Are you looking for a giggle-filled bedtime story? A book about friendship and the summer Olympics? You’ll find that and so much more in our favorite books this month…
Teach kids to coding this summer with a fun story, learn about the history of jazz musicians in the 1950s or turn through the pages of a historical action book. Read on to find out more about of June favorites.
For Pre-K –K (Ages 3-6):
Good Night Owl – written and illustrated by Greg Pizzoli
This funny and charming read aloud makes a perfect, funny read for bedtime or anytime! Kids will enjoy searching for the mouse on every page and laughing as owl attempts to find the source of the squeak that’s keeping him awake. We love it!
For 1st and 2nd Grade (Ages 6-8):
The Quickest Kid in Clarksville – written by Pat Zietlow Miller, illustrated by Frank Morrison
In this lively picture book about friendship, competition, and perseverance, two girls take inspiration from the same hero – Olympic athlete Wilma Rudolph. This is a great book to read in the lead-up to the summer Olympics! Pair it with the nonfiction book Wilma Unlimited if you want to extend your students’ learning.
For 3rd & 4th grade (Ages 8-10):
Secret Coders – written and illustrated by Gene Luen Yang
Comics + coding = this awesome book. Kids will dive easily into the plot of this clever graphic novel, learning the basics of coding and programming along the way. It’s the first book in terrific new series from award-winning author Gene Luen Yang who was a long-time computer science teacher. He knows just how to teach a complex subject in a fun and accessible way.
For 5th and 6th Grade (Ages 10-12):
Jazz Day: The Making of a Famous Photograph – written by Roxane Orgill, illustrated by Francis Vallejo
Nonfiction and poetry merge in this fantastic new book that was just awarded the Boston Globe Horn Book Award! Gorgeous illustrations mingle with rich poems focused on a summer day in 1958, when more than 50 great Jazz musicians came together in Harlem for a photo that would become world-famous. Each poem reveals a bit about the musicians, their music, and a key era in our nation’s history. Truly beautiful!
Grades 7 & up (Ages 13+):
Samurai Rising: The Epic Life of Minamoto Yoshitsune – written by Pamela S. Turner, illustrated Gareth Hinds
Action, adventure, and fascinating facts fill the pages of this gripping nonfiction book that will appeal to anyone with an interest in history, war, or the ancient world. Pam Turner’s writing keeps the tone light and the plot racing. We couldn’t put it down!
The post Monthly Book List: Our Favorite Books this June appeared first on First Book Blog.
Samurai Rising: The Epic Life of Minamoto Yoshitsune
By Pamela S. Turner
Illustrated by Gareth Hinds
Charlesbridge
$16.95
ISBN: 9781580895842
Ages 10 and up
On shelves now
When you read enough children’s books published in a single year, folks tend to believe that you’ve an ability to spot trends in the general literature. Trend-spotting is easy enough when you’re dealing with picture books (hot in 2016: Bears rampaging through picnics and blobfish!) but books written for older readers are trickier. I think I’ve hit on at least one incredibly popular trend for the current year, however: Overwhelming depression and sadness. Whether it’s baby foxes are getting their legs blown off in landmines, dads being deadbeat, or girls falling down wells, 2016 is officially The Year of the Hankie. So you can imagine the glee with which I devoured Samurai Rising. “A samurai fights for honor and survival in a real-life Game of Thrones,” reads the blurb for the book (minus the torture and nudity, of course). In producing a fantastic look at the true story behind Japan’s most famous samurai, Turner doesn’t just cheer up an otherwise depressed literary year. She highlights a figure too long ignored in America. Say goodbye to boredom. Say hello to crazy-eyed heroics and an anti-hero for the young masses.
