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Electronic Thursday - Cybils Nominations edition!

 

Twenty outstanding book apps have been nominated for the Cybils Award this year so far. I'm a judge in that category, so I am very excited to get a look at all of them. BUT I WANT MORE.

The Cybils are one of the best annual awards out there, for my money. Anyone can nominate a book or app in each of 13 categories, and then the nominees go through two rounds of discussion by teams of panelists. The finalists in each category end up being very nice shortlists of the year's best in children's and teen literature.

But do not take my word for it. Have a look at the current nominees, and then nominate your favorites. You have to register, but it's almost nothing. The nomination form is really streamlined this year, thanks to the excellent work of Sheila Ruth of Wands and Worlds. Easy on the eyes too.

Sometimes when the obvious choices have been nominated, it's hard to think up other worthy titles. So let me help you out in "my" category. If you have an iPad, or if you have a Kindle Fire or the fancy Nook or whatever - I think most of the good book apps are for iPad but I am open minded - take a look at these UN NOMINATED AS OF YET apps and... what? is it complicated? Nominate one!

A Butterfly is Patient by Dianna Hutts Aston, illustrated by Sylvia Long - review

I swear to God, I thought the last thing I needed was One More Butterfly Book. And I also thought, when I saw that this book had been nominated for a Cybils Award in the Nonfiction Picture Book category, for which I am a first-round judge, that maybe I had finally outgrown my susceptibility to Sylvia Long's gorgeous watercolors and graceful calligraphy.

After all, I am well aware that A Seed Is Sleepy and An Egg Is Quiet - I have bought those books, I have gifted those books, and I have recommended those books. They make good baby shower gifts, among other things. I mean, as well as being informative and inspiring. I thought there was probably not one more serene natural subject worthy of Ms. Long's well-researched scrutiny and Dianna Hutts Aston's tranquil prose.

But holy crap, I could stare at this thing for hours. Lovely.

So if you have Waiting for Wings and Arabella Miller's Tiny Caterpillar and Laurence Pringle's An Extraordinary Life in your school or classroom library and you thought you were done, well, better make a little room on the shelf. And give your kids sketchbooks and some colored pencils - they're going to want to go outside and draw something.

 

Something like this owl butterfly, caligo memnon, with a 5-inch wingspan.

11 Experiments That Failed by Jenny Offill & Nancy Carpenter - review

 

Ok, stop: the peaceful, rapturous expression on our girl scientist's face as she lets fly a slice of bologna in the school cafeteria would have sold me on this book even if I had not already been giggling, snorting, and cackling on almost every page prior.

I'm going to scan that page. Hold on.

Tsk. I can't fit the book on the scanner without breaking it in half, and it's a library book. I'm going to take a picture of that page. Hold on.

 

Look at that. That's a The-Hills-Are-Alive face. That's Elizabeth Taylor in National Velvet crossing the finish line with a half-ton of wild but gifted racehorse under her butt. That face - you just know it - is going to get in soooo much trouble in about fifteen seconds, but for now, that is the face of scientific validation.

 

Nonfiction Monday - Bobo Explores Light by GameCollage - review

 

Just press play.

No, I mean it. You want to know what an iPad does, and why? Just hit the play button on that trailer for the new children's science app Bobo Explores Light up there.

What an iPad does, and why:

 

Nonfiction Monday - Animals with Super Powers by Natalie Lunis - review, plus A Memoriam to Charley, a Brine Shrimp

It's a bittersweet day here on the Pink Me couch. The season's changing, the pool has closed. We recently made the not-difficult-at-all decision to finally ditch this bony old beast for a new couch, one with padding in all the right places, one with cushions that have yet to be vomited on. It's an exciting moment, but I can't help wondering if we will be as happy on the new couch as we have been on the - truly repulsive - Jennifer Convertibles sofa that I bought in New York so many years ago. The frog-printed slipcover will be going too.

Will our crazy pillows fit on it? Will we all fit on it? The boys are getting bigger, and nowadays much more likely to be buried in a D&D manual than in a Hardy Boys mystery.

Added to this seasonal introspection is a sliver of bad news that has hit our family unexpectedly hard: Charley, the World's Oldest Living Brine Shrimp, has died.

 

And the green grass grew all around - ecology read-alouds

Sometimes I get a request from a library customer or a friend that is so inspiring, it sticks with me for days. Our friend Doug, who is finishing up a master's in education sometime in the next decade or so, is working up a model English class for middle schoolers who have been studying ecology. He figured he'd read them The Lorax as a discussion starter, but wondered if I had any other suggestions.

 

Now, The Lorax is pretty much on the nose for this purpose, but it's long, and sing-songy, and might already be familiar to middle schoolers as an environmental cautionary tale. So I rubbed my hands together and thought.

Electronic Thursday: The Strange & Wonderful World of Ants by Amos Latteier - review

Inch-long "bullet ant" in the cloud forest, Costa Rica. Photo by Your Neighborhood Librarian.

Ants. Just the word, for me, cues up Sharkey's Day. You know, that dry, surreal, scritchy-scratchy Laurie Anderson song: "Sharkey says: All of life comes from some strange lagoon. It rises up, it bucks up to its full height from a boggy swamp on a foggy night. It creeps into your house. It's life!"

Ants are that kind of strange, that kind of miraculous.

Amos Latteier, a Toronto-based performing and installation artist, seems to see them this way too. Who would not? The facts about ants will blow your mind. 22,000 species! Biomass comparable to humans!

There are ants that function as soft-serve machines, ants that squeeze goo out of their larvae in order to stick leaves together, ants that farm, ants that herd, ants whose sting feels like getting shot (see "bullet ant," above). Ant queens can live decades. Ant sperm can live decades! Heck, the little black ants that live in your yard can dig nests five feet deep!

 

 
Leaf-cutter ants, Arenal, Costa Rica. Photo by Your Neighborhood Librarian.

I could go on half the day about the weirdness of ants. Don't you wish I would? No?

Notes from the insect world

I suppose it had to happen sooner or later. Most of my friends have gone through it already. Some of them have had to deal with it over and over. I'm just lucky I have boys, and I can shear 'em like sheep.

It's head lice.

Gross.

Nonfiction Monday: World Without Fish by Mark Kurlansky, illustrated by Frank Stockton - review

And what have we here? Mark Kurlansky, noted author of interesting nonfiction for adults has turned to our youth. I raise an eyebrow.

Nonfiction Monday - You Just Can't Help It! Your Guide to the Wild and Wacky World of Human Behavior by Jeff Szpirglas - review

 

Ok Jeff Szpirglas is one of my people, I can tell. Is it the pinstripe suit (below)? No. Ironic deployment of business wear is, at best, a heavily qualified predictor. Is it because, in a set of factoids about acceptable public behavior, he advises young people about proper comportment at a rock show ("Stand up, punch the air with your fist")? Not that either, although I will take this as evidence that he is one FUN classroom teacher.

