100 Years Ago Today

Today is November 11^th, 2018 one hundred years-to-the-day that World War I ended with the signing of the armistice.

The Vimy Oaks: a Journey to Peace by Linda Granfield tells the true story of a young Canadian soldier, Leslie Miller, who fought in France during World War I.  Based on his field journals, Granfield extracts snippets of text that describe his observations and experiences as he goes about doing his job as a member of the Signals Corps.  Many of the excerpts are descriptions of the landscape noting the beautiful woods and large trees or the terrible devastation wrecked on the countryside by the constant bombardment from both sides.  On April 9, 1917 the battle for Vimy Ridge began and while fighting in this area, Leslie Miller collected a number of acorns that had been blasted from oak trees, mailing them home to Canada.

After returning to Ontario, he started life again as a farmer. Miller planted the acorns he had sent home during the war. This becomes significant in 2004 when Monty McDonald, a family friend to the Millers, traveled to France and Belgium to see the battlefields of both wars. He noticed, while visiting the National Vimy Memorial, that the landscape, though green and forested again, was missing oak trees. He wondered if the trees that grew in Canada from the acorns collected by Leslie Miller could be used to re-establish the oaks at Vimy Ridge.

The Vimy Oaks Repatriation Project was launched with the intention of having oak trees once again growing at Vimy Ridge in time for the 100^th anniversary of the end of World War I, November 11^th, 2018. The book describes the process by which the Canadian oaks are being propagated and then taken to France or planted across Canada.

The book has been illustrated by Brian Deines but also contains numerous photos of people, places and things from that time period. I especially love the photo of Leslie Miller’s field journal that shows a couple of sketches he did of the trees he admired and his beautiful cursive penmanship. It provides lots of context that will help readers understand what was happening and some of the significance of those events. The connection between the past and the present is perfectly encapsulated here. 

Also included are a glossary and index.

I recommend this book for the middle grades when doing units about trees, Remembrance Day, Canadian history, World War I but also looking at topics of peace. The planting of these oak trees is such a wonderful symbol of healing, peace and remembrance.

“They will call upon us to remember the past – and a Canadian soldier who once held hope and rebirth in the palm of his hand.” (p.33)

Buoyant! Lighthearted! Upbeat!

All good words to describe this breezy book, What Floats in a Moat? by Lynne Berry.

This is will a terrific addition to the elementary science classroom for studying buoyancy, floating and sinking, constructing things and experimentation.

We have Archie the Goat and Skinny the Hen arriving at a castle surrounded by a moat.  Archie, who has a leaning towards a scientific nature, is not inclined to take the drawbridge option, unlike Skinny. “This is no time for a drawbridge.  This is a time for science!” Archie declares.

So, we get a series of trials of different floating contraptions made up primarily of a barrel with various amounts of buttermilk inside.  The S.S. Buttermilk, filled with buttermilk promptly sinks when cast off into the moat.  The S.S. Empty promptly tips over because it is too unstable without any buttermilk inside.  The S.S. Ballast is just right – it floats and sinks!

By the book’s end, Skinny is no longer a skinny hen due to drinking vast quantities of buttermilk and the Queen who lives in the castle isn't too impressed when she finds out that Archie doesn't have her buttermilk.  The life of a scientist is not an easy one.

The illustrations convey the comic sensibility of the story. An author’s note fills the reader in on a famous Greek scientist (of the human persuasion not the goat kind) Archimedes and his principles about water displacement.

This will be a fun and practical addition as a classroom resource.

Colour me happy – Nonfiction Monday is here!

First I’m happy to welcome everyone to this week’s Nonfiction Monday event.  If you wish to link your blog please leave a comment and I’ll add you in during the day.

Second, I’m happy to introduce you to Red-Yellow-Blue: colors in art by Silke Vry (701.85 VrR 2011). I found this to be a very engaging look at the history of colour.  Organized by colour (black and white, red, blue, yellow, green, orange, violet, brown and gold) we find out how colors were used by artists from the earliest times, a little bit of science about light and colour, symbolism, mixing colours, and the colour wheel.  Silke Vry uses many works of art from various periods to illustrate her points, drawing us in and making us look closely.  She also presents questions, activities and experiments to make us think and experience various aspects of colour.

One of my favourite parts is the section about pink. Here we learn that pink’s association with girls is fairly recent (last 80 years) and that until then babies wrapped in pink blankets were boys.   I thought the blind-taste test of different red foods (tomato, red pepper, strawberries, etc.) was an interesting challenge.  And, during the Middle Ages the colour black was banned from pictures.

I would recommend this for grades 4-8.  This might be an art book but there are opportunities to bring in science and history.  Most enjoyable.


And, Happy Victoria Day! 


