Nonfiction Monday

April 25, 2022April 25, 2022

Becoming Beatrix: The Life of Beatrix Potter and the World of Peter Rabbit

Today at Growing With Science Blog, we are celebrating the middle grade biography Becoming Beatrix: The Life of Beatrix Potter and the World of Peter Rabbit by Amy M. O’Quinn.

On September 4, 1893, a 27-year-old woman with thick brown hair and bright blue eyes penned a letter to a friend’s sick child. To cheer him up, she wrote a story and decorated it with pen and ink drawings of a family of rabbits. It was not unusual for her to do this; she was always writing letters to children that contained stories and drawings. What was special about this particular letter was several years later she would turn the story into her first book for children, The Tale of Peter Rabbit. Beatrix Potter went on to write more than 20 books. Many are still available and popular today, even though they were written over 100 years ago.

Author Amy M. O’Quinn reveals Beatrix Potter’s life from her early childhood in a privileged but highly-restricted household, to her later years as a farmer and conservationist. The journey of this beloved children’s book author and illustrator is fascinating, full of hardships and disappointments as well as successes.

Beatrix continued to write even after she could no longer see to draw. Her last book, Wag-by-wall (illustrated by J.J. Lankes), was published after her death.

Becoming Beatrix is smaller in size, 5.5 by 8.5 inches, which echoes Beatrix Potter’s own ideas about book size.

“She’d loved Anna Barbauld’s tiny child-sized book when she was young and was inspired to create something similar that would easily fit into small hands.”

The illustrations are mostly historical photographs, giving a sense of the times and places Beatrix lived. It also has design touches that celebrate Potter’s illustrations, including rabbits in the beginning of chapters and carrots between sections.

Becoming Beatrix Potter is perfect for young fans of Beatrix Potter and those interested in women’s history. The book would be wonderful to accompany a trip to Hill Top Farm. Get lost in a copy today!

We seem to have a gardening theme going on today at Nonfiction Monday. Visit Growing with Science to learn about Beatrix Potter’s gardens and growing your own storybook theme garden based on The Tale of Peter Rabbit.

April 25, 2022April 24, 2022

The Gardener of Alcatraz: A True Story

The Gardener of Alcatraz: A True Story
by Emma Bland Smith (Author) and Jenn Ely (Illustrator)
@ Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound

Booktalk: When Elliott Michener was locked away in Alcatraz for counterfeiting, he was determined to defy the odds and bust out. But when he got a job tending the prison garden, a funny thing happened. He found new interests and skills–and a sense of dignity and fulfillment. Elliott transformed Alcatraz Island, and the island transformed him.

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April 18, 2022April 17, 2022

Be the Change: Rob Greenfield’s Call to Kids–Making a Difference in a Messed-Up World

Be the Change: Rob Greenfield’s Call to Kids–Making a Difference in a Messed-Up World
by Rob Greenfield (Author) and Antonia Banyard (Author)
@ Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound

Booktalk: Rob Greenfield loves this planet, and he’s willing to go to extremes to show kids how our way of life is causing it harm. He’s walked around New York City dressed in his own garbage, cycled across the U.S. on a bamboo bike (three times), and survived one year on food he foraged or grew himself. For Rob, it’s all worth it: he brings attention to important topics like food and water waste; our dependency on fossil fuels; our piles of stuff (and the energy required to produce it); and our disconnection from community and the wider world. In this book for ages 8 to 12, Rob uses his own experiences to show kids that no one is too young to make a difference, and no action is too small to make a start.

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April 11, 2022April 10, 2022

Amanda Gorman: Inspiring Hope with Poetry

Amanda Gorman: Inspiring Hope with Poetry
by Artika R. Tyner (Author)
@ Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound

Booktalk: Poet Amanda Gorman delivered her poem “The Hill We Climb” at the 2021 presidential inauguration, winning wide acclaim. Read about Gorman’s early life, her children’s and poetry books, and what she plans to do next.

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April 4, 2022April 3, 2022

Child of the Flower-Song People

Child of the Flower-Song People: Luz Jiménez, Daughter of the Nahua
by Gloria Amescua (Author) and Duncan Tonatiuh (Illustrator)
@ Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound

Booktalk: As a young Nahua girl in Mexico during the early 1900s, Luz learned how to grind corn in a metate, to twist yarn with her toes, and to weave on a loom. By the fire at night, she listened to stories of her community’s joys, suffering, and survival, and wove them into her heart.

But when the Mexican Revolution came to her village, Luz and her family were forced to flee and start a new life. In Mexico City, Luz became a model for painters, sculptors, and photographers such as Diego Rivera, Jean Charlot, and Tina Modotti. These artists were interested in showing the true face of Mexico and not a European version. Through her work, Luz found a way to preserve her people’s culture by sharing her native language, stories, and traditions. Soon, scholars came to learn from her.