Nonfiction Monday: Journey into the deep: Discovering new ocean creatures by Rebecca L. Johnson - review

 

What does it take to suck a kid into a book of nonfiction? You can't use a drag net, or barbed hooks. Robotic arms cannot scoop a child into a lucite barrel, and very few children old enough to read are small enough to pick up with two fingers and stuff into a test tube.

But those are just a few of the methods that scientists use to collect marine specimens for study. Rebecca Johnson tagged along with the Census of Marine Life on several collection expeditions and had a chance to observe firsthand all the going and the getting and the looking and the recording. She does an amazing job describing the research activities - clearly, economically, accurately, using sensory details to extend the you-are-there impression that begins with her use of second person narration.

And the spectacular photos of fantastic-looking creatures that accompany these descriptions - those are the seine nets, the robotic arms, the probing fingers that snag the kid reader.

Electronic Thursday: Solar System by Marcus Chown - review

 

Here is a sumptuous iPad app, a well-organized reference database, an appropriate use of available technological tools. Here is a distillation of fact, a coherent representation of material that is often too overwhelming for our petty mortal minds to comprehend, a layout that informs and is pretty at the same time.

Man.

Astro the Steller sea lion by Jeanne Walker Harvey, illustrated by Shennen Bersani - review

What do you want in a nonfiction picture book about an animal? I'll tell you what I want, and you see if that matches up.

• I want a story that will hook kids.
• I want photographs or realistic illustrations.
• I want any animal care professionals in the story depicted with rigor and respect, modeling correct postures and behavior for dealing with wild animals.
• I do not want the author to invent some internal malarkey for the animal. Not even, "Barty the tortoise was lonely." No. Unless it's a pet or some other long-observed individual (the chimps at Gombe for instance), humans may not presume to know the emotional life of an animal.

Dark Emperor & Other Poems of the Night by Joyce Sidman, illustrated by Rick Allen - review

What god of publishing comes up with these illustrator pairings for Joyce Sidman's books? It's extraordinary. I honestly thought nothing could match the pair-up of Joyce's precise word choice and Beckie Prange's precise art in Ubiquitous. The work of both women managed to be scientifically accurate and lyrically lovely at the same time.

But in Dark Emperor, Rick Allen uses an old-fashioned medium - linoleum-block printing - to illustrate the mystery and fascinating life of the world at night, and the synergy between the images and the poems is just as perfect.

There's something about a woodcut. The organic texture of the printed ink and the shape of the gouged lines will always  invoke early illustrated books. Compositionally, because the block of wood already has a shape, woodcuts almost always have their own frame, even if it is only implied, and even if that frame is broken, as it is in many of the prints in this book. This formal quality tends to lend the images a little extra authority.

Anyway, all that gallery talk jibber-jabber aside, these illustrations are just gorgeous. I can only guess how many layers of printing Rick Allen piled up to make such sophisticated color blends and juxtapositions. Each picture is a world one could sink into.

 

Isn't that amazing?

And the poetry, shouldn't I talk about the poetry? About the mushrooms:

they spread their damp

umbrella tops

and loose their spores

with silent pops.

"Silent pops." Can't you just see it? And smell the musty damp earth? Aren't you just a kid, scrunched down close to the ground, examining the miraculous weird perfection of a mushroom?

Well I am.

And I always love Joyce Sidman for providing a paragraph or two of prose information about the subject of each poem.

Rick Allen has this to say, in part, about the process of making the illustrations for this book:

The prints for Dark Emperor were each printed from at least three blocks (and in some cases as many as six) and then hand-colored with a strongly pigmented watercolor called gouache. There are definitely faster methods of making a picture, but few more enjoyable in a backwards sort of way.

Hail. Hail to the artist/craftsman. And to the poet/scientist.

Nonfiction Monday: Gaps

It doesn't happen often, but it happens. A mom, a little girl, a boy - most frequently a dad, and what does that say about men and reading and their interests? - approaches the librarian looking for a book that will assist a child in learning about something that he or she wants to know about... and the book does not exist.

Horrors! Gasp! But I'm not kidding here. As much as I complain and moan and groan about the formulaic nonfiction put out by so many publishing companies, I am also grateful that at least somebody has put out a kids' book on stem cell research, or Latvia, or Garrett Morgan.

Because nobody has published one (at least not recently) on radiology. Or star lacrosse players. Or Randy Rhoads (or any other rock drummer that I can think of).

Natural History by DK Publishing - review

I am intensely irritated by this book. Yet I cannot keep myself from paging through its marvels. It's like the Anthropologie catalog - you just know the clothes are poorly made and ridiculously overpriced, but ooh! that skirt is cute!

Billed as "A landmark in reference publishing,' it is instead, like many DK books, useless as a guide in any practical sense. "Over 5000" species are pictured, with little captions, grouped in taxonomic order. But the taxa are only explained in the most rudimentary terms - "The plants in this order are genetically similar but physically different." Oh? In what way? Further, there is no indication of scale, no habitat context, and, while 5000 may sound like a lot? It's not.

Summer Birds: The butterflies of Maria Merian, by Margarita Engle, pictures by Julie Paschkis - review

Oh, here's a picture book that was just WAITING to be written. Maria Sibylla Merian, 1647-1717, was a scientific illustrator who grew up in Germany but did her most famous work in Suriname.

Look at those dates. Then think, "Suriname?" Yes my skeptical friend. In 1693, at the age of 52, Maria Merian went to South America with her sister to draw animals. Just to give some context - what else happened in 1693? Well, Louis the XIV was king. The Amish split from the Anabaptists that year. The last dodo died. And two middle-aged German women hiked up their skirts and went to South America.

Ubiquitous: Celebrating Nature's Survivors, poetry by Joyce Sidman, illustrations by Beckie Prange - review

When she was a kid, a woman I used to know wrote a song about a lizard for a science report. I haven't seen this woman in 25 years, but that song sticks with me:

I don't wanna (clap clap) Be an iguana (clap clap)
They have long nails
And spiny tails.
I don't wanna (clap clap)
Be an iguana (clap clap).

I don't wanna be an iguana, by Amanda Bailey, submitted in partial fulfilment of the elementary science requirement at Little Red School House, Greenwich Village, NYC, sometime in the 1970's.

Amanda, wherever you are, I hope you get your hands on this new book of poetry by Joyce Sidman. You'll like it: there's a gecko on the cover, his tail curling around the spine of the book, crunching on some unfortunate winged insect. If you're like me, and you were in 1985, you approve of poetry with a body count. And check this out:

Zig and Wikki in Something Ate My Homework by Nadja Spiegelman and Trade Loeffler - review

TOON Books loves them some old-fashioned, well-crafted comic illustration style. I read a lot of graphic novels for kids - basically, I read all of them - and it is always so soothing to open up a TOON book. The color palette is consistent and harmonious, there is contrast between backgrounds and foregrounds, shapes are easy to read. TOON artists deploy standard techniques and visual cues like motion lines, graphic text (ZOOM!), and using selective detail to indicate large areas of foliage or other flora, and they do these things well. This stuff is worth learning, and worth doing. It makes the reader's job easier, and especially when you're drawing for new readers, that should be a major consideration.

