NFPB Wednesday - Animal Survival

art by Sarah S. Brannen

         Visit Alyson Beecher on Wednesdays for Non-Fiction Picture Books at Kidlit Frenzy.  From her post and others, you will discover and want to celebrate terrific nonfiction picture books!  

           Looking at anything from a new perspective is a terrific idea. We don't always understand the "why" of how humans and other animals work so it's good to have books that offer examples from nature. Perhaps then we will begin to ask more questions that begin with "why" and also "who, what, when, where and how"! Anyone who reads Melissa Stewart's prose knows she will interest you in a variety of ways, this time with humor and questions for the reader. While showing the usual, popular animals like elephants and cheetahs, some we know about, Melissa moves into different territory this time to some less studied and their evolution for survival. Some use size to help them slip into tiny cracks when enemies arrive, like the Etruscan pygmy shrew and others like hoatzin bird or the zorilla mammal use repellent odors to keep enemies away. With the question/answer format written in tongue-in-cheek humor and connected to the text information, readers will want to shout the answers. For example, when asked "Should hoatzins and zorillas clean up their act?", turn the page and see the answer, "No way!" and the explanation that those odors make "hungry hunters lose their appetites."
        In the illustrations, Stephanie Laberis focuses on the animals in their habitat and action or inaction per their personal survival strategies. The art is flashy and realistic, making me wonder if this could be a mentor text for further research into other animals, for text and art. It's a great new book about animals that will add to anyone's knowledge about "Pipsqueaks, Slowpokes, and Stinkers" and call for learning more.

It's Monday - It's a Giveaway

          Visit Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee and Ricki at UnleashingReaders to see what they've been reading, along with everyone else who link up.  

           Thanks to Candlewick Press, I'm thrilled to offer a giveaway of two prize packs of a paperback of Zora & Me by Victoria Bond and T.R. Simon and the next adventure, Zora & Me - The Cursed Ground by T.R. Simon out next week!  Zora & Me is a new story to me although it came out in 2010 and received the John Steptoe New Talent Award. US & Canada only, no PO boxes!

             I have fallen in love with these stories, these characters. 

            Racial duplicity threatens an idyllic African American community in the turn-of-the-century South in a debut inspired by the early life of Zora Neale Hurston. a fascinating slice of history. Eatonville, Florida, was ‘the first incorporated all-black township in the United States.’ That was in 1887. It was also the place where the family of Zora Neale Hurston, one of America’s most esteemed writers, moved in 1894, and where she grew up from the age of three years.

           This early fictional story of the child, Zora Neale Hurston, can be enjoyed on several levels. First, the idea of children off on their own adventures through the marshes is something I would wish for every child. Second, to love that the idea of stories believed and imagined comes from a wonderful storyteller herself, Ms. Hurston. No matter whether she tells truth or stretches it, her friends stick by her and end up in a bit of trouble because of it, but they don't mind. The authors chose to let Zora’s best friend Carrie tell the story, of Zora’s created shape-shifting gator man who lives in the marshes, waiting to steal human souls. When a man recently met is found dead by the railroad tracks, serious, and grown-up, complications arise. This is a calm and comforting African-American town whose peace and security is in danger. Though a middle-grade novel, the story is complex, bringing family struggles in along with community heroes who know justice needs to be served. Not everyone, including Zora, understands just what that means until the ending. 

            Reviews share that this astonishing novel is the first project ever to be endorsed by the Zora Neale Hurston Trust that was not authored by Hurston herself.  If readers want to sit on the edge of their seats while reading, this is a book to read!

            Added at the back is more information about Ms. Hurston: a timeline, a brief biography, and an annotated bibliography.

        Now, a second adventure is coming September 11th, with Zora's family, the neighbors, the townspeople all here again, but the danger seems even more real. Carrie shares this story of a white man's challenge, a mystery that becomes connected as I read the chapters. Carrie's words alternate in chapters from Eatonville 1903 and a new place, Westin, in 1855, from where a young girl names Lucia tells another story. The children, Zora, Carrie, and Teddy, are all involved again, searching out new mysteries they did not know about their town and the people in it who were keeping them safe. Early in the story, Carrie says she didn't hold the scrapes they had against Zora, because "She made life in a town no bigger than a teacup feel like it held the whole world." 

      As the story unfolds, perhaps one can imagine it as connected to the whole world. Those with power try to take advantage of those who have little, yet also those who hold the goodness of human dignity above all else stand up to support despite the danger. Simon writes: "The men of Eatonville did not grow darker with the fading light; rather, they seemed to shine brighter in it." Later: "These men had fathered and made this town whole in spite of the hate of an entire nation." This time the tension is real, but the actions inspire.

       Yes, like the first book, this second story is complex and a fascinating fictional adventure that I imagine Zora Neale Hurston would have loved. 

