Non-Fiction Picture Books Tell About People We Should Know

   Visit Alyson Beecher on Wednesdays for Non-Fiction Picture Books at Kidlit Frenzy -- hashtag #nfpb2020! Thanks to her hosting and sharing.  

       From others, too, who add their posts, you can discover and celebrate terrific nonfiction picture books! 

            I'm grateful to have received a copy of this wonderful book from Candlewick Studio, an imprint of Candlewick Press.

            I enjoyed reading this story of, to me, this little-known scientist who came to the same conclusion and at nearly the same time concerning evolution and the origin of the species as Charles Darwin, thus "Darwin's Rival". Christiane Dorion tells the story of Alfred Russel Wallace from his earliest years in a poor family, making his own fun by playing in nature. He had to stop school at age 14 to become an apprentice to his older brother as a surveyor. That experience would foster a love for being outdoors and learning more and more about the plants he was seeing. He brought them home and learned to identify them. Moving on to a job as a teacher, though not so satisfying, it gave him time for further study. He began collecting insects and studying what he was seeing, asking questions, the same ones he asked nearly all his life: "Why do they all look so different?" and "Where did they all come from?" He had started his lifelong love of natural history. 

          The first step was to plan a trip to the Amazon rain forest with his friend Henry Bates. Darwin had already made his travel to the Galapagos and was home studying his notes and specimens, trying to figure out his own answers to those questions above. Wallace went to the Amazon, then on to the Malay Archipelago for specimens to sell so he could study even more. 

Monday Reading - Reading & Writing Makes a Difference

              Visit Kellee and Ricki at UnleashingReaders and Jen at Teach Mentor Texts to see what they've been reading, along with others who post their favorites.  Your TBR lists will grow! Happy Reading!
          Share with the hashtag #IMWAYR

        

      Yes, it's May and we carry on! I hope this month finds you continuing to do well, finding great books to enjoy, time to be outside enjoying your family and spring blooms. Perhaps in a safe way, you'll get to see some friends again? There are still challenges and an overwhelming list of people who need help.  

On Friday, I shared Irene Latham's recent poetry book published last month is titled Nine, A Book of Nonet Poems, illustrated by Amy Huntington. 

Today, I have another poetry book to share, this time a poetry book for teachers to use when enjoying poetry with students!

            I taught middle-school-aged students for many years and it was important to me to teach (share?) poetry often with them, hoping they would leave me with a love they would have for the rest of their lives. Thus, I had a lot of books full of poems, and books for teaching poetry, too. They helped me grow my love as well. Now, Marjorie Maddox has written a book that I would have adored during those teaching years. In an exciting opening letter from her, she says: "Welcome to a world of mind-doodling, eye-dazzling, ear-bending, new-fangled, old-fashioned fun! Inside Out teaches writing (and reading) from inside the poem, with plenty of tips and tricks for everyone in and out of the classroom." 

              Marjorie's book is not full of explanatory paragraphs explaining poetry forms and poetic elements like other teaching texts. Her poems themselves are the explanations, as she wrote above and as the title predicts: "Inside Out!"  

               Here's an example of the shortest one, clever and definitely a 'show, don't tell'. 

Couplet

Poetic twins all dressed in rhyme

stroll side-by-side in two straight lines.

Nine different 'how-tos' (like 'How to Touch A Poem') have fun with the senses, simile and metaphor, then concrete and abstract (in a tug of war). Following are the wonderfully creative poems that each demonstrate a poem form! Sestinas are a favorite form of mine, but it is complex and not so easy to teach, or write! That's one best part about Marjorie's book pages. Her teachings are poems! Wouldn't everyone smile if they saw that a poem titled "Fishing for Sestinas" or "How to Write an English Sonnet"? Here's a taste of this one:

"Good day young reader, might I have this dance,

an English two-step, which I know you'll learn?"

               There is more! The second half of the book is titled "Insider Exercises", beginning with "Befriending A Poem". In these, writers are connected to the earlier poems through various creative activities. Explore more about "concrete and abstract" or "colors", perhaps "smells".  Direct ideas such as "write similes about eating spaghetti" and whole-class exercises in onomatopoeia. When teaching new topics, like these poetry elements, it always felt good to me to offer lots of choices, but under that same umbrella. Marjorie Maddox manages this with expertise in this new book about poetry writing, yet she remains clear in the definitions of the poem forms and elements. 

                 I'm sure I will use some the ideas in this wonderful book in my own writing, and as I said in the beginning, I wish I had had it when I taught!