All right, that's my lecture for the week. Oh, except call me a fuddy-duddy, but I think using pens and brushes to draw children's comics is the way to go. Unless you are VERY good at digital illustration (Bob Staake), you can end up with a monotony of line value that makes it difficult to distinguish the main subject of a drawing.

God I'm such a geek.

Ok. Shake it off, baby. What's the what with Zig and Wikki? What's with those wacky names? How come there's a raccoon on the cover? Is my kid going to snatch this up or what?

Compost Stew: An A to Z Recipe for the Earth by Mary McKenna Siddals, illustrated by Ashley Wolff - review

So engaging and interesting, I didn't realize it was also an ABC book until I reached the letter W! Ashley Wolff's collage and gouache illustrations incorporate so many subject-appropriate scraps - food wrappers, newspaper, pictures of food and flowers - that each page is a treasure hunt. A multicultural cast of children load up the composter with garden waste, kitchen scraps, and all kinds of things that would otherwise go in the garbage. Fun to read and informative to boot.

Winnie Finn, Worm Farmer, by Carol Brendler, pictures by Ard Hoyt - review

Winnie Finn, Worm Farmer, by Carol Brendler, pictures by Ard Hoyt

Here's one to keep in mind when selection season rolls around, that is, IF your school does a soil unit, OR a food webs unit, OR plants a garden on school property somewhere, OR teaches about composting. So, yes, that means YOUR school. Certainly MY schools.

Winnie Finn is a worm aficionado. Knows all the funky facts about worms. Would like broader awareness of her area of expertise. Starts thinking about the county fair. Realizes that, no, you can't pin a blue ribbon on a worm... but she can get a share of the prize money by helping her friends and neighbors with their projects.

She constructs a worm composter out of cast-off items, feeds it with table scraps and chicken poop, and soon has rich worm castings, which she gives to the corn farmer in exchange for corn, which she hands over to the chicken lady in exchange for eggs that she passes along to a dog breeder. All three win prizes (tall corn, heavy layers, shiny puppies) and share their winnings with Winnie, who invests in new equipment and is well on her way to becoming a tycoon in the new barter economy we're hearing so much about.

Ard Hoyt's illustrations, are, as usual, lively and fun, with cute details (Winnie's cat is not as enthusiastic about worms as Winnie is). Winnie herself is bright-eyed and tomboyish, but with beads around her neck and a flower on her orange visor. With instructions for building your own worm farm in the back, this book may be shelved as a picture book, but it is well worth remembering as a curriculum support as well.

Prowling the Seas: Exploring the hidden world of ocean predators, by Pamela S. Turner - review

Prowling the Seas: Exploring the hidden world of ocean predators, by Pamela S. Turner

Ok, I want Pam Turner's job.

And before you point out the obvious, I am aware that I have no excuse - Pam Turner obviously decided that her job was going to be tagging along with and interviewing biologists doing fieldwork. I know perfectly well that it's not like somebody called her up and said, "Hey, Pam Turner! Pack yer stuff, you're gonna go catch frogs with herpetologist (and fashion icon) Tyrone Hayes!" So, conceivably, you or I could wake up one morning, snap on our research gloves, and write a book proposal about a nineteen-year-old ornithologist who was recruited to spend six years in the Congo doing biology.

She didn't write that book. I'm thinking about writing that book.

But she wrote Prowling the Seas. She contacted the brilliant and dedicated folks at the Tagging of Pacific Predators Project (TOPP), listened and watched them and learned and read and asked questions, and produced this good little book, perfect for, say third grade and up. Four species are profiled, with strong, clear photographs (mostly provided by the researchers themselves), an outline of each animal's life cycle, maps of migration routes, and real-life episodes from the scientists' experience tracking the beasts.

We learn about white sharks, bluefin tuna, leatherback turtles, and the sooty shearwater, a predatory seabird. Interesting choice of animals, don't you think? Now the shark, of course - he's what you call charismatic megafauna: big and scary and high-profile. Ever since Jaws, you've got to contact Mr. Shark through his agent. And everybody loves a sea turtle. We were on Jekyll Island last spring when an injured sea turtle named Dylan was released back into the sea, and there must have been a thousand people on the beach to wave goodbye him. You'd have thought he was, you know, Dylan. Or at least... Dylan.

Gratifying, then, to see the tuna and the shearwater getting the same kind of attention as these more-celebrated species. The tuna, especially, is a lot more interesting than you'd have thought. And the picture of the researcher with his whole arm shoved down a shearwater burrow to retrieve a chick? Oh man, that is one dedicated biologist.

The TOPP personnel are doing a lot to extend our knowledge of these predator species, some of which, due to their pesky habits of diving deep and/or flying high over some of the most little-traveled segments of the globe, have life cycles, or at least life stages, that are considered cryptic. ("Cryptic life stage" - I spent the last twenty minutes trying to remember that phrase. How cool would it be to have a "cryptic life stage" as part of your own biography?)

This book makes it clear that by studying these animals, we can gain a more accurate picture of changing patterns in the sea, and in the air. And that's on top of learning cool things about interesting animals.

In the belly of an ox: The unexpected photographic adventures of Richard and Cherry Kearton, written and illustrated by Rebecca Bond - review

In the belly of an ox: The unexpected photographic adventures of Richard and Cherry Kearton, written and illustrated by Rebecca Bond

Richard and Cherry Kearton - brothers, cap-wearers, English guys - loved the outdoors, and they loved taking pictures. They published the very first natural history book illustrated with photographs instead of drawings.

Now. How can I put this without sounding boring?

Their work democratized the study of nature in England and abroad. Ok that's boring. But listen: before these guys, natural history books were illustrated with beautiful etchings, color lithographs, et cetera. 

 

Even the least idealized images of birds, beasts, and habitats in even the least intimidating book on natural history (such as the 40-volume, moderately-priced The Naturalist's Library) could not bring the real, observable natural world into a person's hand the way that one of the Kearton's photographs of a nest could. Before the Keartons, it might be said that the habit of observing nature for its own sake was limited to upper-class eccentrics, scientists, and eccentric scientists. The Keartons' photographs showed that the wonders of nature were accessible to anyone, and that even a goose on her nest was in its own way wonderful.

Still boring. Crap, sorry. It's a subject I know a lot about. I helped manage the photo collection at the American Museum of Natural History for a few years. So I get a little excited.

