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. ***
 

TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE resources for teachers and #GIVEAWAY!

Educator's Guide cover

It is with great excite­ment and grat­i­tude that I give you this list of amaz­ing edu­ca­tion­al resources that won­der­ful edu­ca­tors and design­ers have com­piled to go along with TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE: IT’S ALIVE! and, hope­ful­ly, make it easier–and more fun–for teach­ers or librar­i­ans to put to use in the classroom!


Educator's Guide for teachersFirst up is the Edu­ca­tor’s Guide to Sup­port Infor­ma­tion Lit­er­a­cy, writ­ten by amaz­ing 5th grade teacher Melis­sa Guer­rette, M.Ed., NBCT. This guide is chock full of tips teach­ers can use to teach stu­dents how to eval­u­ate sources and fact-check any mate­ri­als they may encounter, whether they are read­ing the sto­ries from TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE or just about any­thing else.
It includes a print­able Fact or Fic­tion note-tak­ing work­sheet teach­ers can use to help read­ers ana­lyze a text to deter­mine if it is true or false and record evi­dence of their think­ing process­es along the way.
It also has a list of the Com­mon Core State Stan­dards sup­port­ed by the activ­i­ties in the guide, AND an impres­sive col­lec­tion of addi­tion­al resources for teach­ers of infor­ma­tion lit­er­a­cy concepts.
Down­load the PDF of the guide HERE.

TTL Stem Game for teachersBut wait, there’s more! Award­ing-win­ning Library Media Spe­cial­ist and STEM Coor­di­na­tor Suzanne Cost­ner part­nered with Curi­ous City DPW to cre­ate a STEM Card Game and com­pan­ion research activ­i­ties. “As a school librar­i­an with a pas­sion for STEM top­ics, I saw this book as an oppor­tu­ni­ty both to explore inter­est­ing sto­ries and to devel­op cru­cial infor­ma­tion lit­er­a­cy skills,” says Suzanne. Using sci­en­tif­ic top­ics pulled from the book’s side­bars, they cre­at­ed a 52-card card deck that teach­ers can print out for their class­room. In Round 1, Play­er 1 reads a state­ment to Play­er 2 from a card. Play­er 2 decides whether the state­ment is a “Truth” or a “Lie.” In Round 2, play­ers choose a research top­ic from their amassed cards and make three game cards of their own – two truths and one lie on their cho­sen top­ic. In Round 3, play­ers try to out­wit each oth­er with the game cards they have cre­at­ed. Each new game in the class­room grows the game deck with new STEM material!
Down­load the PDF of the Truth or Lie? STEM Card Game HERE.
Suzanne and Curi­ous City DPW also put togeth­er the Two Truths and a Lie: What’s Your Source?, which pro­vides teach­ers with links for stu­dents to explore for top­ic val­i­da­tion and gives them the chance to com­pare and cross-check the infor­ma­tion before mak­ing their final deci­sion on whether the sto­ries in TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE: IT’S ALIVE! are fact or fic­tion; Two Truths and a Lie: Reach­ing for Resources, which pro­vides edu­ca­tors with links con­nect­ed with the book’s chap­ters to build infor­ma­tion lit­er­a­cy lessons upon, and the Two Truths and a Lie: Ratio­nale, Cur­ricu­lum Con­nec­tions & Grad­ing Rubric.


To go along with all of this excite­ment, for a lim­it­ed time Curi­ous City DPW is host­ing a GIVEAWAY! Read all about it and ENTER HERE, but hur­ry! Win­ners will be announced Decem­ber 5, 2017!


I’m super excit­ed about how these might spur class­room dis­cus­sions around STEM top­ics and infor­ma­tion lit­er­a­cy. If you use either of them with stu­dents, please let me know! I’d love to hear about how teach­ers are putting into prac­tice and any sug­ges­tions for how it could be improved. And, of course, pic­tures would be fantastic!

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

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!

STEM Friday review: WHY IS MILK WHITE?

Why Is Milk White cover

WHY IS MILK WHITE? & 200 OTHER CURIOUS CHEMISTRY QUESTIONS
by Alexa Coel­ho & Simon Quellen Field
Chica­go Review Press
Jan­u­ary 1, 2013
288 pages

Did you (or any chil­dren in your life) ever won­der how soap works, why onions make you cry, or how bad it is for you to breathe in hair­spray? 11-year-old Alexa Coel­ho did, so she pulled togeth­er these and almost 200 oth­er ques­tions about her favorite sub­ject, chem­istry, and asked sci­ence writer Simon Quellen Field to write up the answers. This book is the result.
Alexa did a great job of com­ing up with a huge col­lec­tion of spe­cif­ic, rel­e­vant ques­tions that today’s kids (and adults) are sure to be inter­est­ed in, and Simon did an equal­ly great job answer­ing them in clear, easy-to-under­stand expla­na­tions. It’s fun to read straight through or to use as a ref­er­ence when­ev­er you come across some­thing inter­est­ing that you want to know more about. The book also has some nice non­fic­tion fea­tures like a detailed table of con­tents, spe­cial sec­tions with hands-on projects for young chemists (and often an adult helper), and a glos­sary of terms.
Unfor­tu­nate­ly, there are a few things miss­ing here. First, I would real­ly love to see an index in a book like this. It’s near­ly impos­si­ble to find the answer to the tit­u­lar ques­tion, for exam­ple. I only found ref­er­ence to it in a dif­fer­ent ques­tion about why hair con­di­tion­er is white, which, obvi­ous­ly, isn’t in the food sec­tion. Sec­ond, I would have liked to have seen some advice about where to find the ingre­di­ents for some of the projects. Have you pur­chased any muri­at­ic acid late­ly? Final­ly, I wish it had clear­ly stuck to chem­istry ques­tions, or at least acknowl­edged when it was depart­ing from them. Some, such as “Why is the sky blue?”, stray pret­ty far afield into oth­er areas of science.
Still, I think the good­ness here far out­weighs the flaws, and mid­dle-school sci­en­tists all the way through curi­ous adults will learn a lot about sci­ence while enjoy­ing this book.
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It’s STEM Fri­day! Check out the STEM Fri­day blog for more STEM book reviews.
(STEM is Science, Tech­nol­o­gy, Engi­neer­ing, and Math­e­mat­ics)

Dis­claimer: I received a review copy from the pub­lish­er in exchange for a fair and hon­est review.

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