Round up of science picture books

I’ve been busy reading of late and have three pictures books to recommend.

Bone by bone: comparing animal skeletons by Sara Levine is a terrific information book that engages readers with questions about what kind of animal they would be if --- [insert a specific bone size or specialization here]?  

For example,

What if you didn't have any arm or leg bones? What kind of animal would you be if you had just a skull, vertebrae and ribs?

     [turn the page] and…

There you are as a snake.

AND

What kind of animal would you be if your finger bones grew so long that they reached your feet?

       [turn the page] and…

Now you have an arm with a bat wing.

It’s a fun exploration of skeletons, exploring similarities and differences, vertebrates and invertebrates.

Flight of the Honey Bee by Raymond Huber highlights the importance of the honey bee for pollinating plants, resulting in seed and fruit production.   This picture book looks at the life of a scout, a specialized bee within a hive that hunts for flowers.  She’s a skilled navigator and will communicate with her sister bees the location of good sources of pollen and nectar.  During her search she escapes a hungry bird, sits out a rain storm and fights off the attack of a yellow-jacket on her hive.  There is so much information packed into this engaging book with its brightly coloured illustrations adding vibrancy to these creatures’ busy lives, it will be impossible to not to learn something.

My last recommendation is Farmer Will Allen and the Growing Table by Jacqueline Briggs Martin.  Will Allen is a real person with a mission to teach people the importance of good food and how to grow it for ourselves.  As a child, he took for granted the plentiful food his mother put on the table every night.  As a young man, he had no desire to continue the ‘farming’ traditions of his family and turned to professional basketball instead.  But a chance occurrence helping a friend dig up potatoes, reawakened his desire to grow his own food.  He felt that everyone, everywhere had a right to good food.   But what to do for those folks living in the city?

Will Allen had a vision and with lots of hard work, a steep learning curve and lots of help he turned empty, unproductive city lots into mini-urban farms.  His ‘table’ continues to grow by teaching people how to grow food in healthy ways.  The book ends with a letter from Will Allen encouraging readers to grow their own fruits and vegetables in whatever space available, whether it’s in pots on a balcony or in a backyard.

All books will work well in the elementary grades.

The power of Once Upon a Time

 The Storytelling Animal: how stories make us human by Jonathan Gottschall is a fantastic read about the perpetual story craving and creating that humans imbibe in constantly.

This is more for professional reading rather than for kids.  For all us story junkies this is a wonderful validation for our addictions but it also informs us as to the power of this addiction, too.

Humans need stories to help us figure out life.

And story is everywhere.

This is not just about reading stories.  It’s about seeing and listening to stories, as well.

The author recounts how a country song (not his usual musical milieu) had him in tears. The song is about a  young man meeting his girlfriend’s parents and realizing that the little girl dressed as a princess in the photos in the room is his girlfriend as a child and that he is taking something away from the father - that he is stealing the princess.  Jonathan Gottschall wanted to delve into knowing more about why this story had affected him so strongly.

So delve he does, into the nature, manner and opportunities where humans indulge in story.  Child’s play, dreaming, and everyday life with us featuring as the heroes: all  is story telling and story making and it comes to us as naturally as breathing air.

I really tapped into a chapter entitled Ink People Change the World for a couple of workshops that I've just done about the nature and power of stories. Education instructors wanted their student-teachers to explore this idea and think about how to capitalize on it when they will be teaching children in their own classrooms.

Gottschall tells true stories about real people being affected so strongly by a story that it gives them some life-changing insight.

Apparently, Hitler, as a sixteen-year-old, heard Wagner’s opera Rienzi and it so moved him he told a friend that his destiny had been revealed to him.  “He was talking of a mandate which, one day, he would receive from the people, to lead them out of servitude to the heights of freedom.” (p.140). Hitler told many of his inner circle that the opera “was when it all began” (p.142).  Because of Wagner’s brilliance as a composer, Hitler also tapped into some of Wagner’s political and personal beliefs – extreme German nationalist and strong anti-Semitism.

Besides anecdotal evidence, recent research does support the impact of stories and their influence:.

Fiction does mold our minds. Story –whether delivered through films, books, or video games – teaches us facts about the world; influences our moral logic; and marks us with fears, hopes, and anxieties that alter our behaviour, perhaps even our personalities. (p. 148)

And

In fact, fiction seems to be more effective at changing beliefs than nonfiction, which is designed to persuade through argument and evidence. (p.150)

And, one more

When we read nonfiction, we read with our shields up.  We are critical and skeptical.  But when we are absorbed in a story, we drop our intellectual guard.  We are moved emotionally, and this seems to leave us defensiveness. (pp.151-152)

I find all of this fascinating.  Stuff that I intuit but couldn't necessarily articulate let alone prove, is all here.  Story is important and it does shape us.

It kinda makes sense why people who are against same-sex couples get their knickers in a knot when they read a book like And Tango Makes Three, doesn't it?

