a colleague who taught kindergarten. This was before I started my master’s programme. The project focused on connecting children with traditional communities in Vitória, particularly the “Goiabeiras’ Clay Pot Makers” in Espírito Santo. We planned to take the children to a mangrove located within the Federal University of Espírito Santo and then to the top of a hill with a remarkable view of the river’s branch, the mangrove and a large reclaimed area where the university now stands.

On the day of the visit, I wasn’t present, but I arranged for a friend from the Department of Environment to oversee the process. After the visit, our goal as teachers was to engage the children in discussions to understand what they had absorbed. We were particularly curious about their observations, whether they had understood the process of catching crabs, the use of plastic netting (which was causing a serious environmental issue in the mangroves) and if they grasped the concept of the tides.

One of the questions we asked was: What stood out the most for you during the field visit? And one child, in a way only children can, responded: “The wind I felt on my face while looking from the top of the hill, it was the best feeling I’ve ever had.”

This response sparked many interpretations among my colleagues and me. Perhaps it was the contrast with the stifling heat they had endured on the walk, the lack of trees providing shade, or even the poor environmental conditions they experienced in kindergarten. But what resonated most with me was the realisation that what children take away from an experience often goes far beyond what we, as teachers, expect. As a teacher, I was waiting for the right words — words that I believed could be valuable and measured. But that day, I learned that their learning is deeply embodied — it transcends the structured knowledge we anticipate. And to this day, those words return to me, like the wind.

I found myself waiting for the right words from Ben as well, but they never came the way I expected. Instead, they emerged in his own way, in his own words.

Part 2 — Children’s words, children’s worlds

After receiving an invitation from Joseph Paul Ferguson for my son to write this review, I couldn’t stop thinking about House of Stars, a book rich with meaning through the words of Colombian children. This book inspired me in my classes with pre-service teachers, from kindergarten to university. Javier Naranjo, the author, is a teacher and researcher and turned it into a playful experience, inviting students to define words in their own way. By the way, House of Stars is how 12-year-old Carlos Gómez defines the universe.

So, I begin this review with more childlike insight, this time offering the definition of a child: “In charge of the homework” — Luisa María Alarcón, 8 years old, or “For me, a child is something that is not a dog. It is a human being that we must appreciate” — Johana Villa, 8 years old. The most enjoyable for me: “A child is a happy human!” — Jhonan Sebastián Agudelo, 8 years old. However, because I am an adult, I will insert another definition for children that defines an adult: “A person who, in everything he says, speaks first of himself.” — Andrés Felipe Bedoya, 8 years old.

When I shared the invitation with my son, he asked, “How can a book for children not have a review written for them?” Maybe editors should consider children’s perspectives too. And maybe we, as adults, should rethink the way that children write, especially me, as a mum and a teacher.

Ben’s review

The wonderful world of carnivorous plants.

It was written by Suzanne Houghton

The story is about carnivorous plants, and how important they are to the world, also for the food chain such as eating flies, spiders and slugs. There are different types of carnivorous plants. An example would be Venus Flytrap plant because it’s the most showed carnivore plant in series, books, movies, etc and when people talk about the word carnivorous plant, what is a carnivorous plant you may ask? A carnivorous plant is a plant that instead of living or feeding off water and the sunlight it lives off eating spiders, flies and other insects.

After reading the book, my mom and I went to YouTube and searched for videos about carnivorous plants. What I liked most about the book were the images and how the author was able to translate scientific language into normal and easy-to-understand language.

The most interesting part of this book it’s the images. It is easier to understand the science behind these wonderful plants that we have on our planet. The main message of this book is curiosity, so we have more desire to explore nature and analyse things. Do you try yourself? I think it’s really cool. Why It makes us have A new experience? The illustrations are very good. They help tell the story. Like can we see the image of what these plants look like? The book taught me some things I never knew before. Like, it’s got some plants that I didn’t even know it existed. And how do they do it, what do they do?

One of my favourite plants from this book is Betty’s Bay Bladderwort. If I could, I would rename this flower “tutu skirt,” like the ones from ballet. I laughed when I saw the image and laughed even more when I made that association. As silly as it might seem, I realised that associations create memories, and maybe every time I see someone in a tutu, I’ll remember the Betty’s Bay Bladderwort, a carnivorous plant.

There is a land in Micronesia that has a little animal, a mountain shrew, then it goes to the pitcher plant. He picks up the pollen and poops on the plant. Which I think is cool because he can use it as a little toilet and feed the pitcher plant. I learned this from this book and watched in the YouTube, Sir David Attenborough explains the strange symbiotic relationship between Tree Shrews and Rajah Pitcher Plants on Mount Kinabalu, Borneo (BBC Earth, 2024).

The age that I think everyone could read this book and the vocabulary would be 6 to 10 years or 5 to 10 At least more than 5 years, because I think younger children would find the book very difficult because of the vocabulary. A lot of science and stuff, but I think that children over 5 years old may have more maturity to learn these things, and it is important for education as well.

It depends on the friends I would recommend, like, there are some who do not want to know much about science. But there are other types. If I were to recommend it to my teachers, maybe they would think it was cooler. My friends want to know about other things. Out of 5 stars I would rate 4.50 stars because even though I liked the images and the explanations I still think there was some scientific stuff missing to fully understand carnivorous plants to explain to others that didn’t get the chance to learn about carnivorous plants.

While I was reading the book I also thought about having some Venus flytraps to eat the flies in my house so we wouldn’t need to worry about flies or spiders anymore, but I searched about it a little more and discovered that Venus’s flytraps can only eat 1 at each week so we would need to have other types of carnivorous plants.

The book made me think in a different way of how to understand nature. Some people would be scared, and they wouldn’t want to learn about carnivorous plants because, well, the name speaks to carnivorous plants, but I didn’t think so. I think it’s really nice to learn new things and have a new way of seeing the world.

If I could change something in history? Maybe I would put more plants and more details. And also type the habitats in plants. What would be cooler? Then I could put some characters, like Venus, it is the trap plant, Venus. Can it be a character?