JOHN BROWN: HIS FIGHT FOR FREEDOM- JOHN HENDRIX

Some people don't believe that children should be exposed to controversial figures. If you are one of those people, then JOHN BROWN is probably not a book for you. If you believe, however, that children need to understand that most people are neither entirely good nor entirely bad, that sometimes very good people make poor decisions, and that kids learn from talking about controversy, then JOHN BROWN is a book you will enjoy sharing with your upper elementary, or middle or high school students.

John Brown was an ardent Christian. He believed that blacks should not only be free, but that they should be EQUAL- toward that end, he was kicked out of his home church for giving African Americans his pew at the front of the church after they had been seated in the back. Brown began his abolitionist roots working on the underground railroad in Hudson, Ohio. After the United States passed the Kansas-Nebraska act, which said that those two states could vote on whether they would enter the Union as free or slave states, Brown fought tirelessly to ensure that Kansas would be free. In one well-known battle, John and his sons stormed the homes of five pro-slavery settlers who had been threatening his family and other abolitionists, took the men to a creek, and killed them.

John Brown is perhaps best known for his role at Harper's Ferry. Harper's Ferry, the home of a federal armory which housed more than one hundred thousand rifles, was viewed as a symbol of Southern power. Brown decided that he and a small band of abolitionsists would capture the armory and seize the rifles, then use them to battle the Southern slave owners. Although he was initially successful, he made several poor decisions during this battle, and was eventually captured and hanged as a traitor. Many dismiss Brown as a madman. Hendrix, however, believes that we must see Brown as a man with huge passion and convictions for the downtrodden.

"I will raise a stom in this country that will not be stayed so long as there is a slave on its soil."

I love when illustrations help kids understand a complex story, and John Hendrix's frontier style water colors (I'm not sure that is exactly how to describe them, but it's the best this non-artist can do) done on backgrounds of blues, tans, and golds, definitely do that. Most are bold, two-page spreads, that include a larger than life John Brown, but a few are also maps. Key quotes figure prominently in many of the illustrations. And if you enjoy reading author's blogs, John Hendrix has a great one- he includes photographs from a recent John Brown book tour, but also pages from his sketchbook.

I'll be sharing this book not only with our fourth and fifth graders, but also with some of my high school history teacher friends!

POETRY FRIDAY- WHEN POETRY MEETS HISTORY

CORETTA SCOTT
Poetry by Ntozake Shange
Paintings by Kadir Nelson

For POETRY FRIDAY today, I'm not sharing just a poem. Instead, I'm sharing a biography in a poem. Actually a civil rights biography in a poem. Today I'm sharing Ntozake Shange's beautiful poetry picture book, CORETTA SCOTT. Shange has taken just a few events from Coretta Scott's life, and shaped them into a beautiful poem. Listen to this page, when Coretta and her younger siblings are walking to school…

white school bus
left a
funnel of dust
on their faces
but
songs and birds of all colors
and rich soil
where slaves sought freedom
steadied them
in the face of danger

The illustrations in this book are by Kadir Nelson (WE ARE THE SHIP, HENRY'S FREEDOM BOX, HE'S GOT THE WHOLE WORLD IN HIS HANDS) who is most definitely one of my all-time favorites. The illustrations in CORETTA SCOTT are his usual- rich details, vivid colors, so real the people almost seem to jump off the page.

If I was doing a unit on biography, or teaching students about Coretta Scott King, I would probably read a more traditional biography first (there is actually a brief biography in the back of this book), then share Shange's poem. Prior to reading CORETTA SCOTT, I'd ask kids to list important events from her life, then to listen for these as I read. The book is short, so I could read it two or three times to let kids soak in the beautiful language. If kids were writing biography, I might ask them to choose a few important events from the person's life, then write a poem, using CORETTA as a mentor text.

This is definitely a book to add to your poetry and/or biography collection…

THE DAY-GLO BROTHERS- CHRIS BARTON

I have a few little quirks. Well, actually, if you asked my sons, I have more than a few. But a few for sure. And one of them is that I love knowing how things were invented or where they came from.

