Before you head to the grill, the pool, the fire pit, or the beach this weekend, take just a moment to reflect on the magnanimity of the Fourth of July with us. Penned by Mark Twain, posted to Walt Whitman, the letter below is a breathless tribute to human–American!–accomplishments, and it is one of the many spirited, poignant writings included in Why Freedom Matters, a collection of poems, essays, speeches, letters, and songs edited by Daniel R. Katz for The Declaration of Independence Road Trip.

Today we honor those who serve our country, who have died for our freedom, those who have made this country a better place with inventions, ideas, resolve, and courage. May your day today be complete with too much barbecue (or grilled veggies), vivid (but under control) fireworks, the company of family and friends, and a renewed sense of patriotism. We wish you a safe and festive Fourth of July!

–

May 24, 1889

To Walt Whitman:

You have lived just the seventy years which are greatest in the world’s history and richest in benefit and advancement to its peoples. These seventy years have done much more to widen the interval between man and the other animals than was accomplished by any five centuries which preceded them.

What great births you have witnessed! The steam press, the steamship, the steel ship, the railroad, the perfect cotton-gin, the telegraph, the phonograph, the photograph, photogravure, the electrotype, the gaslight, the electric light, the sewing machine and the amazing infinitely varied and innumerable products of coal tar, those latest and strangest marvels of a marvelous age. And you have seen even greater births than these; for you have seen the application of anesthesia to surgery-practice, whereby the ancient dominion of pain, which began with the first created life, came to an end on this earth forever; you have seen the slave set free, you have seen the monarchy banished from France and reduced in England to a machine which makes an imposing show of diligence and attention to business, but isn’t connected with the works. Yes, you have indeed seen much—but tarry for a while, for the greatest is yet to come. Wait thirty years, and then look out over the earth! You shall see marvels upon marvels added to these whose nativity you have witnessed; and conspicuous above them you shall see their formidable Result—man at almost his full stature at last!—and still growing, visibly growing while you look. Wait till you see that great figure appear, and catch the far glint of the sun upon his banner; then you may depart satisfied, as knowing you have seen him for whom the earth was made, and that he will proclaim that human wheat is worth more than human tares, and proceed to organize human values on that basis.

Mark Twain

I know we just told you recently that there are plenty of fish in the sea, but… in reality, that adage may be on the verge of irrelevance. Just last month was the one-year anniversary of the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, a solemn reminder that there is much work to be done if we are to save our oceans from disappearing.

Enter World Without Fish, a game-changing book for kids about what’s happening to fish, the oceans, and our environment, and what they can do about it. The book has been enjoying a bit of a media blitz since it came out. Along with this coverage has come an onslaught of Q&As with the author, with some useful information about what adults can do to help. Here’s a round-up of the best questions and answers:

From the NY Times blog Diner’s Journal

What is the one most important action most of us can take to support healthy oceans?

From the LA Times blog Jacket Copy

In “The World Without Fish: How Kids Can Help Save the Oceans,” you take some themes you’ve touched on before — fish, fishing, sustainability and our oceans — and address them to children. How did you make the subject approachable?

Because of all the books I have done related to this topic I have traveled all over the country talking to adults and children in schools about what is happening in the oceans and I have found two things. There are a lot of people who are really concerned, kids in particular, and there is complete confusion and misunderstanding. This is partly because it is a very complicated problem and partly because fishermen, regulators and biologists all talk in extremely inaccessible language, full of inside codes and assumptions. I set out to explain the whole thing in simple, clear language, step by step, starting with Charles Darwin, who explained the natural order we are trying to deal with. I use careful explained biology, politics, economics. I use text and pictures and a graphic novel that puts it in human terms. I tell what is happening, what will happen if we don’t fix it, how we are trying to fix it, what the problems are and what concerned individuals can do about it.

From The Guardian

Is fish too cheap?

Cheap fish is one of the big problems. I promote the idea that fish ought to be expensive. You catch fewer fish, they are of a higher quality and fishermen get better price for them. The agricultural people, like Michael Pollan, are saying the same thing about produce, which raises the question – what are poor people supposed to be eating? I wish I had a smart answer for that.

You once worked as a commercial fisherman…

I always wanted to be a writer and I had in my head that a writer should either go to sea or go to war. There was a war available at the time but the sea was a much better idea. I did it for a couple of summers, to earn money for college.

My most memorable job was on a lobster boat. I was a pretty strong kid and they just needed someone who could haul pots on 200ft of line. We didn’t have a radio; sometimes you’d hear this roar, see a dark shadow and realise a freighter was bearing down on you. I never gave one thought to how dangerous it was. I absolutely loved it.

Many years later I was on a commercial fishing boat as a reporter and I wondered why the hell I’d liked it so much.

So working on boats has informed your work?