But don't think that I'm giving this book an enthusiastic endorsement only because I find the subject interesting. I just read a new kids' biography of George Eastman, and I had to say meh, even though I think he was fascinating, and even though I was very pleased that the book emphasized his philanthropy. I just found it to be over-story-fied. Not every person's story resolves into exciting little mountain ranges of plot, and trying to force it to do so is doing nobody any favors.

The Kearneys, for example, did not have the most electrifying lives. They were happy boys in the country, then they were somewhat less happy men in the city. The story ramps up slowly, until Richard and Cherry are designing their own blinds so that they can photograph wildlife without scaring off the critters. Cherry hides under a blanket, in a haystack, and in a fake tree. They commission a fake ox from a taxidermist in London, and Cherry hides inside that, too.

When their book comes out, in 1895, it is a success. They spend the rest of their lives traveling and taking pictures.

Rebecca Bond does not try to blow this story up big. Her prose, like her watercolors, is calm and warm as she strolls through the Kearneys' lives up to and including publication of that first book. She bases many of her illustrations on photographs that they took of each other in the field - Cherry rappelling down a cliff, carrying the fake ox, standing in a river. Most satisfyingly, these photographs are reproduced in the back of the book, along with endnotes and a bibliography.

This book contains plenty of information for a brief report, or to get a kid started on his own research - and yet, it is simple (and interesting) enough to be read aloud to a group. I also have every confidence that there will be children who absorb the information about the Kearneys' methods and results, and who go out to try some wildlife photography of their own. Maybe my kids.

Never Smile at a Monkey: And 17 Other Important Things to Remember by Steve Jenkins - review

Never Smile at a Monkey: And 17 Other Important Things to Remember by Steve Jenkins

Funny, alarming, great to look at - everything you expect from Steve Jenkins. My kids sat and made a list of Places Not to Go based on the habitats of the bad-tempered, venomous, sharp-featured, combative, paranoid, and/or fiercely territorial beasts of this book.

I mean, for example: why the hell is there a 2-inch-long caterpillar that can KILL a human? Where's the evolutionary advantage in that? On the other hand, the plots of many an action-adventure movie could be enhanced by the insertion of, for example, box jellyfish. Or a Humboldt squid. Do your reading, folks!

The cover bears special mention - confrontational and modern looking, it puts me in mind of the work of, oh, who was that woman with the red Helvetica statements against the black and white photographic images? Hm. Barbara Kruger.

My cousin sends this image - I'm guessing it's from a zoo in Japan.

Actually, my experience with monkeys indicates that they will poop on you if displeased, but I'm sure biting is another option.

Really, Really BIG questions by Dr. Stephen Law - review

Really, Really BIG questions about life, the universe, and everything by Dr. Stephen Law, illustrated by Nishant Choksi (and gentlemen, when the illustrations are as important to the book as these illustrations are, you PUT the illustrator's NAME on the COVER. Respect!)

I would like to organize my thoughts about this book. To do it justice. Because the book is certainly well-organized. It takes major philosophical questions - both the eternal ones, like "How can I tell right from wrong?" and the excruciatingly current ones, like "Did someone design the universe?" - breaks them down gently, and then finds accessible, often amusing analogies to go about finding the answers.

Many questions are left unanswered. Most, even, I'd say.

"How can we decide who is right about eating animals? We all agree it's wrong to kill and eat humans. But many of us think it's okay to eat other animals. And if it is okay, what's the difference between humans and other animals that makes it okay? Can you think of such a difference?"

That is the end of the segment on "Should we eat animals?" The author builds a solid platform of known vs. unknown logical quantities, and tops his structure with a challenge to the reader, all the while using friendly, down-to-earth language and a tone that never feels lecture-y.

There are a couple of areas that possibly - hmm - skirt the edge of oversimplifying. A discussion of observation and evidence avoids use of the word "experience," even though experience is an important tool that we use to collect data about and forge expectations of our world. I think this omission is intentional - because so many fallacious arguments are based on experience. But it would be churlish of anyone to deny this book based on such minor elisions.

Dr. Law has something of a cottage industry in teaching philosophy to non-philosophers. He is the editor of the journal Think, (somewhat pompously subtitled "Philosophy for everyone") and is the author of three well-received books about philosophy for older children. He even wrote the DK Eyewitness Philosophy book. Really Really Big Questions is his attempt to reach the youngest readers yet.

The design integrates the text blocks, headlines, and the funny, bold, retro-contempo style cartoons in a very up-to-date way, with lots of white space and big eroded type. Well, not "white" space. Every high-tooth page is full-bleed in a different bright color. A little hard to read? Eh, a little.

Extra points for a diverse cast of characters: boys, girls, grownups, kids, white, brown, green, gray (lots of aliens - and also robots!). And in case you got a little glimmer of recognition from that subtitle ("life, the universe, and everything"), there's an excellent piece of logic from Douglas Adams on page 15. Extra points for quoting Douglas Adams.

One K-5 school library, coming up! The 000's

Checking out the picture books

Late this summer an entire library of books was delivered to a new school in Baltimore. I should know - I picked all 2,254 of them. It was what you might call a labor of love. Emphasis on the "labor". Actually, emphasis on the love.

As we shelved what amounted to thirty thousand dollars worth of brand-new beautiful books, one of our parent volunteers said, "I bet you've read half the books in this room!" I did a quick scan of a few shelves and admitted that actually, I have read probably upwards of 75% of them. Most of the fiction, all of the picture books, and one heck of a lot of the nonfiction. Wow. I am either really really sad or really really dedicated.

You may hire me to create or maintain your school library collection, and I will certainly not object, but I thought it might be nice to share some of the lists I created. I'll do a series of about a dozen posts, at least the nonfiction, starting with the 000's. This will be my own version of School Library Journal's Series Made Simple issue (which is a great resource, by the way).

The 000's are kind of a weird little miscellany area of a school library. Every school should have a set of the World Book, and please do buy an almanac every year, but if you have the bucks, try to get a few "strange but true" reference books in there. Some kids really respond to Ripley's Believe It Or Not and Guinness World Records. Books like these have a sneaky added benefit - the indexed entries introduce kids to a nonlinear method of approaching a book, important when they're doing real research later.

Gee, Joshua. Encyclopedia Horrifica: The Terrifying Truth About Vampires, Ghosts, Monsters, & More. A kind of weird book to start off with, but, as the kid says in Beetlejuice, "I myself am strange and unusual."

Teitelbaum, Michael. Bigfoot Caught on Film: And Other Monster Sightings!. The 24/7: Science Behind the Scenes series from Scholastic is... it's ok. Little niblets of info, good for hooking readers, but it's nice to have something with a little more depth to back these books up, in case your readers do get interested in the subject. I picked carefully through this series and selected just a few titles.

Prieto, Anita C. B Is For Bookworm: A Library Alphabet. These alphabet books from Sleeping Bear Press are a bit uneven. This one is pretty dry, but I wanted to fill out a small suite of library-themed books. If you're tempted by the ABC book for your state, or about a particular subject, be sure to get your hands on it and read it through first. Some of the words can be awfully obscure.