     

            I loved Victoria Jamieson's earlier graphic stories, All's Faire In Middle School and Roller Girl. She tells stories that tackle topics that are good for readers to know. This one is a bit different, written with Omar Mohamed. It tells the story of Omar's childhood spent in the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya. Omar and his younger brother Hassan fled their homeland of Somalia when civil war broke out and spent the next 18 years in Dadaab. He did finally immigrate to the United States with his younger brother, Hassan. 

Poetry Friday - Sharing a Joy-filled Number

            Poetry Friday's party today is at Michelle Heidenrich Barnes' Today's Little Ditty. She has a special guest this week, Nikki Grimes, who is sharing about her new book, Southwest Sunrise, a gorgeous picture book illustrated by Wendell Minor. 


       

        I love life's serendipity. Even in this topsy-turvy world in which we now live, it happens. Irene Latham's recent poetry book published last month is titled Nine, A Book of Nonet Poems, illustrated by Amy Huntington. And, my granddaughter Imogene's birthday is July 29th, when she will be, you guessed it, NINE! Shh! Don't tell anyone that this book will be one of her birthday gifts!

           I was quite excited when I heard about Irene's new book coming out. Can you tell? So I'd like to share some of it with you in a "nine-ish" kind of way. Here are NINE things that I love about this new book: 

1. It's emotional! Read the poems about a runt cat perhaps using up its 'Nine Lives' but being saved at last "as small hands reach, cuddle" or read "The Little Rock Nine" that remembers those brave children who arrived ready to integrate an all-white school where they symbolize "One more brick toward/equality," After, you'll know how much Irene cares about all parts of life!
2. It's divergent! Irene has created poems that cover topics from "Dreaming with Pluto" to "Game Night". 
3. It's frivolous! Irene takes a step back from more concrete topics to celebrate "The Poem on Page 9" - "No/poem/dazzle-shines/like this one!" And, Amy Huntington's double-page spread illustration demonstrates that frivolity with a diverse crowd gathered together by a star-studded nine.
4. It shows potential! As readers read Irene's poems and enjoy Amy's imaginative pictures, they will begin to remember their own favorite numbers, perhaps begin writing a favorite number book of their own?
5. It's connected! A favorite number + poem topics of science and history + art make a grand circle of friends. The poem "Apollo 9" integrates all the areas: "Spider and Gumdrop floated in space–"
6. It's addictive! Amy takes one poem, the "Nine-Banded Armadillo" which "dances by moonlight" and places a tiny armadillo somewhere on nearly every page. I loved this added attraction and couldn't stop looking for it after I noticed.
7. It's fictional! One can imagine a place called "Cloud Nine" and Irene's words do that for readers: "Like a bubble, you rise and rise".
8. It's scholarly! The poem, "Nonagon" defines a shape new to readers, "Almost a decagon,/but not. Can you picture it?" The illustrations show that shape in a nest, sweetly home to robins and their babies.
9. It's marvelous! With examples above, the fact that Irene has written nineteen nonets for this new book and Amy has included a thread throughout that follows a sister (turning nine) and her younger brother through all the nines defines a grand adventure indeed!

         Did you notice all my adjectives are nine letters? I think I've become a "nine" fan.

         At the beginning, the nonet poem form is explained and then accompanied by its own poem! Also, Irene includes notes at the back giving some extra information about the subjects of each poem! 

          Congratulations, Irene, for this new and exciting book!

Non-Fiction Picture Books Dig New Stories From History

   Visit Alyson Beecher on Wednesdays for Non-Fiction Picture Books at Kidlit Frenzy -- hashtag #nfpb2020! Thanks to her hosting and sharing.  
       From others, too, who add their posts, you can discover and celebrate terrific nonfiction picture books! 

        I hope you are all keeping healthy and finding good ways to be at home and to help others if you can!

         Sad to write this is my final non-fiction picture book from the library. I have a few more of my own, however!

         Somewhere I have heard this story of Anna Strong, a woman spy in the American Revolution who used laundry on a line to send coded messages that were passed on to General Washington! For example, she hung a black petticoat when she wanted other waiting spies to know there was a new message to be delivered. She was part of what was called the Culper Ring, a group of American spies. They devised a code to send the messages, sometimes written in invisible ink. Parts of that code are given in the back matter, along with a recipe for the special ink!

