Review: Who Gives a Poop?

Who Gives a Poop cover

Who Gives a Poop?
Sur­pris­ing Sci­ence from One End to the OtherWho Gives a Poop?

By: Heather L. Mont­gomery, Illus­tra­tor: Iris Gottlieb
Blooms­bury Chil­dren’s Books/October 13, 2020
Ages 10–14, 192 pages

Here’s what the pub­lish­er says:

This unique­ly craft­ed nar­ra­tive non­fic­tion invites read­ers to fol­low the author into sci­ence labs, forests, hos­pi­tals, and land­fills, as the author asks:

Who uses poo?

Poop is dis­gust­ing, but it’s also packed with poten­tial. One sci­en­tist spent months train­ing a dog to track dung to bet­ter under­stand ele­phant birthing pat­terns. Anoth­er dis­cov­ered that mastodon poop years ago is the rea­son we enjoy pump­kin pie today. And every week, some folks deliv­er their own poop to med­ical facil­i­ties, where it is swirled, sep­a­rat­ed, and shipped off to a hos­pi­tal to be trans­plant­ed into anoth­er human. There’s even a train full of human poop sludge that’s stuck with­out a home in Alabama.

This irrev­er­ent and engag­ing book shows that poop isn’t just waste-and that deal­ing with it respon­si­bly is our duty.

Here’s what review­ers have said:

⭐  “A well-stirred slur­ry of facts and fun for strong-stom­ached “poop sleuths.””  —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
⭐  “Feces have lots of great sto­ries to tell… .” —BCCB (starred review)

And here are my thoughts:

OK, I have to con­fess: I had so much fun read­ing Who Gives a Poop?! Read­ing this book felt like I was walk­ing through the woods on an excit­ing adven­ture with a trust­ed friend. The author’s voice is unfail­ing­ly authen­tic, and each chap­ter con­tains a ton of real sci­ence along­side gen­uine human emo­tion and just the right amount of humor. I think what I loved most about it, how­ev­er, is how her pas­sion for sci­ence and her rev­er­ence for curios­i­ty comes through. She’s not afraid to ask ques­tions, and she takes us along on her research trips to get those ques­tions answered, as well as giv­ing us an up-close view of her hands-on observations.

Even if you think you know all you need (or want) to know about poop, I guar­an­tee you’ll take away loads of fas­ci­nat­ing facts as well as many mem­o­rable sto­ries about the sci­en­tists hunt­ing for them. Read­ers of Who Gives a Poop? will thor­ough­ly enjoy both the sub­ject mat­ter and the infor­mal approach. One cau­tion: I was pep­per­ing my fam­i­ly with ran­dom poop facts for days and days after read­ing this book. You’ve been warned! The foot­notes and author’s note are love­ly addi­tions, as is the rest of the back­mat­ter. High­ly rec­om­mend­ed for ages ten and up!

More about the book:

This fun video from the author, shar­ing the first chap­ter of Who Gives a Poop?, is not to be missed:

Click here for a fecal pho­to gallery from the author to go along with Who Gives a Poop?!

For more books by this author, vis­it https://heatherlmontgomery.com/.
Facts First! Nonfiction Monday

 

 

 

*** Dis­clo­sure: I received a dig­i­tal pre­view copy from the pub­lish­er in exchange for an hon­est review. ***
 

Review: Three Stars in the Night Sky

Zoo Scientists cover

Three Stars in the Night Sky cover

THREE STARS IN THE NIGHT SKY
by Fern Schumer Chapman
Gussie Rose Press/June 6, 2018
Grades 5–8, 56 pages

Here’s what the pub­lish­er says:

At the age of 12, Ger­da Katz fled Nazi Ger­many and came to Amer­i­ca all by her­self. Decades before the label gained recog­ni­tion, she became what’s now known as an “unac­com­pa­nied minor.” Gerda’s sto­ry of fam­i­ly sep­a­ra­tion reflects the dis­lo­cat­ing trau­ma, cul­ture shock, and excru­ci­at­ing lone­li­ness many unac­com­pa­nied minor immi­grants expe­ri­ence. As Ger­da becomes an Amer­i­can, she nev­er stops long­ing to be reunit­ed with her fam­i­ly. Three Stars in the Night Sky illu­mi­nates the per­son­al dam­age of racism in three coun­tries – Nazi Ger­many, the Domini­can Repub­lic, and the Unit­ed States dur­ing the 1930s and 40s — and the emo­tion­al dev­as­ta­tion of a child com­ing to a new coun­try alone.

And here are my thoughts:
This was an engag­ing, up close and per­son­al look at an his­tor­i­cal event that is sad­ly still rel­e­vant today for many rea­sons, includ­ing under­stand­ing World War II, anti-Semi­tism, refugees, and the very real impacts of immi­gra­tion poli­cies. There is also local rel­e­van­cy here in west­ern Wash­ing­ton state, as Ger­da emi­grat­ed to Seat­tle to escape the per­se­cu­tion of Jews in Ger­many in 1938 and wound up fac­ing the intern­ment of the region’s Japan­ese-Amer­i­can cit­i­zens. I found the sto­ry and accom­pa­ny­ing images to be inter­est­ing as well as infor­ma­tive. The for­mat makes it looks like a pic­ture book, but I would not rec­om­mend it for younger read­ers due to the sen­si­tive top­ics cov­ered and the way in which they are pre­sent­ed here. High­ly rec­om­mend­ed for grades 5 and up, how­ev­er, whether as part of learn­ing more about the World War II era or look­ing at cur­rent events through a his­tor­i­cal lens. Ger­da’s sto­ry will stick with me for some time to come, and I’m thank­ful to have had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to read about it.
For more books by this author, vis­it https://fernschumerchapman.com/.
*** Dis­clo­sure: I received a review copy from the pub­lish­er as part of judg­ing the CYBILS contest. ***
Facts First! Nonfiction Monday

Review: Capsized! by Patricia Sutton

Facts First! Nonfiction Monday

Capsized! cover
Cap­sized! The For­got­ten Sto­ry of the SS East­land Disaster
by Patri­cia Sutton
Chica­go Review Press (July 1, 2018)
Grades 5–8, 176 pages

Here’s what the publisher says about Capsized!:

A fas­ci­nat­ing his­tor­i­cal account of courage and tragedy on the Chica­go River
On July 24, 1915, the SS East­land, filled to capac­i­ty with 2,500 pas­sen­gers and crew, cap­sized in the Chica­go Riv­er while still moored to the pier. Hap­py pic­nic-goers head­ed for an employ­ee out­ing across Lake Michi­gan sud­den­ly found them­selves in a strug­gle for their lives. Trapped belowdecks, crushed by the crowds attempt­ing to escape the ris­ing waters, or hurled into the riv­er from the upper deck of the ship, rough­ly one-third of the pas­sen­gers, most­ly women and chil­dren, per­ished that day.
The East­land dis­as­ter took more pas­sen­ger lives than the Titan­ic and stands today as the great­est loss of life on the Great Lakes. Cap­sized! details the events lead­ing up to the fate­ful day and pro­vides a nail-bit­ing, minute-by-minute account of the ship’s cap­siz­ing. From the courage of the sur­vivors to the despair of fam­i­lies who lost loved ones, author Patri­cia Sut­ton brings to light the sto­ries of ordi­nary work­ing peo­ple endur­ing the unthinkable.
Cap­sized! also rais­es crit­i­cal-think­ing ques­tions for young read­ers: Why do we know so much about the Titan­ic’s sink­ing yet so lit­tle about the East­land dis­as­ter? What caus­es a tragedy to be for­got­ten and left out of soci­ety’s col­lec­tive mem­o­ry? And what lessons from this dis­as­ter might we be able to apply today?