Ruurs, Margriet. My Librarian Is A Camel: How Books Are Brought To Children Around The World. How people live around the world is a particularly important theme in this school, and one that I personally find important. Kids find the juxtapositions fascinating, too. The pictures in this book are very nice.

Farndon, John. Visual Encyclopedia (DK). I keep buying and buying this book, and they keep loving and loving it until they love it to pieces. I'm not the world's be-all end-all fan of Dorling Kindersley - I don't think they fact-check hard enough - but this single-volume encyclopedia + elementary school kids = LOVE.

Aronson, Marc. For Boys Only: The Biggest, Baddest Book Ever. Frankly? I bought this on Jon Scieszka's recommendation. More graphically interesting and up-to-date looking than that other "dangerous" book, which I swear was written for parents.

Farndon, John. Do Not Open. Irresistable, full of fun facts about freaky stuff, several activities and suggestions for bringing the info in the book to life. Worth the few extra bucks. My 8 year old got a copy of this for his birthday and was enraptured. His little brother is learning to read just as fast and as hard as he can so he can have a turn with it.

Macdonald, Guy. Even More Children's Miscellany: Smart, Silly, and Strange Information That's Essential to Know. Same stuff, but for smaller kids.

McDonald, Megan. Stink-O-Pedia: Super Stink-y Stuff From A To ZZZZ. I like Stink Moody. I like him better than his sister, Judy. I buy Judy Moody, but I buy Stink too. He's funny, he's good-hearted, he's a 'second chapter book' for boys who think fantasy is pointless. Stink reads encyclopedias in his spare time, so I thought I'd offer his fans Stink's very own encyclopedia.

Murrie, Steve & Matthew. Every Minute On Earth: Fun Facts That Happen Every 60 Seconds. I never can seem to find enough books about time. Time is hard to explain. So when this book arrived at the public library, I snatched it. I stood and read it between customers at the information desk and I figured if I was fascinated enough to read it all the way through, surely somebody in that school would be too.

Mark, Jan. Museum Book: A Guide To Strange And Wonderful Collections. This is Baltimore, baby. We've got a light bulb museum and a teeth museum and we used to have a dime museum. We are to strange and wonderful as Paris is to lovely and inspiring.

Marcus, Leonard S. Side by Side: Five Favorite Picture-Book Teams Go to Work. Marvelous funny anecdotes, lots of illustrations showing all steps of the creative process, a very nice introduction to the concept of collaboration. Terrible cover though.

You are the first kid on Mars by Patrick O'Brien - review and interview

You are the first kid on Mars by Patrick O'Brien

2009 is the fortieth anniversary of the first manned mission to land on the moon. Did you know that? Yeah maybe the astounding array of commemorative books tipped you off. We've had books by everyone from Buzz Aldrin to Norman Mailer hit the shelves this year. Many, if not most, of these books have been inspiring and beautiful. Many, if not most, have made me cry.

But while I am fully aware of the importance of the Apollo 11 mission as a concrete example of the highest heights that can be achieved - by man and by mankind - I have wondered just how engaging this story is for young people. My own children are mystified and a little alarmed when I get all choked up reading them Brian Floca's atmospheric and detailed Moonshot or try to explain to them the unique perspective represented by former astronaut Alan Bean's paintings in Mission Control, This is Apollo.

That's why I think Patrick O'Brien's work of "speculative non-fiction" is so important this year. For my kids, and for their friend Alex, who is the model for the kid in the book (disclosure: Pat's family and mine have been friends since our 3rd-grade boys were barely walking, much less traveling the solar system), space travel is not something that happened on a tiny black-and-white TV set in the kitchen forty years ago. Space travel is not even the - let me take a deep breath and try to use an adjective that is not pejorative - somewhat tepid space shuttle program.

Space travel is "huge ships shaped like pine cones with lots of little sonar devices and everyone wears goggles that can switch from night vision to underwater vision to sunglasses!" (I asked.) They think the future will involve "a permanent space colony on the Moon as big as Texas!" "Or maybe at one of the Lagrange points!"

But ok, that's my kids. Not every kid knows that the gravitationally stable Lagrange points are good spots for a space station. But I will argue that my kids are representative of many kids when they think that space travel is part of their future. And Patrick has done our kids a service by writing and illustrating, with his usual blend of meticulous research and stunning art, a reasonably plausible conception of travel to Mars. His journey includes a space elevator up to a geosynchronous orbit point, a nuclear thermal ship that gradually accelerates to 75,000 miles per hour as it covers the 35,000 miles to Mars, and a Mars lander that bombs through the Mars atmosphere before parachutes drop it gently to the dusty red plain.

The friendly, explanatory second-person narration contrasts nicely with the giant grin on the face of the kid as he bounds across the Martian surface. Makes it feel like the book is being narrated by a teacher chaperoning a really good field trip, trying to keep from letting on that she is just as excited as the kids are.

Anyone familiar with O'Brien's previous books (on topics like sailing ships, extinct mammals, knights, and, er, dinosaurs in space) will know that the man researches like a maniac. Marianne Dyson, herself an author of numerous kids' books on space, picked apart every fact presented in You Are the First Kid On Mars when she reviewed the book, but revised her opinion when the author emailed her, addressing her objections and supporting his every phrase. It is really nice to know that the book stands up to that kind of scrutiny.

The artwork in this book was done on a computer, a departure for O'Brien, who, in addition to illustrating his own books, paints large oils of ships under sail. His mastery of the software and techniques involved is impressive - many of the illustrations look like they could be photos, which is important for those kids who want things to be above all else "real".

We had the delightful O'Brien family over for dinner this weekend, and after my husband's excellent fish tacos, I had the chance to ask Pat some questions about the book.

Your Neighborhood Librarian: What was your inspiration for writing You Are the First Kid on Mars?

Patrick O'Brien: My editor, Tim Travaglini, was really into the whole space idea. It was his idea to do a speculative book about going to Mars. My books usually come from my ideas, but this one came from him.

YNL: Was there anything different about writing about future science vs. your usual subjects?

PO: All of my other books are about historic and prehistoric nonfiction subjects. It is fiction, because it hasn't actually happened, but I was treating it as a nonfiction book. The reason that it’s in the second person is I read some books like that as a kid. You will go to the Moon is the one that I remember most clearly. And they had it all wrong, it’s really funny to see all that. Presumably, my stuff will be all wrong.

YNL: What was your research process? Do you regularly read science periodicals like Wired or Scientific American? Or was this a new area for you?

PO: I’ve always been a science guy, I was a biology major in college, but my son is really into space. We watch a lot of space stuff on TV. When Alex was really young, he liked real space more than the fictional movies. We'd watch NOVA together, and his toys were Apollo models, not Star Wars toys. I read a lot about space with him, and on my own.

