By: Kelly Herold,
on 9/22/2008
Like many of you, I loved Gregory K's original poem ("I'm Pretty Well Connected [a Web 2.0 poem]") posted on Poetry Friday. But it reminded me of a question I wanted to ask you writers and bloggers: do you Twitter? Why do you do it? Do you read everyone's entries?
Tell me the truth, people--is Twitter a total waste of time?
By: Kelly Herold,
on 8/18/2008
For this Non Fiction Monday, I bring you (instead of a review) a real-life story that concerns Young Adult fiction.
Let's just say I know a thirteen-year-old girl. She's a good kid: a great student, kind to others, and interested in the world.
All of a sudden this thirteen-year-old girl does something entirely out of character: She attempts to steal a candy from a convenience store. She's caught and read the riot act. At home, she's grounded beyond grounded.
When questioned with a "what the heck were you thinking?", the girl answered that almost every book she's read lately (Young Adult fiction) contains an episode of shoplifting. And that she just wanted to try it once.
Obviously the mother did not buy this argument, nor did it sway her in any way. But, still, it's interesting, isn't it? I mean, if we all got out our notebooks to emulate Harriet, or made bread out of walnuts a la Little House on the Prairie, could we also not copy other behaviors?*
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* And, don't worry. I'm not saying we should ban, or restrict, or water down any book. I do believe every child should read what he or she wants to read. This is just the first time I've encountered a child who has copied a negative behavior from a book.
By: Kelly Herold,
on 6/30/2008
"World-famous" monsterologist Johan Olander takes a non-fiction approach to everyday monsters in A Field Guide to Monsters. Olander describes twenty eight monsters with their Latin Name, Habitat, Diet, Distinguishing Features, Life Cycle, and Safety Measures (you must take to avoid or defeat the monsters). Most terrifying category? Habitat. Most of Olander's monsters live right in your own habitat--the home.
Take, for example, the Leech-Eel (A.K.A. Toilet-Snake): "Leech-Eels live in plumbing fixtures and city sewers. They are often found in toilets." Olander's wonderfully detailed pencil-sketch illustrations add to the horror. The Leech-Eel looks like a cross between a Moray Eel, a Cookie Cutter shark, and a baby dragon without wings. What are the Leech-Eel's Distinguishing Features?
By: Kelly Herold,
on 6/9/2008
Have you read many children's books on the Silurian and and Devonian eras? Probably not as the Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous periods are the real stars of children's non fiction. Hannah Bonner's When the Fish Got Feet, Sharks Got Teeth, and Bugs Began to Swarm: A Cartoon Prehistory of Life Long Before the Dinosaurs remedies Dino-dominance of the prehistory market with a focus on a fascinating period when the forests formed, dirt was born, and creatures scurried out from the seas.
Bonner begins with the oceans and what was happening 430 million years ago: "A warm, shallow sea covered most of North America. In it, zillions of animals were busy eating algae, plankton, and one another." Then we move to land--what was there first (lichens) and what "crawled out of the water to join the fun" (arthropods). Plants, bugs, and dirt come next, followed by a big change in the fish world--jaws. And you all know what comes with jaws, right? Sharks! (And other scary creatures like Placoderms and Acanthodians.) Forests (my favorite) and more bugs come next and, then, a section on "how we got feet."
Bonner's text is straightforward and lively--best suited for children ages seven through twelve. The central illustrations are realistic, but each two-page spread is accented with cartoons and silly jokes and sayings. ("Eek! There's a humongous fungus among us!") When the Fish Got Feet, Sharks Got Teeth, and Bugs Began to Swarm serves up prehistory with panache and fun. Highly recommended.*
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*Is it a bad thing to admit I learned a lot from this book? I hope not, because it's true. Be kind: Literature is my field.
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Other Blog Reviews:
Suite 101 (review by Elizabeth Yetter)
Greg Leitich Smith
And don't miss Cynthia Leitich Smith's interview with Hannah Bonner at Cynsations.
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The Non Fiction Monday roundup is at Anastasia Suen's 6 Traits blog.