And what the critics say about Capsized!:

    • “A true dis­as­ter sto­ry riv­et­ing­ly told.” —Kirkus Reviews
    • “A bad­ly designed ship, a care­less cap­tain, and decks jammed with 2,500 pas­sen­gers are a recipe for dis­as­ter. Patri­cia Sut­ton describes the trag­ic launch­ing of the SS East­land in a dra­mat­ic, riv­et­ing nar­ra­tive filled with the vivid first­hand accounts of those onboard that brings read­ers along on a har­row­ing day trip.” —Jim Mur­phy, author of New­bery Hon­or titles The Great Fire and An Amer­i­can Plague
    • “A riv­et­ing page-turn­er sure to grab read­ers’ atten­tion. Patri­cia Sutton’s well-researched Cap­sized! will leave you shocked, sad­dened, and unable to put it down.” —Kate Han­ni­gan, author of The Detective’s Assistant
    • “Through metic­u­lous research and vivid prose, Sut­ton brings to life the lit­tle-known sto­ry of the East­land ship dis­as­ter. Based on first­hand accounts of pas­sen­gers, ship work­ers and bystanders, read­ers can expe­ri­ence the peo­ple and events that led to the sink­ing of the fastest steamship on the Great Lakes and its trag­ic after­math.” —Claire Rudolf Mur­phy, author of Gold Rush Women and March­ing with Aunt Susan
    • “The nar­ra­tive-dri­ven account, filled with quotes from indi­vid­u­als and news­pa­pers, his­tor­i­cal pho­tos, and tri­al tran­scripts, is engag­ing and accessible…Extensive source notes, which account for every quote, as well as a bib­li­og­ra­phy, round out this infor­ma­tive, engross­ing title.” —Book­list
    • “Cap­sized! is an excel­lent book for his­tor­i­cal research and high­ly rec­om­mend­ed for both mid­dle and high school libraries.” — KidsReads

And here are my thoughts about Capsized!:

I read this one as part of judg­ing the CYBILS, and I could not put it down! I start­ed read­ing it one night in bed, intend­ing to get in a quick chap­ter or two before turn­ing off the light, but I did­n’t stop until I’d read every last page.
I’m shocked, and frankly a lit­tle appalled, that I’d nev­er heard of this event before. Thank­ful­ly, Sut­ton chose to ded­i­cate her­self to telling this lit­tle-known sto­ry, and she tells it very well. The book itself reads with all the sus­pense and dra­ma of a well-paced nov­el, but you can see the research that went into this true sto­ry in the includ­ed source notes and bib­li­og­ra­phy. I par­tic­u­lar­ly appre­ci­at­ed how Sut­ton spelled out the var­i­ous cumu­la­tive rea­sons for the dis­as­ter: there are many impor­tant lessons to be learned from this sto­ry. I also appre­ci­at­ed the very human con­nec­tions Sut­ton built, let­ting us feel like we real­ly get to know many of the pas­sen­gers and their actions on that trag­ic day: there are lessons to be had there as well.
Giv­ing read­ers both the fac­tu­al account of an event and its emo­tion­al res­o­nance from mul­ti­ple view­points is not easy to do. This book pulls it off; an excel­lent exam­ple of nar­ra­tive non­fic­tion and one I expect I’ll be going back to as a men­tor text. High­ly recommended!
Facts First! Nonfiction Monday

Review: EAVESDROPPING ON ELEPHANTS

Zoo Scientists cover

Eavesdropping on Elephants cover

EAVESDROPPING ON ELEPHANTS
by Patri­cia Newman
Mill­brook Press/August 1, 2018
Grades 4–8, 56 pages

Here’s what the pub­lish­er says:

Can under­stand­ing how for­est ele­phants com­mu­ni­cate help sci­en­tists find ways to pro­tect this vul­ner­a­ble species? Researcher Katy Pane and oth­ers involved with Cor­nell University’s Ele­phant Lis­ten­ing Project believe it can. Patri­cia New­man takes read­ers behind the scenes to see how sci­en­tists are mak­ing new dis­cov­er­ies about ele­phant com­mu­ni­ca­tion and using what they learn to help these majes­tic animals.
Fea­tures: Author/Illustrator biog­ra­phy, Bibliography/further read­ing, Glos­sary, Index, Maps, Page Plus, Pri­ma­ry source quotations/images, and Reviewed

And what the crit­ics say:

  • A Junior Library Guild Selection
  • “An invit­ing intro­duc­tion to biol­o­gists at work.” —Book­list
  • “…this book does an excel­lent job of trans­port­ing read­ers and pro­vid­ing a clear, mul­ti­fac­eted pic­ture of African for­est elephants…“The more you lis­ten to wildlife, the more your mind opens up to new ideas about why the world is a place worth sav­ing.” VERDICT A great pick for mid­dle school non­fic­tion col­lec­tions.” —School Library Journal
  • “Fas­ci­nat­ing for earnest con­ser­va­tion­ists.” —Kirkus Reviews

And here are my thoughts:
Patri­cia New­man does it again, with anoth­er engag­ing piece of nar­ra­tive non­fic­tion! This is a high­ly engag­ing read about the less well-known African for­est ele­phants and sev­er­al of the sci­en­tists who study them. The sci­ence here–bioacoustics–is quite inter­est­ing and the human sto­ries give it a per­son­al touch. I always appre­ci­ate when we get to see how sci­en­tists real­ly work, and it’s espe­cial­ly reward­ing to get a peek at how they col­lab­o­rate with one anoth­er on their sep­a­rate-but-relat­ed research projects. The book also men­tions some of the con­ser­va­tion aspects involved and even how kids can par­tic­i­pate if they’re so inspired. An added bonus is that most of the sci­en­tists in the book hap­pen to be women, which is so impor­tant for show­ing young girls that they can indeed have an impor­tant career in the sciences.
Final­ly, watch the trail­er to see–and hear–some of the ani­mals from the book!

