Rounding up the best nonfiction for children and teens
Ambulances (Amazing Rescue Vehicles)
by Lori Dittmer (Author)
Booktalk: A basic exploration of the parts, equipment, and variations of ambulances, the fast-moving rescue vehicles. Also included is a pictorial diagram of this important rescue vehicle and its equipment.
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It’s Nonfiction Monday!
Copyright © 2019 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.
Two Men and a Car: Franklin Roosevelt, Al Capone, and a Cadillac V-8
by Michael Garland (Author / Illustrator)
Booktalk: It is December 8, 1941, the day after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, and President Franklin Delano Roosevelt leads a nation in crisis. He must make a speech to a joint session of Congress that will build support for America’s entry to World War II, but to do that he needs an armored vehicle in which to make the short trip from the White House to the Capitol Building. According to legend, the car Roosevelt rode in that day, borrowed from the FBI’s impound lot, was an armored Cadillac V-8 built for gangster Al Capone in the late 1920s to shield himself from enemies. Is the legend true, or is it an American tall tale in the tradition of Paul Bunyan or John Henry? Either way, it’s an ideal vehicle to compare and contrast the lives of two American men who grew up within miles of one another: one a great president, the other an infamous villain.
Snippet: Cadillac V-8s were state-of-the-art vehicles in their time. If you were rich and powerful, a chauffeur or a bodyguard drove yours for you. This one was custom-built in 1928 for a notorious mob boss who ordered bulletproof windows and armor-plated panels. According to legend, ten years after the gangster climbed out of this automobile for the last time, one of America’s greatest presidents climbed in. How could two such different men come to share a car?
It’s Nonfiction Monday!
Copyright © 2019 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.
Finding the Speed of Light: The 1676 Discovery that Dazzled the World
by Mark Weston (Author) and Rebecca Evans (Illustrator)
Booktalk: More than two centuries before Einstein, using a crude telescope and a mechanical timepiece, Danish astronomer Ole Romer measured the speed of light with astounding accuracy. How was he able to do this when most scientists didn’t even believe that light traveled? Like many paradigm-shattering discoveries, Romer’s was accidental. Night after night he was timing the disappearance and reappearance of Jupiter’s moon Io behind the huge, distant planet. Eventually he realized that the discrepancies in his measurements could have only one explanation: Light had a speed, and it took longer to reach Earth when Earth was farther from Jupiter. All he needed then to calculate light’s speed was some fancy geometry.
Snippet: At night, Ole hurried up to his roof to look through his telescope. He had built its tubes, handles, and magnifying glasses himself with money given to him by the king. when he was finished, the telescope was ten feet long. On cloudy nights, all he could see was the Cathedral of Notre Dame a mile away. But when the sky was clear, Ole could see thousands of stars.
It’s Nonfiction Monday!
Copyright © 2019 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.
Absolute Expert: Volcanoes
by Lela Nargi (Author) and Arianna Soldati (Volcanologist)
Booktalk: Get expert insights from National Geographic explorer and volcanologist Arianna Soldati. Plunge deep beneath Earth’s crust to find out how volcanoes form. Get up close to clouds of ash and molten lava. Learn about the biggest, most extreme volcanic eruptions to date. On the hunt for incredible volcanoes, you’ll travel around the globe, dive into the depths of the oceans, journey into space…and so much more!
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It’s Nonfiction Monday!
Copyright © 2019 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.
River Rescue
by Jennifer Keats Curtis (Author) and Tammy Yee (Illustrator)
Booktalk: When oil spills, workers hurry to clean the land and water. But oil spills can also affect every animal that lives in the area. Who helps these wild animals? On the East Coast, a team from Tri-State Bird Rescue & Research rushes to the scene to save as many as possible. Follow along to learn how these experts capture oiled animals and treat them quickly and safely so that they may be returned to the wild.
Snippet: On shore, two pelicans hop rather than fly. See how black their bellies are? They are covered with oil. They cannot fly, and they cannot swim.
It’s Nonfiction Monday!
Copyright © 2019 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.
Limitless: 24 Remarkable American Women of Vision, Grit, and Guts
by Leah Tinari (Author / Illustrator)
Booktalk: A collection of portraits celebrating the groundbreaking achievements and indelible impact of twenty-four extraordinary American women: Louisa May Alcott, Rachel Carson, Julia Child, Shirley Chisholm, Ellen Degeneres, Ray Eames, Eve Ensler, Carrie Fisher, Dian Fossey, Aretha Franklin, Betsey Johnson, Carol Kaye, Yuri Kochiyama, Liz Lambert, Lozen, Shirley Muldowney, Tracey Norman, Annie Oakley, Georgia O’Keefe, Dolly Parton, Kimberly Pierce, Gilda Radner, Sojourner Truth, and Abby Wambach.
Snippet:
See the book trailer.
It’s Nonfiction Monday!
Copyright © 2019 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.
The Boy Who Grew a Forest: The True Story of Jadav Payeng
by Sophia Gholz (Author) and Kayla Harren (Illustrator)
Booktalk: As a boy, Jadav Payeng was distressed by the destruction deforestation and erosion was causing on his island home in India’s Brahmaputra River. So he began planting trees. What began as a small thicket of bamboo, grew over the years into 1,300 acre forest filled with native plants and animals.
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It’s Nonfiction Monday!
Copyright © 2019 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.