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March 28, 2022

Moving Words About a Flower

Perfect to read for National Weed Appreciation Day (March 28) and then have on hand for National Poetry Month (April), comes the gorgeous new picture book Moving Words About a Flower by K. C. Hayes and illustrated by Barbara Chotiner.

At its simplest, this book is about the life cycle of dandelions. Open the first pages, however, and you will be surprised and delighted. It is filled with bright, bold shape –or also called concrete– poems. The words form images in many fun and creative ways. For example, in this spread can you find lightning and rain?

After the rain, a dandelion grows in a crack in the sidewalk in the city.

When the dandelion plant is mature, its seeds fly out to the countryside, where we learn more about how dandelions grow and what happens to them.

The back matter has a lovely diagram of the life cycle of a dandelion, when it blooms, how the seeds fly, and their value as food.

Young readers will want to explore Moving Words About a Flower again and again. Use it to inspire lessons on life cycles, poems, and art.

Look for activity suggestions at Growing With Science blog.

March 28, 2022March 27, 2022

Only Margaret: A Story about Margaret Wise Brown

Only Margaret: A Story about Margaret Wise Brown
by Candice Ransom (Author) and Nan Lawson (Illustrator)
@ Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound

Booktalk: When Halley’s comet arrived in 1910, so did an extraordinary person: Margaret Wise Brown. Margaret had a boundless imagination and a gift for spinning stories. Most grown-ups thought children’s books were frivolous and silly, but Margaret didn’t agree. Could writing stories for children be important work–a incredible way to share truth, beauty, and wonder?

Other people might call Margaret strange, and sometimes her own worries and doubts felt overwhelming. But only Margaret and her original ideas could lead to Goodnight Moon, The Runaway Bunny, and other classics beloved by children around the world.

Snippet: One night, Margaret dreamed of a green room and a red balloon and a picture of a cow jumping over the moon. The next morning, she reached for the notebook by her bed. Her pen sped, scrawling line after line about a bunny who named all the things in his room before he went to sleep.

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March 21, 2022March 20, 2022

Close-Up on War

Close-Up on War: The Story of Pioneering Photojournalist Catherine Leroy in Vietnam
by Mary Cronk Farrell (Author)
@ Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound

Booktalk: French-born Catherine Leroy, one of the war’s few woman photographers, documented some of the fiercest fighting in the 20-year Vietnam War. Although she had no formal photographic training and had never traveled more than a few hundred miles from Paris before, Leroy left home at age 21 to travel to Vietnam and document the faces of war. Despite being told that women didn’t belong in a “man’s world,” she was cool under fire, gravitated toward the thickest battles, went along on the soldiers’ slogs through the heat and mud of the jungle, crawled through rice paddies, and became the only official photojournalist to parachute into combat with American soldiers. Leroy took striking photos that gave America no choice but to look at the realities of war–showing what it did to people on both sides–from wounded soldiers to civilian casualties.

Snippet: Her parents and friends did not understand her desire to leave home, travel across the globe, and drop herself into danger. For Catherine, it was simple.

“I want to become a photojournalist, and the biggest story at the moment is the Vietnam War.”

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March 14, 2022March 13, 2022

MEGA-COOL MEGAFAUNA series

MEGA-COOL MEGAFAUNA series
by Anastasia Suen (Author)

Booktalk: My MEGA-COOL MEGAFAUNA series came out during the pandemic and now all four books are online as e-books. Hooray! Click the links under each title to find them at your library.

@ Hoopla | Overdrive | WorldCat

These middle grade expository books are written in prose, but I’ve been writing STEM poetry for years, so that’s what I did for this author visit mini-comic.

In the What is your favorite BIG animal? mini-comic, I’ve written two pocket poems about two of the creatures in the MEGA-COOL MEGAFAUNA Creatures of Today book. Each pocket poem is based on two facts from the book.

What will the third poem be? That’s up to you–and your students! Write two facts about your favorite BIG animal on page 6 and write a pocket poem using those facts on page 7. Then draw your animal on page 8.

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March 14, 2022March 13, 2022

Stacey Abrams: Champion of Democracy

Stacey Abrams: Champion of Democracy
by Artika R. Tyner (Author)
@ Amazon | Bookshop | IndieBound

Booktalk: Stacey Abrams is a lawyer, entrepreneur, and voting rights activist. After working in government, she founded Fair Fight Action to improve voting access. Learn about Abrams’s early life and what she plans to do next.

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