I used the most up to date, most accurate information that I could find about what it would take to get to Mars. I went through the NASA website, books on space travel.

YNL: Is this your first work created digitally?

PO: This is the first book I illustrated on the computer.

YNL: You're such a good painter though - why did you decide to do it using techniques that are new to you?

PO: Well, for fun, as a change. It was different, and I just thought it was appropriate to the subject matter. The thing about using the computer to do the art, a lot of people who don’t do it think you just push the spaceship button and you get a spaceship. You push the astronaut button, and you get an astronaut, and then you make it do what you want. But you still have to draw it, you still have to paint it. It’s just one more medium. When they invented watercolors, it didn’t put the oil painters out of business.

But there are advantages. You can make infinite changes - with watercolors, pretty much once it's down, it's there. You can make a certain amount of changes with oils, but with the computer, you can keep adjusting it until it's just what you want. I used Corel Painter X and a tablet, so it’s a lot like painting. It wasn't hard to learn.

YNL: Did you find it hard to stop making changes? Was it tempting to keep touching it, trying out variations?

PO: No. A little. I know what I’m going for, I have a picture in my mind, and when I've made that, it’s done.

There you go, folks. I made it, it's done. You will go to the Moon was, not surprisingly, on my shelf as a kid too.

Labels: adventure, age: adult children, age: Grade1 and up, boy books, nonfiction, picture books, science, superstar books

The Moon over Star by Dianna Hutts Aston, pictures by Jerry Pinkney - review

The Moon over Star by Dianna Hutts Aston, pictures by Jerry Pinkney
Give me a second. I am a mess. Let me get a Kleenex.

Wow.

I was four years old when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin walked on the moon (while their shorter, funnier counterpart, Michael Collins, circled the block in the car), and I still feel privileged to have witnessed that moment. Hell, my husband and I named a cat Buzz Aldrin, we're still so impressed with this human feat. So I guess I should have expected that this book would give me goosebumps.

But my goodness - this is one damn fine book. I summarized it to a jury of my (younger) peers later in the evening, and just my synopsis made them all choke up.

Dianna Hutts Aston gives us that day in 1969 as experienced by an eight-year-old girl (who may or may not be Mae Jemison) on her grandfather's farm in a town named Star. Mae and her cousins pray for the astronauts in church in the morning and build a rocket ship out of scraps from the barn in the afternoon. Mae is the oldest, so she gets to pretend to be Armstrong as they count down to liftoff together. Later, they watch Cronkite on TV and hear those immortal phrases, "The Eagle has landed," and even later, "One small step for man..."

In between times, Mae thinks about the astronauts' children and whether they are proud but also scared, and about President Kennedy, who did not live to see this dream attained, and about her own grandfather, who does not approve of the space program. "Why spend all that money to go to the moon when there's so many folks in need right here on Earth?"

When I googled this title, I learned that President Obama read this book aloud to a group of second graders at a charter school in D.C. two weeks into his presidency. Well. If I wasn't impressed by this man before (and I was), I am now. If I tried to read this thing aloud, I do not think I could manage it. Which, given the class of second graders I know best, would still be a fine thing, because they would want to know why, and I would have the opportunity to tell them.

Or I might just show them the back cover of this book, with Jerry Pinkney's freakin' masterpiece of a full moon, and then open to his two-page spread of the Apollo 11 rocket clearing the launch pad. When I see that image, I always think of my dad explaining to me, "The U.S. space program was miserable in the beginning. People used to say, 'Our rockets always blow up.'" (Tom Wolfe quoted the exact same line in The Right Stuff.)

But hundreds, thousands of people believed that we could do it, and in the end, that rocket didn't blow up, and those astronauts had the courage to strap themselves into it, and we went to the damn moon. And if all that can happen, and if Jerry Pinkney can paint the Moon just as beautifully if not more beautifully than he has always painted people and trees and birds... well, then, an eight-year-old black girl in the town of Star can do anything with her life, and that's the message of this book, and now I'm snifflin' again.

Labels: age: Grade1 and up, black kids, historical fiction, picture books, science, superstar books

National Geographic Investigates: The Ancient Celts by Jen Brown - review

National Geographic Investigates: The Ancient Celts by Jen Brown

In beautiful photographs and well-written text, this entry in the very readable National Geographic Investigates series makes a thorough presentation of the most up-to-date knowledge about this ancient European culture, from its origins in 800 BC through 500 AD, and the echoes of Celtic traditions in our lives today.

Aerial photos, timelines, informative sidebars, and National Geographic's famous maps augment text that asks and answers interesting questions ("Why did the Celts make human sacrifices?" "What happened when the Romans came?"). Rigorous in its distinction between theory, supposition, and proven fact, the book features a minimum of illustration, in favor of photos of artifacts, sites, and physical remains - including close-ups of Celtic "bog people" showing details such as manicured fingernails and hairdos. Scale is scrupulously noted for all objects and structures in both English and metric units.

Numerous explanations of techniques and processes - both those of the Celts and those employed by archaeologists - inject an element of how-to, a canny addition that will hook the attention of the reader fascinated by how things work and how we figure things out.

Previous books about the Celts for this age group have concentrated on the Celtic presence in the British Isles, or have focused on Celtic myths or daily life. In sixty-plus pages, Ancient Celts is a balanced, scientific account that doesn't stint on the mummified remains. Sure to appeal to a broad range of learners.

Labels: age: Grade3 and up, history, nonfiction, science

Wolfsnail by Sarah C. Campbell - review

Wolfsnail by Sarah C. Campbell
This should totally be the new series by Erin Hunter.

Grayshell and Slimie have finally found TrembleFoot's old territory under the composter, but Grayshell fears that all of his/her Broodmates have been killed or captured by Beakfaces. Slimie insists that they keep looking, and an old friend helps point the two snails on the path that the Broods followed many moons ago. S-l-o-w-l-y they continue their quest.

Right? I mean, anybody but me sick of those cats? No? Huh. I'm going to get a lot of hate mail, aren't I. Oh well.

Ok so Wolfsnail is not fiction. There will not be multiple sequelae. Wolfsnail: the Sliming, Part 4: The Robins Return: Red-breasted Death from Above is not in the offing. But I adore this book. It looks like your standard 32-page species monograph, and it is, really. Your first- or second-grader will get a short but pithy glimpse into the habits of the predatory wolfsnail, which eats other snails and slugs. Two sentences and one big photograph per page. But the prose! It's the music from Jaws:

"It climbs up.
Does the wolfsnail bite into a crisp hosta leaf?
No. Most land snails, such as this one, eat plants.
The wolfsnail eats meat."

Dun-DUN!

"The wolfsnail turns to follow the trail.
It moves faster than other snails."

Dun-dun dun-dun!

And it's not like the author is being facetious. From the Acknowledgments we learn that Sarah C. Campbell is a wolfsnail True Believer - she keeps the little buggers, and she and her husband took all the (very beautiful) pictures. She has clearly spent many, many hours observing them, in the process becoming fascinated as only an invertebrate can fascinate.

