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Spell It Out: The Curious, Enthralling and Extraordinary Story of English Spelling David Crystal

Much like he does in The Story of English in 100 Words, Crystal has made language history exceedingly accessible. This is a basic history of English spelling and how it developed over time, and why it’s so darn wacky. (Short story-- trying to use the latin alphabet for a non-Latin language, scribes changing spelling to make things easier/prettier on the page, French influence after the Norman conquest, and the Great Vowel shift.)

But, for a book that could easily be boring, short chapters and a conversational style make this one an easy read. I also love love love love that Crystal doesn’t decry texting and the internet as ruining spelling. He also makes wonderful arguments as to why spelling is more important than ever. There's also an entire section for early education teachers with his ideas about how to teach spelling to make it more relevant, easier, and fun.

Very fun, and an Outstanding Book for the College Bound that I think teens will really enjoy.

Book Provided by... my local library

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The adage “Books can take you anywhere” is beautifully exemplified by My Pop-Up City Atlas by Jonathan Litton (@JonathanLitton) and Stephen Waterhouse (@SWIllustrator), a thrilling, whistle-stop tour through 70 cities around the world.

Using pop-ups and a whole host of paper-engineering whizzery to bring to life exotically coloured urban scenes from cities both well known and surprising, this book has given us the dream ticket to travel the globe from the comfort of our sofa and duvets.

This book is no long, dry list of capital cities. In fact, it places locations together by type, creating interesting juxtapositions and taking you travelling via unexpected routes. For example you could travel London-Athens-Luxor-Xi’an-Dawson City (a historical cities tour), or Vatican City-Mecca-Varanasi-Salt Lake City (a religious cities tour). Perhaps Helsinki-San Fransico-Honolulu-Sydney-Cape Town (a coastal cities tour) is more your cup-of-tea. By grouping cities together by type the book explores answers to a question posed on its opening page, “Why do people live in cities?”, and what could have been a boring list of facts instead becomes a story with options and opportunities.

The 3-D city scapes are great fun, with lots of illustrative details partially hidden underneath and beside so that the views of the city are rich from which ever angle you look. We’ve enjoyed looking for photos which show the same city and seeing how closely the illustrations match real life; indeed I think the publishers, Templar, have missed a trick here in that they could have made this an internet-linked book (a little like many of Usborne’s non-fiction) as the facts and images have definitely left us hungry to find out more, amazed and intrigued by the facts and vistas inside this book’s covers.

“Further reading” (online or in a suggested bibligraphy) could also have provided background to the various statements throughout the book which are stripped of any (in its broadest sense) political commentary; mention is made of the Aral Sea and how it has shrunk but the causes of this change are not even hinted at. Likewise it is noted that the Dalai Lama used to live in Lhasa without any indication of why this is no longer the case. Some (adult) readers may feel it is better to leave such things out, but I believe facts work best when they are contextualised and linked to a bigger narrative – precisely why I think the themed grouping of cities works so well in this book.

A well produced, engagingly presented, and exciting book, My Pop-Up City Atlas will make young readers curious and no-doubt spark some wanderlust, quite possibly in their parents as well!

There’s an interesting interview with the book’s illustrator, Stephen Waterhouse here, on Illustration Cloud.

After reading My Pop-Up City Atlas we too wanted our own city to pop up at home and decided the best way to go about this was to use building blocks. But to give things a twist we first put our plain wooden blocks in the oven!

Once warm (about 10 minutes at 160C, starting from a cold oven), we illustrated our blocks with wax crayons, drawing windows, doors and other architectural features.

The warmth of the wooden blocks made the wax melt ever so slightly, creating a lovely feeling when colouring the blocks, and also an interesting effect with the oily wax melting slightly into the wood. Whilst the blocks were warm, it was easy to work them simply by holding them in a dishcloth. If they cooled too much in the time it took for us to decorate them, we just put them back in the oven for a couple of minutes.

Once our set of blocks was fully decorated, we laid down roads on the kitchen table, using masking tape…

And then it was time to start building architectural gems!

In no time at all an entire customised city had popped up in our kitchen. We used wooden blocks we already had (you quite often see them in charity shops), but I did order some more interesting shaped wooden pieces from Woodworks Craft Supplies (who also supply lovely wooden peg doll blanks).

