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Laurie Ann Thompson

Cybils

Review: Three Stars in the Night Sky

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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

2018 CYBILS Round 1 judge

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2018 Cybils Round 1 Judge logo
2018 CYBILS, here I come! I’m excit­ed to share that I’ll be a CYBILS judge again this year. The CYBILS Awards rec­og­nize authors and illus­tra­tors whose books for chil­dren and young adults com­bine both lit­er­ary mer­it and pop­u­lar appeal. In the past, I’ve always helped with judg­ing the younger non­fic­tion cat­e­go­ry (Non­fic­tion Pic­ture Books in 2011 and 2012, and Elementary/Middle Grade Non­fic­tion in 2014). This time around, how­ev­er, I’ll be a Round 1 Judge in the Junior/Senior High Non­fic­tion cat­e­go­ry, along with the fol­low­ing tal­ent­ed bloggers:

Nom­i­na­tions will open on Octo­ber 1st, and our short­lists will be due in Decem­ber. There are usu­al­ly around 70 entries, so I’ll be doing a LOT of read­ing in the com­ing months. (And hope­ful­ly a lot of blog­ging, too–get ready for those reviews!) Final­ists will be announced in Jan­u­ary, and win­ners are announced in February.
2018 Cybils logo
 

Great news for TWO TRUTHS AND A LIE!

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2018 is off to a great start so far with a bevy of awards and acco­lades for Two Truths and a Lie: It’s Alive!, and I’m so excit­ed to share the lat­est good news with you here!

TLA Topaz list logoFirst, the Texas Library Asso­ci­a­tion include it on their 2018 Texas Topaz Non­fic­tion Read­ing List. Accord­ing to TLA, the Topaz List “high­lights recent­ly pub­lished non­fic­tion gems for read­ers of all ages. Adult ser­vices and youth ser­vices librar­i­ans serve on sep­a­rate com­mit­tees that con­sid­er hun­dreds of non­fic­tion titles for adults and youth respec­tive­ly. The librar­i­ans debate the mer­its, appeal, and impor­tance of the works to curate a list of engag­ing non­fic­tion titles intend­ed to reveal new or lit­tle-known infor­ma­tion, open doors to oth­er worlds, or intro­duce fresh voic­es. With titles for adults and chil­dren PreK-grade 12, there is some­thing for every­one on the Topaz list!”
Texas librar­i­ans ROCK, and being on this list is an incred­i­ble honor! 
Nerdy Book Club bannerNext, the Nerdy Book Club announced their 2017 Nerdies for Long Form Non­fic­tion. I love read­ing this blog, and their pas­sion for chil­dren’s books real­ly comes through. Plus, some of my favorite books and authors are on this list, so I lit­er­al­ly gasped out loud when I scrolled down far enough to see the cov­er of Two Truths and a Lie: It’s Alive! Thank you, Nerdy Book Club! So exciting!!
Cybils 2017 bannerThen, the Cybils announced their 2017 Elementary/Middle Grade Non-Fic­tion Final­ists, and Two Truths and a Lie: It’s Alive! was on their list, too! Again, there are some amaz­ing books here (includ­ing Zoo Sci­en­tists to the Res­cue and Fred Kore­mat­su Speaks Up, which I reviewed in past posts here), and I have been a Cybils judge in the past (so I know how seri­ous­ly they take their work!). Being a Cybils final­ist is an unbe­liev­able thrill!
Booklist Lasting Connections bannerFinal­ly, Book­list shared some love, in both their Spe­cial Fea­ture: Last­ing Con­nec­tions 2017 and Edi­tors’ Choice: Books for Youth, 2017.
Last­ing Con­nec­tions high­lights their top 30 choic­es for the K–8 class­room, all pub­lished in the pre­vi­ous year and all select­ed for their nat­ur­al con­nec­tions across the cur­ricu­lum and to the Com­mon Core State and Next Gen­er­a­tion Sci­ence Standards. 
Booklist Editors' Choice bannerAnd the Edi­tor’s Choice list is select­ed by the Books for Youth edi­to­r­i­al staff, who are “com­mit­ted to pro­vid­ing a broad selec­tion of out­stand­ing books that mix­es pop­u­lar appeal with lit­er­ary excel­lence,” as best-of-the-year non­fic­tion and fic­tion books and pic­ture books. Wow!