On the book’s title page is written a small alert. “WARNING: Very few people in this story die of natural causes.” No lie, just fact. This is the story of Minamoto Yoshitsune. A boy who “could not yet walk when his father left him a lost war, a shattered family, and a bitter enemy.” Yoshitsune’s father (not the brightest samurai of all time) throws away his family’s comfortable existence protecting Japan’s Retired Emperor when he decides to kidnap the guy instead. Swiftly defeated by his rival Taira Kiyomori, the man’s son, little Yoshitsune, is spared but eventually sent to train as a monk. Determined to win back his family’s honor, the boy runs away and with the help of a friendly lord becomes a full fledged samurai. Not a moment too soon either. Forces are brewing and Yoshitsune’s older brother Yoritomo needs his brother’s help to revolt against Kiyomori’s reign. Through it all, Yoshitsune doesn’t just show the heart of a warrior. He shows he has the guts and brains to carry out even the craziest campaign. But with trouble brewing at home, it may be his own family that proves the deadliest enemy of all. Author’s Notes, Time Lines, a Glossary, Chapter Notes, and a Bibliography appear as well.
I was at a conference recently where the terms “creative nonfiction” and “narrative nonfiction” got tossed about like so many ping-pong balls. These terms are generally produced when someone writes a work of nonfiction that reads like a novel. In order to do this and yet still retain even a modicum of historical accuracy, the author in question must bend over backwards to get everything right. Fifty-whopping-two pages, or so, at the back of the book are dedicated to Turner’s chapter notes alone. Here you’ll find every quotation and historical detail cited (Turner also writes an intro to these notes, marking this as the first time I’ve ever seen an author sell the reader on reading them, since who could resist trying to figure out, “why Yoritomo didn’t use ninjas”?). As for Turner’s writing, you forget almost instantly that this is a work of nonfiction. This is both a good and bad thing. Good, because it proves to young readers that there’s more to nonfiction than what you’ll find in a textbook. Bad because life, unlike fiction, doesn’t always adhere to our understanding of narrative rise and fall. When Minamoto’s enemy Kiyomori died without ever having confronted Yoshitsune, I was momentarily baffled. Of course Turner, skillful as she is, is able to naturally call upon Yoshitsune’s older brother as the new enemy, and it’s done with slow, exquisite care.
When you’re watching a musical, the songs have to serve the story. You can’t just have characters burst into a melody without a reason. Likewise, a nonfiction book can be laden with facts, but only if they serve the narrative to its best advantage. Turner has all kinds of tricks up her sleeves, and integrating facts into the story is one of her greater strengths. She can move from the story of Yoshitsune learning how to be a samurai to a description of the brilliant work of engineering that is a samurai’s armor or sword with aplomb.
Even with all this, Turner’s working at a natural disadvantage. Her story is set in the 12th century. Source material from that time? Not exactly copious. So she relies upon informed speculation, i.e. what a character may have seen or may have considered in one scene or another. A number of years ago I read a book called Wild Boy: The Real Life of the Savage of Aveyron which was a true history of a child who lived in the wild and was brought back to “civilization” near the end of the French Revolution. The author leaned heavily on a plethora of “probablys” which is no crime. Honestly, it informs the reader as to what they do or do not know. Still, it can prove distracting if too many are clustered in one spot. The only time I found myself irked in a similar way here was around the beginning of the book when Minamoto and a gold merchant were avoiding the samurai. From “the homey smell of wood smoke probably drew the weary travelers to wayside inns” to “The teenage runaway probably watched, mouth agape, as entertainers performed the popular tales of his time”, I found my willingness to go along with Turner’s speculations stretched, if never quite broken. Fortunately it’s the only time in the book I found Turner’s reliance on probability too overt. For the most part, she does a fine job of keeping everything copacetic.
I was also taken with the humor of the book. Judicious use of it in any nonfiction title is a delicate art. Here, the author has the advantage of time (no one’s going to read about the beheadings of the 1100s and think “Too soon!”). So when she pulls out lines like “News of severed heads travels fast,” you can’t but help but admire the wordplay’s moxie. Ditto, “If things went badly, Kiso had the usual samurai backup plan: kidnap the Retired Emperor” (this line works better after you see how many times the poor guy gets kidnapped in the course of his life – a calming retirement it is not).
