I am missing my goal of a Sunday post again, but I hope to have this out on Monday while I finish up my weekly report.
High School Nonfiction
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The Spectrum Girl's Survival Guide, Sienna Castellon. I'm enjoying this but not done yet.
Jane Against the World, Karen Blumenthal. Just started. Chicago Janes were very brave.
Middle Grade Nonfiction
The Great Bear Rescue, Sanda Markle. I love the photos of Mongolia, with or without Gobi bears in them. I like the clear descriptions of the problem and what scientists are doing to gather data and using that try try different solutions. It does not look good for these bears; I would not say they are rescued yet.
Elementary Nonfiction
Queen of Tejano Music: Selena, Silvia Lopez. Although I grew up in Texas at about the right time, I had never heard of Selena Quintanilla. Of course, I was oblivious to most musical happenings. Well, most happenings, really. Anyway, I loved this biography of her short life, from singing with her siblings at their family restaurant to going full time on the road with their band after the restaurant closed. The illustrations brought the Tejano music to the page as back up to the text, and I liked the discussion of her dedication to school and to what she had to skip out on. I was fascinated to learn that she wasn't fluent in Spanish despite beginning her career singing exclusively in that language.
The backmatter takes time to discuss aspects of Texan Hispanic culture, such as quinceaneras and Tejano families, as well as the murder that cut her life tragically short. There's also a timeline and and a discussion of her legacy. I really liked learning something new about popular culture and how well the vibrant illustrations evoked the places Selena performed in.
Charles Darwin on the Origin of Species, Sabina Radiva. This is not a biography of Darwin and his ideas, but an attempt to translate his book into a child-friendly format. I think it slips a bit also also tries to be a bit of a biography, but that's probably inevitable. It does a good job of presenting Darwin's ideas in a simple format, including the finches and issues like the development of complex systems like eyeballs. For added interest, the end pages contain many butterflies and other insects that the reader is challenged to identify when they appear in the book pages, where exquisite (colored pencil?) drawings depict Darwin and also the ideas presented. It's visually very appealing, and a good first take at the ideas of natural selection.
The backmatter talks about the process of distilling the book and has quick looks at a variety of related topics (including Wallace, the guy who also came up with the idea of natural selection), but also cool science stuff like epigenetics and DNA.
The Teachers March!, Sandra Neil Wallace. Before the Children's March there was the Teachers' March, which I knew even less about. Mostly organized by a pastor who was also a high school teacher, they walked down to the courthouse to try to register. The book follows several teachers, including a single mom whose kid was terrified but proud as her mom risked arrest (they all brought their tooth brushes).
The illustrations are very painterly -- the rich browns of marchers comes across strongly although I wanted more variation in the shades (I'm very conscious of this after reading Beautiful Shades of Brown).
The back matter contains the inspiration for the book (the authors were writing about a New Hampshire boy murdered while trying to help with voter registration later that year when they talked to some of the people who had marched that day), a timeline and period photos showing some of the characters, as well as a bibliography and further reading.
All the Way to the Top: How One Girl's Fight For Americans With Disabilities Changed Everything, Annette Bay Pimentel. This biography of the youthful activism of Jennifer Chaffins culminates with her iconic crawl up the steps of Congress during a protest to highlight the need for the ADA. It shows how schools denied her access to regular classrooms because putting ramps in next to the stairs was just too much work, and how she and her family early began protesting and working to make things more available to people with disabilities so that other kids wouldn't face the same problems she did.
Backmatter includes more details on the milestones both of disability legislation and Chaffin's education and protest activity. I also noticed that in the illustrations, she's almost always being pushed; I don't know whether they just didn't even have decent wheelchairs back then? The style didn't wow me, and I was left wondering how she traveled so much when she was so young -- it seemed like her parents must have been involved more than the text implies.
A New Green Day, Antoinette Portis. A riddle book of colors and bits of nature -- the riddle comes with a swath of color and turning the page reveals an illustration and the answer. The riddles are fun but not outstanding -- it's a book I would enjoy reading with a child or a group but it doesn't linger much.
Fearless Felines, Kimberly Hamilton. This illustrated collection of cat lore teeters right on the border between elementary and middle grade readers. It's fairly long, with thirty full page histories of famous cats, interspersed with collections of trivia, stories of cat worshipers, and hints on communicating with a kitty. There's a wide variety of artists providing the portraits for all the cat heroes, while a consistent group of felines lounge about on the interesting bits in between. It's not really a book to sit and read from over to cover, but would be a good book to have for short reading bursts either as a read-aloud or for early but confident readers.