Facts First! Nonfiction Monday

Interview with Patricia Newman and Annie Crawley

#ProtectOurWorld challenge poster

Last week I post­ed a review of ZOO SCIENTISTS TO THE RESCUE here. Today I’m hon­ored to fol­low up on that post with an inter­view with both of the book’s cre­ators, author Patri­cia New­man and pho­tog­ra­ph­er Annie Craw­ley, as part of their blog tour. Enjoy, and be sure to check out the rest of the stop in the blog tour, too!  (See below for a com­plete list.)
LAT: How did you first become inter­est­ed in doing a book about zoo sci­en­tists in gen­er­al, and about these three in particular? 
Patricia headshotPatri­cia: When my niece was in fifth grade, she told me about a per­sua­sive essay her teacher assigned. The top­ic was zoos—are they good or bad? Only the teacher didn’t pro­vide a bal­anced look—most of the lit­er­a­ture she shared with the kids was anti-zoo. As the moth­er of a zookeep­er, I knew my niece—and kids like her—needed the oth­er side of the sto­ry. That expe­ri­ence plant­ed the seeds for Zoo Sci­en­tists to the Rescue.
Patri­cia: Dur­ing my ini­tial research, I learned that zoos tack­le con­ser­va­tion using three basic approach­es: vis­i­tor edu­ca­tion; cap­tive breed­ing and rein­tro­duc­tion pro­grams; and in situ study, or study­ing wildlife in their native habi­tats. I searched for sev­er­al months, con­duct­ing brief phone inter­views with peo­ple at var­i­ous zoos to find the best match. Not all zoos are large enough to have research depart­ments, and the largest zoos often charge an hourly fee to inter­view their sci­en­tists. Some even charge hefty licens­ing fees to write about their “intel­lec­tu­al prop­er­ty.” But final­ly, the pieces slid into place only slight­ly dent­ing my bank account. I found three charis­mat­ic species (orang­utans, black-foot­ed fer­rets, and black rhi­nos) and three sci­en­tists will­ing to speak to me who address the three main ways zoos pro­mote con­ser­va­tion. And this was all before I’d writ­ten a word!
Annie headshotAnnie: I was born and raised in Chica­go, Illi­nois. Lin­coln Park Zoo con­nect­ed me with nature on a very deep lev­el. It is open 365 days a year and it is free, so for a Mom with four kids that was impor­tant. All sum­mer long we would go to the zoo in the morn­ing and North Avenue Beach in the after­noon. We would get to know the ani­mals. In 5th grade I learned that all of our Great Apes need­ed pro­tect­ing. I signed up for a spe­cial Behind the Scenes pro­gram for stu­dents. This pro­gram had us work­ing with the sci­en­tists, keep­ers, and access to so many wildlife lead­ers. Zoos had a great impact on my life and the way I choose to live my life. When Pat­ti approached me to work with her on Zoo Sci­en­tists to the Res­cue, I was all in. It is vital for kids/teens to con­nect with nature and con­ser­va­tion and I believe Zoo Sci­en­tists to the Res­cue will inspire many fam­i­lies to pro­tect our world.
LAT: I so agree. As a zoo lover myself, it was real­ly heart­en­ing to read such a thor­ough, well-researched (and gor­geous!) look at the good work that zoos are doing. Besides me, what kind of read­er do you think ZOO SCIENTISTS will appeal to?
Patri­cia: I write for the kid who asks ques­tions about ani­mals and our world; the kid who wants to pro­tect wildlife; the future sci­en­tist; the future writer with a pas­sion for the envi­ron­ment; or the vora­cious read­er. But way at the back of my mind, I write the kinds of books I would have liked to read as a kid.
Annie: Sim­i­lar to Plas­tic Ahoy! Inves­ti­gat­ing the Great Pacif­ic Garbage Patch, this book is tar­get­ed to 3–8 grade stu­dents. I have had pre-sale copies and shared it with many… and young and old tru­ly love this book. Every time I read it, I am even more inspired into action. It will appeal to nature lovers, zoo enthu­si­asts, sci­en­tif­ic minds, and any­one who wants to learn more about our world. More impor­tant, I think any­one who reads Zoo Sci­en­tists to the Res­cue will want to help our world!
LAT: I think it’s hard to read this book (or Plas­tic Ahoy!) and not come away with an enhanced pas­sion for sci­ence, the envi­ron­ment, and doing what we can to help. What was your favorite part of mak­ing ZOO SCIENTISTS? 
Patri­cia: I love to get to know the sci­en­tists. They always inspire and amaze me, and I hope they will inspire young read­ers to fol­low in their foot­steps. I keep in touch with the sci­en­tists I inter­view to find out where sci­ence takes them and how their research grows and develops.
Annie: Get­ting kissed by Maku, a black rhino!
Annie: My favorite part of mak­ing this book was trav­el­ing togeth­er with Patri­cia and being able to be a part of all of the inter­views so that I knew the kinds of images (both pho­to and video) that would be impor­tant to tell the sto­ry. My favorite trip was of course trav­el­ing to Chica­go and to doc­u­ment black rhi­nos and Dr. Rachel San­tymire at the Lin­coln Park Zoo. Cur­rent­ly I live in Seat­tle, so to be able to cre­ate a book fea­tur­ing a sci­en­tist from a zoo that helped shape who I am, and one where I spent hun­dreds and hun­dreds of hours of my youth was very excit­ing. We got a tour of the back area of the rhi­no exhib­it and then worked with Maku’s keep­er in the exhib­it so that I could get some great pho­tos. It’s the shoot we did that the cov­er of the book came from. Dur­ing the shoot, the keep­er would work with him and feed him snacks. She let me give him one and the next thing I knew Maku kissed my hand.
LAT: That is so cool! It sounds like it real­ly was a treat for both of you to work on this project. What was the hard­est part of the mak­ing ZOO SCIENTISTS, and how did you deal with that?
Patri­cia: For me, the hard­est part was lin­ing up the three zoos. After the zoos, the ani­mals, and the sci­en­tists fell into the place, the rest of the book was a breeze in comparison!
Annie: Time is the hard­est part of mak­ing any book. Shoot­ing with Jeff Baugh­man at the Cheyenne Moun­tain Zoo was very chal­leng­ing pho­to­graph­i­cal­ly on many lev­els. We were giv­en per­mis­sion to shoot at the breed­ing facil­i­ty, but there were many points to con­sid­er. Their main goal is to breed black-foot­ed fer­rets to rein­tro­duce into the wild. BFFs are noc­tur­nal, soli­tary ani­mals that do not do well with stress. They also need dim light­ing. So not know­ing any of this in advance, I had to work very effi­cient­ly in low light to cap­ture these charis­mat­ic animals.
LAT: I can cer­tain­ly under­stand the dif­fi­cul­ty of the research and logis­tics to line up the three zoos and their projects, Patri­cia, and I’m so glad it worked out. But I can’t even imag­ine how you came up with such great pho­tos in that kind of envi­ron­ment, Annie. Hats off to both of you! Dur­ing your research, did any­thing sur­prise you, catch you off guard, or make you change your planned course for mak­ing ZOO SCIENTISTS?
Patri­cia: I didn’t come across any sur­pris­es that made me change course, but I’m always sur­prised by the cool­ness of the sci­ence and how sci­en­tists solve prob­lems. The sto­ry of black-foot­ed fer­rets being saved from the brink of extinc­tion, not once but twice, is tru­ly astonishing!
Annie: We fea­ture Mered­ith Bas­t­ian from Smithsonian’s Nation­al Zoo­log­i­cal Park. We were able to inter­view her while Patri­cia and I were in Wash­ing­ton, D.C., accept­ing a Green Earth Book Award for Plas­tic Ahoy! We had a very lim­it­ed time with the sci­en­tist and only were grant­ed per­mis­sion the day before we arrived. In our allot­ted one hour, we inter­viewed her, but had no time to pho­to­graph her with the orang­utans nor did we have access on a lev­el that we were giv­en at the oth­er zoos with the ani­mals. It was also a very cloudy/rainy day so the orang­utans were not very coop­er­a­tive! Because I knew we need­ed to get orang­utan images for the book from oth­er zoos, I start­ed hang­ing out at my local zoo in Seat­tle, the Wood­land Park Zoo, to cap­ture images. In addi­tion, I was trav­el­ing to Aus­tralia and made a point to go to the Mel­bourne Zoo. Their orang­utan exhib­it is phe­nom­e­nal and real­ly helps edu­cate peo­ple on how farm­ing palm oil can be so destruc­tive to our environment.
LAT: I was aston­ished by the sto­ry of the BFFs, too. And, as a Seat­tleite myself, I love vis­it­ing the orang­utans at the Wood­land Park Zoo. How neat to know that they are pic­tured in ZOO SCIENTISTS! I’m always curi­ous about oth­er writ­ers’ and illus­tra­tors’ (includ­ing pho­tog­ra­phers’!) research process­es. Can you tell us about yours? Did you plot the basic out­line first, then fill in the blanks with research? Or did you immerse your­self in the research first, then feel your way into the struc­ture? I see you did a lot of email and phone interviews—did you have to go back and forth to com­plete the sto­ries? Were there any fun facts that got cut that you were sad to see go? 
Patri­cia: When I write for Mill­brook Press, I have to sub­mit a for­mal pro­pos­al which pro­vides a basic overview of the idea, describes the chap­ters, and gives the acqui­si­tion com­mit­tee an idea of where this book would fit in the mar­ket. In order to com­plete the pro­pos­al, I con­duct short infor­ma­tion­al inter­views with the sci­en­tists by phone. Dur­ing these inter­views, I try to find out the broad strokes of their sto­ry and whether they are will­ing to com­mit the nec­es­sary time to lengthy in-per­son inter­views, clar­i­fi­ca­tion ques­tions, and vet­ting the final man­u­script. Once I have a scientist’s buy-in, I can craft the pro­pos­al and hope­ful­ly give my edi­tor some idea what my nar­ra­tive thread might be.
Patri­cia: When the acqui­si­tions com­mit­tee gave me the go-ahead on Zoo Sci­en­tists to the Res­cue, Annie and I made three trips to the three dif­fer­ent zoos to inter­view the sci­en­tists and photograph/film them at work. We braved a spring bliz­zard, backed away from a charg­ing rhi­no, and laughed when a chat­ter­ing black-foot­ed fer­ret told us exact­ly what he thought of our intru­sion on his space!
Patri­cia: And as for cut­ting fun facts, nev­er! I re-word and re-imag­ine before I cut any­thing fun. The writ­ing was all about the fun. Why wouldn’t I share that with read­ers at every opportunity?
Annie: Patri­cia and I trav­eled togeth­er for all of the inter­views. She shared with me many of the papers the sci­en­tists had writ­ten and we dug deep into who they were. Being able to doc­u­ment with pho­tos and videos always takes research because the more you know about your sub­ject, the more knowl­edge you can bring to your cre­ative approach. Once the first draft was writ­ten, I knew I had to doc­u­ment many oth­er ani­mals. At this time, I became a zoo stalk­er with my cam­era. I spent weeks at the Wood­land Park Zoo in Seat­tle get­ting to know the ani­mals so that I could look for spe­cial moments. A pho­tog­ra­ph­er also has to wait for light for the sub­jects. Ear­ly morn­ing and lat­er after­noons in the fall gives you a gold­en light.
LAT: Oh, I love get­ting that insight into the process. What was your larg­er goal, i.e. what were you try­ing to give read­ers of ZOO SCIENTISTS as a takeaway?
Patri­cia: A Sene­galese forestry engi­neer by the name of Baba Dioum pre­sent­ed a paper at a 1968 meet­ing of the IUCN. In his paper he said, “In the end we will con­serve only what we love; we will love only what we under­stand; and we will under­stand only what we are taught.” When I write books like Zoo Sci­en­tists to the Res­cue or Sea Otter Heroes or Plas­tic, Ahoy!, I want read­ers to come away with a new­found respect for our con­nec­tion to the nat­ur­al world. Our habits mat­ter because they cre­ate rip­ples across the globe. So, whether we con­serve ener­gy to reduce cli­mate change, learn to appre­ci­ate the role an apex preda­tor plays in its ecosys­tem, reduce the amount of sin­gle-use plas­tic in our lives, or buy prod­ucts that use sus­tain­ably-sourced palm oil, we choose to cre­ate pos­i­tive rip­ples that help pre­serve the breath­tak­ing abun­dance of bio­di­ver­si­ty on our planet.
Annie: When photographing/filming I always want to doc­u­ment and help view­ers see what a writer/script needs to tell a sto­ry. Zoo Sci­en­tists to the Res­cue cap­tures what peo­ple are doing to help save endan­gered species and their envi­ron­ments. I’m hop­ing that all of our read­ers feel inspired into action to help pro­tect our world.
LAT: Well said, and I do think you suc­ceed­ed. In addi­tion to teach­ing some­thing to our read­ers, I believe every book teach­es us some­thing new–about the world, about
our­selves, or about the craft of cre­at­ing. What have you learned as a result of mak­ing ZOO SCIENTISTS? 

