What a great book to teach the littles the hard concepts in science! Push-Pull Morning introduces concepts like motion, magnetism, friction, and gravity through the events in the main character's daily life. It's very relatable for children, especially those with pets. It could be a book to sit down and read in one session, but it can also be broken up into smaller chunks and paired with an activity to help children further grasp the concepts that are taught. A good choice for middle elementary kids!

The poems didn't appeal to me, and I didn't find it clear what they were trying to teach. The illustrations were lovely.
Please take this review with a grain of salt as I am not a fan of poetry to start with, so it may be great for someone else, but it did nothing for me.

It’s fun when learning about a somewhat difficult scientific concept is put into context. Push-Pull Morning by Lisa Westberg Peters (Wordsong, February 2023) does for young children by showing a child and his dog as they jump and play together. The subtitle is “Dog-Powered Poems about Matter and Energy,” and anyone has a dog would probably agree that dogs have plenty of energy to use as examples!

Scientific concepts such as energy, gravity, inertia, friction and so forth are introduced in unique ways. Some might be predicable, such as inertia being explained by a dog in motion and a dog at rest. Others are a unique take on scientific concepts, such as the various “states” of the dog to represent the states of matter: a solid dog while eating at her bowl, a liquid as she spreads out all floppy in her basket at night, and a gas as she bounces all over, never stopping and seeming to inhabit every space at once.

The illustrations in Push-Pull Morning are child-friendly sketchy cartoons, which certainly invite a young reader in. Yellow, blue, and dark red tones color all the characters and the spotted dog, and black outlines meet at not-perfect angles, nicely matching the child’s first person narration about his dog. I enjoyed that this was a picture book about physical science concept, rather than a book like so many other science picture books. I feel like it is easy to find a book about life science (plants, humans, and animals) and earth science (rocks, the earth, space and the sky, and volcanoes and earthquakes. But books introducing the states of matter, the atoms that we are made of, and the forces that act on us are few and far between. I’ll definitely keep this physical science book on my radar for when I’m looking to create a science unit about these concepts! It is a great addition to any library.

I received a digital review copy of Push-Pull Morning.

In a Nutshell: A great concept but will work better in conjugation with other resources on the topic.

This is a picture book that has various poems on physics-based concepts. These come from the relationship between a boy and his dog. The dog’s antics and the boy’s reactions provide little readers with practical instances on topics such as friction, energy, matter, magnetism, and so on. There are extensive notes at the end of the book on each of the topics.

I loved the concept of the book. Physics can be a bit intimidating to grasp for beginners, so the idea of using a child and a dog to explain difficult concepts is quite appealing. The poems are written in a straightforward and entertaining way. Most of the physics terms come out wonderfully through the verses.

That said, a couple of the concepts (for example, energy and electricity) aren’t explained in their more popular avatars. Bridging the gap between the content of the poem and the already-familiar part of the terms will be a task for the guardians/parents/teachers.

Also, I would have loved for the definitions and notes to be presented before each poem, as they would have provided a better understanding of the concept before we see it in practical application through the two characters. Moreover, on each page, the name of the poem gets top priority, while the actual physical term is relegated to small print at the bottom corner. It would have been better if the name of the concept were given a pride of place at the top of the page.

The illustrations are as cute and quirky as the poems and definitely add on to the impact of each poem.

Despite the minor quibbles I have, this book would certainly be a great way of reinforcing some concepts of physics. It won’t be sufficient by itself to ensure a detailed understanding of the principles behind these physical terms, but it will definitely be a good starting point. It can also serve as a wonderful add-on resource in classrooms and even at home. Science when learned with real-life relatable examples is always fun, and this book proves it.

4 stars.

My thanks to Astra Publishing House and NetGalley for the DRC of “Push-Pull Morning: Dog-Powered Poems About Matter and Energy”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

This whimsical children's book will give you a fun new way to examine nature's forces with your curious child. A little boy and his dog and his wacky Aunty Rosa explore how the dog pushes and pulls, how sound waves hit ears, how sunlight goes into a body to warm it but is stopped by a body when casting shadows. A dog who rub on the carpet becomes positive with electrons and gives you a zap. A dog trying to escape a bath causes friction -- especially when your soapy hands don't have enough friction to stop the dog from running off. And so on.

At the end of the book are more scientific explanations than the poems provide for the forces of gravity, magnetism, and so forth. This book won't necessarily teach your child scientific principles but it's a good starting point to introduce many of these concepts.

This was such a fun read with my kids. Marrying dogs and science is a match made in heaven. Will definitely be reading to my kids over and over again.

This is a fun book which teaches science concepts from physics using poems about a kid and their dog. The appendix has a bit more science narrative, and fleshes out the book, but the poems absolutely deliver and teach basic science concepts, some of them even more sophisticated, such as magnetism and electricity (which still baffle me). Always great to find a way to bring science to our young minds and this book succeeds.