Why is that? People will watch an ant farm for ages. Beekeepers are maniacs. Really. Maniacs. No exceptions. And have you ever known a marine biologist who could look at any other animal once he or she had spent some time with an octopus? I know I haven't.

So let's hear it for the wolfsnail, freaky little hermaphroditic carnivore. He/she has already claimed one children's book author and her husband, and now one reviewer and her husband - read this book and join us.

Join us.

Labels: age: Grade1 and up, animals, nonfiction, science, superstar books

The What's Happening to My Body Book for Boys by Lynda Madaras - review

The What's Happening to My Body Book for Boys by Lynda Madaras

Holla! Dance around! Oh baby! Mmm! Get down with your bad self!

The new edition of Lynda Madaras's excellent "Oh my god what's that hair doing there?" book is finally available at the library where I work, and from the jobber I buy books from! Thank you, oh thank you. I have read ALL the puberty books, and this one is the best one out there for boys, but I never could use it before, and here's why:

Adolescent boys are just coming to tentative grips with their masculinity - this kid, and his best pal Duckie there in the background, are not the boys they're going to consult when they have questions about acne and condoms. And GOD knows they don't want to be seen carrying this kid around. At the public library, I have seen boys actually recoil when I have offered this book to them. Parents have taken one look and winced.

Last year, when our school expanded to seventh grade, the reading specialist tasked me with three requests: World War II, beauty and hygiene, and puberty. So I read ALL the puberty books. What's Going on Down There?, The Boy's Body Guide, the AMA's Boy's Guide to Becoming a Teen ... and this was the one that addressed all of the issues. (It comes down to surprise boners - most puberty books do not address the sudden and unwelcome trouser tent, a phenomenon that boys can be too embarrassed to ask about in sex-ed class. It needs to be in a book that they can consult privately.)

Thank you to my system and thank you to my book vendor. The rest of Lynda Madaras's body and hygiene books are also available with this new cover.

Labels: age: Grade5 and up, boy books, nonfiction, superstar books, YA

to be like the SUN by Susan Marie Swanson and Margaret Chodos-Irvine - review

to be like the SUN by Susan Marie Swanson and Margaret Chodos-Irvine
I love picture books about plants and gardening. This time of year, I always like to bust them out. Some of my favorites:

Eddie's Garden and How to Make Things Grow

How Groundhog's Garden Grew

Tippy-Tippy-Tippy, Hide!

Bud

The Gardener

A Seed Is Sleepy

And now, To Be Like the Sun. I love the bold, textured illustrations, "created using a variety of nontraditional printmaking techniques and materials." I'm not positive, but I think that may mean that a lot of tissue paper and maybe even a couple of potatoes gave up their chance at happiness for this book. "This is a good death," as Chiwitel Ejiofor says in Serenity.

And I adore the prose. I plant a lot of seeds, and I'm 42 years old and NOT prone to spiritual thoughts, but when I push a seed in the ground I am almost always dubious that such a small thing can suck up a bunch of water and minerals and make a whole plant. It is one of life's enduring sources of amazement for me.

The little girl in this book, planting a sunflower seed, thinks to herself:

Hello, little seed,
striped gray seed.
Do you really know everything
about sunflowers?

Yup, that sums it up for me. She continues observing the sunflower through the seasons, as it grows, develops a bud, creates its own seeds and sheds them. In the winter we see that she has saved some seeds and will plant them next year.

It's the nearest thing to a miracle that I know, and now I have this book, to explain that to my kids better than I could.

Labels: age: PreK - Grade3, science, seasons

When is a planet not a planet? The story of Pluto, by Elaine Scott - review

When is a Planet Not a Planet? The Story of Pluto, by Elaine Scott
Made Molly read this one. There she be, above, reading about Pluto. Also my husband read it to our kids. It's good. Lots of text, but it's all interesting. There's history, from Lascaux onward, illustrated with large, clear reproductions. There's a good explanation of the hypothesis - theory - law continuum. There are personalities, there are marvelous artists' conceptions and photos from deep space.

Oddly, there is no Neil DeGrasse Tyson, but the book doesn't suffer for it.

Labels: age: Grade3 and up, nonfiction, science

Close to the wind: The Beaufort Scale by Peter Malone - review

Lest anyone think that Pink Me opinion is one-sided, here is evidence that I make my friends read books I like, so that I can get my opinions validated. Of course, if they don't agree with me, I cut them off forever. No beer for you!

So, my friend Aimee here (and to a certain extent, Juicy Boy on her lap, who is really too young for this book), as well as a whole Friday porch-load of other readers, fully endorse Close to the Wind: The Beaufort Scale as one spectacular work of juvenile non-fiction.

I have something of a bias toward non-fiction, it's true. That's partly why I made Aimee, Molly, and Bob all read this book. But come on! Close to the Wind has it all: a gripping plot! Factual information presented in a way that is easy to grasp! Characters! Beautiful, detailed illustration! A map! A glossary! References! A biographical note! And all of it interesting!

The nominal purpose of this book is to illustrate the Beaufort Scale, a standardized way to measure the force of the wind. Developed in 1805, before the invention of instruments to measure wind speed, Beaufort's scale is based on observation, and therefore can be explained easily to almost anyone. At Beaufort 2, leaves rustle. Got it.

But Malone goes much further. He invents a 12-year-old midshipman, William, aboard a British Navy ship in 1805. Using William's letters home to his sister and gorgeous illustrations that employ unexpected points of view, (much like Brian Floca's Lightship, recently reviewed here) he gives the Beaufort Scale context and consequence. When the ship survives a hurricane (Beaufort 12) and hobbles into harbor at the end of the book, we all breathe a sigh of relief for William and the rest of the crew.

Recommended for any reader.

Labels: adventure, age: Grade3 and up, history, nonfiction, science

George's Secret Key to the Universe by Stephen and Lucy Hawking - review

I read this book some time ago. December it was, yes, December 27. During jury duty. They showed a Queen Latifah movie in the jury waiting room. Also half of The Devil Wears Prada, and ever since then, I have had this nagging need to find out how it ended. Not enough to Netflix it though. I have a feeling that post-transformation, it all goes downhill and probably comes to conclusions that I would Not Agree With, based on assertions that are ridiculous.

Anyway, the book. I had some problems with it, and I wasn't going to review it, because, while I have in the past been known to boldly trash books that everyone else likes and call down the wrath of authors who actually go out looking for their reviews, well... why pick on Stephen Hawking?

But just in the past week, two different friends have mentioned that they listened to it on audio and just loved it.

