The Weather Detectives on the Case!

 

    "Maybe those sounds were to blame.

    "Maybe that's why Henry felt like throwing up."

Well, what kid wouldn't want to keep reading? The title alone intrigued me, and as I type this, thunder rumbles and rain falls, while hurricanes and tropical storms hit the coasts. 

Who or what are Weather Detectives? Henry Alabaster is the 13-year-old nephew of Kelvin McCloud, who specializes in solving cases involving weather. He's even written a book about it, chapters of which are interspersed in the text of this book. Henry proves an able assistant, as the two meet friends--and strangers--aboard a clipper cruise ship that has suffered from enough strange sights and sounds to hurt business. Hired by a crew member and friend of the captain, Kelvin and Henry set out to see what's behind the eerie phenomena. Kelvin, Henry and his friend, Rachel, keep their eyes and ears open, develop their suspect list, and ask questions. Many unexplainable occurrences put everyone aboard on edge. As more evidence comes forward and the ship steers into a hurricane, Henry suggests a plan based on his knowledge of thunder and lightning. Leaving Henry behind for safety reasons, Kelvin closes in on the guilty. 

Kelvin is also Henry's guardian following the deaths of Henry's parents, and in the course of the story, Henry grows closer to Kelvin--and Rachel--and realizes he has a family and a future, after all.

The lively writing and robust vocabulary will appeal to young readers, and they will learn a bit about weather in the process.

The Weather Detectives by Michael Erb, published this July by Tumblehome Books, is written for kids aged 9-12. I enjoyed this book as an Advanced Reader Copy pdf provided by the author. This is Erb's second book featuring Kelvin, and I hope there are more! I could imagine this being made into a TV show because the characters and situations are so singular.

Erb is himself holds a Ph.D. in Atmospheric Science from Rutgers, so he knows his weather! From his author bio: "Currently, he is an Assistant Research Professor at Northern Arizona University, where he helps uncover clues about Earth's past climate. As a scientist and author, he confronts mysteries both in his research and in fascinating books." 

    

Kids Got the Summer Doldrums? Vivian Kirkfield Has an Answer

We’ve reached that point in the summer when adults are thinking “back to school” and kids are saying, “What can we do now?”  And the younger the children, the more limited their abilities. You may have run out of ideas. Well, worry no more because I have the answer for you! Are you surprised it is a book?

Show Me How by Vivian Kirkfield contains over 200 pages of ideas to help young children learn through stories, crafts, and cooking! This unique combination is aimed at ages 2-5 and the adults who care for them. 

Each chapter contains almost 20 activity sets based on classic children’s books. For example, in Chapter One: “I Can Do It Myself!” Kirkfield uses the book Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel to encourage the independence and satisfaction  that can come from children’s abilities to work hard by themselves.  The suggested craft is to make a collage of pictures of work vehicles cut from old magazines and paste them onto construction paper or poster board. The cooking complement is Child-Friendly Mini Apple Pies. Yum! I have a hunch that these recipes aren’t just for kids!

Other chapters are “I’m Special!”, “I Love You & You Love Me!”, ‘I Am Really Mad Right Now!”, “I’m Afraid!”, “I Like Myself!” and “Tell Me One More Story, Please!” As you can see, this book covers many aspects of a child’s life and development.

What inspired Vivian to write this book? She holds a master’s degree in early childhood education, taught kindergarten, and ran a daycare.

Vivian says, “I'm passionate about encouraging parents to read with their children...and even spending just 15 minutes a day, reading, or crafting or cooking with them could make such a big difference. Children definitely understand how busy their parents are...and a parent that takes precious time and gives it to a child is doing an important thing...the time we spend with our kids is worth more than the most expensive gadgets we could buy for them. Just a piece of paper and some crayons...a parent can tell a whole story in pictures. Just a piece of paper and some crayons...a child can create a new world.

“These moments spent with our children, especially when they are young, are priceless! Inviting a child into the kitchen to help arrange a fruit salad, squeeze fresh orange juice, shake up some heavy cream in a bottle to make real butter...these activities don't even require cooking...but will encourage vocabulary building, fine motor skills, math and science curiosity, and a stronger bond between parent and child."