Listening to Your Dog
by Michael J. Rosen (Author)
Booktalk: An instructional guide to listening to dogs, this book touches on how to interpret a dog’s vocalizations, facial expressions, and body language and informs young dog owners what to expect from the loyal, loving animals.
Snippet:
Dogspeak
Dogs bark, sing, whine, and vocalize throughout the day. Listen carefully, and you will learn to tell these sounds apart.
It’s Nonfiction Monday!
Copyright © 2019 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.
Dr. Jo: How Sara Josephine Baker Saved the Lives of America’s Children
by Monica Kulling (Author) and Julianna Swaney (Illustrator)
Booktalk: Sara Josephine Baker was a strong girl who loved adventure. Growing up in New York in the late 1800s was not easy. When she lost her brother and father to typhoid fever, she became determined to pursue her dream of becoming a doctor. In Jo’s day, medical schools were closed to women, but times were changing, and Jo was at the forefront.
When she graduated in 1898, Dr. Jo still faced prejudice against women in her field. Not many people were willing to be seen by a female doctor, and Dr. Jo’s waiting room remained mostly empty. She accepted a job in public health and was sent to Hell’s Kitchen, one of New York’s poorest neighborhoods where many immigrants lived. There, she was able to treat the most vulnerable patients: babies and children.
Snippet: Each morning Dr. Jo put on her sturdy walking shoes, picked up her medical bag and headed for Hell’s Kitchen.
She was making her way to work one morning when a frantic man stopped her.
“Please come quick!” he said. “My baby is dying!”
It’s Nonfiction Monday!
Copyright © 2019 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.
Dancing Through Fields of Color: The Story of Helen Frankenthaler
by Elizabeth Brown (Author) and Aimée Sicuro (Illustrator)
Booktalk: They said only men could paint powerful pictures, but Helen Frankenthaler (1928-2011) splashed her way through the modern art world. Channeling deep emotion, Helen poured paint onto her canvas and danced with the colors to make art unlike anything anyone had ever seen. She used unique tools like mops and squeegees to push the paint around, to dazzling effects. Frankenthaler became an originator of the influential “Color Field” style of abstract expressionist painting with her “soak stain” technique, and her artwork continues to electrify new generations of artists today.
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Guest Post by Elizabeth Brown
Elizabeth Brown holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Goddard College and is a writing and humanities college professor. She lives with her family in the Chicago area. Dancing Through Fields of Color: The Story of Helen Frankenthaler is her debut picture book and a Junior Library Guild Selection for Spring 2019.
Q. Describe your writing process:
A. Word choice was key! Choosing the most powerful and fitting words was so important to me and one of the most important parts of my writing process for the book. I wanted to capture Helen Frankenthaler’s artistry as well as her intensity in this picture book biography of the early life of Helen Frankenthaler. She had such a divine sense of color which blossomed as child and continued to develop throughout her formative years. This led to the artist she ultimately became. I carefully chose words that described her process, the development of her soak-stain method, and the roots of both human emotion and nature – all of which are threaded throughout the book and in her body of work overall. I really wanted to bring out her close relationship with her father, her struggles after his death, and her love of the sea and countryside. Making sure I chose just the “right” words was a huge part of my writing process for this book. For example, I wanted to choose the right words to match the colors in Mountains and Sea, For example, I chose “cobalt and crystal” to describe the colors of the sea, “saffron, vermillion, and spring green” to showcase the countryside Helen loved so much throughout her young life, and “periwinkle” and “ochre” to express some of Helen’s poignant memories of her father.
Another important aspect was to make sure that I chose engaging words and phrases to depict abstract expressionism. I wanted to use words that fit the art style and movement yet worked to describe abstract art to young children. I definitely did a ton of research on abstract art, the abstract expressionist movement, women in the 1950s art world, color field painting, and Helen Frankenthaler’s early life. It was so important for me to choose the correct words to describe all of these aspects, and this took many drafts and reworking as I developed the manuscript. For example, to explain when Helen looks beyond her schooling in Cubism as a college student in order to explore her ideas on color as emotion and feeling: “Painting feelings couldn’t be contained in black lines or organized into shapes or objects.”
I enjoyed the process of working and reworking the book as I revised. One of the main things I do whenever I write is to take time to process and think about each draft as I revise. This was one of the most beneficial things that helped me as I wrote this book and as I wrote my other forthcoming picture books as well.
Q. Tell us about your debut book:
A. As I said above, my debut picture book is a biography of the young Helen Frankenthaler, who would ultimately become one of the most influential artists of the Abstract Expressionist movement. It encompasses her life from young child through the making of her groundbreaking Mountains and Sea, painted at age 23. I chose to focus on this part of her life to show the development of her artistry from childhood and to explain how color was such a huge impact on her future work. The book describes how she came to develop her style – the soak stain method – where her oil paints were thinned with turpentine – spread on unprimed canvas and then pushed, pooled, and allowed to “dance” on the canvas while soaking into the canvas fibers. This new process ultimately sparked the Color Field movement which was then emulated by other artists. Finally, it delves into how Helen overcame the male domination of the 1950’s art world by experimenting and working hard. Overall, Dancing Through Fields of Color: The Story of Helen Frankenthaler is a book about finding one’s way, developing developing and believing in one’s self, and in celebrating the creation of art.
Thanks for sharing your new book, Elizabeth!
Happy #bookbirthday tomorrow!
It’s Nonfiction Monday!
Copyright © 2019 Anastasia Suen All Rights Reserved.