The inclusion of Gareth Hinds’ art in the book was good planning on someone’s part (mostly likely Art Director Susan Sherman, according to Turner’s Acknowledgements). Though he’s illustrated the occasional title for other authors (Gifts from the Gods) generally Gareth sticks to his own graphic novel adaptations of classics like The Odyssey or Beowulf or King Lear. A meticulous hand, Hinds’ interstitial art keeps the narrative moving without distracting from it. And while it did have the odd personal problem of making me really want a Minamoto Yoshitsune graphic novel (ahem ahem!), for the most part I think it’ll be of greatest use to those students that need a little visual stimulation with their descriptive texts.
Here’s a pretty basic question for the book: Is Minamoto a hero? The comparison to Game of Thrones on the book’s blurb isn’t all that wrong. Things get pretty ethically dicey in the midst of power plays and wars. Honestly, coming out of this book I had particular sympathy for two people in particular and neither one of them was Minamoto. Minamoto’s heroism in terms of bravery cannot be called into question, but if we’re trying to figure out why he comes across as sympathetic, a lot of that can be attributed to our innate sense of fairness, or lack thereof. He starts off clawing his way up, already at a disadvantage thanks to dear old dad, and then just when everything seems to be working out for him his own brother stabs him in the back (figuratively and nearly literally). He deals decently at times, establishing law and order at critical moments. Then again, he’s not against lighting the occasional peasant village on fire like some insane 12th century version of streetlights. And so I say to teachers and the leaders of bookgroups, if you are doing this book with a group of kids and you need a topic of discussion, just ask this: What is a hero? You’re bound to get some pretty interesting answers after the kids read this book.
As I write this review, the hottest musical on Broadway right now is Hamilton by Lin-Manuel Miranda. It seems to me that we’re seeing a lot of narratives right now that discuss scrappy youngsters, eager to make their mark on the world, no matter the cost to themselves or others. So hey, if you need an idea for a new musical, have I got a book for you! Bringing to the attention of American kids new historical heroes from cultures they may not have any familiarity with is a difficult proposition. Turner and Hinds tackle the challenge with a kind of manic glee. The end result is infinitely readable and downright fun. So pile on the other tear-drenched novels for the kiddos. As long as I have a plucky samurai kid not throwing away his shot I’ll be satisfied. More fun than it deserves to be and a great read.
On shelves now.
Source: Galley sent from publisher for review.
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And, naturally, it has a trailer:
Project Seahorse Pamela S. Turner, photographs by Scott Tuascon
Once again, the Scientists in the Field series hits it out of the park.
Project Seahorse is a program that helps set up Marine Protected Areas off the coast of the Philippines. Seahorses are in trouble because there is a great demand for them-- dried seahorses are an important ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine and are also used for curios and knick-knacks. Live seahorses are very popular to use in aquariums, even though they are extremely hard to keep alive in captivity.
In addition to learning a lot about seahorses and coral reefs, Turner also shows why Project Seahorse is so successful as an organization.
The reason Project Seahorse works is because they work very closely with the communities who depend on the reefs for their livelihoods. By working closely with all of the players, they create very important buy-in, so everyone's on board with the project. One thing Project Seahorse works for isn't a complete ban on the seahorse trade, but a more sustainable one. Not only do they work with the fisherman, but also aquariums and Chinese medicine practitioners.
They also take a very interdisciplinary approach their conservation efforts. In addition to observing reef recovery by diving and counting and observing, the scientists also interview the fisherman to see if/how their catches are improving and work closely with them, not just for data, but so that they continue to support the project.
They hope that not only with the reef recover (and it's very much starting to) in the protected areas, but as it recovers, it spills out of the protected boundaries, bringing recovery to the unprotected areas as well (and the fisherman hope so, too.)
Also, the pictures are just FANTASTIC. Seahorses are weird little creatures and there are lots of cool pictures of them, but also of the other fish and life along the reef. Stunning. (My favorite was in the very back, of the weedy seadragon.)