        Many of Anna's relatives were loyalists, rooting for Britain to win this war, but not Anna or her husband, Selah, also a spy. The story shares that Anna, a woman, was never suspected or caught, but in the back matter, Sarah Glenn Marsh explains there is "no clear documentation that Anna was, in fact, a spy", but she further adds numerous stories and "indirect" proof that it must be true and was never revealed to protect Anna's identity. Anna lived in Setauket, New York in a home that happened to be well-positioned to watch for ships and share the information through secret messages like her laundry. In the author's note, Marsh also writes that this "has remained a part of Setauket's folklore and family tradition to this day."

       Sarah Green adds her own explanation of her illustrations, choosing to follow artists of the Revolutionary period and MOMA's Costume Institute for "a sense of motion and action." She also has included some framed spots, connecting with the look a spyglass might give along with including some of the numbers from the code. Anna Strong remains the central figure in most pages, showing her casual, friendly look while in actuality, she is a spy. The book includes some references to varied parts of this time that will inspire further research, like the Battle of Yorktown, an important one to the revolutionaries in this war.

        Extra notes, a bibliography, and an index are added at the back with the author's and illustrator's notes, plus the Culper Spy Code and recipe mentioned earlier. It's a great story to know from our country's past, just out this year!

Monday Reading - More to Know & Love

              Visit Kellee and Ricki at UnleashingReaders and Jen at Teach Mentor Texts to see what they've been reading, along with others who post their favorites.  Your TBR lists will grow! Happy Reading!
          Share with the hashtag #IMWAYR

        

      Yes, it's May and we carry on! I hope this month finds you continuing to do well, finding great books to enjoy, time to be outside enjoying your family and spring blooms. Perhaps in a safe way, you'll get to see some friends again? There are still challenges and an overwhelming list of people who need help.  

TODAY - 3 pm Central Time, Laura Purdie Salas is having a launch party for her new book, Secrets of the Loon. Find the details here! They're giving away copies, too!

         This is so well researched, filled with information, primarily about the book but early on very much about Louisa May Alcott and her family, with added information throughout about them. Rioux has written nine chapters, created in three parts. It starts at the beginning with "The Making of a Classic", continues on with "The Life of a Classic" and finishes with "A Classic for Today". I have read Little Women several times through the years and with students but had no idea of the ups and downs of this book as it aged through different periods in history and no idea of the many films and television series that have been made. The book was written before this recent film out, but Rioux did refer to it. I wonder what she thought of it? That final Part Three includes arguments for reading today, what has happened to it in the past and what may happen with it in this century. 

from my #MustReadin2020 list

          There are acknowledgments, an extensive notes section, and an index. If you have Little Women on your list of all-time favorites, you will love this book.


















         I finished these next two books from Candlewick Press, Walker Books, in exchange for reviewing. I am very grateful that I have these copies. I miss the library very much! And I have an order coming from my local Indie, Tattered Cover. The good thing is that they are overwhelmed with orders. The bad part of that is that it takes a while to get the books. But, I'm willing to wait and am excited for new ones on their way!

        An eleven-year-old protagonist, a Stalin camp in Siberia filled from his terrible 'purge', and an escape that turns into a magical fantasy powered (at first) by a terrifying witch gives a story that stumbles into scary moments nearly day after day! A young girl, Lina, is part of an escape attempt (approved by her mother as the only possibility to save her daughter) and is suddenly plunged into the freezing Siberian wasteland with dangerous companions and one true friend; a young boy called Bogdan. Thank goodness for this relationship which was a strong support as Lina and others face daunting challenges over and over again.
         A mystery concerning her parentage. Could her father be the vicious camp commandant? There is the overarching search for the grandmother that Lina is certain will help her return to rescue her mother. There are the tiny hints that Lina's grit to overcome terrible creatures like those in the escape group or those things called "ghost wolves" reveal that she might not be just a young girl wanting more of life than a prison camp; she might have some extra power of her own!
          This story that begins as historical fiction turned quickly into a fantasy based on Russian folklore (Baba Yaga, Baboushka etc) as the group, then only Lina and Bogey meet up with a sorceress and fight to continue their journey towards Moscow in search of Lina's grandmother. 

          There is more and more and more, revealing so many secrets about this mystery grandmother, a shadow child, a special necklace, and Lina, thoughtful Lina, herself. For a middle-grade story, I enjoyed it, but perhaps another venture into old Russia would fulfill my dream to have more of the story from Lina, her friends old and new, and her family. I enjoyed Nevertell very much. And I'll "Never Tell" all the secrets! You'll need to discover them yourselves!

         Thanks to Candlewick Press & Walker Books-US for the advanced copy!