Hav­ing a book that you’ve worked hard on appear on lists like these is tru­ly a dream come true, and I could­n’t be hap­pi­er with this news. Cheers to 2018!

Be a Changemaker is a Cybils award finalist!

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I woke up this morn­ing to news that Be a Change­mak­er made the list of final­ists for the 2014 Chil­dren’s and Young Adult Blog­ger’s Lit­er­ary Award, bet­ter known as the Cybils, in the Non­fic­tion for Young Adults cat­e­go­ry. What a way to kick off 2015!
The nom­i­na­tions in this cat­e­go­ry were var­ied and impres­sive, and the books that made the final­ist list are tru­ly among the best I’ve read all year. It’s an incred­i­ble hon­or to have my book in such amaz­ing company!

Alice + Freda cover Alice + Fre­da For­ev­er: A Mur­der in Mem­phis by Alex­is Coe
Be a Changemaker cover Be a Change­mak­er: How to Start Some­thing That Mat­ters by Lau­rie Ann Thompson
Beyond Magenta cover Beyond Magen­ta: Trans­gen­der Teens Speak Out by Susan Kuklin
Popular cover Pop­u­lar: Vin­tage Wis­dom for a Mod­ern Geek by Maya Van Wagenen
Family Romanov cover The Fam­i­ly Romanov: Mur­der, Rebel­lion, and the Fall of Impe­r­i­al Rus­sia by Can­dace Fleming
Freedom Summer Murders cover The Free­dom Sum­mer Mur­ders by Don Mitchell
Port Chicago 50 cover The Port Chica­go 50: Dis­as­ter, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civ­il Rights by Steve Sheinkin

Thanks, Pat Ziet­low Miller, for nom­i­nat­ing it in the first place. Thanks, Stephanie Charlefour at Love. Life. Read., for the final­ist write-up, and to the entire pan­el (also includ­ing Aaron Mau­r­er from Cof­fee for the Brain, Michelle Lock­wood from Blogs Like a Girl, Karen Ball from Mrs. B’s Favorites, and Danyelle Leach from Book­shelves in the Cul-de–Sac) for read­ing, con­sid­er­ing, and ulti­mate­ly select­ing it. I’ve been a first round Cybils judge twice and am a sec­ond round judge in a dif­fer­ent cat­e­go­ry this year, so I know what a lot of hard work and ded­i­ca­tion goes into it! Final­ly, thanks to the peo­ple who keep the Cybils run­ning. It’s one of my favorite awards in chil­dren’s books as a read­er, author, and judge. I’m always glad to be a part of it, so hav­ing my own book make that final­ist list means even more to me. Kidlit blog­gers ROCK! 🙂

Review: THE SCRAPS BOOK by Lois Ehlert

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THE SCRAPS BOOK cover

THE SCRAPS BOOK cover
THE SCRAPS BOOK: NOTES FROM A COLORFUL LIFE
writ­ten and illus­trat­ed by Lois Ehlert
pub­lished by Beach Lane Books/Simon & Schus­ter, March 2014
72 pages

There have been sev­er­al pic­ture-book auto­bi­ogra­phies of chil­dren’s book authors and illus­tra­tors over the past few years. Sad­ly, most have left me feel­ing just a lit­tle under­whelmed. While I per­son­al­ly enjoyed them, I felt like they were aimed more at their long-time adult fans than at con­tem­po­rary child read­ers. While I, as an adult, was able to appre­ci­ate the rich con­text and inter­est­ing per­son­al his­to­ries, I won­dered if chil­dren would be able to relate to the sto­ries and find direct­ly rel­e­vant mean­ing with­in the pages. So, although I myself am a fan of Lois Ehlert, I’ll admit I was a bit skep­ti­cal when I picked up THE SCRAPS BOOK. Boy was I in for a delight­ful surprise!
Despite the high page count, there is noth­ing in this book that feels the least bit self-indul­gent. Every page seems lov­ing­ly designed to encour­age and instruct young artists. (And aren’t we all artists when we’re young? Per­haps with this book, more of us will remain so.) Through­out, Ehlert gen­er­ous­ly shares her inspi­ra­tions, her process­es, her notes and jour­nals, even her mess­es and mis­takes, giv­ing read­ers insights into her books as well as her life as an artist.THE SCRAPS BOOK excerpt
I think this is tru­ly a book peo­ple of all ages can enjoy, and the world is def­i­nite­ly a bet­ter place for hav­ing THE SCRAPS BOOK in it.
Facts First! Nonfiction Monday

(Disclaimer: Review copy was checked out from my local library.)