Whilst decorating our blocks and building our city we listened to:

Istanbul (Not Constantinople) by They Might Be Giants (YouTube link)

Barcelona by Freddie Mercury (YouTube link)

Vienna by Ultravox (YouTube link)

London Calling by The Clash (YouTube link)

New York, New York by Frank Sinatra (YouTube link)

Viva Las Vegas by Elvis Presley (YouTube link)

Rotterdam or Anywhere” by The Beautiful South (YouTube link)

Jackson by Johnny Cash & June Carter (YouTube link)

Other activities which could work well alongside reading My Pop-Up City Atlas include:

Building your own city online. Here’s such an activity from the BBC on the Cbeebies website, whilst this site enables you to build a city and practise lots of maths skills at the same time .

Taking part in the Future City Competition (US only, unfortunately), a great cross-curriculum hands-on activity by the looks of it.

Creating an outdoor play city with bricks (here’s how we did it), creating a linocut city or paper city (here’s how we did it), or reading a range of picture books which focus on urbanisation (here’s my curated list of urban lanscapes over time in picture books).

What books and songs about cities do you and your family love?

Disclosure: I received a free review copy of My Pop-Up City Atlas from the publishers.

Every Monday is a celebration of all things non-fiction in the online children’s book world. If you’d like to read more reviews of children’s non-fiction books, do take a look at the dedicated children’s non-fiction blog: http://nonfictionmonday.wordpress.com/

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Blog hops are a thing, apparently. (Since I am just realizing this, perhaps “were a thing” is more accurate? I’m usually a bit behind on social media trends.) Here, gone, no matter. Blog hops are fun, and I’m going to play along …

Back in March, Kathy Erskine tagged me for a hop in which I got to share a bit about my Spring 2014 book, Handle With Care. (Here’s that post, if you missed it.) Last week, Sarah Albee tagged me in a similar blog hope meme. (Here’s her post.) Here’s the deal this time around: first, I tell you a little bit about Sarah, then I tell you a little bit about my next book.

See? Kinda fun. Especially if you are into children’s nonfiction. And guess what? Today is Nonfiction Monday! (Maybe I am actually a social media guru? Ha.)

So, what can I tell you about Sarah?

• For starters, she sometimes goes by the names Constance Allen, Sarah Willson, Catherine Samuel, or Catherine Lukas. And she has written a lot of children’s books. (Four hundred thousand or so, as far as I can tell. Click here to see a partial list.)

• She is one of the funniest people I know. Check out the book trailer she made for one of her books. See what I mean?

• She’s obsessed with toilets. Truly, truly obsessed.

• She’s also obsessed with history. But in a way that makes for one-of-a-kind books that give readers of all ages a unique look at our world and its past. Her POOP HAPPENED: A HISTORY OF THE WORLD FROM THE BOTTOM UP is a great example. And her newest title, BUGGED: HOW INSECTS CHANGED HISTORY, is another; look for it in April 2014.

• She’s good with voices. If you run into her, ask her to talk like a pirate for you. Trust me.

Get to know Sarah for yourself through her books, by visiting her website or her blog, by following her on Twitter, or by friending her on Facebook.

Thanks for the blog hop tag, Miss Sarah!

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On Mondays, the online arm of the children’s publishing world celebrates books of children’s nonfiction. Even though I’m a sporadic participant on the blogging side, I’m a regular explorer of the Nonfiction Monday archives from the reading side. It’s a great place to find nonfiction reviews and book tips. This week’s event is hosted by Abby the Librarian. Freshen your tea, click on over, and enjoy some happy moments reading about what’s new and wonderful in children’s nonfiction. 

I’ve decided to add a round-up of my week with Martin Jenkins and Vicky White’s magnficent picture book CAN WE SAVE THE TIGER? Exploring human-driven species extinction in a picture book for elementary grade readers is not an easy task, but Jenkins and White manage it beautifully. By laying their breathtaking art and crystal clear prose atop a solid structure, this book manages to inform and inspire without preaching.

That last paragraph was the most succinct I have managed in a week of studying the structure of this book! But if you happen to be up for a much deeper look at this work, particularly its structure, click back through my week of posts: on Tuesday, I introduced the book and my task, on Wednesday I dissected the main structure, and on Thursday I talked about the various ways author, illustrator, and design team supported that structure.

Happy reading. And Happy Nonfiction Monday!

 

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Their Skeletons Speak: Kennewick Man and the Paleoamerican World Sally M. Walker

We're almost done looking at the long list for YALSA's Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults. Sally Walker had two books on the list this year-- big congratulations to her!

Like her Written in Bone: Buried Lives of Jamestown and Colonial Maryland, Walker looks at the history and science and significance of several sets of remains. This time, she focuses on the oldest skeletons found in the Americas.

The book mostly focuses on 9,000 years-old Kennewick Man, how we was discovered on a riverbank in 1996 and how much we have discovered about where we came from.