The Power of Her Pen: The Story of Groundbreaking Journalist Ethel L. Payne, Lisa Cline-Ransome. I love learning stuff through picture books, and I hadn't remembered known Ethel Payne. I liked seeing her start as an inquisitive child and then an observant letter writer, and then to a barrier-breaking national and international reporter. I'm a little confused about when she retired, as LBJ gave her a pen but she also asked questions of Nixon and Carter?
Backmatter includes a short bibliography and an author's note giving context and details. The illustrations are almost collage-like and complement the text well.
Girl on a Motorcycle, Amy Novesky. This is a meditation on a solo trip around the world taken by a French woman named Anne France-Dautheville. It is loosely based on her journey (the first time a woman made the trip) but doesn't name her as it focusses on what it felt like and the connections made. The illustrations zoom into the specifics of what to pack and then out to the feeling of camping alone under the Canadian sky. There's a lot of appreciation for the people who helped her and the friendships she made.
For me the vagueness of the protagonist left me feeling a bit disconnected from the story, which I think is the opposite of the intention. It's written so that readers can feel that any girl, any time, could be the one who seizes her dream and makes the journey, but it didn't quite work for me.
The backmatter includes a note from the author talking about how learning of France-Dautheville's trip inspired her in life and to write this book.
Saving the Countryside: The Story of Beatrix Potter and Peter Rabbit, Linda Marshall. Now I've read two picture book biographies of Beatrix Potter! The first one concentrated on her life before her picture book career as she pursued her passion for nature and science but was rebuffed by the misogynistic establishment. This one registers that disappointment and then concentrates on her successful career writing and illustrating the famous little books, and points how how she actively managed her career and licensed her characters. With the money she made she was able to acquire a lot of land in her beloved countryside, preventing it from being turned into housing complexes or asphalt palaces of one kind or another. Visitors who marvel at how much of the scenery still looks like the illustrations in her books find out that this is no accident -- she drew what she loved and then she acted to preserve it, bequeathing most of her property to Land Trusts and other restorative charities.
The backmatter has a letter from the author about how she discovered Potter's philanthropy on a literary tour and contains a short bibliography.
I do quibble a bit with the illustrations, especially the page that shows her creating some of her early books, because the style seems very different from Potter's books so the page showing her creating her work almost feels misleading. But the pages themselves are lovely and enticing.
Clarence's Big Secret, Roy McGregor. The story of how a man lived with illiteracy for most of his life, and how it distorted his career, with an inspiring conclusion as he learns to read after retirement. I'm not sure kids will appreciate the cost of his quitting every time he was up for a promotion in a field, but it's also a good lesson in that ignorance can happen to anyone, no matter how smart or capable they are. There's not much specificity in Clarence's life; it's based on a true story but could happen almost anywhere.
A Garden In Your Belly: Meet the Microbes In Your Gut, Masha D'yans. A great kids-eye look at the role of microorganisms in our digestive and other systems, with illustrations depicting the creatures as pastel aliens cavorting in the river that is your gut. It shows the symbiotic relationship they have with us, returning a healthy biome for the nutrients we share through our food. A gently didactic touch comes when the damage an unhealthy diet of snack food and sweets can do to that river/gut, likening it to pollution and showing creepier looking bad microbes taking up residence instead of the nice guys who thrive off a healthy diet. I mean, I thought the biggest problem was antibiotics but maybe that isn't the lesson to be learned here.
What's This Tail Saying, Carolyn Combs. I really enjoyed this science book about animal communication. It settles into a nice pattern of question, answer and explanation, with a short rhyming couplet for the answer and then a sentence or two giving context and detail to the answer. (This was a deliberate pattern, as the backmatter explains in its hints for reading aloud.) This works well to engage the reader and challenge them to think while also keeping things interesting enough to want to keep turning the pages. The rhymes aren't forced so they don't interfere with the meaning of the tail talk.
The back matter has resources for kids and adults. Kids get details about each of the animals featured on the pages while adults gets tips for reading aloud and then extension activities in several directions. I was interested in the ideas for discussion communication -- how do people communicate? What happens when they aren't understood? -- as well as the STEAM activities that were more like what I was expecting, and included links to to some teacher resources on the publisher webpage.