THE DAY-GLO BROTHERS: THE TRUE STORY OF BOB AND JOE SWITZER'S BRIGHT IDEAS AND BRAND NEW COLORS is a "where things came from" kind of a book. Bob Switzer dreamed of being a doctor until a work-related accident left him with headaches and double vision. His younger brother Joe wanted to be a magician. Instead, the two ended up inventing day-glo paint. This book chronicles their journey with all its stops and starts, and false tries, e.g. the time they used their mom's mixer and turned her angel food cake a pale fluorescent pink. It's an engaging story, but the book also has lots of potential life lessons about creativity, risk taking, mistake making, patience, and perseverance. Character education at its finest!

First-time illustrator Tom Persiani has done a terrific job with the artwork in DAY-GLO BROTHERS. According to the back of the book, he used the computer to create fifties-style characters and settings in various hues of blacks, grays, and whites. He then digitally colorized the pictures with various day-glo oranges, yellows, greens, and pinks. At first, these colors are really pale, and there is just a little bit of color on each page As the Spitzers refine their invention, the colors become brighter and brighter, and there is more color on each page. Really clever!

In the back of the book, Chris Barton explains where he got the idea for the book, and how he did his research. He also includes a page about how regular and daylight fluorescence work. And if you want a quick, simple, explanation of fluorescence vs. day-glo fluorescence, check out this Charlesbridge site.

ELEANOR: QUIET NO MORE- DOREEN RAPPAPORT

As I said yesterday, I love books about brave, strong women. I love putting those books in front of kids, love saying look, this person made it and you will too. Well here's another book to add to the brave, strong women basket.

ELEANOR: QUIET NO MORE traces the life of Eleanor Roosevelt through a wealthy but very lonely childhood, overseas travels, meeting and marrying FDR, dealing with a domineering mother-in-law, managing a new kind of life after FDR was stricken with polio, advocating for the downtrodden, and finally living the life of First Lady.

I love the layout of this picture book. Each two-page spread includes a picture and two or three paragraphs about a particular section of Roosevelt's life. It also includes, in a very large font, a quote from Eleanor Roosevelt. Here are a couple of my favorites:

"We must be able to disagree and to consider new ideas and not be afraid."

"Do what you feel in your heart to be right-- for you'll be criticized anyway."

"I have never felt that anything really mattered but knowing that you stood for the things in which you believed and had done the very best you could."

A brave strong woman I want all my students to know!

MERMAID QUEEN- SHANA COREY

"Annette Kellerman loved to make waves."

As someone who has been known to "make a wave or two," I knew, the minute I read the first line, that I was absolutely going to love this book. And I did. MERMAID QUEEN: THE SPECTACULAR TRUE STORY OF ANNETTE KELLERMAN, WHO SWAM HER WAY TO FAME, FORTUNE, AND SWIMSUIT HISTORY tells the story of Annette Kellerman, the Australian woman who invented water ballet and maybe more importantly to many of us, the modern woman's swimsuit.

Annette Kellerman was a sickly child whose father taught her to swim to strengthen her legs. Soon Annette was winning races and setting records. In 1903, however, not many women were athletes, and Annette's mother wished she would choose something a little more artistic. Ignoring all criticism, Annette and her father left Australia and traveled to England, where Annette was the first woman to attempt to swim the English Channel, then to Paris, and finally to Boston's Revere Beach. There, Annette was arrested and had to appear in court to defend her racy bathing suit! The tone of this book is bold and joyful and dashy and fun. And I don't know whether it was the author or illustrator or picture book designer, but they made some choices about font that I think kids (and their adults!) will find really interesting.

The illustrations, by Edwin Fotheringham, are exuberant and splashy and fun. Each page has kind of a "wavish" background done in blues, or greens, or oranges, with cartoonish-characters kind of super-imposed over the waves. Sometimes there are "mini-illustrations," done in water droplets, super-imposed on top of all that. And then there are a few random comments, e.g. "How sweaty! How rugged!" worked into the illustrations. It's kind of hard to explain, but the illustrations really add to joy and exuberance of this book. Kit lit blog extraordinaire, "Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast" did an interview of Shana Corey, and included several of the illustrations. Check them out here.

A splashy, joyful, strong, fun picture book that I can't wait to share with the strong girls and women in my life!

