If you most vividly remember The Little Mermaid as told by Disney, with the mermaid princess and her prince sailing off together beneath a rainbow, now is the time to revisit Hans Christian Andersen’s original fairy tale, which is much, much darker.
The 96-page book, which is tall and perfect for storytelling time, features, of course, polka-dots aplenty to accompany Andersen’s text. Despite the Danish writer’s color-filled descriptions — from the absolute blueness of the sea to red- and violet-tinged sunsets — the featured images are culled from Kusama’s black-and-white marker series of drawings Love Forever (2004–07) series and some new illustrations in a similar vein. Her bold, undulating lines, however, bring Andersen’s narrative to life, covering pages with waving and wriggling patterns; fanciful plants suggestive of wondrous aquatic wildlife; motifs resembling tentacles and waves; and an abundance of enigmatic, watchful eyes.
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.