As always, there is also a list for further reading, watching, and researching, as well as tips kids can do right now to help.
Another great book to show why this series is so awesome.
Round up is over at Write About Now. Be sure to check it out!
Book Provided by... my local library
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When I picked up
A Place for Wonder: Reading and Writing Nonfiction in the Primary Grades
, I really intended to just skim it over. After all, I now teach only sixth grade (this book is aimed at teachers of lower elementary grades) and I teach only reading and language arts (whereas this book, at first glance, seemed to be pretty much about science). Well, I read the introduction, and about two hours later discovered that I had read the whole thing from cover to cover. Not just read it, but thoroughly enjoyed it, and
couldn’t wait to pass it on to a teacher of those grade levels so that they could put its ideas into action in their classroom.
First, know this: Georgia Heard and Jennifer
McDonough don’t write in the world of the
hypotheticals. Every idea they share for helping children make nonfiction discoveries comes from their real-life experiences with kindergartners and first graders. Every lesson plan has been implemented in “real time,” and it shows through the anecdotal stories, the authentic and very funny student dialogues, and their suggestions for practitioners based upon their experiences.
This
isn’t another book of themes or centers; this is an easy-to-implement series of lessons which will assist any teacher, in any school environment, in opening the eyes of curiosity. And while some will argue that children are naturally curious, I would point out that schools have a way of stifling that curiosity. Not purposely, not systemically, but simply through neglect.
A Place for Wonder shows how to take that natural curiosity and channel it toward authentic and purposeful explorations of nonfiction topics. What particularly impressed me was the plans for children to write their own nonfiction books, complete with table of contents and glossary!
My wife is a kindergarten teacher so she’s already laid claim to my copy. Looks like I’ll be getting another for my daughter’s teacher.
It’s that good! I recommend you check it out
online at Stenhouse, and
get a copy for yourself
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Don't forget to give me all your challenge info for The Reading Challenge Clearinghouse.
Last Tuesday, I ordered a bunch of Diary of a Chav books from The Book Depository. Two of them arrived today! I bet the rest will come tomorrow! (Each book was shipped separately.) Not bad for free international shipping! (Seriously, not affiliated at all, except that I love them because of their awesomeness.)
And now, for your Monday non-fiction-y goodness:
The Frog Scientist Pamela S. Turner
Ok, I'm putting the full disclaimer information up on top for this one, because it may look a little suspect. Usually, I don't review books that are under 100 pages on this blog, just because I have to draw the line SOMEWHERE (just like I don't review audio books here, I have to get some semblance of control.) However, I occasionally make an exception if there is a book that I want to talk about or if the content level is bigger than the 100-page length.
I went back and forth a little bit when Turner offered me this book to review (so, to spell that out, this copy was provided by the publisher) because I knew it was under 100 pages. BUT! I also knew that the
Scientists in the Field series was awesome and a great series to give to kids. (I mean, the cover alone on
The Bug Scientists will sell it.) So, I decided to review it. I just wanted to let you know what was going on up front.
This story follows an experiment in Dr. Tyrone Hayes's lab at UC Berkeley, where he's studying the link between the pesticide atrazine and the femalization of male leopard frogs. Along the way, we get Dr. Hayes's life story (with some awesome pictures from his college days at Harvard in the 80s--seriously awesome New Wave hair) we meet his family and the students working in his lab and why they're interested. Many are interested in biology and science and want to continue working in the field, but one was the child of migrant workers and was more interested in how the pesticide effects people who breathe it in everyday while working in the fields.
The book focused a lot on pesticide risks to frogs, because that's where Hayes's research is, but did talk about other things effecting frogs and other variables in the puzzle, and it also talked about why we should care.
Lots of big pictures of frogs (and frog dissection) as well as daily lab life illustrate the text and make it an easy hand-sell. I really liked the fact that the lab was full of women and people of color doing science, but I kinda wondered where the guys were. I also liked how the reader gets to see how lab science really works (let's do this experiment over and over again to make sure our results are consistent! Now! To wash the test tubes!)
