Bird Talk and Alex the Parrot

I’m usually trying to pair unique books with each other, whether it’s for story times or simply to promote them together on a display. Two books published last year both have wonderful illustrations and complement each other with their subjects.

Title: Bird Talk: What Birds are Saying and Why
Author/Illustrator: Lita Judge
ISBN: 9781596436466
Pages: unpaged
Publisher/Date: Flash Point, an imprint of
Roaring Brook Press, c2012.

Title: Alex the Parrot: No Ordinary Bird
Author: Stephanie Spinner
Illustrator: Meilo So
ISBN: 9780375868467
Pages: unpaged
Publisher/Date: Alfred A. Knopf,
an imprint of Random House Children’s Books,
a division of Random House, c2012.

On a completely unrelated note… “Look Ma, COLUMNS!” So pretty. Ahem, regaining my train of thought…
While I knew about Koko the gorilla who was taught sign-language, I was not familiar with Alex, which stands for Avian Learning EXperiment. In Alex the Parrot Stephanie Spinner goes into detail about the raising and training of Alex, and African grey parrot that eventually would go on to learn hundreds of words and concepts taught to children in kindergarten. He would combine words to make sentences, answer questions, and compare items by their shape or color. No one expected these abilities from a bird with a brain the size of a walnut, but Alex proved them wrong. Spinner also talks about the lengths that trainer Irene Pepperberg took to avoid acusations that the bird was simply mimicing her or responding to unconscious cues.

As a comparison with what other birds do naturally, pair it with the book Bird Talk by Lita Judge. You might have to either explain or alter the language for younger audiences when she says “attract a mate”, “fledgling” or “species”, but she does include a glossary at the end to assist with that task. There are over two dozen of introductory exmples of birds around the world, varying from the common robin, blue jay and crows to the more exotic Scarlet Macaws, Blue Bird of Paradise, and yes even the African Grey Parrot. It does seem that the subtitle might be viewed as a misnomer, since the book doesn’t just cover vocalizations, but also explains how different types of birds behave when defending their flocks and about half the book is mating/courship behaviors. Overall though, the pictures are engaging and well-drawn and the listing in the back makes an easy reference of where you can find those species featured.

Maybe slightly more detailed than is ideal for classroom sharing, the books overall would both go over well for kids with birds on the brain, and I would hand them together to anyone who’s hearing the call of the wild outside their window.

This post is in honor of Nonfiction Mondays. For the entire round-up of all the bloggers who participated, you’ll have to head on over to Julie Azzam’s blog, Instantly Interruptible.

Moonbird

Title: Moonbird: A Year on the Wind with the Great Survivor B95
Author: Phillip Hoose
ISBN: 9780374304683
Pages: 148 pages
Publisher/Date: Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers, c2012.
Awards: Robert F. Sibert Informational Honor Book (2013), CYBILS Top 5 Finalist (2012), Finalist for YALSA’s Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults

Meet B95, one of the world’s premier athletes. Weighing a mere four ounces, he’s flown more than 325,000 miles in his life—the distance to the moon and nearly halfway back. He flies at mountaintop height along ancient routes that lead him to his breeding grounds and back. But changes throughout his migratory circuit are challenging this Superbird and threatening to wipe out his entire subspecies of rufa red knot. Places that are critical for B95 and his flock to rest and refuel—stepping-stones along a vast annual migration network—have been altered by human activity. Can these places and the food they contain be preserved?
Or will B95’s and rufa’s days of flight soon come to an end. (3)

That quote summarizes the entire book very adeptly and succinctly. By focusing on B95, Phillip Hoose presents the migratory patterns of the rufa red knot, along with other similar shore birds, as they fly from South America to the Arctic Circle and back again. The migration happens each year, with the birds spending no more than a few months at any location as they follow a path that is ingrained in them. Hoose thoroughly outlines the challenges that the birds face, including changing climates, natural predators, human influences, and stock up on food that needs to last their non-stop flight patterns. Several scientists that study these birds are featured throughout the book and highlight how discoveries about these birds continue to be made. Photos are also interspersed with side bars, and the notes at the end really detail Hoose’s first-hand pursuit of knowledge about these birds.

