Friendship & Other Discoveries

10/9/2019

Nina Soni, Former Best Friend
by Kashmira Sheth ill by Jenn Kocsmiersky

Nina Soni’s life just got more complicated. She accidentally destroys her best friend's art project. Nina fears that Jay will no longer be her friend. She is stymied when her teacher assigns a Personal Narrative Project. She has nothing to write. Her life is as boring as plain rice.
Then she discovers an interesting phenomenon that will be the basis for her person narrative. To her dismay, she learns that her idea is the same experiment used by Jay at last year's science fair. She is discouraged.

When her sister's birthday party plans fall through, Jay and Nina come together and develop a clever solution to the birthday dilemma. Upon reflection, Nina realizes that retelling events of the past twenty-four hours will make an interesting writing project.

Crisis averted. Friendship restored. Assignment completed. Things are working out!

Nina has a way with words. She images that one day she will make a brilliant scientific discovery. She will name it Ninacillian, similar to Alexander Fleming's penicillin.
The narrative is liberally sprinkled with her unique definitions. Some are spot on. All feature her quirky perspective.

For=get-ful-ness means your mind becomes so full of new thoughts and ideas that it pushes out the old ones.

Former means once-upon-a-time.

Sheth includes numerous references to Nina’s Indian-American heritage, including traditional foods such as roti and kachumber. Her notebook Sakhi means friend in Hindi. The family watches Mahabharat, a long-running series based on the Hindu ancient Sanskrit epic Mahabharat.

Nina Soni, Former Best Friend is the first title in this series for young readers. Easy-to-read font, lots of lists, and handy trim size make this a good choice for early chapter book readers. Kocsmiersky’s black and white line drawings capture nine-year-old Nina's irrepressible nature.

Scientific Discoveries

If Nina can try this experiment, so can young readers. Caution: It takes a very large and extra-sharp knife as well as some muscle power to bisect and chop a dense head of cabbage. That part of the experiment is best left to an adult.

Cut a cabbage in half and chop into thin shreds.
Place the cabbage in a large glass or other stain-resistant bowl.
Submerge the cabbage in warm water. Let it rest for about 24 hours until the cabbage water is pink
Strain the liquid and discard the cabbage shreds.
Pour a small amount into individual containers.
Add one additional liquid to each container of cabbage juice. Label the contents of each container.
Record your observations.

Below are the results of my pH experiment.