It did, it gave me a great fondness and admiration for fisherman, and a love of the sea. Wherever I go I’m always drawn to fishing ports. Fishermen are a special breed of people, they are not salaried, they are self-employed and often working for a share of the catch. It makes them a very independent, self-assured breed of people. I like blue-collar society. Communities of rich people tend to be very boring.

You sport a fisherman-type beard…

I just got back from a fly fishing trip to Idaho with my daughter for rainbow trout. There’s a photograph in the book of me with beard and daughter documenting the first fish she ever caught, a striped bass. The great irony of it is that in a book that talks a lot about overfishing there’s a shot of the author with an illegal oversize fish. I assure you we threw it back.

In honor of DoSomething.org’s Epic Book Drive to raise money for the New Orleans Recovery School District, Workman’s Editorial staff have nominated their favorite childhood books: the ones they read in bed with their parents, named their stuffed animals after, and repeatedly checked out with their first library cards. Of course, narrowing down this list was no easy task for our book-loving editors–hence it’s nearly epic status. What books did you love as a young reader? Let us know in the comments section. To help kids discover their own favorites, check out the Epic Book drive! (DoSomething.org is the amazing organization behind Do Something! A Handbook for Young Activists.)

Here’s what we had to say:

Eloise, Kay Thompson; The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle

“It’s a toss-up. I love Eloise’s spunk and NYC know-how, but I also really liked making butterflies a la Eric Carle’s final image.” –Emily

Redwall, Brian Jacques

“Actually, I was enamored with the whole series… particularly Salamandastron, which may have fueled a lifelong fascination with badgers. The characters regularly sit down to lavish feasts, speak in their own dialects, and have epic battles—kind of like Lord of the Rings, but with talking animals. And what little girl doesn’t love talking animals? May Mr. Jacques, who died this February, rest in peace.” –Liz

Heidi, Johanna Spyri

“Heidi is not my absolute favorite children’s book by any means, but it holds a special place in my heart, because my dad and I read it together as part of a fourth grade class project (basically, read a challenging book with one of your parents). I went on to name one of my stuffed animals (a sheep) Schneehöpli after one of the protagonist’s goats (guess I didn’t have any stuffed animal goats…).” –Liz

Harriet the Spy, Louise Fitzhugh; Matilda, Roald Dahl

“I loved Harriet the Spy and Matilda. Harriet kindled my lifelong obsession with dumbwaiters, not to mention composition notebooks. Matilda, with her wagon full of library books, remains a role model. Both 1996 film adaptations are highly recommended!” — Heather

The Trouble with Jenny’s Ear, Oliver Butterworth

“When I was a kid my mom gave me a copy of her favorite childhood book, The Trouble with Jenny’s Ear by Oliver Butterworth, and it immediately became my favorite as well. The story is original and really charming: After her big brothers play a prank involving an extremely loud radio, Jenny finds she’s able to hear people’s thoughts. Over the course of the book Jenny uses her new power to cheat on a game show (by “listening” to the answers) and raise money to save a neighborhood park, among other funny adventures. It’s a book I’ve recommended on many occasions, because it still has its appeal even 50 years after it was written.” –Avery

A Wrinkle in Time, Madeline L’Engle; From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, E. L. Konigsburg; Beautiful Joe, Margaret Marshall Saunders

“Mixed-Up Files was a sort of uber-Boomer-kid thing—published around the same time as Harriet the Spy. Beautiful Joe, I just found out, was written in 1893! I had a paper-over-board version someone gave me as a gift—it might be the original anti-animal cruelty story.” –Bruce

Nancy Drew mysteries: Ramona, Age 8, Beverly Cleary; All The Babysitter’s Club books (obviously); Anastasia Krupnik, Lois Lowry; From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, E. L. Konigsburg

“When I was six, my dad would read me a chapter from a Nancy Drew book before bed. They always ended on these intense cliff hangers (Oh no! Nancy’s sporty coupe was cut off by a truck–will she crash? Oh no! Carson Drew’s seaplane looks like it’s in trouble–will he crash?!).  My dad would be nodding off and I’d be like: DON’T STOP.” –Maisie

The Complete Illustrated Stories of Hans Christian Anderson, Hans Christian Anderson

“I’d read the sad tales over and over, particularly The Snow Queen and Little Match Girl.”  –Netta

Momo and The Never Ending Story, Michael Ende.

“If you’ve only seen the movie, you’ve only just begun.” –Netta

Every book by Lois Duncan

“I thought that if I practiced enough I would develop ESP. I’m getting close.” –Netta

Welcome to Inside the Author’s Studio, where we give you a peek into the minds of your favorite Workman authors.

Today we celebrate National Potato Chip Day (yes, really) and Albert Einstein’s birthday by—how else?—stepping inside the secret lab of Allen Kurzweil, who makes up one half of the father-son duo behind the deliciously fun Potato Chip Science.