Hoose did a good job at presenting the facts without overly personifying the bird or his flock. While the facts can be dry to people (like me) who don’t read a lot of nonfiction, taking the book in bite sized snippets and focusing on what I call the “fast facts” can keep you interested. For instance, “Studies show that fat birds fly faster than thin birds, and can stay in the air longer. [Over the course of several weeks a] red knot can consume fourteen times its own weight. To do that, a human weighing 110 pounds would need to eat 2,300 hamburgers at two thirds of a pound per hamburger, with cheese and tomato.” (30-31)

Overall, it’s a unique spin on a little known animal. The amount of interest there will be for this book remains to be seen. However, it’s very in-depth, focused, and factual account, especially when you’re trying to show how scientists conduct their research.

This post is in honor of Nonfiction Mondays. For the entire round-up of all the bloggers who participated, head on over to A Mom’s Spare Time.

This book in particular was read as I participate in YALSA’s 2013 Hub Reading Challenge which challenges readers to finish 25 books by June 22nd from a list of 83 titles that were recognized and published over the last year.

2 the Point Tuesday — Follow Follow

For my new job, all the librarians write a maximum 150 word review of a new book that came into the library during the month. I’ll be adding my contribution to the blog in a new feature I’m calling To the Point Tuesdays. If you want to play along, just post a link in the comments and I’ll add them to the post.

Title: Follow Follow: A Book of Reverso Poems
Author: Marilyn Singer
Illustrator: Josee Masse
ISBN: 9780803737693
Pages: unpaged
Publisher/Date: Dial Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Penguin Group Inc., c2013.
Publication Date: Feb. 7, 2013

Marilyn Singer retells several fairy tales through two poems , one being the flipped version of the other one and only changing punctuation in order to convey different points of view. For instance: “Jinni of the Lamp/ I am just a poor/ young knave/ Give me all I crave” becomes “Give me all I crave,/ young knave./ I am just a poor/ Jinni of the Lamp.” Singer maintains the uniqueness of the format in this second volume of “reverso poems”. Josee Masse’s split drawings complement both poems and the pictures interact with each other while portraying the different perspectives. I especially like the picture for Little Mermaid’s poem, where a mermaid literally becomes intertwined with a girl with legs.

Oh I wish I got more words to talk about this book! I really admire and love what she does with words, and when I reviewed Mirror Mirror, I tried to copy it and now we see her tackling that same story in Follow Follow. Has anyone else tried or had success attempting reverso poems?

2 the Point Tuesday The Giant and How He Humbugged America

For my new job, all the librarians write a maximum 150 word review of a new book that came into the library during the month. I’ll be adding my contribution to the blog in a new feature I’m calling To the Point Tuesdays. If you want to play along, just post a link in the comments and I’ll add them to the post.

Title: The Giant and How He Humbugged America
Author: Jim Murphy
ISBN: 9780439691840
Pages: 112 pages
Publisher/Date: Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., c2012.

Nichols had hit something solid. After banging his shovel on it several more times, Newell decided he’d hit a large stone and went to get a pick. While Newell was gone, his two workers continued to dig and clear the area around the stone. But they discovered something startling. The blue-gray stone was shaped exactly like a foot. A very large foot! […]

They worked quickly and managed to uncover the entire body in a matter of minutes. The diggers scrambled from the hole and all six men stood there, gazing in astonishment. Despite its being covered by a gnarly old tree root, they could see it was indeed a human body. A very old-looking one at that. And big. In fact, at ten feet, four inches long, it was nothing if not a giant. (11-12)

A New York farmer named Stub Newell enlists the help of some of his neighbors to dig a well for his farm in 1869. In the process, they discover a body of a man measuring over ten feet tall! Nearly impossible to keep secret, newspapers and so-called respected experts nation-wide weigh in with pictures and “evidence” on what the figure could be. Is it a petrified body? Is it some unknown ancestor to the Native Americans? Is it an engraving from some persecuted civilization? Or could it really be an elaborate hoax? In a time when science, archeology, and idea of specialists were just beginning, this convoluted tale of secret agreements, underhanded dealings and conflicting stories of authenticity became one of the biggest scams in America’s history.