By: Kelly Herold,
on 3/10/2008
Did you know there's a blog devoted to blog quotes? Well, there is. It's called Blogtations and it's a fascinating endeavor. And, I was quoted today!
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The Children's Book Review wiki is chugging along, with new reviews being added daily. Thank you all for 
contributing and making CBR a great resource for readers. I do want to emphasize that Children's Book Review wiki is a resource for the community and not my project. So any and all suggestions and improvements (and, yes, even complaints) are welcome.
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Call for Help: And speaking of Children's Book Reviews...its existence has spawned a new creation called Redux Review. You see, the centralized wiki resource has inspired more than one author to ask me whether or not a print review of their book could be archived as well. So...in order to make this happen, a new blog was born. I've sent letters to journals asking for permission to post published reviews of individual books, and two journals (so far) have agreed! Reviews will only be posted upon request of the author, illustrator, or a reader and only by permission of the publisher.
Here's where I'm looking for help: 1) A co-blogger or co-bloggers: Someone who is willing to throw a review up there once or twice a week; 2) Graphics: I'd love a cool black-and-white header for the blog, ideally with an image of one of those old-fashioned reel-to-reel tape players.
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I missed Non-Fiction Monday this week, but you can find all the fabulous entries at Anastasia Suen's place.
By: Kelly Herold,
on 3/3/2008
Now for Part II of Alice's comments on the Cybils Non Fiction (Middle Grade/Young Adult) short listed titles! (You can see part one here.) Alice--my mother--was on the judging committee and wrote out capsule reviews to share with you here. So, here we go!:
Reviews by Alice Herold
The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain
by Peter Sis
Peter Sis, with The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain, explains to his family and other young readers in words and pictures what it meant to live on the other side of the Berlin wall--the Iron Curtain. Sis includes journal entries and definitions (perestroika, Cold War, etc.) along with his compelling drawings. Sis connects his art to personal rebellion behind the wall. As a child, he loved to draw, beginning with shapes and then moving to human figures. He drew what he wanted to draw at home, but what he was told to draw at school. Children, as adults, were encouraged to report on their families and students. Slowly, though, Peter began to question authority. He joined a rock group and made a film, which was a target of the censors. But, Sis understood that art makes a difference: Peter explains that the Beatles made a crack in the wall, changing his own life via a smuggled 1966 copy of "A Hard Day's Night," and the lives of others. The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain is a compelling, educational, and entertaining read.
Giants of Science: Marie Curie
by Kathleen Krull
Kathleen Krull's Marie Curie is a well-written, expertly researched, entertaining biography about a giant in science who overcame tremendous odds in order to do her work. Marie Curie is part of the series Giants of Science and is illustrated by Boris Kulikov who adds poignant pen drawings to the text. My favorite drawing was a picture of young Marie staring with longing into a cupboard of glass tubes and scales. Krull also keeps the young scientist in mind, dedicating the book to Caitlin Krull, "future neurosurgeon." Though written for young readers, Krull doesn't avoid scientific terms and explanations: Marie Curie (Giants of Science) is a smart book for smart readers ages eleven and up.
And now for the winning title:
Tasting the Sky
by Ibtisam Barakat
Tasting the Sky, by Ibtisam Barakat, is a memoir set in the aftermath of the Six Day War. Barakat divides the book into three sections. The first--"A Letter to No One"--describes the author's travels to a nearby town to go to the post office. Ibtisam has pen pals all over the world so she can "see the world through other people's words." The letter is written when she is detained several hours on her way home. In Part II, the author is three and a half years old. She describes looking for her shoes so she can run from the planes. She shows living two weeks in a shelter, a month in someone's kitchen, and a month in a classroom because she can't return home. She is sent to an orphange even though her parents were alive. Language becomes Ibtisam's refuge. She writes, "Paper and ink, poems, and the postbox are the medicines that heal the wounds of life," and "without the help of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, millions of children would not have gone to school and learned to read and write." Barakat dedicates Part III as "A Letter to Everyone" and writes of her eternal friend Alef, who helped her find the "splinters of my life and piece them back together." Tasting the Sky is a love letter to the power of language.