Recent book you loved/learned from:
Power of One (horrible title, wonderful novel)

Favorite bookstore:
Favorite bookstores, like offspring, should never be ranked. Doing so only leads to discord among loved ones.

Hidden talent:
Able to stand on one toe without the aid of ballet slippers

(c) A. Kurzweil

Bookmark, dog-ear, or virtuality?:
Unrepentant marginalian

Book you are most ashamed never to have read:
Reject the presumption of the question. That said, I am a bit embarrassed to say I’ve never read the Old Testament.

Most frequent form of writerly procrastination:
Don’t have the luxury to procrastinate. Kept much too busy pointing cans of compressed air at keyboard  and computer screen, inspecting contents of refrigerator, and searching Craig’s list for a left (driver’s) side view mirror that will fit a 1989 Dodge Neon.

Favorite childhood book:
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Alternate ambition (best if secret, never before revealed):
Monologist

Your perfect meal:
Beef, tomato, and mayo between two (center) slices of toasted rustic durum round. Unless I’m visiting my mother-in-law. In that case, I’d opt for her foie gras frais.

Big dream:
The perfect meal (See question 9 above)

Super power of choice:

Hmm. Novelists are already provided a long list of superpowers. (One of the most compelling reasons to write fiction.) However, if you’re giving me a chance to receive your garden-variety SP, I’d like to have the abilities of Longshot, one of the more underappreciated X-men. Longshot gets to mess around with probability. He can make the unlikely possible. Isn’t that exactly the power one needs to be a writer, editor, or publisher?

Favorite potato chip flavor:
(See question 2 above.) The potato chips one eats, like the children one raises and the bookstores one patronizes, should never be ranked.

Once you pop, you just can’t stop. True or false?:
To quote The Power of One (see question 1 above): “Absodoodle!” For independent and unbiased confirmation of this fact, one need only consult p. 58 of Potato Chip Science to learn that the inverse relationship of volume and pressure () presupposes that a piece of potato introduced into a propulsion pipe will indeed pop! when the proper force is applied. Thank you Robert Boyle for your thoughtful inquiry into the physics of pneumatics.

What Workman book would you like to receive as compensation for your involvement?:
The check book. Please forward this request to the accounting department.

——————————————————————————————————

Allen Kurzweil is the co-author (with his son, Max) of Potato Chip Science: Book & Stuff, and the sole author of the two books that inspired the kit—Leon and the Champion Chip and Leon and the Spitting Image.

Here is a list of a few things that kids love, in no particular order:
1.       Gross stuff

2.       Making a mess

3.       Making things explode

4.       Experiments

When you combine all of these, and throw in some pictures and facts, you have the most dynamically explosive and dangerous book, perfect for boys and girls who want to make things and learn about them too. We give you, THE BOOK OF POTENTIALLY CATASTROPHIC SCIENCE by Sean Connolly. Sean made his way through five cities and six schools last week, wreaking havoc and demonstrating some of the best experiments from his prize-winning book.

Those watching learned a little about friction with Newton’s Science Friction and got messy with the crowd-pleasing Edward Jenner’s Germ Experiment. In the photo you can see a group of 4th, 5th, & 6th graders from Knapp Forest Elementary School in Grand Rapids, MI, with their eyes glued on Sean.

The tour ended in Washington DC as Sean accepted the 2011 AAAS & Subaru SB&F Award for Excellence in Science Books in the hands-on category presented by the American Association for the Advancement of Science. Quite the honor!

On Sunday, Sean appeared at the AAAS Family Science Day, where he presented the great video made by the Workman Studio and demonstrated more of his dangerously cool experiments. Even The Washington Post took notice!

Cheers to our friend for bringing a first-place prize back home to the UK and representing Workman children’s authors!

Think you know your American presidents? Now that you’ve read up on the two commanders-in-chief whose birthdays—and presidencies—we’re celebrating, test your knowledge with our Presidents Day Brain Quest Challenge! Then tell us how you did in the comments.

1. Who was the only President born on the Fourth of July: Calvin Coolidge or George Washington?
2. In 1801, which President was welcomed to the White House with a 1,235-pound piece of cheese?
3. Who was the youngest candidate ever to win a presidential election?
4. Who is pictured on the $50 bill? (Hint: He graduated from West Point in 1843.)
5. Which President appointed the first female cabinet member: Franklin D. Roosevelt or Rutherford B. Hayes?
6. Does the Vice President live in the White House with the President?
7. Have more U.S. Presidents been named William or George?
8. Who was president of Columbia University before he became President of the United States?