Titanic: Voices From the Disaster

Title: Titanic: Voices From the Disaster
Author: Deborah Hopkinson
ISBN: 9780545116749
Pages: 289 pages
Publisher/Date: Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., c2012.

[...]On Thursday morning at around 11:30 a.m., the Titanic lowered her anchor two miles off Cobh harbor, at the Irish port of Queenstown (no w called Cobh), to pick up more passengers. It would be the ship’s last stop before heading out onto open seas — and to the New World. [...]
Years later, Frank (of Father Frank Browne) recounted that at dinner the first night on board he was befriended by a rich American couple, who offered to pay his way for the entire voyage — all the way to New York. But when he wired his religious order for permission to go, it was denied. The message read: “Get off that ship.”
So Frank left the ship — along with his precious photographic plates.
And that’s how it happened that today, thanks to Frank Browne and his uncle Robert’s generosity, we have his rare, heartbreaking photographs of those first hours of the Titanic’s maiden voyage. (21)

It’s stories of the near misses of people who survived the Titanic‘s sinking that strike readers so poignantly. Frank Browne received a two-day ticket as a gift, and departed the vessel before it reached open seas. Joe Mulholland decided not to sign up for work because he saw the ship’s cat carrying her kittens off the boat and took it as a bad omen. Violet Jessop, who at just 24 was working as a stewardess and who later would survive the sister-ship Britannica’s sinking during the war. But it’s also the story of the losses, like Alfred Rush who turned 16 on the boat just the day before and refused to get in a lifeboat because he was a man and not a child. Drawing extensively from first hand accounts of the disaster along with the work of historians, scientists, and researchers from today, Deborah Hopkinson puts the sinking of the Titanic into perspective and brings it to life.

I was a little skeptical of this book when I first heard about it, being published during the year of the 100th anniversary of its sinking. But I was pleasantly surprised by its quality and the emotions that it wrings out of readers. Covering the stories of children and adults, passengers and crew, Hopkinson presents a well-rounded look of the events of that night. Drawing heavily from previous works, her over 60 pages of source notes, photo credits, facts, glossary, timelines, and index due credit to the research profession, proving to readers the right way to cite your sources and providing an amazing wealth of resources. People interested in the disaster should check it out simply for the works cited, as it details the works of some of the survivors and provides resources to hear their accounts. I didn’t fully realize that since the event was 100 years ago, we no longer have any survivors alive today. Millvina Dean was the last survivor alive, passing away in 2009, but she was just nine weeks old at its sinking so I don’t know how much she could fully remember.

The source that everyone who is intrigued by the sinking should check out is http://www.encyclopedia-titanica.org. This site is an absolute wealth of information about the survivors, the victims, the crew and passengers, even going so far as to document the description of the bodies recovered from the wreckage. The BBC also has some recordings of survivors telling their stories, which is fascinating to consider that we have that information available to us. Even if you don’t consult their additional sources, Hopkinson adds depth to the events by putting the crash into historical context with information that has come to light over the years. For instance, it doesn’t seem to be common knowledge that the Californian, a liner that was just ten to twenty miles away from the Titanic, shut off their radio just minutes before the collision occurred and could have helped if they’d only recognized the flares in the sky as a distress call.

All in all, you know that this is going to be a heartbreaking account, and still I encourage readers to take a look at this in-depth record. It’s not dry (pardon the pun) nonfiction but a well written compilation of accounts, superbly strung together while relating the story from setting off to sinking down,  drawing you in and making you feel as if you were there.

This is the first in a series of posts as part of YALSA’s challenge to read all the Nonfiction Award and Morris Debut Award Finalists before the winners are announced on January 28th. You can find the list of five finalists for each award on YALSA’s blog The Hub (Morris Award Finalists can be found here), along with information about the challenge.