By: Kelly Herold,
on 2/25/2008
My mother, Alice Herold, served on the Non Fiction (Middle Grade/Young Adult) judging panel for the Cybils. She also reviews books for this site and The Edge of the Forest. Today, for Non Fiction Monday, I bring you her capsule reviews of four of the Cybils shortlisted titles. I'll post the other three next week.
Reviews by Alice Herold
The Periodic Table: Elements with Style
by Adrian Dingle, illustrated by Simon Basher
The Periodic Table: Elements with Style [Editorial interruption: That's one cool title!] is a completely original book about the 111 known elements. Dingle and Basher bring the elements to life, presenting them as cartoon characters and giving them a first-person voice. Radium looks like a newborn--a smiling baby boy encased in an oval shape, sound asleep. Helium is a pink balloon with a zen-like expression who says, "I am a noble gas with no color, taste, and smell. My main uses are in weather balloons and airships which need lighter than air properties." Dingle and Basher also include detailed information about each element--symbol, color, weight, density, standard state, classification, melting point, etc. The Periodic Table: Elements of Style also includes a helpful glossary and a colorful poster.
Tracking Trash: Flotsam, Jetsam, and Science of Ocean Motion
by Loree Griffin Burns
Did you know there is a floating garbage dump between Hawaii and California as big as Alaska? It lies in a convergence zone where currents come together and force the surface waters to sink. Did you know that 100,000 marine mammals in the Pacific Ocean die each year due to plastic ingestion? There is an underlying Save the Oceans theme in Tracking Trash, but Burns presents it in a way that leads the reader to think about the causes of pollution, rather than the effects. A glossary, a booklist, and a website resource list are included in the appendices. (I also learned that OSCURS--Ocean Surface Current Simulator--can tell you where and when lost cargo will wash ashore if you input a date and specific ocean location [longitude and latitude] where the cargo was lost.)
Smart-Opedia: The Amazing Book About Everything
by Eve Drobot, ed.
Smart-Opedia: The Amazing Book About Everything is my solution to increasing my Jeopardy! score. Ten writers and eighteen authors are behind this ambitious book that covers a range of information about, well, everything. The authors have included additional features as well for each topic, including "Career Opportunities," "Timelines," "Spotlight," "Kids' Questions," "Answers," and "Number Crunch" among others. One of my favorite features is "Tune-In" which offers a more in-depth look at a certain subject. This informational and fun-to-read "encyclopedia" makes a wonderful gift for a child eight years and older.
Who Was First?: Discovering the Americas
by Russell Freedman
Who Was First?: Discovering the Americas reads like a mystery. First Freedman debunks the assumption--Columbus discovered America in 1492--and then moves on to other, more compelling evidence: 1) Archaeologists in the 1970s discovered tools and the remains of ancient fire pits near Pittsburgh dating back 18, 000 years; 2) A 13, 500-year-old spearhead was found in 1933 next to a skeleton of a woolly mammoth in New Mexico; 3) Leif Erikson and crew established the first European settlement on North America around 1, 000 A.D. on the Northern tip of Newfoundland; and 4) There is a tower in Newport, Rhode Island that may date back to 1405-1433 when a mighty Chinese Armada set sail with 250 ships and perhaps 28, 000 crew members. Who Was First? is a fascinating and well-researched journey.
Up next week: Mom's reviews of Marie Curie, by Kathleen Krull, The Wall, by Peter Sis, and a longer review of the winning Non Fiction (MG/YA) title, Tasting the Sky, by Ibtisam Barakat.
By: Kelly Herold,
on 2/18/2008
The Do-It-Yourself bug starts early in some children. Certain projects have enduring appeal, like the old paint-your-own-room-with-markers job, or the build-an-igloo-out-of-wet-toilet-paper activity. But, maybe, just maybe, you as a guardian might prefer to channel the creative activity of your youngsters--and give them a little learning in the process to boot. So, if you have a crafty child in your home, classroom, or library, then I highly recommend Nomad Press's Build It Yourself Series.