Cybils nonfiction picture book roundup #2

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My fel­low judges and I are still hard at work try­ing to final­ize our round one short­list for the Cybils non­fic­tion pic­ture book cat­e­go­ry. It’s a dif­fi­cult task because there are so many great books this year! Here are some reviews of some of my per­son­al favorites (Note: I had many, MANY favorites this year). I enjoyed and would rec­om­mend all of these.
 

LITTLE DOG LOST : THE TRUE STORY OF A BRAVE DOG NAMED BALTIC by Môni­ca Car­ne­si (Nan­cy Paulsen Books/Penguin)
This is the true sto­ry of a name­less dog seen float­ing on a piece of ice down a riv­er in Poland. Ini­tial attempts to save the dog fail, and he is washed out to sea. For­tu­nate­ly, the crew onboard a research ves­sel sees him and final­ly suc­ceeds in res­cu­ing the dog and nurs­ing him back to health. The sto­ry is told in sim­ple but engag­ing text with delight­ful illus­tra­tions. I think kids and dog lovers of all ages will love this book. I know I did!
 

NORTH : THE AMAZING STORY OF ARCTIC MIGRATION by Nick Dow­son, illus­trat­ed by Patrick Ben­son (Can­dlewick)
This beau­ti­ful book is firm­ly on my list of all-time favorite non­fic­tion pic­ture books. Rather than talk about why ani­mals migrate south for the win­ter, this book looks at the flip side: why and how they come back from all over the world to live in the Arc­tic the rest of year. It presents a wide vari­ety of ani­mals, includ­ing many dif­fer­ent kinds of land mam­mals, birds, whales, and fish. The art­work is stun­ning, the text is both fac­tu­al and lyri­cal, and the lay­out max­i­mizes the effect on each on every page. This is about as per­fect a nature book as I could imag­ine. High­ly recommended!
 

THERE GOES TED WILLIAMS: THE GREATEST HITTER WHO EVER LIVED by Matt Tavares (Can­dlewick)
This is anoth­er beau­ti­ful book by Can­dlewick. What I enjoyed most about this book is that the love the author has for his sub­ject comes through on every page, in both the text and the illus­tra­tions. Even if you’re not a big base­ball fan (which, admit­ted­ly, I’m not), there is still a lot to love about this book, espe­cial­ly Ted Williams’ admirable per­se­ver­ance and ded­i­ca­tion to his sport. The author’s note explains that Williams wasn’t per­fect, which makes him even more human. There’s also a bib­li­og­ra­phy and, for true base­ball fans, a detailed table of Williams’ career stats.
 

EGGS 1, 2, 3: WHO WILL THE BABIES BE? by Janet Half­mann, illus­trat­ed by Bet­sy Thomp­son (Blue Apple)
I thought this was one of the stand-out books for younger kids, teach­ing num­ber recog­ni­tion and count­ing as well as intro­duc­ing a vari­ety of dif­fer­ent ani­mals that hatch from eggs and what those eggs look like. The text is appro­pri­ate­ly sim­ple but descrip­tive and inter­est­ing, with the repeat­ed ques­tion, “Who will the babies be?” and a fold-out page pro­vid­ing the answer for each num­ber 1–10. The col­lage art­work gives the pages a rich, three-dimen­sion­al look and adds tons of visu­al inter­est. My only com­plaint with this book is that I don’t think the num­bers match how many eggs the ani­mals might real­ly have (nine frog eggs, for exam­ple), so it’s a bit mis­lead­ing in that regard, but it does such a won­der­ful job of achiev­ing its oth­er goals that I’m will­ing to let that detail slide.
 