I'm a huge fan of Bones and so I love of Walker shows us how the reconstruction and renderings work in real life. I find such things fascinating. I also like how Walker looks at a range of finds and how they all relate to each other in forming a unified theory of early human life in the Americas. I hope Walker continues to write books on using forensic science and history-- wonderful stuff.

Today's Nonfiction Monday round up is over at Stacking Books. Be sure to check it out!

Book Provided by... the publisher for awards consideration.

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

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Blizzard of Glass: The Halifax Explosion of 1917 Sally M. Walker

As regular readers may remember, last year I was on the committee for the Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults. In addition to our winners and finalists, the committee also publishes a list of vetted nominations (what I like to call the "long list.") I'm in the process of highlighting these titles during Nonfiction Monday.

In December 1917, war was raging in Europe. In Halifax Harbor, two ships were on their way to the action, one on it's way to pick up relief supplies, the other full of munitions. The two ships collided, causing a fire. As the munitions ship drifted, fire on its deck, it crashed into the pier and exploded, leveling most of of the harbor area and creating a shockwave that blew out almost every window in Halifax proper. 2000 people died, 9000 more were injured. Rescue and relief efforts were further dampened when a blizzard blew in the next day and dumped over a foot of snow on the area.

Until the advent of nuclear weapons, the Halifax explosion was the largest man-made explosion ever.

Walker tells this story (one that's very well known in Canada, but not so much in the US) through the eyes of children who lived around the harbor at the time. Children getting ready for school, running errands, and going about their day. She weaves these daily accounts in with the context of shipping lanes and traffic, and what was happening in the Harbor. Walker also covers the communities on the other side of the Harbor who were affected by the explosion, resulting shock wave, and tsunami. The book is also very good at detailing what happened after the explosion to everyone.

Fun fact: The Halifax coroner's office had a tested system in place to deal with a mass casualty event like this. It had been developed 2 years earlier, when they brought in the bodies from the Titanic.

Today's Nonfiction Monday roundup is over at a wrung sponge. Check it out.

Also check out today's YA Reading List post, in honor of Yom HaShoah.

Book Provided by... the publisher, for award consideration

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

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Before we get to the reviewing, just a reminder about my other project, YA Reading List, where I post a themed reading list EVERY SINGLE DAY.

The Impossible Rescue: The True Story of an Amazing Arctic Adventure Martin W. Sandler

I'm covering the books that were on the 2013 long-list for the YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction. For those who don't know, I was on this committee and I really want to highlight these other titles that we loved.

Off the coast of Alaska, the winter of 1897 came early, trapping eight whaling ships in the ice. There was a small settlement on shore, but between the ships and the settlement, there were not enough provisions to get through the winter, and no way to get more. (One ship managed to not be trapped, and was able to let people know what was going on, but there wasn't enough time to get back via ship for a rescue effort before winter hit full force.) President McKinley had a plan and sent three men to get them food-- they'd travel through the state and buy reindeer herds along the way, and herd the reindeer to where the men were stranded. Meanwhile, at the ships, morale and discipline were running just as low as the food.

Sandler does an excellent job of describing the conditions and tensions that run through this story. From a modern vantage point, the situation is hard to wrap your head around, but Sandler explains it really well and will have you on the edge of your seat, shivering through the Arctic reader with the whalers and their rescuers. There are several photographs and primary sources illustrating the text. It also gets high marks for some truly excellent maps and excellent back matter-- including a comprehensive "what happened next" for the people involved.

Today's Nonfiction Monday is over at Wendie's Wanderings. Be sure to check it out!

Book Provided by... the publisher, for award consideration

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

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Invincible Microbe: Tuberculosis and the Never-Ending Search for a Cure by Jim Murphy and Alison Blank.

I'm back taking a closer look at the long list of this year's YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults.

Murphy and Blank do a wonderful job of weaving in multiple strands of the TB story. There's the story of the disease itself, starting in prehistory and going until today, how it affects the body, how it kills, and how we've come to the drug-resistant types we have today. There's the story of those searching for a cure, the doctors with medicine, the quacks with schemes, what has worked, what hasn't, and where we are today. Then there's the story of TB's role in pop culture and policy-- the romantic idea of the consumptive waif, border closings to quarantine areas, the way it spread through centers of urban poor. Lastly, but most importantly, it's the story of those who have suffered from this disease, from prehistoric times until today.

They dip in and out of these stories seamlessly and tying it all together as they follow TB across time and space. It gets scary at the end, when they talk about TB's comback and how what little we had to combat it is no longer working.

It's fascinating and medical and social history at its best.

