Cybils Nonfiction Picture Books

We've read our way through all the Cybils Nonfiction Picture Books, and the results are in! Our family favorite was I Feel Better With a Frog in My Throat, although I also recommend Bring on the Birds and The Case of the Vanishing Golden Frogs. The Cybils committee agreed with us in this category; our top pick won the award. Thanks to King County Library System for having all these books ready for us.
All the Water in the World, George Ella Lyon and Katherine Tillotson.  This read more like a poem than a science book, with a stronger emphasis on beautiful language, internal rhymes and alliteration than conveying information.  X came along midway through but didn't want the book to reread, which is a sign of low interest (he usually hears us reading the picture books, then comes back to steal them).  P and I liked the pages as they went, but didn't find that either the words or the information stuck too hard.  There was a hard left turn in the final pages towards conservation, which disconcerted me a bit.

Bring on the Birds, Susan Stockdale.  The summary of this book struck me as dull: a bunch of birds.  But the execution brought them to vigorous life.  The rhyming scheme seemed as natural as the different plumage and features of the birds.  The elementary aged kids all loved it, despite their reluctance to read another  picture book.  N particularly laughed with delight after almost throwing himself off the couch to avoid reading with me.  He recognized a few birds (penguin, owl) but enjoyed all the illustrations and the steady rhythm of the text.  A fun book that shone all the better because of my low expectations.


Can We Save the Tiger? , Martin Jenkins This much meatier book is a harder sell for my picture book readers; so far none of the kids has tried it.  The muted colors don't seem to appeal, and the first few pages have enough words that the kids shy from a read-aloud, but it's not enticing enough to read on their own. I thought it a wonderful way to explain the idea of endangered creatures in a less simplistic way -- many times conservation is not as easy as turning off the faucet while you brush your teeth.  It looks at the reasons people encroach on animal's lands and the costs of saving rare animals, as well as the consequences of not doing so. P read it and found it profoundly depressing, but then he's been in a depressed mode lately.

I Feel Better With a Frog in My Throat, Carlyn Beccia.  Hugely popular with our household.  Funny subject, funny illustrations, short and sweet explanations that we enjoyed reading out loud.  I think it's a good first look at science as well; the underlying philosophy is that people make assumptions but that testing them for results matters.  Some hypotheses are true, others not so much.  Will be tough to beat.

Planting the Wild Garden, Kathryn O. Galbraith.  Another book I'm having a hard time getting my captive panel to review; apparently we don't "do" muted colors.  A very basic look at how wild plants reproduce, with help from wind, water, wild animals, and even hikers. My children judged this as "OK for little kids." A read it and liked it, and she turned up her nose at Markle and Jenkin's books.

The Case of the Vanishing Golden Frogs, Sandra Markle.  Depressing but clearheaded look at the tragic story of the Panamanian Golden Frog, which scientists (especially Karen Lips) noticed disappearing, and the investigation to determine the cause.  Unfortunately, the fungus wiping them out is currently untreatable in the wild, so the only hope for the Golden Frog is in zoos.  The book follows the development and discarding of several theories before showing how the fungus was identified, and then follows the creation and execution of the plan to prevent extinction. It kept my guys interested, although P seemed to resent some of the definitions as condescending. They found it gloomy reading, though.

Thunder Birds, Jim Arnosky. The pictures dominate this book -- the fold-out pages show the breadth and majesty of various carnivorous avians. The text describes their habitats and behaviors, with occasional personal mentions of where Arnosky or his wife were when the saw the bird or what they felt. These asides didn't work very well for us; they felt alien to the book as a whole. If I were a librarian I'd be worried about the extension of the pages; it's hard to imagine this book lasting through more than a few second grade readers. 

Bigger Battle: Shark vs Train

Chris Barton and Tom Lichtenheld have a strong contender in the Cybils Fiction Picture Books category with Shark Vs Train.  In the opening pages, two small kids pull opposing toys from the overflowing toy chest, and then the pages explode with the battle between the two champions.  The contests move from the obvious (ocean? tracks?) to more competitive fields (roasting marshmallows? bowling?) to truly difficult (piano recitals? game stations -- without thumbs?).  The muttered dialogue of the two antagonists brings an extra layer of humor as they move from trash talking to mutual concerns in the later events.

Both boys loved the book; X missed the first few pages but demanded to go back to see what he missed.  When I showed it to N, he insisted on checking it out himself.  (He has now shared it with his parents and continues with the enthusiasm.) We're waiting for the last book to make our final decisions, but bookies are rushing to cover themselves for this title.  A

Just made J: Jeremy's Decision

Today is Reading on the Beach's A-Z Wednesday, with J the starring letter. Every week bloggers are invited to spotlight a book starting with the letter of the week. You show the cover, tell the title, give a synopsis, and post a link. Usually, I like to actually read (sometimes just finish) the book on that day, so I include my little review. This week I'm still recovering from my library avalanche, so I'm grabbing a favorite picture book instead.

Jeremy's Decision is one of the books I got through Brighter Vision, a children's book club type company which would send us a box each month with a book, workbook, a craft, some stickers, and a music CD or cassette, based around some theme. Unfortunately my eldest never had any interest in doing the workbooks, but I loved them, so we kept it up. It turned out that they only have one set of everything, so I discontinued when my second grew up to where the first started, because who needs two sets of the same book, and the X only ever did a few pages of the workbook. Anyway, it was a fun little box, and it's a pity that it looks like the company has disappeared. We still have some of the workbooks, and I use them for N's homework sometimes. Copying letters is much more fun when you RIP the page out of the book before or after you do it.

So, one month was music, and this was the book. We enjoyed it, and I kept it during several weedings of our picture books. Jeremy's dad is a orchestra conductor, and when the family goes to watch him perform, everyone asks Jeremy if he's going to grow up to do the same thing. Finally Jeremy speaks up with his real ambition (paleontology). What I really like is that the young kids go to the concert and enjoy it. (Jeremy reads his dinosaur book through the music, and keeps setting the dinos to the music -- the sad part is the mass extinction.) I like that his sister ends up being the conductor, even though no one ever bugged her with the question. The illustrator is Michael Martchenko, who is better known for his work with Robert Munsch. And the author is Ardyth Brott, who a little googling tells me is married to a conductor, so maybe this book is based on her family. So a cute little book, with good memories of my kids being young.

PS. I skipped for two weeks, drowning in reading and bad internet, but the I book should have been Irreligion, by John Allen Paulos, and the H book was Chad Orzel's How to Teach Physics to Your Dog. I hope to review those soon.