Patri­cia: Every time I write a book about an aspect of the envi­ron­ment, I’m remind­ed that sci­en­tists find new con­nec­tions all the time between humans and the plants and ani­mals that share our plan­et. I guess that’s job secu­ri­ty for me, but it’s also a wake-up call for young read­ers. With­out a clean ocean will there be enough food to eat or oxy­gen to breathe? With­out preda­tors like black-foot­ed fer­rets or sea otters, how will their respec­tive ecosys­tems thrive? And with­out large ani­mals like orang­utans and black rhi­nos, will the small­er ani­mals also dis­ap­pear? Despite what our cur­rent admin­is­tra­tion seems to think, humans are not “enti­tled” to use and abuse the world’s nat­ur­al resources with­out giv­ing back. We have to con­serve for the future.
Annie: Zoos are real­ly impor­tant places in our world for con­ser­va­tion, edu­ca­tion, inspi­ra­tion and so much more. If the habi­tat of the orang­utan dis­ap­pears because of our need for palm oil, the orang­utans dis­ap­pear. If black rhi­nos are killed to extinc­tion because of poach­ers, then the human pop­u­la­tion has failed to pro­tect the ani­mals in need of our pro­tec­tion. There is so much destruc­tion hap­pen­ing all around need­ing to be doc­u­ment­ed, shared, and reversed. I’ve learned we all need to raise our voic­es togeth­er and do every­thing pos­si­ble to pro­tect our world.
Annie: Cli­mate change is real and our ocean is the great reg­u­la­tor of our plan­et. The weath­er affects all the regions of the world. Peo­ple always look at our plan­et from a peo­ple point of view… and I have always looked out for the ani­mals. We told the sto­ries of these three ani­mals and their envi­ron­ment through the lens of peo­ple help­ing them… while oth­er peo­ple are try­ing to destroy the very same animals.
Annie: This is the sec­ond title Patri­cia and I co-cre­at­ed with edi­tor Car­ol Hinz and entire Lern­er Pub­lish­ing design/marketing crew. It rein­forced how much I tru­ly appre­ci­ate the team effort to take a book from your imag­i­na­tion into one you can hold in your hands and share with oth­ers. It was Mar­garet Mead who said, “Nev­er doubt that a small group of thought­ful, com­mit­ted cit­i­zens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.” With this book, we are hop­ing to inspire peo­ple into action to pro­tect our world!
LAT: Thank you for shar­ing those impor­tant lessons with us. What are you both work­ing on next?
Patri­cia: Annie and I have are mulling over a few pos­si­bil­i­ties for our next book, but you can bet we’ll come up with some­thing. In the mean­time, I have two books com­ing out in 2018: a pic­ture book called Neema’s Rea­son to Smile (illus­trat­ed by the tal­ent­ed Mehrdokht Ami­ni) which tells the sto­ry of a Kenyan girl who yearns to be more, and anoth­er mid­dle-grade non­fic­tion sci­ence book called Eaves­drop­ping on Ele­phants which fol­lows sci­en­tists who study for­est ele­phants sim­ply by lis­ten­ing to them. I’m extreme­ly excit­ed about both of these titles because they held kids become glob­al cit­i­zens in very dif­fer­ent ways.
Annie: Although Zoo Sci­en­tists to the Res­cue offi­cial­ly launch­es in Octo­ber, we still have so much to do! We just fin­ished our trail­er and are hop­ing schools and orga­ni­za­tions will wel­come us to come inspire and speak. We are plan­ning a 30-Day Chal­lenge for every­one to do one thing every day that will help #Pro­tec­tOur­World
Annie: My Uncle Al always said, “Annie, have your fin­gers in 12 dif­fer­ent project ideas…” As I’m writ­ing this, I am on my way to film whales in Ton­ga. Three days ago, I was in the San Juan Islands off the coast of Belling­ham, WA, doc­u­ment­ing the envi­ron­men­tal dis­as­ter of the Cooke Salmon Farm net cat­a­stro­phe which released 300,000 farmed Atlantic Salmon into the Puget Sound/Salish Sea. In June I was in the Arc­tic Cir­cle. And I’m also lay­ing the ground­work on a larg­er project I’d like to work on with Patricia.
LAT: These projects all sound so excit­ing! I’m look­ing for­ward to hear­ing more about them all when the time comes. Is there any­thing you wish I would’ve asked you but didn’t? 
Patri­cia and Annie: You were very thor­ough, Lau­rie, and asked us great ques­tions! Thank you so much for par­tic­i­pat­ing in the blog tour. We are very grate­ful to you for want­i­ng to write about us and share our sto­ry with your read­ers. Per­haps we can close with a statement:

We tru­ly hope our sto­ry and read­ing the book Zoo Sci­en­tists to the Res­cue will inspire oth­ers to act. The orang­utans, black rhi­nos, and black-foot­ed fer­rets would not be with us today if it were not for peo­ple giv­ing them a voice. Yet, they are endan­gered because of peo­ple. We all need to raise our voic­es togeth­er, take an action every day, and share with your friends, fam­i­ly, and col­leagues what you are doing and why. We need to work togeth­er to #Pro­tec­tOur­World.

LAT: I think that’s a great way to close. Thank you so much, Patri­cia and Annie, for answer­ing my ques­tions and for your ded­i­ca­tion to bring­ing great books like ZOO SCIENTISTS into the world. I am sure YOUR actions will have many rip­ple effects around the world. 
Catch up and fol­low along with the rest of the blog tour here:

To down­load posters with infor­ma­tion about the 30-day #Pro­tec­tOur­World jour­nal chal­lenge, click here.

#ProtectOurWorld challenge poster #ProtectOurWorld challenge journal

Thanks for visiting!
Facts First! Nonfiction Monday

Review: ZOO SCIENTISTS TO THE RESCUE

Zoo Scientists cover

Zoo Scientists cover

ZOO SCIENTISTS TO THE RESCUE
by Patri­cia New­man, pho­tographs by Annie Crawley
Mill­brook Press/August 1, 2017
Grades 4–8, 64 pages

Here’s what the pub­lish­er says:

Zoos take care of ani­mals and wel­come vis­i­tors of all ages, but that’s not all zoos do. Author Patri­cia New­man and pho­tog­ra­ph­er Annie Craw­ley bring read­ers behind the scenes at three zoos to meet sci­en­tists work­ing to save endan­gered animals.
Mered­ith Bas­tian’s expe­ri­ences study­ing wild orang­utans help edu­cate both zoo vis­i­tors and the zoo work­ers who care for cap­tive orang­utans. Jeff Baugh­man breeds black-foot­ed fer­rets and rein­tro­duces them into the wild. And Rachel San­tymire exam­ines poop from black rhi­noc­er­os­es at the zoo and in their nat­ur­al habi­tat to ben­e­fit all black rhi­nos. Find out how zoo sci­en­tists are help­ing us learn more about these remark­able, at-risk species before it’s too late!
Fea­tures: Author Biog­ra­phy, Bib­li­og­ra­phy, Full-Col­or Pho­tographs, Fur­ther Read­ing, Glos­sary, Index, Maps, Pri­ma­ry Source Quo­ta­tions, Websites

The pro­fes­sion­al review­ers liked it:

“Many kids are famil­iar with zoos, but there’s much more to these attrac­tions than an oppor­tu­ni­ty to see ani­mals up close. New­man shines a light on the impor­tant work zoo sci­en­tists do to aid con­ser­va­tion and con­tribute impor­tant research, both at zoo labs and in the wild. This engag­ing­ly writ­ten book focus­es on three sci­en­tists and their work pro­tect­ing and research­ing orang­utans, black-foot­ed fer­rets, and black rhi­noc­er­os­es, respec­tive­ly. Each sci­en­tist describes his or her back­ground, research in the wild, chal­lenges to con­ser­va­tion efforts, and how zoo labs help them do their work. Pho­tos of the sci­en­tists in the field, as well as their ani­mal research sub­jects, enlivens the already fas­ci­nat­ing mate­r­i­al. New­man clear­ly describes the con­di­tions that led to each species becom­ing endan­gered and encour­ages read­ers to think care­ful­ly about their own actions in light of threats to wildlife. Though the book appears slim, the con­tent is fair­ly dense, so this will like­ly appeal more to mid­dle-grade read­ers. Hand this to kids who can’t get enough of the Sci­en­tists in the Field series.” —Book­list

“In this incred­i­bly infor­ma­tive book, read­ers learn about three zoo sci­en­tists who are work­ing to save three species (orang­utans, black-foot­ed fer­rets, and wild black rhi­nos) using a vari­ety of meth­ods, from con­ser­va­tion edu­ca­tion to breed­ing pro­grams. New­man also includes ideas on how stu­dents can con­tribute to con­ser­va­tion efforts, such as reduc­ing palm oil usage. Var­i­ous zoos and orga­ni­za­tions that focus on con­ser­va­tion are also men­tioned; for exam­ple, biobanks, where sci­en­tists freeze the sperm and eggs of var­i­ous species in order to pro­tect it from a cat­a­stroph­ic loss. The pho­tographs show the ani­mals as well as the sci­en­tists and effec­tive­ly enhance the infor­ma­tion pre­sent­ed. Sev­er­al charts, includ­ing one com­par­ing apes and mon­keys, add a deep­er lev­el of under­stand­ing. Maps of the orig­i­nal and cur­rent habi­tats of the crea­tures are help­ful in visu­al­iz­ing how the earth has changed over the years. A great book for research or for stu­dents inter­est­ed in con­ser­va­tion. School Library Journal

And here are my thoughts:
I real­ly enjoyed this book. As the Book­list review above says, the book is quite slim, so I was not expect­ing to learn as much as I did once I cracked the cov­er! On the one hand, I did­n’t want to put the book down, because I was so engrossed in the sto­ries and infor­ma­tion. On the oth­er, it was nice­ly bro­ken up into the three sep­a­rate sto­ries fol­low­ing three sep­a­rate sci­en­tists and their efforts to help three spe­cif­ic species, so it was easy to pick up where I’d left off when I was forced to walk away for a bit. The sci­ence is fas­ci­nat­ing, the human sto­ries are com­pelling, and the gor­geous pho­tog­ra­phy brings it all to life right before your eyes. I’ve been ambiva­lent about zoos my whole life. I love ani­mals, so I love being able to see them… but I also want them to live as hap­pi­ly and nat­u­ral­ly as pos­si­ble. This book helped me see a dif­fer­ent side of zoos that I have heard about but nev­er real­ly had a chance to explore in much detail or depth, the con­ser­va­tion aspect. I admire the sci­en­tists pro­filed in this book and the work that they’re doing, and I am grate­ful to Patri­cia New­man and Annie Craw­ley for shar­ing their sto­ries with us.
Final­ly, watch the trail­er to see some of the peo­ple and ani­mals from the book!

