Non-Fiction Picture Books - Loving Nature

       Visit Alyson Beecher on Wednesdays for Non-Fiction Picture books at Kidlit Frenzy.  From Alyson and others, you will discover wonderful non-fiction books!

    “Time in nature is not leisure time; it's an essential investment in our children's health (and also, by the way, in our own).” 

― Richard Louv, Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature-Deficit Disorder

     It's so important to me that we all learn to love our earth, and that we share that love with our children, those we raise and those we teach. 

      Here are two books about two men who love the earth and show how wonderful it can be.

      

        It’s an inspiring story by Jacqueline Briggs Martin (Snowflake Bentley, Farmer Will Allen and The Growing Table, among others) of a man named Mike who moves to some land and discovers that where he wanted to restore a corn field back to a prairie, he was told there had been a creek. Through years of work, he searched and found it, and Brook Creek is born again. Gorgeous scratchboard and painted illustrations by Claudia McGehee show the journey, the ripples and new life returning to the creek restored. First came the big machines that dug and dug until the trickle began to fill the stream bed. Grasses were planted and in a few years, more rocks were placed. Insects returned to leave their eggs, birds returned to nest, and finally, a few fish called ‘sculpin’ swam into the creek. The book explains that these fish indicate clean water, the same kind of water where brook trout survive. The journey continued when Mike and his friends added small “finger-sized” fish, trout! The language is poetic, like this: “Perhaps Brook Creek laughed, too--tickled by trout.”

        Along some pages lie small-print explanations of certain actions, like how the sculpin ended up in this new Brook Creek. They are helpful to the story and subtly placed within the illustrations.  There is also author’s and illustrator’s notes and a small piece about the Mike in the story.

One Thing I Love That's Important

        You can write a slice for the Two Writing Teachers community today.  It's always good to read what everyone shares.  Thank you Stacey, Tara, Anna, Betsy, Dana, Kathleen, Beth, and Deb. 

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           Instead of bookmarking, I often use the "reading list" feature on Safari, and these past few days I've been reading an article or two to catch up what I thought, sometimes weeks ago, I was interested in reading. I've recently read an article from Orion Magazine by a man who has taught writing to prisoners in Arizona for forty years. You can find it here. In it, he has brought several points of importance to all of us, including our students. Yes, I think I will always think of teaching and students no matter how many years out of the classroom. One part he shared included words of Charles Dickens, from a book titled American Notes, and including some of the time he visited American prisons. In that time, prisoners were kept isolated from every contact with humans, even the guards. Dickens wrote: “It is my fixed opinion that those who have undergone this punishment must pass into society again mortally unhealthy and diseased.” The author notes that Dickens suggests there is a connection between humans and a natural environment, and deprivation of that is permanently damaging. The author moves on to today's current prison architecture which, he has found throughout his work, that there is no place for prisoners to experience even a blade of grass or a tree. They only might notice a pigeon flying by through the small slits/windows in their cells. I do not propose that I know very much about a prison's impact on the inmates after reading only one article. However, I do know the positive impact on learning that being outside while playing, exploring, and observing has/had on my students, has on my grandchildren, and has on me. 

           Those of you who are on Facebook (I keep forgetting about Instagram) know that I post lots of pictures from being outside, morning and afternoon walks, even noticing something wonderful from a car window. And often I want to "show" someone, or return home to capture it in writing or sketching. I remember many times taking my class outside to write, or to sketch something. I asked them what surprised, what looks like something else, how does the light change as it moves over the campus? When I did, they seemed both happy, focused and relaxed. So I wonder, how much time do you all spend outside, yourself or with your students if you teach? I know a few who post beautiful pictures from walks you take. Do you believe it matters?  It may be just as good an exercise on a treadmill.