Disclaimer: I was a lucky winner of the book on Vivian’s blog, “Picture Books Help Kids Soar” https://viviankirkfield.com/. If you live or work with young children, you will want to follow and get more great book and children’s activity ideas! I look forward to trying these out with my granddaughter.  (Photos courtesy of Vivian Kirkfield.)

What’s Your Brilliance? (Part 1)

The dust is settling on the book awards season, and winners’ covers proclaim their awards. I was fortunate to get my hands on two very popular titles for young people. While they are completely different, they have one theme in common—a young person’s discovering what’s special about  themselves. Here are my reflections on the first book:

brown girl dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson has been awarded the 2014 National Book Award—Young People’s Literature, the 2015 Newbery, a 2015 Coretta Scott King Honor, an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Work—Youth/Teens, and others. Why all the accolades? And what can I possibly add to the many more learned reviews that have already been written?

-brown girl dreaming has historical significance. It is a coming-of-age memoir written in free verse about growing up in the 1960s and ‘70s partly in the North and partly in the South. These were historic times in the Civil Rights Movement, and this book shows what a young girl thought about living in those times in those places. How to behave in certain places to avoid trouble—or should you go ahead and make trouble?

“At the fabric store, we are not Colored

or Negro. We are not thieves or shameful

or something to be hidden away.

At the fabric store, we’re just people.” (from “the fabric store,” p. 90-91)

By Unknown or not provided (U.S. National Archives and Records Administration) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

 -It is a book about who we are as family, and the ways family influences our identity. Aunts, uncles, brothers, sister, mother, father, and grandparents all played a part in making Woodson who she is today. Especially poignant is Woodson’s love for her maternal grandfather, expressed throughout the book, as in “sometimes, no words are needed:”

 “…My head against/my grandfather’s arm,

a blanket around us as we sit on the front porch swing.

Its whine like a song.”

-It is a book about finding one’s unique gift and figuring out what to do with it. Woodson’s brother could sing. Woodson’s sister was brilliant. Fortunately for us, Woodson found her gift in writing.

“I want to catch words one day. I want to hold them

then blow gently, watch them float

right out of my hands” (from “gifted,” p. 169).

The free verse format makes for easy reading that I want to read over and over again. On learning to write her name at age 3:

“Will the words end, I ask

whenever I remember to.

Nope, my sister says, all of five years old now,

and promising me

infinity.” (from “the beginning,” p. 62-63)

By Biswarup Ganguly (Own work) [GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html) or CC BY 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Like any life, there is stuggle and triumph, joy and sorrow.

“Maybe, I am thinking, there is something hidden

like this, in all of us. A small gift from the universe

waiting to be discovered” (from “hope onstage,” p. 233).

Woodson’s words are sure to help other young people—of any color—look for and find their own brilliance.

For more about Woodson, here's an NPR interview.

(Stay tuned for Part 2)

Haiku: Nature is Our Playground

(© Copyright Rich Daley and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence)

Many of us learned haiku poetry in elementary school because its three-line form reinforces the concept of syllables. Of course, this is pure mechanics. True haiku is usually about a season in nature and is written in the present tense. When you read a haiku, whatever you read about is happening now. Haiku often contains opposing ideas, giving this short poetic form a complexity not immediately evident.

The ancient poetic form began in Japan in the 1600's. The master Basho is still read and highly regarded today.

An example of Basho's haiku:

old pond . . .
a frog leaps in
water’s sound

Frog in garden pond in Davington, Faversham (pam fray) / CC BY-SA 2.0

Here's an example by Issa:

A red morning sky,
For you, snail;
Are you glad about it?

Snail on flowers by Jon Sullivan

Writing haiku well demands that the poet observe quietly and be mindful of all his or her senses.

This by no means reaches the master level, but is my own example:

luscious lilacs burst
into big purple bouquets
spreading scented spring

(copyright 2012, Jane Heitman Healy)

Monika Thorpe / CC BY 2.0

Author Bob Raczka and illustrator Peter H. Reynolds recognized haiku as a poetry form that boys can enjoy. Here is Raczka's introduction to their book Guyku:



The book features each season's outdoor activities, such as kite flying, rock skipping, listening to crickets, and looking at constellations, in haiku form. It's a fun book for all ages of boys AND girls. However, since some girls felt excluded because of the title, this author-illustrator team is at work on a version for girls.