Here are today's Nonfiction Monday offerings:


At Books for Learning it's a springtime trip to a local pond that inspires a list of books including Jo MacDonald Saw a Pond, Pond Walk, and Looking Closely Around the Pond.


At Laurasalas, writing the world for kids reading All the Water In the World by George Ella Lyon, awes this blogger.


At Shelf-Employed, there's an intriguing offering, Seeing Red: the true story of blood by Tanya Lloyd Kyi.


At NC Teacher Stuff, Jeff looks at The Krakatau Eruption by Peter Benoit and its global impact. 


At SimplyScience Blog, Cool Engineering Activities for Girls by Heather E. Schwartz will teach and entertain.


At Jean Little Library, The Salmon Bears by Ian McAllister and Nicholas Read offers us an opportunity to enter the world of coastal bears living in the Great Bear Rainforest in British Columbia.


At Gathering Books, Myra offers an engrossing memoir The House That Baba Built by Ed Young.


At Biblio File, read about a fascinating life cut short, Dan Eldon: Safari as a Way of Life by Jennifer New.


At Supratentorial, another biography offered by today's reviewers, Mrs. Harkness and the Panda by Alicia Potter.


At The Swimmer Writer, Police Dog Heroes by Linda Bozzo is recommended.


At The HappyNappyBookseller, read a review for Best Shot in the West by Patricia C. McKissack and Frederick L. McKissack Jr.


At Playing by the Book, a whole list of books about changing urban and rural landscapes over time is especially interesting as it includes a few international titles.  A couple of US titles are Street Through Time and Popville.


At All About the Books by Janet Squire we have a review for The Cornflake King by Edwin Brit Wyckoff.


At Patchwork of Books, a look at baby animals will put you in the mood for spring.  Cheetah and Gorilla by Suzi Eszterhas are reviewed.


At Booktalking Children's Books, we're going global with a look at What We Wear: Dressing Up Around the World by Maya Ajmer and company.


At Chapter Book of the Day, Hockey by Blain Wiseman will tie in nicely with Stanley Cup fever. (This review is appended to Booktalking Children's Books.)


At Nonfiction Book Blast, Lives of the Musicians by Kathleen Krull is featured.


At Perogies & Gyoza, Plant a Little Seed by Bonnie Christensen will definitely make you want to get out and start working in your garden.

Science is everywhere

I like the idea behind the series Science Explorer Junior that promotes thinking like a scientist.

Looking at three books, Think like a scientist in the classroom by Susan Hindman (507.8 HiT 2012), Think like a scientist in the car by Matt Mullins (507.8 MuT 2012) and Think like a scientist in the backyard by Matt Mullins (507.8 MuTB 2012),I came away feeling that science is everywhere.  Whether I was looking at the weather to decide what to wear, wondering how many miles a car can travel on a tank of gas, or how my peripheral vision can prevent me from focusing on the work in front of me.  This ties in well with making science relevant and approachable for kids.

 

Each book outlines the premises of the scientific method in a step-by-step list starting with observing what is happening around you, developing a question, suggesting an answer, testing it, recording the results and drawing a conclusion.

The books then present three scenarios that are associated with the car, classroom, or backyard, giving us a few questions to think about in that scenario. 

For example, in Think like a scientist in the backyard, the scenario is stepping into the backyard and noticing the weather.  Depending on the conditions and the temperature I may need to wear a coat.  A thermometer can be helpful in deciding this.  A little background information is presented about thermometers from the 1600s which then leads into the experiment of making a rudimentary thermometer on your own.  Additional questions are asked, leaving me to answer them based on my experiment and to draw my own conclusions.  No answers or predetermined conclusions are included.

I like the format of the books and what they are trying to teach – that there is a process or method in trying to understand natural phenomena, that research is required, that guessing is ok, that testing is essential, and observing and critical thinking is crucial.  Finding definite answers doesn’t seem to be the focus and none are provided in the book.

There may be an issue with the publishers suggested grade level of 4 to 8.  The books look too young for the junior high crowd with the large print and simple, brightly coloured illustrations.  Unfamiliar or difficult words are highlighted in the text and defined in a glossary at the back.  I also wonder if some of the concepts will be of interest to kids in the younger grades.  The background information is fairly cursory, leaving me wondering on one occasion (p.24 in Think like a scientist in the car: “Astronomers use parallax to measure the distance between Earth and the stars.” Hmmm, how did they do that?), so I would suggest these are great as introductions to science concepts with the expectation of doing additional research, which is not a bad thing at all. There is a short list of references for additional information and an index.

Again, I like what is behind this series, the invitation and challenge of really taking in what is happening around us and working through the why and how of it. However, I expect that some younger kids will need additional coaching.