Amazingly, after I read this, I discovered that I actually know several people with TB. I was even able to explain the reasons behind some of the more annoying parts of their treatment!

Today's Nonfiction Monday is over at Supratentorial. Check it out!


Book Provided by... the publisher, for award consideration

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

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Haunted Histories: Creepy Castles, Dark Dungeons, and Powerful Palaces by JH Everett, illustrated by Marilyn Scott-Waters.

I'm taking a break from the covering the YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction longlist to bring you something else that I just read.

Virgil is a ghostorian-- a historian with a magic time-travel device that allows him to go to any place in any time and talk to ghosts to get a good sense of what really happened there.

He uses these powers to take us to many castles around the world to show how hard (and disgusting) life really was, especially for the many people who WEREN'T royalty, but still lived there.

In a lot of ways, this is very similar to the You Wouldn't Want to Be... series, but for a slightly older audience. The content isn't that older, but the trim size and presentation will make it appeal to readers who might dismiss the You Wouldn't Want to Be... books as looking too young.

It's a fun look at the dark and gritty side of castle life, focusing on why castles tended to exist in the first place-- fortresses to protect and defend during war time. It also spends a lot of time on dungeons and torture.

I'm not sure on the who "ghostorian" angle-- it wasn't played up a lot and so when it did happen, I was like "wait, what? OH YEAH! THAT!" I think they could have done A LOT more with that bit. Or cut it entirely.

I do really like that it covered castles outside of Europe. I also really liked the "funny" castles. Hellbrunn Water palace was a designed by the Prince Archbishop, and was a way for him to play a million water-based practical jokes on visitors.

It's not a book you'll quote in a research paper, but it is a fun book that may inspire you to pick up some more on the topic.

Today's Nonfiction Monday is over at Shelf-Employed.

Book Provided by... my local library

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

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It's Nonfiction Monday! I'm still highlighting the books that made this year's YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults vetted nominations list.


Temple Grandin: How the Girl Who Loved Cows Embraced Autism and Changed the World Sy Montgomery

Temple's father wanted to institutionalize her, but her mother stood up for her and tried to find her all the help she could. Growing up with autism is rarely, if ever, easy, but when Temple did it (born in 1947), it didn't even had a name yet. But Temple found a way to get what she needed and managed to turn her love of cows into a career that has completely changed the way we handle livestock, especially cows.

Montgomery's biography does a wonderful job at explaining how Temple's mind works, really giving readers a sense of what it's like to be in her head. She also does a great job of explaining Temple's work and why it's important.

It's a fascinating book, written in a very engaging style. I think Temple's story of how she changed life for cows and how cows behave would be interesting on its own, but with the story of how her brain works and the obstacles that has put in her path it adds an extra level.

Today's Nonfiction Monday roundup is over at Wrapped in Foil. Check it out!

Book Provided by... the publisher, for awards consideration

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

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The Amazing Harry Kellar: Great American Magician by Gail Jarrow.

I'm covering all the books on the YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults list of vetted nominations. Here' the next one!

Harry Kellar was amazingly famous in his time, one of the world's first superstars, but outside of magic circles, he's almost entirely unknown today.

The large, heavily illustrated format of this book may want you to put it with the picture books, and younger kids will enjoy it, but I think teens will love it. It's heavily illustrated with Kellar's advertising posters. Kellar was a master at PR, and the posters don't have the same effect if they're reproduced on a smaller size.

In addition to telling Kellar's life and career, Jarrow excels at explaining why magic and spiritualism were so popular at the turn of the 19th century. She also breaks the magician's code and tells us how many of his illusions and tricks worked.

It's a fun and fascinating book, with a really cool design that will appeal to a really wide range of readers. I think it will be avoided because of its size, but take a second look, and you won't be disappointed.

Today's Nonfiction Monday Roundup is over at Abby the Librarian. Check it out!


Book Provided by... the publisher, for awards consideration.

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

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In the days
when farmers worked with ox and sled
and cut the dark with lantern light,
there lived a boy who loved the snow
more than anything else in the world.

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How often can grown-ups read a nonfiction easy reader and learn a bunch of cool stuff? That's what happened to me when I thumbed through Castle: How It Works by the amazing David Macaulay. This Level 4 easy reader is packed with engrossing details about life inside a medieval Welsh castle. Macaulay acts as tour guide as he leads young readers up a rocky hill, across a moat, and through two gatehouses. Once inside the castle's fortress, readers gambol through a courtyard and climb the castle's spiral staircase. They get to inspect every inch of the building, from the high towers where the lord and lady live all the way to the depths of the dungeon, crammed with enemy soldiers.