A fun international haiku site for kids is Children's Haiku Garden. You can read haiku written by children around the world and submit your own (if you're a child).

Outside Japan, most haiku is written in English. There's even a Haiku Society of America!

What did you notice about nature today? Can you turn your observations into a haiku? Please share your observations and creativity in the comments. If you need some inspiration, see Round of the Seasons in Japan blog for beautiful pictures of that country and its gardens.

The Lion, Indiana, and the Mouse

You have probably heard by now that The Lion & the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney won the Caldecott Medal, an annual award honoring the best illustration in an American children's picture book. We love the cover and think the Lion bears a strong resemblance to our golden retriever, Indiana. (Imagine him with a mane.) Indiana certainly considers himself king of the household, just as the Lion is the king of the jungle and forest!

Pinkney, a highly regarded artist and illustrator, won the Caldecott Honor five times as well as many other awards, but this one caps his long career. Read an interview here.

The dyslexic Pinkney applied, studied, and perfected his drawing craft, compensating for his reading and writing difficulty. He specializes in creative retellings of folktales or fables.

In the case of his Caldecott winner, he retells Aesop's old fable of the lion & the mouse using only pictures of the African savannah and spelling out animal sounds. He brings the tale to life in a new way, allowing every reader to put his or her own nuance into the story. Themes beyond Aesop's moral emerge, with the animals' expressions evoking emotions from fear to empathy to relief to humor. Every spread is a visual feast.

Congratulations, Jerry Pinkney! Thanks for creating a book for all ages of readers and all ages of time.

A Publishing Prodigy

Gordon Korman is a favorite author among upper elementary and middle school students. His road to publishing is unique. At age 12, he wrote his first novel. He knew that to be published, he had to send it to a publisher. The only one he knew was Scholastic, because he was the Scholastic book sale captain for his class. So he sent off his manuscript, and they liked it! Scholastic released the book when he was 14 and a high school freshman. "I don't know what my friends were thinking inside," he said, "but they didn't make any big deal of it. It was just what I did."

Now age 46, he has written over 60 books--all still published by Scholastic--and won many awards. He told his Plum Creek Children's Literacy Festival audience that his humorous school and family stories are inspired by his own experience. He takes a trait of someone he knows and gives that trait to a character, exaggerating it to make it more humorous. His adventure books come from research. He told about learning about the science behind deep sea diving, including shark behavior, and using that information in his plots for his Dive series. Korman is also one of the authors of the popular 39 Clues series.

See an author interview and learn more about his books here.

Jan Brett Magic

Author-Illustrator Jan Brett's magic began in the parking lot, where her enormous bus proclaimed the stops on her Gingerbread Friends tour. Inside the store stood a large backdrop with a scene from the story. Eager fans of all ages fell under her spell.

Brett told the story and showed the book, adding details only she would know. Ever wonder why she makes her famous borders on the pages of her books? Because she has too many ideas to fit into one book. The extra ideas go into the borders.

The chicken pulling a sleigh idea came from Brett's seeing a real chicken pull a small wagon. She used her own rooster as a model for the book. She baked her own gingerbread boys as models for Gingerbread Baby, posing the out-of-the-oven cookies before they hardened on the pan. She used them to see what Gingerbread Baby would really look like if he were running or jumping. Brett kept her gingerbread boys in a basket on the floor and one day noticed there weren't as many as before. When she took the gingerbread boys out of the basket, she discovered a hole in the basket and a mouse who had been enjoying her baked treats! The basket is in an illustration in the book.



Brett said she knew she wanted to be a children's book illustrator from the time she was five years old. Now, she gets up in the morning, has breakfast, and then goes to her office where "I color all day." She thinks the job is even more fun than she thought it would be.

Next, she gave an art demonstration, giving tips on how to make Gingerbread Baby look three dimensional. She used markers chosen from her Hedgie the Hedgehog shoulder bag/pencil case. For her books, she uses watercolors and brushes working at the pace of an inch an hour.


Here's her advice to young artists: "Look at your first finger and your thumb. Do you see some lines there?" She went on to explain that these fingerprints are unique to each of us. Similarly, no one can draw or write like anyone else. She encouraged young and old in her audience to find their own styles. And, like magic, she made us believe we could do it!