I read Great Ancient Egypt Projects You can Build Yourself, by Carmella Van Vleet, and Great Colonial America Projects You Can Build Yourself, by Kris Bordessa. Both books follow a similar structure: They are organized around historical themes (Egypt--"Foundations of "Ancient Egypt," "Boats," "Hieroglyphs"; Colonial America--"The First Americans," "Life in a Colonial Home," "Colonial Farms and Gardens") and each chapter contains historical information and a few projects of varying complexity. Take, for example, Bordessa's chapter on "Life in a Colonial Home." In this chapter, projects include building your own model Wattle-and-Daub house, creating your own bricks, making straw ticking for a bed, making candles and candle holders, creating your own silhouette and braided rug, and making your own broom. There's something for everyone!
The Build It Yourself books also feature a number of games and toys a child can build, as well as information on the history of the toys and games and how to play them. The volumes also include brief asides on important historical figures, manners of the age, and on language. The Build It Yourself books are best suited for children ages 8 to 12 (third through sixth grades).
Now, get busy!
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Personal note: PJ Hoover! There's a make-your-own papyrus section in Great Ancient Egypt Projects.
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Anastasia Suen hosts the Non Fiction Monday roundups at Picture Book of the Day.
By: Barbara Bietz,
on 6/10/2007
Hi Friends,
I have been "tagged" by my friend Terry Peirce to provide a list of things that make me laugh. I challenge anyone reading this to provide your own list and pass it along to me.
Here is my list of favorite funnies:
1. the dog eating peanut butter
2. Junie B. Jones
3. re-runs of the Cosby show
4. my daughter's imitations of famous singers
5. when my kids ask questions like, "Did you ever hear of The Rolling Stones when you were young?'"
I Twitter (sporadically) and have found it useful in several different ways:
--when my husband and I were traveling, we set up a private Twitter acct to post updates for our children and parents. It was the fastest, easiest way to keep them apprised of our whereabouts.
--last year during the San Diego county wildfires, I found Twitter updates from other users to be the most up-to-the-minute reports on where exactly the fires were at any any given moment.
--less formally, I've used my public Twitter account (bonnyglen) to keep lists of what my kids are reading.
--I loved hearing about my friend Kristen's adventures in Japan during her recent trip, thanks to her frequent tweets. :)
--my husband has his own Twitter account, and it's fun to snark back and forth with him and some of our mutual friends.
For me the key to having Twitter be useful and fun, but not a time-suck, is not oversubscribing to people's updates. At first I followed a LOT of people, but I quickly realized I was having to wade through a hubbub of chatter to get to the stuff I really wanted. I have gradually pared down my "follow" list to a manageable size. I use the #hashtags and keyword tracking functions to check for topic-specific tweets as needed--during the recent hurricanes, for example.
If you do decide to Twitter, do let us know so we can follow you! :)
Oh, no, Melissa! These all sound like good reasons...
(Obviously I was kind of hoping that someone would say--total waste of time...)
I love Twitter, because:
a) It's a great way to keep track of my friends who are too lazy to blog (especially overseas friends)
b) It's a great way of publishing those pithy little thoughts that aren't quite big enough to justify a blog post.
c) i can do it from my phone.
d) there is something fun and challenging about condensing an idea into 140 characters.
Count me as another Twitter fan (and convert, because I had been maligning it for months before finally signing up).
Melissa and Lili both have great points, and I have some other thoughts, but it's going to have to wait until I'm not at work :-)
I see great uses for Twitter, too, even though I don't currently Tweet. If you go back to my poem, comment number 22 is from Denise Wakeman of The Blog Squad) about what Twitter's done for her. Interesting stuff.
And thanks for the linkola!
No matter how much fun it seems to be (same with iPod Touch), I don't have enough time in the day to add one. more. thing.
Think carefully before dive in!
I do not Twitter. This surely must be a sign that I am getting old. I also do not use a fancy cell phone, I use a three year old cheapie prepaid and most of the time it is not charged up.
I think this is part of being an introvert? Not sure. Still learning about blogging, and I don't feel I'm that interesting to need to broadcast a lot of updates.
I use Twitter, mostly because that's how many of my DC friends seem to communicate. I was always out of the loop, and seems I was reading twitter... I might as well use it, right?