Now, George's Secret Key to the Universe, I have to say, does a very bold thing, integrating astronomy and physics into the story - and not just as sidebar information, though there is plenty of that, plus an insert of full-color photos just as if it were a Karrine Steffans memoir. (Everything in these pictures is real, though, unlike those pictures of Ms. Steffans with her shirt off.) (I approve of sidebars, by the way. When I was a kid, they were just starting to appear in textbooks, and, when available, they were all I read.)

In this book, however, George goes on adventures in space and solves problems, all the while learning about and using elementary astrophysics. Given the disastrous state of science knowledge in this country, I would really like to be able to thrust this book into the air and yell, "Science! Story! No reason they can't go together!"

But. God, it really pains me to pick on this. Ok. George lives with his parents in a somewhat ramshackle house in the suburbs. His parents are major crunchies, environmentalists who seek to live as much 'off the grid' as they can. Candles, nettle tea, home-grown food. Fine so far. But the parents take the very unusual stance that technology, because it enables consumption, is bad. They won't have a computer in the house and are suspicious of science.

I have two problems with this. First of all, I know a LOT of environmentally-conscious people, in all shades, from old-fashioned communal hippie to new-fangled Prius-driving vegan. And I'm not sure I've ever met a single one that was anti-technology, or who denied that science can help decrease our mis-use of natural resources. Solar power, anyone?

Secondly, I feel like the authors are setting up a conflict that doesn't have to be there. George is going to get in trouble, because this is a children's book, but does part of the trouble he's in have to be for defying his parents? An evil villain is after him, and he has to avoid being sucked into a black hole at one point. There's no reason his parents couldn't be supportive. Except for, oh yes, they're retarded hippies who hate computers.

There is a rapprochement at the end of the book between the parents and the scientist next door who has been mentoring George in his explorations of space and science. Both factions come together at an environmental rally, and the parents see the error of their reasoning. Well, of course it's erroneous reasoning! Nobody actually thinks like that! Oh, hell. Maybe they do in England. I'm probably just making a big deal out of nothing.

But there's one other thing: George's "secret key to the universe" is the ENTER key on a sentient laptop named Cosmos. Does that bother anybody but me?

Hello?

Labels: age: Grade3 and up, fiction, science

Winston of Churchill: One bear's battle against global warming, by Jean Davies Okimoto, illustrated by Jeremiah Trammell - review

Winston of Churchill: One bear's battle against global warming, by Jean Davies Okimoto, illustrated by Jeremiah Trammell
Ohhhh-kay. Really nice illustrations. Super message. Nice illustrated summary of the whys and hows of global warming. Friendly-looking polar bears.

But I wonder if all the references to Winston Churchill, including a brief subplot about his cigar, as well as direct quotes from his most famous speeches, will baffle children enough to make them lose interest in what is otherwise a nice story about an important issue. Sure, there's explanatory back-matter, but if you've already lost 'em, what good is back-matter?

The issue is important enough to many parents that they will read this book to their kids and explain every blessed word if they have to, and I will take it home myself, but we'll see.

Labels: age: Grade1 and up, animals, picture books, science

Where in the wild? Ear-tickling poems by David M. Schwartz and Yael Schy, eye-tricking photos by Dwight Kuhn - review

... and I want to thank you guys for that extremely long cut-line. Man! I didn't even put in the subtitle, "Camouflaged creatures concealed... and revealed."

Given all that up-front verbage, you know I wouldn't even bother to review this book if it weren't really neat. So, I guess you can infer... that... it is. Hm. Not setting this up too well, am I.

Ok. Each two-page spread is really a three-page spread, with a page-size fold-out. On the left we have a sweet (though, if I may, not terribly inspired) poem, and on the right there is a beautiful full-bleed nature photo. If you look closely, you will find the naturally camouflaged animal that is hiding in plain sight. If you can't see the animal, the page lifts away to reveal the same photo with everything but the animal greyed-out. The fold-out also reveals text about the animal, written at about a third-grade level.

Realistically, these fold-outs are too fragile for our school library, and I don't know how long it'll last at the public library. Our copy hasn't circulated even once, and there are already unintentional creases where it has been closed hurriedly. But Where in the Wild? would make a terrific gift for any kid who likes animals or puzzles.

Labels: age: Grade3 and up, animals, nonfiction, picture books, poetry, science

The Man Who Went to the Far Side of the Moon: The Story of Apollo 11 Astronaut Michael Collins, by Bea Uusma Schyffert

I was a whole 5 pages into this book before my eyes misted over. It's about Michael Collins, the guy who stayed in the spacecraft Columbia while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin went down and walked around on the moon.

Michael Collins was surely one of the most appealing characters in Opie's documentary about the astronauts, In the Shadow of the Moon. He had a great sense of humor and a staggering sense of perspective. Possibly the kind of perspective you only get from having been to the dark side of the moon FOURTEEN TIMES.

This book really nails it. It is a satisfying combination of minutiae (Buzz Aldrin's mother's maiden name was Moon), personal revelation (a note Collins scribbled to himself from the dark side, describing the immensity of his aloneness, reveals a facility with language and a self-awareness I would not have expected from a clean-cut astronaut), and quantitative information (700 switches, 20 pounds of checklists, 11 minutes 42 seconds from launch pad to space, Collins's salary was $17,147). Every other page is a full-page, full-bleed illustration, diagram, or photograph.

The Man Who Went to the Far Side of the Moon was originally published in Sweden, in 1999. The English translation showed up in 2003, but I still don't know how it snuck into my library without me seeing it until a few weeks ago.

It is a marvelous piece of work, simple enough for my little boys to understand, engrossing enough for a 42-year-old librarian to enjoy. It is full of tidbits such as the following snatch of conversation between the astronauts who are sitting in quarantine after their return to earth:

As they watch a taped recording of the moon landing, Buzz suddenly turns to Neil and says: "Neil, we missed the whole thing!"

Don't miss this book.

And don't miss the rest of the books reviewed for Nonfiction Monday. Anastasia Suen rounds them all up on Picture Book of the Day.

Labels: age: Grade1 and up, nonfiction, science, superstar books

Meet the meerkat by Darrin Lunde, illustrated by Patricia Wynne - review

Meet the meerkat by Darrin Lunde, illustrated by Patricia Wynne
Patricia Wynne is a contract illustrator for the American Museum of Natural History, and while her somewhat clumsy mice and hominids in books such as Ian Tattersall and Rob DeSalle's Bones, Brains and DNA: The Human Genome and Human Evolution make you feel like maybe she's overworked, the keenly observed drawings of meerkats in this book by mammalogist Darrin Lunde show you what she can do given a single subject. This is an appealing little book about a popular little beast, a rare item in the Easy nonfiction area.

Labels: age: PreK - Grade3, animals, nonfiction, science

A closer look by Mary McCarthy - review

A Closer Look, by Mary McCarthy
A neato book about observation and scale for the youngest pairs of eyes. VERRY reminiscent of Steve Jenkins, with strong colors and paper collage art.

Labels: age: PreK - Grade3, animals, picture books, science