Move over Knufflebunny and Velveteen Rabbit.

There are a whole slew of new kids in town.

Much Loved : photographs by Mark Nixon is a wonderful book that I'm very pleased to add to the Doucette’s collection.

This is a photo album showcasing 65 beloved ‘stuffies’ ranging in ages from 104 to 5 years. The portraits of bears, bunnies, puppies and one giraffe are accompanied by stories that gives varying accounts of the toys’ arrivals, departures and missing-in-action adventures. 

The real power of the book lies in the love that comes across for each toy no matter how brief the narrative is.  It is so easy to make an emotional connection, either through our own childhoods or through those of other children, with these VBFsF (very best friends forever).  And I do mean forever.  Apparently, there are some very indulging husbands who let their wives bring their childhood stuffies to bed.

The portraits are simple, unadorned with only a grey background that lets us enjoy each of the stuffed creatures in all their ugly-beauty.  And some of them really are not much more than tattered bits of cloth, knitting, bandages and fake fur tenuously being held together with thread and memories, I think.  If you’re going to lose your fur, then having it kissed or rubbed away are probably the better ways to have it go.

The actor who played Mr. Bean, Rowan Atkinson also included the bear used in the Mr. Bean series, Teddy, describing the significance the toy had to the character. 

One of stories that made me chuckle was about a newborn being joyously brought home by proud parents, ensconced in his crib and unbeknownst to the mother, tucked in by dad with a ‘manky Ted’ (a handmade teddy bear the husband got when he was born, now very grubby and badly stained by who knows what and I suspect, maybe a little smelly to boot) “beside my pristine newborn! I banished Ted to a shelf in the bedroom, where he now happily stays.” I love it.  I can see how the whole thing played out.

There’s Patsy and Floppy who are two very bedraggled animals, indeed. But the wear-and-tear they've endured is the testament of being well loved and are all the cuter for it.  These stories bring a tear to the eye easily enough.

One of the stories I found very touching was about Johnny’s bear, Mr. Ted.  Johnny was immediately besotted with the bear and went with him everywhere.  Unfortunately, Johnny died just before his sixth birthday.  His younger siblings were born after his death but played with ‘Johnny’s bear’ while growing up.  He too, bears evidence of being loved well with patchy fur, a couple of tears and replacement eyes.  This story is accompanied by a poem Johnny’s mom wrote about Mr. Ted and his place in this family’s lives.

I can’t say I’m exactly clear on how I will introduce this book to student-teachers or which workshops I will bring this to, but rest assured that I will be trotting this one out every opportunity I can.  The artistry of the photographs combined with these narratives is too powerful to pass up.  Children will want to tell of their own beloved stuffies as well as adults.

Check out Mark Nixon's website to view some of the pages and images from the book.

Award winning day

Tomorrow, Monday, January 27th is when the American Library Association (ALA) announces the Newbery and Caldecott winners for children's literature.

Wanna see the excitement?  Click here to watch the announcement live, 8am ET.

Or maybe you want to see what previous award-winning authors think about the awards and the impact it had on their work.  The following video features Betsy Byars, Tomie dePaola, Chris Raschka, Lois Lenski, Jean Craighead George, Virginia Hamilton, Zilpha Keatley Snyder, Janet Taylor Lisle, and Adele Griffin—all of whom won Newbery, Caldecott, or National Book awards.
 


Or check out Calling Caldecott winners at Horn Book.  It was very tight race between Journey and Mr. Tiger Goes Wild.  Good fun looking at all the nominees.

So, stay tune and fine out this year's winners.


Update: Go here to see the list of winners for this year.

Infographics - part 2

Prior to the holiday break I looked at a couple of books from a series that used infographics to convey information about specific topics.  That series was The World in Infographics.

In this post I'm looking at another series, SuperScience Infographics published by Lerner Publications Company.

I looked at three titles:

Life science through infographics by Nadia Higgins

 Weather and climate through infographics by Rebecca Rowell and

Forces and motion through infographics by Rebecca Rowell.

These are more specific in their scope than The World in Infographics.  With that in mind, each set of double pages focuses on a single aspect of a topic. For example in the book about weather and climate, there are pages that focus on the sun, the seasons, temperature, atmosphere, precipitation, wind, ocean currents and more.  Forces and motion covers topics such as speed, different types of forces, motion (of course), gravity, simple machines and buoyancy.  Life science includes evolution and fossil evidence, habitats, DNA, cells, life cycles, and extinction.

All the books provide interesting information.  The graphics are clear and well done, but on occasion, I thought that some of these seemed to be more like illustrations than an infographic representation.  SuperScience Infographics also includes a glossary, an index and a list of resources (both online and print) for further reading.

Both series are like factoid books in the end, due to the vastness of the topics that they cover.  They make good introductory resources for their intended audiences (grades 4-7 and striving readers).  Overall, I like the first series The World in Infographics more, but I would use and will recommend both series. 