I like this entire series and this is a good addition.
Round-up is at MotherReader!
8If you read my blog often and you see my weekly Non-Fiction Monday posts, you'll notice that I most often feature books with wonderful photography. With young kids and non-fiction, in my own experience, the books are more likely to be picked up and enjoyed if they feature awesome pictures with simple, easy-to-read, informative text. This week, the book I'm featuring is another of those wonderful, necessary combinations, with some of the coolest photographs I've seen, and a very nicely written, educational format.
The Frog Scientist, part of the "Scientists in the Field" series put out by Houghton Mifflin, is written by Pamela S. Turner, with photographs by the very talented Andy Comins. In it, we follow Tyrone, a graduate student, around the world as he attempts to solve the mystery of why frogs are dying everywhere and being born malformed.
The reader not only gets an insider's glimpse into a very cool, unique topic, he or she is treated to some incredibly impressive photographs of frogs and landscapes, as well as backstory on Tyrone's life and experiences. I was very pleased with this title, as I have been with all of the "Scientists in the Field" books I've come across.
This would be a fantastic choice for a school library, both middle and high school, as well as for a homeschooling science unit. A great book!
To learn more or to purchase, click on the book cover to link to Amazon.
The Frog Scientist
Pamela S. Turner
64 pages
Non-fiction
Houghton Mifflin
9780618717163
July 2009
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, and another emailed to say that she used it on a regular basis, although she had never seen this reprint with its rich new illustrations. So we've got one copy of 
, 
, and 
, you can enter to win a copy of 
. Like the others in this series, 
For someone who has to avert her eyes when seeing anything about Game of Thrones due to the violence, it is surprising how besotted I am with this title. My blog review is here: https://medinger.wordpress.com/2016/03/31/pamela-s-turners-samurai-rising/
One aspect of the writing that you call out above and that wowed me was the folding in of those “probably”s and “surely”s. They seemed to fit in nicely, didn’t feel awkward (as I often find they do), and added substantially to the historical texture for readers. Then there were those wry comments —not only are the often funny, but they provide more access points for young readers to make sense of this possibly very-hard-to-fathom history. And those ends notes —- love the way they take you deeper, give you more information if you want it (and I did:).
Definitely one of my favorites of the year so far.
This cover is going to look awesome covered in award medals! Placing Minamoto smack dab in the middle leaves plenty of room for a Sibert, Newbery, Printz, YALSA NF, and NBA.
Pax was a great read, but didn’t have the emotional resonance I was looking for. Raymie Nightingale was heartbreaking and beautifully written.
But this – THIS! – is my favorite book of the year. I fist-pumped my way through the battle sequences, gasped at the bloody murders, laughed out loud at the sly humor, and felt all the emotional triggers Turner wove into the narrative. I generally love biographies and nonfiction to begin with, and I’ve espoused more than once how much I’m a Steve Sheinkin and Candace Fleming fanboy. Turner joins their ranks with this one.
“Wow” factor is through the roof. I can’t wait to booktalk Samurai Rising.
As usual, a terrific review, Betsy.
Honestly I didn’t mind the bulk of the “surely”s and “probably”s. It was just that one particular section that struck me as a little more overt than the others.
If this is in any way up there with “Most Dangerous,” as non-fiction goes, I’m there. Not to mention my half-Japanese-American son, who will probably inhale this.
So funny to read your first paragraph and feel like I’m reading my own goodreads review of Maybe a Fox. http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1611543869?book_show_action=false
I dubbed 2016 The Year of Sad and 2015 The Year of the Grandparent.
We calls ’em likes we sees ’em.
This sounds like a great read for boys! Would love to recommend it on the Boys Read blog but our library system has it available only as an ebook. I’ve emailed She Who Orders Books to see if we could get physical copies. I don’t mind ebooks but, as we know, the Digital Divide is alive and well and could keep some kids from reading it.