Surviving the Hindenburg

For my new job, all the librarians write a maximum 150 word review of a new book that came into the library during the month. I’ll be adding my contribution to the blog in a new feature I’m calling To the Point Tuesdays. If you want to play along, just post a link in the comments and I’ll add them to the post.

Title: Surviving the Hindenburg
Author: Larry Verstraete
Illustrator: David Geister
ISBN: 9781585367870
Pages: unpaged
Publisher/Date: Sleeping Bear Press, c2012.

In 1937, the Hindenburg was a massive zeppelin, a giant airship that looked very much like our blimps today being kept aloft by gas-filled fabric and propelled by engines. As tall as a 13-story building and almost as big as the Titanic, it suffered the same fate when it mysteriously burst into flames just before landing in New Jersey. Incredibly, two-thirds of the German passengers and crew survived, including 14-year-old cabin boy Werner Franz. The cover gives a hint of the vivid and colorful illustrations that bring to life the story of the last surviving member of the crew.

Want to contribute to 2 the Point Tuesdays? Just leave a comment and I’ll post your link.

Bill the Boy Wonder

Title: Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman
Author: Marc Tyler Nobleman
Illustrator: Ty Templeton
ISBN: 9781580892896
Pages: unpaged
Publisher/Date: Charlesbridge, c2012.

Bob told Bill that Bat-Man would be published and asked Bill to write it–without credit. Because such an arrangement was fairly typical, and because writing gigs were tough to get, but mainly because Bill was an agreeable sort, he said yes.
With that, Bill took on his second secret identity.
However, he would soon realize that he had been blind about this Bat.

I’ll be the first to admit that while I know slightly more than the uninitiated about comics, I do not follow them religiously like some people I’ve met in my journey. I can have a conversation about the movies, but whether or not they follow the “cannon” or the comic books is beyond what I know. So I was somewhat comforted to find out in my reading this book that MOST people wouldn’t know about this secret second creator of the superhero who become Batman. It’s incredible to think that this story first came to fruition 1939 and is still, over 70 years later, going strong and attracting new followers.

While Nobleman makes a valiant effort to present the facts in an impartial manner, you can tell that this lack of recognition sticks in his craw. Bob Kane hired Bill to do the writing and other artists to do the drawings, and insisted they all work anonymously. Nobleman reveals that even after word got out that Bill wrote the stories and at the very least contributed to the creation of Batman (although it was never proven how much), Bob still would not amend his contract “requiring that he always be listed as the sole creator of Batman.” And then, readers find out in the extensive author’s note that Bill’s only granddaughter wasn’t receiving any of the few royalties that Bill could claim for his contributions to such an iconic piece of our culture. Nobleman’s passion for this topic really shows by the work, and he strongly suggests that the only reason DC Comics hasn’t added Bill’s name is that their hands tied by legalities.

Templeton’s artwork is very eye-catching, and distinctly suited for a story revolving around the early age of comics. With very minimal shading, the bright and bold pen drawings use vibrant colors that really draw readers into the story. The layout also mimics panels of a comic book, although understandably the text boxes are larger than what you usually find in a comic.

The author’s note reveals the research that went into writing this book, with references to interviews, published articles and books, and containing previously unknown photos of Bill. And just like Batman, Nobleman’s research ultimately resulted in “writing” a wrong. While he can’t do anything about the legal side or the past, Nobleman has ensured that future generations will know the truth behind the mask. A definite point of interest considering all the recent Batman movies, this book could serve as a possible bridge for comic book fans to pursue non-fiction titles.

This post is in honor of Nonfiction Mondays. For the entire round-up of all the bloggers who participated, check out Lizann Flatt over at The Flatt Perspective.

The Fairy Ring

Title: The Fairy Ring:  or Elsie and Frances Fool the World
Author: Mary Losure
ISBN: 9780763656706
Pages: 184 pages
Publisher/Date: Candlewick Press, c2012.