Guest blogger - And she's back

Janet Hutchinson is a colleague and (I know I've said it before) a kindred spirit when it comes to books.  It's always a pleasure to swap notes and insights about what we're reading. Somehow, with Janet around, I'm never short on things to read and my to-be-read-pile never gets small. Also, she works part-time at a local school.  I'm hoping Janet will keep us apprised of what's making the rounds (reading-wise) with the kids there in an upcoming post.

Christmas is….books. And more books

I always look upon Christmas as a time to pause, reflect and read. (And eat chocolate. But that is fodder for another type of blog.) Everyone in my house receives at least one book under the tree – and usually more. Santa can’t restrain him/herself in a bookstore, apparently.  And, of course, I always bring home an armful of books from the Doucette Library, secure in the knowledge that I will get lots of reading done - you know, between entertaining, sleeping and Christmas “stuff”.

The Christmas “stuff” did get in the way of all of the reading I wanted to get done – but I did get some books read. Tammy suggested I do a mini-review of some of them. So here goes:

 

Words with wings by Nikki Grimes.  Gabriella is a day-dreamer. She daydreams almost all the time – and when her parents separate and she and her mom move to a new part of town, it seems to be the only place where she can go to find some peace. Her day dreaming frustrates both her mother and her teacher - but her teacher finds a solution that helps Gabriella, not only in her school work, but in her dreaming as well. Written in verse, this is a quick and easy read. Grade 4 -6

Rose under fire by Elizabeth Wein – Wein is an incredibly powerful storyteller. Her book Code Name Verity has to be one of the best books that I have read in a long time so I was worried that her second book would be disappointing. Not to worry – she came through in spades, at least for me. This is another book about women in the Second World War – this time written about an American ATA pilot captured by the Germans and sent to the Ravensbruck concentration camp. She meets a group of women – all determined to survive – and the bonds of friendship, the instincts we all have for survival and the hope that lay in all of them form the basis of the story.  It is another intense story – but one I couldn't put down (unlike Verity, where I had to walk away periodically to catch my breath). Recommended for high school and up.

The second life of Abigail Walker by Frances O’Rourke Dowell. I am always looking for good middle school novels and I was hoping that this would be a one. Abigail is one of those girls on the fringe of the circle of the “cool” kids – but when she decides to walk away from the mean girls, she opens up possibilities for friendship that are far more interesting and supportive. She meets Anders and his dad, who is a veteran of the war in Iraq and somewhat fragile as a result, and through her friendship with them, she discovers some of who she is, rather than who others think she should be.  I found some of the elements in the story to not quite fit – there is a fox that winds its way through the story – and that introduces an element of the mystic to the story that does not quite fit (for me). Abigail also has a very unsupportive father and a mother who seems  completely oblivious to her daughter’s predicaments with the other girls – although that may ring true for some girls of that age (the possibility of your parents being unsupportive and/or oblivious) they seem a little too black and white, even for fiction.  Overall, an OK read – but I would not likely go out of my way to recommend it. Grades 5 – 7.

The ocean at the end of the lane by Neil Gaiman – Definitely NOT a book for any one in grade school or junior high, it is classic Neil Gaiman (if there is such a thing). He captures nostalgia for childhood, along with some of the cynicism of adulthood. It is about a middle-aged man, who returns to his childhood home for a funeral, and in doing so, remembers the time when he met Lettie – a nearby neighbour who had a significant impact on him during a particularly stressful time in his childhood. Even writing that down, it sounds kind of mundane – and it isn't, I promise.  The story has an element of mystery and some common sense – and unlike many other books, the feeling I got when I read it seems to be staying with me.

Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell.  OK – a slight confession. This one I read before Christmas. But I liked it so much, I gave it to my daughter for Christmas – so it kind of counts.  Everyone is raving about Eleanor & Park, Rowell’s other book – and I read that one as well (but way back in September, so I can hardly count it as a Christmas read). Fangirl is about the internet phenomenon (can it still be a phenomenon this late in the game?) of fan fiction – stories written by a fan of particular book or TV characters. My daughter was big into this for awhile – and still may be for all I know, which is why I thought she would enjoy this book. The story is about Cath and Wren, twin sisters who were both into fan fiction at one time, both as readers and writers of one particular story.  Now at college, Wren is into other experiences and Cath is left on her own. With a sullen room-mate, an English professor who thinks fan-fiction is terrible, and a father who is struggling with life, Cath is not sure that she can do college and live her own life.  I really liked this book – Rowell is well-versed in the experience of being a teenager and the insecurities and feelings of being not in control. Her writing is measured and I really like her characters and how she develops them.  A definite high school read.

That’s all of the Doucette books that I read – of course, Tammy came into work yesterday and raved about several that she read over the holidays. And then a new order of books arrived. So I have added more to the pile. While I am glad that Christmas only comes once a year, I wish that the time between Christmas and New Years appeared more often than annually. I might get that pile down to a reasonable size.