A LEAF CAN BE… by Lau­ra Pur­die Salas, illus­trat­ed by Vio­le­ta Dabi­ja (Millbrook/Lerner)
This is a decep­tive­ly sim­ple, but real­ly quite inge­nious, rhyming poem about all of the dif­fer­ent things a leaf can do or be used for through­out the year. The glow­ing illus­tra­tions pro­vide the per­fect accom­pa­ni­ment as well as an expla­na­tion of each line of the poem, plus there’s a sec­tion at the end of the book with even more details. I think young kids will love this book and it will open their eyes to a whole new appre­ci­a­tion of the nature all around them. Well done!
 
Dis­claimer: All of these books were obtained from my amaz­ing local pub­lic library system. 

2012 Cybils Nonfiction Picture Book report #1

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Phew! Now that I got my revi­sion done and sent in, I can get back to read­ing Cybils nom­i­nees in the non­fic­tion pic­ture book cat­e­go­ry that I am judg­ing. Last year I wrote up longer reviews of only a few of the Cybils nom­i­nees. This year I’m going to try to write many more, but short­er, reviews. Rather than offer com­pre­hen­sive reviews, the goal will be to cap­ture my ini­tial impres­sions and thoughts. So, here comes the first batch!
 

BALLOONS OVER BROADWAY by Melis­sa Sweet (Houghton Mifflin)
This is a won­der­ful book that should appeal to all kinds of kids, across a wide age range, and with many dif­fer­ent inter­ests. The art­work is stun­ning. The sto­ry of Tony Sarg and the begin­nings of the Macy’s Thanks­giv­ing Day Parade pup­pets is one that need­ed to be told, and this book tells it art­ful­ly, illus­trat­ing the man’s cre­ativ­i­ty as well as hard work and ded­i­ca­tion. Enter­tain­ing, inspir­ing, and educational—all rolled into one beau­ti­ful package.
 

BROTHERS AT BAT by Audrey Ver­nick (Clar­i­on)
This is the true sto­ry of the Acer­ra fam­i­ly and their 12-mem­ber all-broth­er base­ball team. Base­ball fans espe­cial­ly will love this heart­felt telling of the family’s tra­vails and tri­umphs, both on the field and off, but the expert­ly told fam­i­ly sto­ry offers some­thing for every­one. The text and art work togeth­er beau­ti­ful­ly to bring the his­tor­i­cal peri­od to life.
 

A PLACE FOR BATS by Melis­sa Stew­art (Peachtree)
Okay, I have to admit that I have a bit of a bat pho­bia. On a ratio­nal lev­el, I know they’re help­ful and I’m glad they’re out there, but I real­ly don’t like hav­ing to think about them. Stew­art does an excel­lent job of rais­ing aware­ness about the impor­tance of bats as well as offer­ing ways peo­ple can help them thrive. The fas­ci­nat­ing illus­tra­tions are real­is­tic and not “cute-ified,” which did make me squirm a lit­tle, but Stewart’s text com­pen­sates by cre­at­ing sym­pa­thy for the crea­tures. Even as an adult read­er, I learned a lot about bats. This book would make a good sci­ence read-aloud for preschool and ear­ly ele­men­tary grades. And maybe those kids won’t devel­op an irra­tional bat pho­bia like mine!
 

ANNIE AND HELEN by Deb­o­rah Hop­kin­son (Schwartz and Wade)
I love Deb­o­rah Hopkinson’s work, and the sto­ry of Helen Keller and her teacher, Annie Sul­li­van, has always fas­ci­nat­ed me, so I was excit­ed to see this one in the nom­i­na­tion list. It didn’t dis­ap­point. Told spar­ing­ly and through pri­ma­ry sources, it focus­es on the ear­ly rela­tion­ship between the two women and on Sullivan’s strug­gles to break through Keller’s bar­ri­ers. The art adds a beau­ti­ful, his­tor­i­cal feel to the text, and the book ends on a tri­umphant note with Keller’s first writ­ten let­ter home.
 