Sometimes Elsie drew gardens in faraway countries.
Once, she drew Titania, the queen of the fairies from Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The fairy queen lay sleeping on a bank, her lovely dark hair spread all around her.
Elsie had copied her out of a book illustrated by Arthur Rackham. Arthur Rackham was a real artist, famous for his illustrations of fairies.
But Elsie’s own fairies–the dancing ones that everyone said were so beautiful–were torn up and buried in the beck. The painted paper gnome was long gone. Their photographs lay forgotten in a drawer. For all Elsie knew, no one would ever look at them again.
And maybe that’s what would have happened if, one winter day, Elsie’s mother hadn’t decided to go on an outing. . . . (55-57)

Nine-year-old Frances was tired of being made fun of when she claimed to see fairies in her cousin’s backyard where she was staying during the war. Her older cousin Elsie had an idea to prove that the fairies existed by painting paper fairies and taking Frances’ picture with them. Once the photos were developed, that sure put a stop to the teasing. It was only meant for their parents, but things got out of hand and eventually people were requesting more photos and using these photos as proof that fairies actually existed. Even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who wrote those great mysteries about the detective Sherlock Holmes, thought the pictures were real! What are Frances and Elsie going to do, and how far should they go to save their secret?

This book is somewhat unique in that it is a work of nonfiction but it reads like a novel. Readers are in on the joke from the very beginning as we see Frances and Elsie scheme to trick the adults. But Frances maintained until her death that she had seen real fairies in that glen and that while they had staged most of the photographs, one of them wasn’t staged and was real. Nonfiction typically doesn’t leave questions, but this book does. There’s still a mysterious quality about fairies and their existence that I think the author intentionally attempts to leave open-ended.

I think the other interesting aspect of this story is that they never meant for it to draw international attention to themselves. In fact, they were very hesitant and reluctant to talk to the press, and I get the impression they wanted to bury the story but just didn’t know how. But they also continued to tell people close to them, such as their ultimate husbands and children, so in a way they were continuing the story even as they told their children to never mention it again. Their attitude about it seemed so fluid that’s hard to really know what they were thinking, especially since the trick seemed to last about 60 years until it was conclusively determined to be a hoax. But as I mentioned before, Frances and in turn the author maintains that pestering feeling that something is missing and not quite determined. I think I’ll end with the fact that these uncertainties create a slightly unsettling story out of a very well researched and documented occurrence.

Waiting on Wednesday/Books to Pine For #6

The Story Siren calls it Books to Pine for. There’s a whole bunch of other people who call it Waiting on Wednesday and post their links at Breaking the Spine. In any case, these are the books I would love to read, and am looking forward to have in hand.

This time around, I’m focusing on nonfiction, that often overlooked area of the library — until it’s 10 minutes before the library closes and you need another source for your paper due tomorrow.

Price of Freedom by Dennis Brindell Fradin January 8, 2013
There are a lot of books out there about slaves hiding and making their way, alone or in tight groups, across state lines and trying not to get caught. Most of those books portray them as receiving secret assistance from one or two people along the way. This book features a town in Ohio that openly objected to slavery and weren’t afraid to stand up for what they believed. Just in time for African American history month!

When John Price took a chance at freedom by crossing the frozen Ohio river from Kentucky into Ohio one January night in 1856, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was fully enforced in every state of the union. But the townspeople of Oberlin, Ohio, believed there that all people deserved to be free, so Price started a new life in town-until a crew of slave-catchers arrived and apprehended him. When the residents of Oberlin heard of his capture, many of them banded together to demand his release in a dramatic showdown that risked their own freedom. Paired for the first time, highly acclaimed authors Dennis Judith Fradin and Pura Belpré award-winning illustrator Eric Velasquez, provide readers with an inspiring tale of how one man’s journey to freedom helped spark an abolitionist movement.

I Have a Dream by Martin Luther King Jr., illustrated by Kadir Nelson October 9, 2012
Kadir Nelson meets Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s most famous speech. Another one ready made for African American History Month. Everyone knows what to expect, and it’s great things when these two get paired together. I don’t know why Goodreads doesn’t have a cover image (as of today), but they will hopefully add one soon.