Author interview with Sarah Albee

A few weeks ago, I reviewed POISON: DEADLY DEEDS, PERILOUS PROFESSIONS, AND MURDEROUS MEDICINES, by Sarah Albee. Today, I’m excit­ed to host Sarah for an inter­view with the author! Read on to learn more about how she wrote this par­tic­u­lar book and much, much more…


LAT: Wel­come, Sarah, and thanks for agree­ing to answer my questions! 
LAT: You know how much I love your new book, POISON. The whole time I was read­ing it, though, I kept won­der­ing… how did you first become inter­est­ed in writ­ing about poisons?
Sarah Albee author photoSA: I’ve been fas­ci­nat­ed with poi­son ever since I was a young kid, from the first fairy tales that were read to me, to sto­ries that I read myself as I got old­er. Snow White, Sher­lock Holmes, Agatha Christie, Shakespeare—I want­ed to know if those poi­son­ings from lit­er­a­ture were pos­si­ble in real life, and if they were, I want­ed to know what was going on at the mol­e­c­u­lar lev­el of a per­son who’d been poi­soned. The idea of writ­ing a book about poi­son occurred to me a few years ago, as I was research­ing my book, Why’d They Wear That? Asso­ci­at­ing poi­son with fash­ion may sound odd, but my inter­est was piqued as I learned more about how arsenic became wild­ly pop­u­lar in the 19 th century—it was everywhere—at every apothe­cary shop, in arseni­cal green fab­ric, in paint pig­ments, even in edi­ble arsenic com­plex­ion wafers (!). The his­to­ry of poi­son just seemed like a per­fect way to link so many things that intrigue me—mysteries, detec­tive sto­ries, human pas­sion, alche­my, art, pol­i­tics, social his­to­ry, and the his­to­ry of medicine.
LAT: And that link­ing of so many dif­fer­ent top­ics is one of the biggest rea­sons I enjoyed read­ing it so much! Besides geeky non­fic­tion authors, what kind of read­ers do you think this book will appeal to?
SA: I hope it will have what pub­lish­ers call “crossover appeal,” which for me would be kids who think they pre­fer to read only fic­tion. I per­son­al­ly love know­ing the “back sto­ry,” no mat­ter what genre I’m read­ing. I find that I still ask myself: “Could that actu­al­ly hap­pen in real life?” I hope the book will appeal to sci­ence-ori­ent­ed read­ers, his­to­ry lovers, and to kids who love mysteries!
LAT: I think it will. Your pas­sion for the sub­ject comes through on every page. What was your favorite part of the book to research and/or write?
SA: At the risk of sound­ing hokey, every part of the research was fas­ci­nat­ing. Poi­sons in the ancient world, poi­sons in the Renais­sance, poi­sons in the 19th cen­tu­ry and the rise of forensics—I mean, there was lit­er­al­ly nev­er a dull moment. I loved vis­it­ing a poi­son plant gar­den and see­ing in per­son all the poi­so­nous plants I’d been read­ing and writ­ing about. I loved talk­ing to muse­um cura­tors and get­ting spe­cial, pri­vate access to amaz­ing col­lec­tions of bones and body organs and
artifacts.
LAT: Sounds like fun! What was the hard­est part of the research and/or writ­ing for you, and how did you deal with that?
SA: The hard­est part was fig­ur­ing out how to nar­row down my top­ic. Ear­ly drafts of the book were, well, in need of a firm edi­to­r­i­al hand. Luck­i­ly I have won­der­ful beta read­ers and a fan­tas­tic edi­tor, and with vary­ing degrees of gen­tle­ness and can­dor, they informed me that I need­ed to cut, cut, cut. Thank god for editors.
LAT: Hear, hear! I can relate to that one. Did any­thing dur­ing the research phase sur­prise you, catch you off guard, or make you change your planned course for the book?
SA: Yessir­ree. See above re hav­ing to nar­row down my top­ic. In an ear­li­er draft, I’d includ­ed a pret­ty exten­sive his­to­ry of anes­the­sia. It is SO COOL. Prepar­ing a patient for surgery in ancient times ranged from hav­ing the patient inhale fumes from a soporif­ic sponge soaked in man­drake and opi­um, to bonk­ing him over the head with a mal­let. Which unfor­tu­nate­ly led to many patients nev­er wak­ing up. The dis­cov­ery of ether and chlo­ro­form total­ly trans­formed the way sur­geons per­formed oper­a­tions. But my edi­tor and I final­ly decid­ed we need­ed to cut most of that out, which pained me as much as bod­i­ly cuts with­out anes­the­sia. (Ha ha, not real­ly!) Although many types of poi­sons were used as both anal­gesics and anes­thet­ics, I had to acknowl­edge that they didn’t quite fit in a book about nefar­i­ous poi­sons. (Side note: I now have the most pro­found respect for anesthesiologists.)
LAT: Per­haps it’ll come in handy for anoth­er book, some­where down the line. I can image you col­lect­ed a TON of inter­est­ing infor­ma­tion along the way. How do you man­age all of your research for a book like this? What’s your sys­tem? (Tell me, please, because mine feels woe­ful­ly amateurish!)
SA: Ha! I wish I could tell you that I’m super sys­tem­at­ic about my research, but every time I begin a new project it’s a big, blob­by mess. For this book, I began by read­ing widely—biographies about the Bor­gias, Roman emper­ors, Cather­ine de Medici, Empress Wu. I read ear­ly med­ical jour­nals, up-to-the-minute schol­ar­ly arti­cles, and pri­ma­ry sources like trav­el­ogues and diaries. I took an online course in chem­istry, and anoth­er in foren­sics. I inter­viewed tons of peo­ple, and became a pest to my sci­ence-teacher friends (“explain to me again what an alka­loid is?”). The one god­send was I knew what my struc­ture would be—the book would be chrono­log­i­cal, from ancient times to the present, so I was able to lump my top­ics and my poisoners/victims into their respec­tive his­tor­i­cal eras.
POISON cover
LAT: Wow, that’s an impres­sive research list! Did you do all the pho­to research for the book too? Can you tell us a bit about that process?
SA: The first time I did my own image research, many books ago, I was over­whelmed, and total­ly clue­less about how to go about it. Image research is a steep learn­ing curve, but now, many books lat­er, I absolute­ly love that phase of the process. I did a cou­ple of guest posts on Melis­sa Stewart’s blog about image research for stu­dents here, and for pro­fes­sion­al writ­ers here, if peo­ple would like a bit more detail.
LAT: You’ve helped me come up to speed in that area as well, and I’m eter­nal­ly grate­ful for your gen­er­ous advice!
LAT: I think every book teach­es us some­thing new, about the world, about our­selves, or about the craft of writ­ing. What have you learned as a result of writ­ing this book?
SA: I try not to get too polit­i­cal in my books or on social media, but the more research I have done about the hor­rors of poi­sons and envi­ron­men­tal tox­ins peo­ple used to be exposed to, the more hor­ri­fied I have grown by the cur­rent trend in our coun­try to roll back hard-fought reg­u­la­tions for clean air and clean water, and to defang agen­cies such as the FDA and the EPA. When you know the his­to­ry of the way things used to be, you shud­der at what could hap­pen once again.
LAT: I had the same thoughts when I was read­ing your book. I’m glad that myself, and all the oth­er read­ers out there, will have this broad­ened per­spec­tive going forward. 
LAT: What oth­er writ­ers do you look up to and why?
SA: I have so many kidlit writ­ers that I look up to and love, both fic­tion and nonfiction—but this answer would be way too long if I tried to list all of them. So I’ll stick to just a few writ­ers of adult books I admire. Mary Roach is a favorite of mine. I love her sense of humor and her off­beat sci­ence topics—I like to think that our mis­sions are aligned. I love P.G. Wode­house. I love his­to­ri­ans who can write, and write well. It’s like a breath of fresh air when you find a schol­ar­ly, well-researched book that’s also beau­ti­ful­ly writ­ten for a reader’s enjoy­ment, with grace and style and wit.
LAT: What are you work­ing on now?
SA: I’m work­ing on sev­er­al projects right now and I wish there were more hours in the day because I’m so excit­ed about all of them! I have a book about the human/dog rela­tion­ship com­ing out next March with Nation­al Geo­graph­ic, called Dog Days of His­to­ry. And I’m work­ing on a book that’s a col­lec­tion of quirky biogra­phies, as well as a series of biogra­phies for much younger read­ers, and a new Amer­i­can his­to­ry series for upper ele­men­tary kids, which will prob­a­bly be called “What Were They Think­ing?
LAT: Gosh, you’re busy! Is there any­thing you wish I would’ve asked you but didn’t?
SA: You’ve done a darn good job cov­er­ing the bases, Lau­rie. But hmmm. Kids often ask me what my favorite part of my job is. And I joke about how great it is to be able to work at my bed-desk, but hon­est­ly, one of the best parts of this job is when I vis­it schools, and meet the kids I work for. Let’s face it: for a non­fic­tion writer, fic­tion can be stiff com­pe­ti­tion, not to men­tion the myr­i­ad screen-time options vying for kids’ atten­tion. So my goal is to write fas­ci­nat­ing, enter­tain­ing, and accu­rate books that kids choose to read. I want them to see how amaz­ing his­to­ry can be.
LAT: Well said. I feel exact­ly the same way. I’m so glad you could vis­it, Sarah, and thank you for answer­ing all of my questions!