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Now reading: One new from Candlewick, Merci Suarez Changes Gears by Meg Medina. I dropped that one adult book, just could not get interested, and also started Birds Art Life by Kyo Maclear.

Poetry Friday - Back to School

          Robyn Hood Black at Life on The Deckle Edge hosts our Poetry Friday today. She's "weaving" together our PF links starting with her spider poem that has appeared in the Highlights Hello and a fun picture of someone's sweet child reading it. Also, Robyn has another celebration by sharing bit more from Sylvia Vardell and Janet Wong's newest publication, GREAT MORNING! Poems for School Leaders to Read Aloud. Thanks for hosting, Robyn and for the wonderful poetry sharing!

        I spent yesterday after school, helping Ingrid finish a school getting-to-know-you project. Usually, she spends Friday with me and those afternoons are relaxing, finding fun at the end of the week. This time, because she's off to the mountains this weekend, she came on Wednesday and had homework, a BIG assignment due Thursday before the holiday weekend. As she worked and as I answered a few questions, I wondered how the days were going, already busy with school and the stress, but fun, of learning - new subjects, new teacher, new classmates. In between assignment talk, we did remember summer, too, and I had time to write this, for Ingrid and Imogene, for Carter in his senior year, for all those back to school. It's for teachers, too, but they probably have their own to-do list.

NFPB Wednesday - Across Time to Us

art by Sarah S. Brannen

         Visit Alyson Beecher on Wednesdays for Non-Fiction Picture Books at Kidlit Frenzy.  From her and others, you will discover and want to celebrate terrific nonfiction picture books!  

              Thanks to Candlewick Press for this marvelous advanced copy! When preparing for an exploration of space, I believe it will be a superb jumping-off point for studying our universe and outer space!

               It's impossible to ignore a book by Newbery Honor winner Marion Dane Bauer and Caldecott Honor winner Ekua Holmes which offers a story of our beginnings, from that spark from nothing through a BANG! To us! Marion Dane Bauer's use of verbs makes the story live, from "a cloud of gas" that "unfolded, unfurled, zigged, zagged". Then "stars caught fire. . .but still no planets. . . then no oceans, no mountains, no hippopotami." In brief poetic text, from nothing to many somethings, she arrives at another speck that "floated, invisible as dreams, special as Love." 

             Vivid celebrations of this journey burst with color in Ekua Holmes' marbled illustrations. Perhaps the emotion that sits with the words of this story make me imagine things within Holmes' art (is that a giraffe?). On other pages, the blending of molecules emerging can be seen within the swirling color, like galloping horses and dinosaur skeletons or an amorphous human shape.  This blending of science and art is quite a marvelous celebration of our evolution, made from "the stuff of stars".

It's Monday! New, New Titles!

          Visit Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee and Ricki at UnleashingReaders to see what they've been reading, along with everyone else who link up.  

       I'm grateful to Candlewick Press for these advanced copies shared today. The Dollar Kids was out just a couple of weeks ago, and the picture books are out early September!

       This story feels so good when one reads it, even during the dark times, but especially in the good times. Lowen Grover, a twelve-year-old who loves to draw comics, and loves to do it alone. Sadly, getting a younger neighbor kid, Abe, out of his hair for a while leads to a terrible shooting of Abe and other kids at the local quick mart. Lowen stops drawing, stumbles across an old mill town that’s giving away homes for a dollar, thus begins Lowen’s idea for an escape from his terrible guilty memories and an opportunity for his entire family to have a new start. 
       This risky journey involves Lowen’s parents and older sister and brother, plus several other families we see trying hard to make entirely new lives work. There’s a lot of learning here through observation of each character, many of whom have their own secret wishes. Even the townspeople who have stuck to the old mill town in its own struggles and who don’t know what to think of these newcomers are filled with varied shades of hopes and needs. Jennifer Richard Jacobson manages to write a story that centers on one boy, but includes the richness of family and community so well that I hated seeing the book come to an end. Ryan Andrews has added special knowledge of Lowen’s comic creations with his own comic illustrations throughout the story. 

        This was a surprise when I opened it, a different look in a picture book, enticing young readers to step inside. It's a chapter book and a graphic picture book in nine parts, a tale of a young dog learning how to be a friend. For younger readers, Rosie wakes up with her master who suggests a walk. In that walk, while gazing at clouds, Rosie feels a bit lonely, but when that same master takes her to a dog park, being lonely doesn't seem like such a bad thing. When she sees so many dogs, all of whom are new to her, she feels a little bit afraid. What happens next shows a few lessons for friendships, the "to do" and the "not to do". In wonderful, realistic illustrations, Harry Bliss tells the tale of Rosie, who is a good dog but doesn't KNOW everything there is to know about friends. In a few words, Kate DiCamillo manages to give us another new book that will bring smiles along with the learning.