On August 28, 1963, on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the March on Washington, Martin Luther King gave one of the most powerful and memorable speeches in our nation’s history. His words, paired with Caldecott Honor winner Kadir Nelson’s magificent paintings, make for a picture book certain to be treasured by children and adults alike. The themes of equality and freedom for all are not only relevant today, 50 years later, but also provide young readers with an important introduction to our nation’s past.

The Skull in the Rock: How a Scientist, a Boy, and Google Earth Opened a New Window on Human Origins by Marc Aronson October 23, 2012
Something very different from the other two. I’ve done something I don’t normally do, and I’ve shortened the Goodreads description quoted below because I thought it was much too long and made the bookk sound boring. Because, let’s be honest, it’s the nine-year-old assistant that intrigues me more than the professor, who I’m sure does this for a living and knows how to find fossils. The sub-title also mentions Google Earth, which there is no mention of in the summary so I’m intrigued as to how that piece of technology was used to unlock a piece of history. Marc Aronson is known for his nonfiction, and I’m intrigued about this latest offering.

In 2008, Professor Lee Berger–with the help of his curious 9-year-old son–discovered two remarkably well preserved, two-million-year-old fossils of an adult female and young male, known as Australopithecus sediba; a previously unknown species of ape-like creatures that may have been a direct ancestor of modern humans. This discovery of has been hailed as one of the most important archaeological discoveries in history. The fossils reveal what may be one of humankind’s oldest ancestors.
[...]
Berger’s discovery in one of the most excavated and studied areas on Earth revealed a treasure trove of human fossils–and an entirely new human species–where people thought no more field work might ever be necessary. Technology and revelation combined, plus a good does of luck, to broaden by ten times the number of early human fossils known, rejuvenating this field of study and posing countless more questions to be answered in years and decades to come.[blockquote]

So, what are you waiting on this Wednesday?

Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass

Title: Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass: The Story Behind an American Friendship
Author: Russell Freedman
ISBN: 9780547385624
Pages: 119 pages
Publisher/Date: Clarion Books, an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, c2012.

Douglass and Lincoln had never met, but they had some things in common. They had both risen from poverty and obscurity to international prominence. Both were self-educated. Lincoln, born dirt poor, had less than a year of formal schooling. Douglass, born a slave, wasn’t permitted to go to school. He taught himself to read and write in secret, hiding the few books he was able to get his hands on. And in fact, the two men had read and studied some of the same books.
Even so, in the year 1863 it required plenty of ‘nerve,’ as Douglass put it, for a black man to walk unannounced into the White House and request an audience with the president. [...]
He was determined to wait. (3)

Describing the relationship that Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass had as a friendship might be hard for us to believe, considering they only met each other three times. But since some friendships these days are formed solely through digital communication means like the phone and the Internet, it might not be so hard for people to accept this description as I might think. In this book, Russell Freedman returns to his roots. Having already written a Newbery Medal winning photobiography about Lincoln, I can only imagine the resources he has at his disposal to investigate the relationship between Lincoln and Douglass.

But really the book isn’t just about those three meetings. It covers Lincoln’s and Douglass’s lives before they met up to Lincoln’s assassination. The unique part about this book is it discusses the evolution of Lincoln’s thoughts about slavery. Most students only learn about the Emancipation Proclamation and that Lincoln was against slavery. Freedman’s book shows that Lincoln’s actions and beliefs were never that black and white (pardon the pun). Lincoln maintained during the early part of the war that his only goal was to restore the Union, and didn’t end up issuing the Emancipation Proclamation until over a year into the war. He appears to be a political strategist from the beginning, and he always hesitated before slowly enstating further liberties for African-Americans because of his fear of the public’s response. Douglass had so such fears, and actually fled the country twice to avoid the public backlash against him and his beliefs.

While I can see it being added to numerous African-American History Month reading lists, students will probably have to consult other sources in order to get a complete view of these two influential men and the circumstances that brought them together.

This post is in honor of Nonfiction Mondays. For the entire round-up of all the bloggers who participated, check out Jennifer Wharton over at Jean Little Library.