July 2023 – Nonfiction Monday

July 31, 2023July 30, 2023

Covered in Color

Covered in Color: Christo and Jeanne-Claude’s Fabrics of Freedom
by Elisa Boxer (Author) and Susanna Chapman (Illustrator)
@ Amazon | Bookshop

Booktalk: Christo (1935-2020) and his partner in art and in life, Jeanne-Claude (1935-2009), are renowned for their large-scale, ambitious art installations that wrapped landmarks and swaths of land in fabric, including Berlin’s Wrapped Reichstag, Paris’s The Pont Neuf Wrapped, and New York City’s The Gates in Central Park (2005).

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July 24, 2023July 23, 2023

Do Fire Ants Fight Fires?

Do Fire Ants Fight Fires?: How Animals Work in the Wild
by Etta Kaner (Author) and Jenna Piechota (Illustrator)
@ Amazon | Bookshop

Booktalk: Do dolphins teach? Do birds build apartment buildings? Do tapirs deliver packages? You may be surprised at the answers! Animals have to work hard to survive in the wild.

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July 17, 2023July 16, 2023

Building an Orchestra of Hope

Building an Orchestra of Hope: How Favio Chavez Taught Children to Make Music from Trash
by Carmen Oliver (Author) and Luisa Uribe (Illustrator)
@ Amazon | Bookshop

Booktalk: In Cateura, Paraguay, a town built on a landfill, music teacher Favio Chavez longed to help the families living and working amid the hills of trash. How could he help them find hope for the future? Favio started giving music lessons to Cateura’s children, but soon he encountered a serious problem. He had more students than instruments!

But Favio had a strange and wonderful idea: what if this recyclers’ town had its own recycled orchestra? Favio and Colá, a brilliant local carpenter, began to experiment with transforming garbage into wonder. Old glue canisters became violins; paint cans became violas; drainpipes became flutes and saxophones. With repurposed instruments in their hands, the children of Cateura could fill their community–and the world–with the sounds of a better tomorrow.

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Nonfiction Monday

It’s Nonfiction Monday!

July 10, 2023

The Sky Is Not the Limit

The Sky Is Not the Limit
by Jérémie Decalf (Author / Illustrator)
@ Amazon | Bookshop

Booktalk: In 1977, a space probe was built to help human beings learn a little more about outer space. Soon, along with its twin, Voyager 2 slipped through the clouds and left Earth behind. The spacecraft traveled for years through the deep, infinite night. At last Voyager 2 reached its first goal: Jupiter. Then it met the spellbinding sight of Saturn. Then, going further than any previous mission, the probe visited the blue ice giants Uranus and Neptune. Past the boundaries of our solar system, Voyager 2 sails on, carrying a Golden Record for any new friends it makes in interstellar space…

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Nonfiction Monday

It’s Nonfiction Monday!