Answers

1. Calvin Coolidge, in 1872. (And both John Adams and and Thomas Jefferson died on July 4, 1826.)
2. Thomas Jefferson. It was inscribed, “The greatest cheese in America for the greatest man in America.”
3. John F. Kennedy. He was 43 years old when he was elected.
4. Ulysses S. Grant (Genius Points!)
5. Franklin D. Roosevelt. He appointed Frances Perkins as his secretary of labor.
6. No, the Vice President and his family live in separate quarters.
7. William. There have been four Presidents named William and three named George.
8. Dwight D. Eisenhower (Genius Points!)

_________________________________________________________________

Thanks for playing, and happy Presidents Day!

—Avery, who is thankful for the 19th Amendment.

Presidents Day honors two of America’s early presidents, George Washington and Abraham Lincoln, whose birthdays—February 22 and February 12, respectively—fall so close together that they get to share a federal holiday. Before you crash into the long weekend, take a crash course in two of these most iconic of American patriots, courtesy of the “Presidents” Fandex Family Field Guide. Then hit the deck (of cards, that is) to brush up on the other forty-one.*

“First in war, first in peace, and first in the hearts of his countrymen.”

Add to this “first in the presidency of the United States” and you have a fairly comprehensive picture of the Father of Our Country, George Washington.

Washington started his career in public office as surveyor for Culpeper County, VA. By 1753 he was an officer in the army, and two years later he was named commander in chief of the Virginia militia. An early proponent of colonial self-governance, Washington earned his title as national hero during the Revolutionary War when he led the Continental Army to victory. In 1787 he presided over the Constitutional Convention at Philadelphia, where the Constitution of the United States was adopted. Two years later Washington took the oath of office and became the first president of the United States. It was Washington’s idea to have a cabinet. In short order, the Bill of Rights was approved by Congress and the new government empowered to raise funds by taxation. But laying the groundwork for the American government as we know it certainly didn’t go to his head: His diary entry for March 4, 1797, the day he relinquished the presidency to John Adams, read in its entirety: “Much such a day as yesterday in all respects. Mercury at 41.”

“Dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.”

Self-schooled, sinewy, and intensely singular, Abraham Lincoln changed for all time the course of human history.

In 1847 Lincoln began a term in the U.S. House of Representatives, forging a name for himself as a man of strong principles indelibly expressed. But it was not until the enacting of the Kansas-Nebraska Act, sponsored by Senator Stephen Douglas, that Lincoln’s righteous indignation was fully roused. In 1856 he joined the new Republican party and two years later ran for the Senate against Douglas. Taking a firm stand on the most divisive issue of the day, Lincoln proclaimed slavery fundamentally evil. Though he won the debates against Douglas, he lost the election—but won the presidential election in 1860. The challenges he now faced were grave—seven Southern states had already seceded from the Union. On April 12, 1861, the Civil War burst into being. In 1863 Lincoln issued his great Emancipation Proclamation declaring slavery unlawful in the rebelling states. The Union forces routed the Confederate troops at Gettysburg, and on April 9, 1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee surrendered to Union General Ulysses S. Grant on the steps of the Appomattox Court House.

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*Yes, Barack Obama is widely considered president #44. But Grover Cleveland was the only POTUS to serve two non-consecutive terms, making him #22 and #24. So technically Obama is the forty-third unique president of the United States!

—Avery, who thinks that William Henry Harrison (#9) could have been a great president, if only he’d worn an overcoat.

Okay. You’re going to think I’m obsessed with Maker Faire. And maybe I am. Or maybe the crafty holiday spirit is to blame. Around this time of year, I like to give gifts with a handmade touch — be they cookies, knitted goods (points for effort?), toys, or any number of household items crafted from repurposed fabric. So my apartment inevitably turns into a miniature Santa studio…. And what is Maker Faire, really, but a giant workshop bustling with high-octane elvish makers?

Relive the highs via this video by Workman designer Kevin Davidson. Featuring! Allen Kurzweil and son Max demonstrating laws of physics and optics in Potato Chip Science! Megan Nicolay transforming a T-shirt from Generation T: Beyond Fashion–while someone is actually wearing the T-shirt!

Perhaps they will inspire you to make something (explosions? fashion?) this holiday season. Back at the Workman compound, we’re busy making books to make all those things possible!

Watch Allen Kurzweil’s brand new Potato Chip Science video which just had its world premiere this morning at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C.

This morning, Workman will be livestreaming our first event.  Tune in right here to watch  Allen and Maz Kurzweil, the creators of Potato Chip Science broadcast at 10:15 am est, and 11:30 am est direct from Discovery Theater, part of the Smithsonian Associates program in Washington, D.C.

Tune in to see demonstrations of fascinating science experiments (or “snacktivities”) and the not-to-be-missed premiere of a hip-hop video from Allen Kurzweil and his kid-scientist crew.

Click here to watch live video of Allen and Max Kurzweil at the Smithsonian.