I liked the slightly cartoonish illustrations and how the question and answer pictures had slightly different formats (white space around the questions). It's always good when the entire production of a picture book shows attention to the theme and purpose of the book.
Nature Did It First: Engineering Through Biomimicry, Karen Rohrich Ansberry. A great concept that doesn't quite land the execution. It's a book about how innovators and scientists look at how creatures and plants solve environmental problems -- how do burrs stick to fur? geckos to walls? how do whales cut through the water? how about diving kingfishers? --and then use that understanding to make inventions for humans. But the rhymed verses introducing the animals are often forced and silly, making the move onto the sentence or two explaining the details seem forced and uneven, let along the next page of text-dense explanations of the developing and using the technology.
The backmatter has a glossary of some words and a link to an activity encouraging kids to invent something based on observations they make in nature, with a link to a website for details.
Unbeatable Betty: Betty Robinson, the First Female Olympic Track Field Gold Medalist, Allison Crotzer Kimmel. This biography has a great subject -- Betty Robinson was super young at the 1928 Olympics, which was also the first even to have women compete in track and field, so the book legitimately focusses on her childhood and early races (the Olympics were her 4th major race!). She's still the youngest gold medalist. And then she had a plane crash that had doctors doubting she would walk again, but we see her determination in an illustration that moves her from wheelchair to crutches to cane to walking to running -- all the way to the 1936 Olympic relay. Competing and winning against the Germans makes this even more special (although the victory came through a German bobble -- the Nazi women dropped the baton in the finals after setting a world record in their qualifying heat).
The backmatter has a letter describing the rest of Robinson's career and life, and putting women's sports and the 1936 Olympics in a broader context. There's a list of sources provided and then a link to the Betty Robinson webpage.
Nacho's Nachos: The Story Behind the World's Favorite Snack, Sandra Nickel & Oliver Dominguez. I loved learning that my beloved nachos had an actual inventor -- Ignacio (which has a nickname of Nacho) Ayana. He was a waiter in a Mexican town near Texas challenged by an important customer to make her something new, and he went back to the kitchen and desperately combined fried tortilla chips, cheddar, and slivers of jalapenos to huge success. Voila! A star is born. The world rejoices, and several famous names make a pilgrimage to try Nacho's Special (LBJ, John Wayne, famous Mexican actors).
The backmatter has a discussion of how the author chose among conflicting stories and a bibliography gratifyingly full of primary sources -- interviews with family and relatives of the main players in the story -- Nacho and the demanding customer. And a recipe for original Nachos, of course! The illustrations tell the story well but don't dominate.
If You Take Away the Otter, Susannah Buhrman Deever. This has lovely illustrations, clear elegant writing, a good science story with ramifications beyond the particular. Really the best kind of science picture book. Deever describes the original ecosystem with many parts, then tells how the otter was removed and the fall out from that, then how people figured out what was wrong and tried remedies, and the effect of those, which has a mostly happy ending. The pictures are enticing to look at but also have labels identifying different animals and their role in the food cycle, so it's aesthetically and intellectually satisfying.
The backmatter has more details about otter recovery and kelp restoration, as well as some cases where things are not as simplistically optimistic as would be nice in a kids books. There's also a bibliography and suggestions for further reading in books and on the web.
The Secret Garden of George Washington Carver, Gene Barretta. This book starts with Carver in a signature move -- lecturing congress on the many uses of the peanut. American congresspeople are racist, so this is a tough crowd, but he wins them over with elegance and competence. This sets the theme for the biography; racism pushes him back, starting with a kidnapping in infancy before the end of the Civil War (his mother is lost forever), then growing up with his brother and carving out a garden to study plants despite the warnings that it's not profitable or worthwhile. He makes a success of his skills but then has to move on to search for education, often having to try several school before gaining entrance and then settling at the Tuskegee Institute to help farmers -- first with suggesting peanuts to restore their land and then figuring out how they could sell those peanuts.
The backmatter has a timeline, some more details of his life, and a short bibliography. The illustrations were gorgeous, very painterly, and with a rich attention to the many hues of the people included, something that the picture book about the artist Laura Wheeler Waring has me very attentive to. It's a beautiful book.