So many terms are bandied about--battlement, catapult, portcullis--that I was relieved to see a glossary at the end. While the vocabulary might pose a challenge for beginning readers, the high-interest subject matter more than pays off. What child wouldn't be fascinated to know how a castle's plumbing system works or that hay was used for toilet paper?

Macaulay confesses in an author's note that he didn't like reading as a kid. Pictures were the lure that drew him in. It's fitting then that the illustrations work so perfectly to support the text. My favorite shows a catapult chucking a deceased pig over a castle wall. Again, details add to the fun. Is it my imagination or does a drawing of an eel pie show an eel's tail peeking from the crust?

Castle: How It Works
by David Macaulay with Sheila Keenan
David Macaulay Studio, 32 pages
Published: September 2012

Today is Nonfiction Monday. Head on over to The LibraiYAn and join the fun!

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The Magical Life of Long Tack Sam: An Illustrated Memoir Ann Marie Fleming

This is two stories-- the story of how Ann Marie tried to find out about the great-grandfather she just discovered was a world-famous magician and vaudeville performer, and the story of his life.

It’s a graphic novel, but more. There are a lot of photographs and documents in with the drawings, telling this tale.

And what a tale it is.

Long Tack Sam’s origins are a bit hazy (there are a few versions) but he rose to become an international superstar. He was Chinese, his wife was Austrian. They traveled the world and lived all over, fleeing wars and performing.

The family remained largely international in origin and much of Fleming’s work revolves around being multiple ethnicities, visas, and citizenship. Fleming herself was born on Okinawa when it was UN protectorate. She couldn’t leave the island because she didn’t have an exit visa. She didn’t have an exit visa, because you needed an entry visa. She didn’t have an entry visa because she was born there. It’s pretty representative of many of the issues her family goes to through over the years.

After WWII, Long Tack Sam could become a US citizen, but his wife couldn’t because Austria wasn’t under Russian threat.

Visually, the mixed media works really well. Fleming weaves her stories and broader themes in and out in way that makes for a great read and draws you in. You’re fascinated by Long Tack Sam’s life and fame, but also by Fleming’s journey of discovering her family history.

I appreciated the sidebars of contemporary world events that helped ground the story in time. It’s a sweeping story that takes much of the twentieth century and is affected by much of twentieth century history.

Originally, Fleming told this story in film, and the book comes from the film. Sadly, I can’t find the film anywhere to watch. I’d love to see more of this story.

While this is a book published for adults, I think teens will really enjoy it-- especially the exploration of identity and family.

The Nonfiction Monday roundup is over at The Flatt Perspective. Be sure to check it out.

Book Provided by... my local library

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

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Reading Magic: Why Reading Aloud to Our Children Will Change Their Lives Forever (updated and revised) Mem Fox

So, this isn't a book for teens or kids or with kid or teen appeal, but it is a book on child literacy and how to make kids readers, so I think it's still a good Nonficion Monday fix.

At work this week, I wrote an informational sheet for parents about why reading aloud to your kids is super-duper important and really good for them. When I was googling around for some sources to back up the things I've been taught in my youth services career, I found a lot of references to this book. I read the first two chapters on Google books and then went to the bookstore on my lunch break to just buy it. (I would have purchased immediately if it were available as an ebook, but alas and alak.)

I KNOW reading aloud is important to kids. You don't need to convince me. In those first two chapters I had the info I needed for my project, so why did I feel compelled to buy the book to tell me something I already know?

Well, as you hopefully already know from books such as Where Is the Green Sheep?, Fox is a really good story teller and writer. I wanted to read more.

Her basic premis is that we need to read aloud to our kids all that we can and that if we do, they will easily learn to read and become life long readers. Sadly, there's a lot of "research shows..." "experts say..." "studies prove..." but NO SOURCE NOTES. No bibliography. Nothing. There's also no real data, just lots of story after story about her own daughter, her editor's son, some neighborhood kids, and other kids she's come across in her work. Fox was an early literacy prof for a number of years and as she says in her introduction, "I speak with the authority of an international literacy consultant and the intensity of a writer, but I'm most passionate when I speak as an ordinary mother" and that shows. I don't doubt the studies and experts and research exist, but I want sources (mostly so I can follow up and read that research! Because I am a literacy nerd and I need data when I talk to parents about the best way to prep their kids for school.)

Because the evidence is all anecdotal, I think she oversells the benefits of reading aloud. Although she qualifies it at the end that "most children don't learn to read at home. They learn soon after they start school..." during most of the book, her case reads that if you read to your kids a lot, and play literacy games with the text, your kid will teach themselves to read at age 3. And that's not the case. Some will (Dan did) but not all. I mean, her chapter called "The Proof" is only one story about a kid named Justin who could identify his favorite books at 6 months and sit for an hour reading 20 books in a row and at 21 months he had a speaking vocabulary of 500 words and could sight read 20 words. Fox has never met Justin, his mom just emailed her via her website.