BON APPETIT! by Jessie Hart­land (Schwartz and Wade)
This is a deli­cious biog­ra­phy of Julia Child! Although a tad over­whelm­ing and busy at first glance, the art and text quick­ly draw read­ers in and hook them, and read­ing it becomes a reward­ing adven­ture. Hart­land uses ener­gy, humor, and com­pas­sion to fol­low Child’s life sto­ry from child­hood on in a style that mim­ics her per­son­al­i­ty and how she lived her life. Jam-packed with facts and enter­tain­ing details, this longer pic­ture book with fas­ci­nate old­er pic­ture-book readers.

It’s time to get busy

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Cybils 2012 logo

I’ve been work­ing like crazy late­ly on a revi­sion for the edi­tor of my first book. I’m simul­ta­ne­ous­ly blown by away by how much work she’s ask­ing me to do AND by how much bet­ter it’s going to make the book. Most of her com­ments feel so utter­ly, obvi­ous­ly right–AFTER I’ve read them–that I’m left won­der­ing why I did­n’t think of them myself.  (I’m also left won­der­ing why she ever bought the book in the first place, but in that way lies mad­ness, so let’s not go there, okay?) I thought I had giv­en every­thing I had to this book, thought there was noth­ing more I could do, but now I real­ize how lazy I’d actu­al­ly been. A few days ago, Mitali Perkins wrote about being grate­ful for tra­di­tion­al edi­tors. I could­n’t agree more. The process is not only mak­ing a bet­ter book, but mak­ing a bet­ter writer. That’s not to say there has­n’t been some gnash­ing of teeth, bang­ing of head on desk, and wine and choco­late binges, of course. And I’ll be over-the-moon hap­py when I think I’m final­ly done. But it’s get­ting there. I think I can see what it might one day be, and it sure feels good.
Cybils 2012 logo
As soon as I wrap up the big revi­sion I’m look­ing for­ward to ful­ly jump­ing into two more excit­ing activ­i­ties! First, I’m thrilled to be judg­ing the Non-Fic­tion Pic­ture Books cat­e­go­ry of the Cybils again this year. We have just over 100 nom­i­na­tions to read. I’ve had a slow start giv­en the revi­sion, but hope to be pick­ing up steam soon. I’m max­ing out my check-out lim­it at the library and build­ing huge stacks of beau­ti­ful books to indulge in. What could be better?
 

And, I’m also attempt­ing to do agency-sis­ter Tara Lazar’s Pic­ture Book Idea Month (or PiBoId­Mo). The goal is 30 pic­ture-book ideas in the 30 days of Novem­ber. I had a great big bunch of them right before the chal­lenge offi­cial­ly start­ed, and today, on the first offi­cial day, I had two more (and I even ful­ly draft­ed out one of them–WOOT!). This is a fun chal­lenge with a ton of sup­port and cama­raderie for all lev­els, and I can’t wait to see what else comes out of it.

What I Learned From the Cybils

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CYBILS logo

CYBILS logo
The Cybils’ Non­fic­tion Pic­ture Book pan­el for round one, which I was thrilled to be a part of this year, recent­ly fin­ished our deliberations.
The pan­elists were:

There were 87 non­fic­tion pic­ture books to read. Of those, 23 end­ed up on my “pos­si­ble con­tenders” list, and only four of those end­ed up on my “absolute­ly must fight for” list. The sev­en of us had to ulti­mate­ly agree on sev­en (or few­er) titles to send on to the round two judges. (And, I’m hap­py to report, we did it! But you’ll have to wait a few more days to find out what we chose.)
What a thought-pro­vok­ing and edu­ca­tion­al expe­ri­ence this was to go through, as both a writer and as a read­er. These smart, savvy, and opin­ion­at­ed book-lov­ing women val­i­dat­ed many of my own feel­ings about non­fic­tion for kids, and brought to light some nuances that I hadn’t real­ly thought about before, and the whole process real­ly made me think about the titles that I loved through both lens­es of the Cybils cri­te­ria: lit­er­ary mer­it AND kid appeal. It wasn’t enough to have one or the oth­er (which many titles did). Our job was to iden­ti­fy at most sev­en titles we felt were the best of both worlds. A few titles were easy shoe-ins: we agreed on those right away. The remain­ing spots were only filled after great debate, with some argu­ing for and oth­er against. The rea­sons not to include some­thing on the short list were often even more enlight­en­ing than the rea­sons to include something.
Major rea­sons why oth­er­wise deserv­ing titles got passed over:

  • Insuf­fi­cient back mat­ter. Back mat­ter can real­ly make or break a non­fic­tion book, even a pic­ture book for the youngest
    read­ers. If we, the adults, don’t trust you, the author, we’re not going to put that book into a kid’s hands. Authors and pub­lish­ers: it’s worth bud­get­ing the space for those extra pages at the back. Con­sid­er it your chance to show off your hard work and prove your exper­tise, as well as to share your pas­sion with your read­ers, adults and chil­dren alike. Sad­ly, I think insuf­fi­cient back mat­ter hurt both lit­er­ary mer­it and kid appeal on many oth­er­wise won­der­ful titles.
  • Art and design. Not being an artist myself, I was sur­prised how divi­sive this area could be. Some­times we loved the art, but didn’t feel the words were up to par. Some­times we loved the text, but reject­ed the art. Some­times we even loved both, just not togeth­er! And often, we had con­flict­ing opin­ions across the pan­el. Some­times the lay­out and design added to the oth­er ele­ments, some­times it took so much away as to knock a title out of the run­ning alto­geth­er. As an author, I’ll have no con­trol over this (gulp!), but it makes me even more aware of how impor­tant it is to find an edi­tor and a pub­lish­ing house that I can trust to get it all right.
  • Age appro­pri­ate­ness. There were sub­jects that seemed either too young or too old for the audi­ences they were writ­ten for, either too dumb­ed down or too sophis­ti­cat­ed to be appeal­ing to the intend­ed read­ers. It’s tough to strike that bal­ance of read­ing lev­el, inter­est lev­el, and rel­e­van­cy, but as an author (and illus­tra­tor), you just have to do it. I’ll be hold­ing up my own man­u­scripts to much greater scruti­ny in this area.

I want to thank each and every one of the pan­elists for a thor­ough­ly enjoy­able and eye-open­ing deci­sion-mak­ing process. I hope the round two judges are pleased with our choic­es and look for­ward to their choice for the win­ner. I don’t envy their job one bit!

Review: Bring On the Birds

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Bring On the Birds cover

Bring On the Birds
writ­ten and illus­trat­ed by Susan Stock­dale
Peachtree Pub­lish­ers (Feb­ru­ary 1, 2011)
32 pages, ages 4 and up

This is one of my favorite books of all the nom­i­na­tions in the Cybils Non­fic­tion Pic­ture Book cat­e­go­ry this year, and I just can’t get over how absolute­ly per­fect it is. The poet­ic text is a sim­ple but ele­gant rhyme with spot on rhythm and meter:

“Swoop­ing birds,
whoop­ing birds,
birds with puffy chests.
Danc­ing birds,
div­ing birds,
birds with fluffy crests.”

The illus­tra­tions are bright, clean, and not only depict the var­i­ous birds, but also place them in their appro­pri­ate habitats.
The 21 birds fea­tured run the gamut from the com­mon robin to the more exot­ic blue-foot­ed boo­by, from the great blue heron to the blue bird-of-par­adise. This book cov­ers an enor­mous diver­si­ty of life, then ends just right with what they all have in common:

“All of them have feathers,
and all are hatched from eggs.”

This is a won­der­ful intro­duc­tion to birds for the youngest read­ers. It could also be used to talk about diver­si­ty, habi­tats, and classification.
At the end of the book, Stock­dale includes a per­fect­ly brief and spot-on para­graph with infor­ma­tion about each bird pro­filed in the book. The book also includes a bibliography.
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To check out the rest of today’s roundup of books for kids about top­ics in sci­ence, tech­nol­o­gy, engi­neer­ing, and math­e­mat­ics, head on over to this week’s STEM Fri­day roundup over at Anas­ta­sia Suen’s Book­talk­ing.

(Dis­claimer: I received a copy of this book from my local library. I received no mon­e­tary com­pen­sa­tion for this review. All opin­ions expressed here are mine and mine alone.)

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