You can find out more about Sarah Albee at her web­site, and be sure to check out POISON: DEADLY DEEDS, PERILOUS PROFESSIONS, AND MURDEROUS MEDICINES!

Review: POISON by Sarah Albee

POISON interior

POISON cover

POISON: DEADLY DEEDS, PERILOUS PROFESSIONS, AND MURDEROUS MEDICINES
by Sarah Albee
Pen­guin Ran­dom House/September 05, 2017
Mid­dle Grade (8–12), 192 pages

Here’s what the pub­lish­er says:

Sci­ence geeks and arm­chair detec­tives will soak up this non-lethal, humor­ous account of the role poi­sons have played in human his­to­ry. Per­fect for STEM enthusiasts!
For cen­turies, peo­ple have been poi­son­ing one another—changing per­son­al lives and the course of empires alike.
From spurned spous­es and rivals, to con­demned pris­on­ers like Socrates, to endan­gered emper­ors like Alexan­der the Great, to mod­ern-day lead­ers like Joseph Stal­in and Yass­er Arafat, poi­son has played a star­ring role in the demise of count­less indi­vid­u­als. And those are just the delib­er­ate poi­son­ings. Med­ical mishaps, greedy “snake oil” sales­men and food con­t­a­m­i­nants, poi­so­nous Pro­hi­bi­tion, and indus­tri­al tox­ins also impact­ed millions.
Part his­to­ry, part chem­istry, part who­dunit, Poi­son: Dead­ly Deeds, Per­ilous Pro­fes­sions, and Mur­der­ous Med­i­cines traces the role poi­sons have played in his­to­ry from antiq­ui­ty to the present and shines a ghoul­ish light on the dead­ly inter­sec­tion of human nature … and Moth­er Nature.

The pro­fes­sion­al review­ers have weighed in favorably:

“[Albee’s] light tone makes this mor­bid, well-researched study a sin­is­ter indul­gence.“—Book­list starred review

A com­pelling, enter­tain­ing, and infor­ma­tive intro­duc­tion to a sin­is­ter aspect of human his­to­ry.” Kirkus Reviews
“There’s plen­ty of mate­r­i­al here to delight fans of [Geor­gia] Bragg’s pop­u­lar How They Croaked.” —The Bul­letin
Ide­al for read­ers, includ­ing reluc­tant ones, who delight in the sci­ence and scare fac­tor of poi­sons or grotesque med­i­cine.” —School Library Journal

And here are my thoughts:
This book is deli­cious­ly dark fun! Sarah Albee’s POISON is the per­fect mix of sci­ence, his­to­ry, mys­tery, and enter­tain­ment, and read­ers of many dif­fer­ent gen­res will be thor­ough­ly engaged by this book. I know I was! From ancient times to today (and beyond!), Albee shows us how poisons–both nat­ur­al and man-made–have affect­ed humans lives and cul­ture. The facts are shock­ing and fas­ci­nat­ing, but bro­ken down in a way that makes them acces­si­ble. There’s also a ton of humor to bal­ance the heavy sub­ject mat­ter, with puns and sar­casm galore, espe­cial­ly in the titles and cap­tions. And all of it is tied togeth­er with a com­pelling design fea­tur­ing side­bars, pull­outs, pho­tos, and illus­tra­tions. There are also some seri­ous non­fic­tion fea­tures, includ­ing a table of con­tents, author’s note, acknowl­edge­ments, notes, select­ed bib­li­og­ra­phy, research guide, index, and more. A high­ly rec­om­mend­ed mid­dle-grade nonfiction!
Here are some inte­ri­or views to give you a bet­ter sense of what you can expect:
POISON interiorPOISON interior 2 POISON interior 3 POISON interior 4POISON interior 5POISON interior 6
And yes, if you’re won­der­ing, this review is per­fect for Labor Day! One of my favorite fea­tures of the book was the “Nice Work if You Can Sur­vive It” side­bars, which told of var­i­ous pro­fes­sions through­out the ages where peo­ple were actu­al­ly poi­soned by their jobs (did you know mad hat­ters were mad because of the chem­i­cals used for felt­ing?). Sober­ing, to say the least. And it made me even more grate­ful for reg­u­la­tions that pro­tect work­ers from unscrupu­lous busi­ness owners!
Be sure to check out Sarah’s oth­er great books, too!
Why'd They Wear That? cover BUGGED cover POOP HAPPENED cover

Review: SURVIVING MIDDLE SCHOOL

Surviving Middle School cover

Sur­viv­ing Mid­dle School: Nav­i­gat­ing the Halls, Rid­ing the Social Roller Coast­er, and Unmask­ing the Real You
by Luke Reynolds
Aladdin/Beyond Words (July 5, 2016)
Ages 10–14

192 pages

Here’s what the pub­lish­er has to say: 

In this hilar­i­ous guide full of hon­est, real-life expe­ri­ences, vet­er­an teacher Luke Reynolds skill­ful­ly and humor­ous­ly shows kids how to not only sur­vive, but thrive and even enjoy the wild adven­ture that is mid­dle school.
Mid­dle grade series like The Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Dork Diaries bring an authen­tic voice and vision to fic­tion about mid­dle school­ers. Now, for the first time a non­fic­tion guide to mid­dle school offers that same fun­ny and relat­able voice, while skill­ful­ly teach­ing life lessons to not just help kids find their foot­ing dur­ing the tough years between ele­men­tary and high school, but to find the joy in their new adven­tures and challenges.
Author and teacher Luke Reynolds uses irrev­er­ent humor, gen­uine affec­tion for mid­dle school­ers, and authen­tic­i­ty that bub­bles over as he ties real-life expe­ri­ences from his own time in mid­dle school to the expe­ri­ences he has from his many years as a teacher.
Cov­er­ing top­ics like bul­ly­ing, peer pres­sure, grades, deal­ing with dif­fi­cult par­ents, and love and romance, this rare book reach­es kids at a deep­er lev­el dur­ing an age when they are often con­sid­ered too young to appre­ci­ate it. Read­ers will learn to find their own voice, begin to explore their gen­uine iden­ti­ty, and def­i­nite­ly laugh out loud along the way.