I trust what she's saying, I don't doubt her overall point... BUT.

I think the chapter on *how* to read aloud to kids is great. New parents are freaked out about everything and tend to overthink it. The chapter does as good of a job as possible explaining vocal inflection in an entirely written medium. They're things I don't think about a lot as I've always been very good at reading aloud (probably because I was read to so much as a child) but it's a great chapter that I'd also recommend for new youth services librarians who do programming. (I had to read a story as part of my job interview. It's a skill you need to have!)

Her take down of phonics as a reading instruction method is WONDERFUL and while it's not totally applicable to the thrust of this book, I'd LOVE to hear to talk about programs like Accelerated Reader.

There are some great new-to-me points as well. She completely convinced me to never answer "well, why don't you try to sound it out" when asked what a word is. I'm not sure that's something I'd do as a librarian, but I'm sure I would have done it as a mother. But, as Fox explains, when you stop to sound it out, you lose your flow in reading. You forget the rhythm and language, plot and characters of the story. Stopping for that one word makes the rest of the book that much harder. Having someone *give* you the word lets you continue at speed.

Despite my issues with the scholarship involved, I did really enjoy the book, even though I already knew and preached the importance of reading aloud to young children (I mean, Dan read aloud to the Kung Fu Princess before my epidural wore off. Her first read-aloud experience was The Economist.) I think the anecdotes-as-proof style reads more easily/less academically to the lay person (especially as this is targeted at new parents who are probably very sleep deprived) BUT, a few pages of source notes at the end would have been most beneficial.

I don't regret buying it though. It was an easy, fast read and has me all jazzed up about why I do what I do.

Check out today's Nonfiction Monday roundup over at Wrapped in Foil. Be sure to check it out!

Book Provided by... my wallet

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

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The farmer and her boy plant their garden. They drop seeds--tiny, fat, round, and oval--into the earth. From these seeds, pumpkins and peas, carrots and cabbages will grow. In the wild meadow garden, many seeds are planted too, but not by farmer's hands. 

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Each bug on these pages
Looks unique and rare,
Not like the insects
You see everywhere.

They're made up of numbers:
The ones that you count.
'Cause when you think bugs,
You think BIG amounts.

Now some smarties might notice
As the go through and look,
Not every creature is a bug in this book. 

Not all critters that fly or crawl  on the ground
Are technically bugs, but we both have found
Mos folks call them bugs, and since they do,
We figured, why not? We'd call them "bugs" too. 

Real bugs are insects, but not all insects are bugs
And spiders are neither (oh, please don't say, "Ugh").

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1. Being a Short Exposition About What Could Happen and How It Would Happen
2. Being the True Story of How Humans Frist Began to Fish and How Fishing Became an Industry
3. Being the Sad, Cautionary Tale of the Orange Roughy
4. Being the Myth of Nature's Bounty and How Scientists Got It Wrong for Many Years
5. Being a Concise History of the Politics of Fish
6. Being an Examination of Why We Can't Simply Stop Fishing
7. Being a Detailed Look at Four Possible Solutions and Why They Alone Won't Work
8. The Best Solution to Overfishing: Sustainable Fishing
9. How Pollution is Killing Fish, Too
10. How Global Warming is Also Killing Fish
11. Time to Wake Up and Smell the Fish

• The jellyfish is actually a very highly evolved type of plankton. It is the cockroach of the sea, an animal little loved by human beings but particularly well designed for survival (p. 13). (For more on this check out Zooplanton at Marinebio.org.)
• Several times the size of the elephant, the humpback whale is one of the largest mammals on earth—and yet it feeds on one of the tiniest forms of life in the world (p. 42).
• For thousands of years, fishing was sustainable. But nowadays, between 100 and 120 million tons of sea life are killed by fishing every year (p.85).
• Fish prefer colder waters. The warming of the seas is a crisis for fish. If the seas are warming and ice is melting, this means that the melted ice, which is freshwater, will make the seas less salty (pp. 139-140).

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So You Thought You Couldn't Cut It, A Beginner's Guide to Wood Carving Jim Calder with Jen Coate

Jim Calder is a Master Carver who teaches workshops to adults and kids using his triangle method to carve a face. While Carter usually carves wood, in his workshops and this book, he uses a sweet potato-- it's the right size, easier for beginners to cut through, and when it dries out and looks a lot like wood.