BUBBLE HOMES AND FISH FARTS- FIONA BAYROCK

I spend fifty percent of my time working with intermediate grade kids who are still trying to get the hang of reading. The state of Colorado calls them UNSATISFACTORY (a term that NEVER, in my mind, should be applied to a child) or PARTIALLY PROFICIENT, and much of the professional literature calls them struggling readers. A couple of months ago, I read something (and I wish I could remember what) about "developing" readers. That terms seems a lot more positive, a lot more hopeful, and a lot more appropriate, to describe kids who are still working out the reading puzzle.

When I work with developing readers, I have three goals. First, I want to help them develop the heart of a reader- the attitudes and beliefs, that readers carry in their heads, e.g. reading is valuable to me, I am able to read, there are reasons to want to read, reading has value to me. Next, I want to help kids develop the skills and strategies readers need, the phonics and comprehension strategies that will help them make meaning from those funny little black squiggles on the page. Finally, I want kids to develop the voices of readers, to become fluent, to read like people talk.

I put attitudes and beliefs first, because I truly believe that until kids WANT to read, see value in reading, and think they CAN read, not much else is going to happen. With that in mind, I'm always on the lookout for books that kids will WANT to read. I've found a new one this weekend. BUBBLE HOMES AND FISH FARTS, by Fiona Bayrock, and illustrated by Carolyn Conahan, begins with this introduction:

Bubbles are soft and squishy and full of air. They shimmer. They float. And they are very handy. Animals make bubbles, ride bubbles, breathe bubbles, and even live in bubbles. Animals use bubbles in amazing ways.

The remainder of the book is organized into two-page spreads, with each spread focusing on a different way that each of the sixteen featured animals uses bubbles. The section begins with a statement about how the animal uses bubbles, e.g. Bubbles are for fishing (humpback whales), bubbles are for talking (herring), bubbles are for nesting (African gray treefrog), followed by a paragraph of more detailed information. The illustrations are mostly pastel colors, watercolor I think. Each illustration contains a few cartoon bubbles that capture the essence of the text in a fun and different way. An appendix in the back contains more information about each animal, including scientific name, size, habitat, and a few fun facts, as well as a glossary. And don't miss the acknowledgments, with its extensive list of scientists who were consulted for this project!

I can't wait to share this one with my developing readers!

NIC BISHOP BUTTERFLIES AND MOTHS

If you have hung out in the world of children's nonfiction at all in the last few years, you've almost surely heard of uber-photographer Nic Bishop. Last year, Bishop won a CYBILS award for NIC BISHOP FROGS. The annotation on the CYBILS website pretty much says it all:

Nic Bishop is known for his jaw-dropping nature photography. Open a book cover with his name on it and you'll be greeted with stunning action shots, exquisite attention to detail, and sharp, sharp close-ups that inspire awe. Couple that with Bishop's equally crisp, up-close and personal writing in Nic Bishop Frogs, and you've got an award-winning combination of text and illustration that captures a child-like wonder about a topic that is anything but new. That's quite a feat. Bishop's language is interesting and playful, and his analogies and references are right on, squarely aimed at where kids' heads are at. Simple word choices never talk down, but will allow newish readers to find success easily. The book flows logically, covering life cycle, defense, diet, habitat, and other essentials you'd expect to find in an animal book, but the organization is refreshingly kid-friendly, meandering through the topics as though Bishop and the reader were having a conversation while sitting in a marsh waiting for a frog. It's intimate and personal and accessible---frogs as you've never seen them before. Fascinating process notes are sure to inspire young photographers.

Substitute moths and butterflies for frogs, and you would have a pretty good review of NIC BISHOP MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES. MOTHS AND BUTTERFLIES is an absolutely gorgeous book of nature photography, written by a biologist who clearly knows tons and tons and tons about his subject. He shares his knowledge in a way that is kid-friendly and accessible, yet not at all condescending or watered down.

At the end of the book, Bishop shares a little about his process, including a story of an overnight trip to Costa Rica to photograph a rarely seen rainforest caterpillar that is able to puff up its body and look like a snake. I was fascinated by this story and dropped in at his website to look for similar stories about his process. One whole section of his site is devoted to an explanation of how he takes his photographs. Fascinating stuff!