And Kirkus said this: 

While play­ful black-and-white car­toon illus­tra­tions and doo­dles add to the zani­ness, the mes­sages are wor­thy and clear: be your­self; prac­tice empa­thy; work hard; hug your par­ents. A list of rec­om­mend­ed books and movies is appended.For those approach­ing or in the scrum of mid­dle school, a pos­i­tive reminder that the per­fect mid­dle school expe­ri­ence does not exist. (Non­fic­tion. 10–14) (Kirkus Reviews 4/15/16)

I’ll just add…
Oh, how I wish I’d had this book when I was enter­ing mid­dle school… or high school, or col­lege, or my 20s or 30s! There are a lot of valu­able life lessons crammed into this lit­tle vol­ume, and you can call me a slow learn­er, but I did­n’t fig­ure most of this stuff out until I was well into adult­hood. And, even now, I can still use some good reminders from time to time!
It’s not only filled with excel­lent advice, but it also has high­ly relat­able anec­dotes (for the tween set, any­way), inter­est­ing exer­cis­es to help per­son­al­ize every les­son, and tons of mid­dle-school humor, so it nev­er comes off as dry or preachy. I think it has enough vari­ety that it will appeal to all kinds of tween readers. 
I believe this book should be required read­ing for tweens every­where (and their teach­ers and par­ents!), and it would make an excel­lent gift, too! 

Nonfiction Monday: Courage & Defiance blog tour and interview

Facts First! Nonfiction Monday

Facts First! Nonfiction MondayAs you can prob­a­bly tell by my books Be a Change­mak­er and Emmanuel’s Dream, I love writ­ing about heroes and change­mak­ers. It should be no sur­prise, then, that I love read­ing about them, too. My favorite kinds of sto­ries are those about ordi­nary peo­ple who act­ed with extra­or­di­nary strength, con­vic­tion, and courage, and the book I just fin­ished read­ing is full of peo­ple doing just that. In Courage & Defi­ance: Sto­ries of Spies, Sabo­teurs and Sur­vivors in World War II Den­mark by Deb­o­rah Hop­kin­son (Scholas­tic Press, August 2015), the author has clear­ly done a great deal of care­ful research to bring us nar­ra­tive non­fic­tion about the WWII resis­tance move­ment in Den­mark from the per­spec­tive of some of those who took part in it. It’s a grip­ping tale of adven­ture and sus­pense, and one that has rarely been told.

Deb­o­rah has been inter­viewed on this blog before, and I’m super excit­ed to wel­come her back once again as part of the Courage and Defi­ance blog tour. I hope you enjoy the interview!
LAT: I know I thor­ough­ly enjoyed this book, Deb­o­rah. What kind of young read­er do you think Courage & Defi­ance will appeal to? What oth­er books might be read-alikes? 
DH: I vis­it schools all over the coun­try and love to ask stu­dents what they’re read­ing. While fan­ta­sy and sci­ence fic­tion are always pop­u­lar, I’m usu­al­ly sur­prised by the num­ber of stu­dents – girls and boys – who tell me they like to read about his­to­ry and like non­fic­tion. There are def­i­nite­ly kids who read every­thing they can get their hands on top­ics such as the Titan­ic and World War II, but I think read­ers who enjoyed Num­ber the Stars by Lois Lowry or The Diary of Anne Frank will also enjoy Courage & Defi­ance.
LAT: This is a sto­ry that many of us prob­a­bly haven’t heard before. Why do you think that might be?
DH: I think per­haps that here in the U.S., we’re most nat­u­ral­ly inter­est­ed in sto­ries that take place after Amer­i­ca entered World War II on Decem­ber 7, 1941. (As it hap­pens, my next non­fic­tion book about sub­marines in the Pacif­ic war begins with the attack on Pearl Har­bor and will be out in 2016 for the 75th anniver­sary.) While I did find a num­ber of adult non­fic­tion books about the expe­ri­ence of Danes dur­ing the Ger­man occu­pa­tion, which began on April 9, 1940, almost all were schol­ar­ly titles or of inter­est pri­mar­i­ly to his­to­ri­ans (includ­ing a 600-page book about the SOE in Den­mark). I feel for­tu­nate that I was able to find as much as I did in Eng­lish, but I am sure there is much more avail­able in Dan­ish. We were able to access the pho­to archives of the Muse­um of Dan­ish Resistance.

Hopkinson-headshot
Deb­o­rah Hopkinson

LAT: Dur­ing the research phase of Courage & Defi­ance, what dis­cov­er­ies did you come across that made you feel like you’d struck gold? Was there any­thing in the research that came as a surprise?
DH: At author vis­its, I tell stu­dents that my favorite part of writ­ing is the research. And since I knew lit­tle when I began sev­er­al years ago, I felt like I was dis­cov­er­ing some­thing new and incred­i­ble at every cor­ner. Prob­a­bly the most sig­nif­i­cant dis­cov­ery I made was find­ing a mem­oir in Eng­lish enti­tled A Let­ter to My Descen­dents by Niels Skov. Niels, whom I lat­er had the priv­i­lege to meet, came to the U.S. after the war, where he received a Ph.D. and became a col­lege pro­fes­sor. His per­son­al account was so incred­i­bly live­ly and vibrant – which matched his per­son­al­i­ty, even at age nine­ty-four. To my sur­prise, he had been deport­ed to a Ger­man labor camp at the same time as anoth­er activist whose sto­ry I tell, but they did not meet. It made me real­ize just how many incred­i­ble sto­ries there are in his­to­ry, and how eas­i­ly they are lost.
LAT: This one may be tricky, but if you can fath­om a guess… What do you think it was about the Danes that made them able to resist the Ger­mans and sup­port their Jew­ish coun­try­men so effectively? 
DH: Well, I am not sure I am qual­i­fied to say, but what comes across in all the first-per­son accounts I found was that ordi­nary peo­ple shared an unwa­ver­ing sense of human decen­cy, a love of coun­try, and a com­mit­ment to doing the right thing – even at great cost. It seems to me that as the war went on, the con­fi­dence and belief that peo­ple had in demo­c­ra­t­ic val­ues helped to give them the courage to take risks.
LAT: In the book, you asked Niels what his advice to young peo­ple today would be. Now that you’ve done all this research and writ­ten such a fan­tas­tic book, what is YOUR advice to young peo­ple today?
DH: While young peo­ple in Amer­i­ca now may not be faced with life-and-death deci­sions as Dan­ish cit­i­zens were in the 1940s, we all grap­ple with dif­fi­cult per­son­al choic­es. So per­haps I’d sim­ply give the same advice I’ve often told my own two chil­dren: make good choic­es and do good work in the world. And, of course, I have to add: keep reading!
LAT: That’s great advice, Deb­o­rah. Thanks so much for vis­it­ing today! 
For oth­er stops on the Courage and Defi­ance blog tour please check deborahhopkinson.com.

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