Steps are clearly explained and each step is accompanied by a large, clear, color picture showing Calder's method. I didn't try to carve a sweet potato, so I can't say for sure, but the book makes it look pretty straightforward and do-able. If I had proper carving knives, I might buy a sweet potato and try it out, but I don't have the right tools, so, alas.

An extra exciting part about this book is Jen Coate. This book was published by the Young Writer's Foundation, which mentors writers in K-12, so it's pretty cool that a high school student was paired with Calder and wrote this book.

Today's Nonfiction Monday is hosted over at Jean Little Library.


Book Provided by... the publisher for Cybils consideration

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

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THE MAN WHO PLANTED TREES:

Lost Groves, Champion Trees and an Urgent Plan to Save the Planet

By Jim Robbins

Spiegel & Grau, 2012

Category: Nonfiction for Grownups

“We can wait around for someone else to solve the problem of climate change and the range of other environmental problems we face, from toxic waste to air pollution to dead zones in the oceans to the precipitous decline in biodiversity, or we can take matters into our own hands and plant trees.”

If you have even a smidgeon of doubt that this statement is true, read this book. I predict that when you’re done, you’ll plant a tree. Or twenty.

Postscript: For those of you who are truly into nonfiction, particularly children’s nonfiction, don’t forget about the weekly Nonfiction Monday celebration. Check it out here!

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You Just Can't Help It!: Your Guide to the Wild and Wacky World of Human Behavior Jeff Szpirglas, illustrated by Josh Holinaty

This is a very fun introduction to the science behind human behavior. It covers a wide variety of topics, from the effect color has on you to birth order. From dreaming to spacing out. The reader gets just enough explanation for it to make sense, but just short blurbs on each thing.

Each page spread is full of graphics and color that make this a great book for reluctant readers or one that's easy to dip in and out out. It's the design that really sold this book for me. The short blurbs of information, that all relate to each other so the reader gets a more complete picture, makes some difficult concepts much easier to understand. Coupled with fun pictures, lots of pictures, and a great use of white space, really make this book an easy sell to all sorts of readers. All of this is done without diluting the information presented.

Very fun, and very interesting, it's a wonderful introduction to human behavior, psychology, and biology that kids will love to read.

Today's Nonfiction Monday roundup is over at Perogies and Gyoza. Be sure to check it out!

Book Provided by... the publisher, for Cybils consideration

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

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H.O.U.S.E. by Aleksandra Machowiak and Daniel Mizielinski (translated by Elzbieta Wojcik-Leese) is a book about dreams becoming reality. About imagination taking flight and bearing fruit. It’s also a nonfiction book about architecture. And, it’s wonderful!

I first came across the work of Aleksandra Machowiak and Daniel Mizielinski when I interviewed Jan Pieńkowski and asked him for some tips about Polish illustrators to look out for. With my recent addiction to books showing homes, houses and buildings through the ages I gave myself the perfect excuse to finally treat myself to H.O.U.S.E.. Why did I wait a year and a half to bring this IBBY Honour list book into our home? I don’t know, but we’re all very glad it now has a place in our house.

H.O.U.S.E. contains details of 35 unusual houses around the world. Illustrations of the actual houses are accompanied by short details on what was the inspiration for them, their location, a key to their construction and a portrait of the architect for each house. Kids love building dens and secret nooks, and this book is basically about adults who do exactly that. No wonder H.O.U.S.E. is so popular with my kids (and I’m 100% sure will excite your kids too).

Each of the houses in question is drawn, rather than photographed. I think this is an interesting decision given that these are houses which actually exist. Why would you draw something in a nonfiction book, when you could take a photo of it instead?

Perhaps the illustrations are somehow more inspiring, especially for children; photographs would make the object concrete and specific, rather than focusing on the imaginative side of the design.

By illustrating the buildings, Machowiak and Mizielinski have also been able to play with colours a lot; perhaps it’s because of the link in my head with Pieńkowski, but H.O.U.S.E. reminds me of the Meg and Mog books’ use of a limited range of flat, saturated, intense col

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Dan Eldon: Safari as a Way of Life Jennifer New

Dan Eldon was the son of an American mother and a British father and he grew up in Kenya. Throughout his life, he was always creating art, most notably in his journals (which have been published separately.) He traveled extensively throughout Africa and in the 80s, effortlessly crossed the continent's notable class and race lines. In 1993, while working as a photojournalist in Mogadishu, a mob killed him after an American airstrike killed many elders, women, and children. He was 22.

While writing this book and her previous biography of Eldon, Dan Eldon: The Art of Life, New interviewed over 100 of Eldon's friends and family. The young man presented in these pages is one of endless energy and impossible schemes that easily become reality, a talented artist who was just starting to really find his way.

What most readers will notice right away is the striking design-- laid out to mimic Dan's journals, it is filled with his artwork, photographs, page spreads, and words (in full color.) I was most struck by the ones that are mostly paintings, although many are collages of his friends and family, interspersed with ephemera, words, and drawings.

I would have liked a little more context to really paint how stark the race and class issues were when and where Dan was growing up. A little more explanation of what it was like to be white in Nairobi and going to a largely ex-pat school would be helpful.

Today's Nonfiction Monday roundup is over at Apple with Many Seeds.

Book Provided by... the publisher, for Cybil's consideration.

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

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Witches: The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem Rosalyn Schanzer

GUYS! How did this NOT get nominated for the Cybils?! It was a Sibert Honor and totally deserving. It should have been a Cybils book. As a community (myself included) we totally dropped the ball on this one. It wasn't even nominated. WTF?!

Schanzer writes a fascinating account of the Salem witch trials and does an excellent job of putting the frenzy and fear into context. It's gripping and terrifying. Schanzer managers a real sense of immediacy that really makes you feel the fear going through this town. Here's what I love-- often when they talk about the fear of Salem, it seems like everyone was afraid of being falsely accused. Schanzer shows us that many people were actually afraid of being attacked by witches, because it seems like anyone and everyone could be and was a witch.

Even though I knew the story and the people and the facts and the legends, this book broke my heart in a way nothing else about Salem ever has. Schanzer tells us the how, and gives us some possibilities for the why, but the why has been lost over the centuries.

Also, the design is amazing. Schanzer has illustrated the book with pictures done in Ampersand Scratchboard, meant to mimic 17th century woodcuts. Throughout the book, red accents and details are used to great effect.

Plus, end notes! And an author's note! My only reservation is that there isn't a lot of context given for relations with the Native Americans. This is taking place against the backdrop of the Second Indian War and "Indian" is the term used throughout. There are several raids by Native forces in the book (one of the possible explanations is post-traumatic stress as many of the initial accusers witnessed their parents and other family members murdered during raids.) Now, this isn't a major focus of the book so it didn't need to dwell, but a sentence or two saying why these raids were happening and what the war was about would have gone a long way.

Overall though, a really strong book.

Be sure to check out the Nonfiction Monday round-up over at Gathering Books!

Book Provided by... my local library

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

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Things-I-have-learned-as-a-parent number 359: A walk for the sheer fun of it, in our local park or nature reserve, is never complete without a stick.

The sooner the girls can find one which meets their ideals for the day the happier they are. A big one to lean on, a little one to become a wand, a bendy one to be a flag: a stick is an essential acquisition on any sort of exploration.

And so it was with some eagerness that I accepted The Stick Book by Jo Schofield and Fiona Danks for review. Would the girls and I get new ideas and be inspired in new ways? Would it encourage us out on those days we were suffering from inertia? Would it make me look with refreshed, delighted eyes at the pile of sticks by our back door that grows and grows and normally has me rolling my eyes in slight desperation?

The Stick Book contains 70 different ideas for using sticks in outdoor play. There are 8 themed chapters, for example one on “Stick games” (including pick up sticks, capture the flag, and tracking with stick), one on “Adventure sticks” (including building dens, swords, catapults and spear throwers) and on on “Watery sticks” (including pooh sticks, making a mini raft and measuring the depth of a stream). Each activity is accompanied by a photograph and tips or brief instructions on the activity in question.

Essentially, this is a craft book, not unlike those you might get from the library packed with Easter crafts or Egyptian crafts. It’s just that this time the unifying theme is outdoor play with sticks. And like many craft books, with the advent of the internet, and great sites like Let the Children Play, the ideas you find within the pages are probably available for free somewhere online, and many of them are so simple (such as playing pooh sticks) that you might wonder if this really is a book worth buying.

It’s definitely worth seeking out. By bringing all the ideas together in one place it IS stimulating. It has motivated the girls and me get our shoes on and go walking and looking for good sticks. M in particular has enjoyed reading the book herself, and choosing an activity she’d like to do. I particularly like the fact that all the people who feature in this book’s photographs are kids. There’s not an adult to be seen in this idyllic, natural landscape full of potential for adventure.

As children increasingly lose contact with outdoor play, and adults become less confident and comfortable with it (after all, isn’t it easier to put on a DVD?), this book will hopefully be a useful reminder of how simple and enjoyable it is to play outdoors. All you need is a stick and a little bit of inspiration.

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