Category: Cybils 2011 Nonfiction

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Garbage: Investigate What Happens When You Throw it Out

Garbage: Investigate What Happens When You Throw It Out with 25 Projects (Build It Yourself series) by Donna Latham is packed full of hands-on activities that are sure to open your eyes to the immense issue of trash and the need for recycling. It has been nominated for a Cybils award in the MG/YA nonfiction category.

Some of the facts about garbage are staggering. According to Latham, Americans generate 260 million tons of garbage per year, which is enough to cover the state of Texas, twice. The average family produces 6,600 pounds of waste, sufficient to fill a three-bedroom house. (Too bad she didn’t include the figures she used to calculate those comparisons. It could have been a cool math activity).

Not everything that goes into the garbage can has to go there, however. Vegetable food waste can be composted in a compost heap or worm bin. A discarded household item may be reused for other purposes, such as converting an old door into a workbench, or may be sold or donated to someone else who may have a use for it. Recycling keeps even more trash out of the landfills. I love the idea of making junk mail into paper bead necklaces (pp. 82-83). What about the sailboat made out of reused plastic bottles?

Because this is STEM Friday, where’s the science? Many of the activities, such as “Break It Down” (pp. 40-41), “Simulate Water Pollution” (pp. 44-45), and “Compare Cleaners” (pp. 56-57) are already science experiments. Many of the others have potential to be science experiments or even full-blown science fair projects with a little thought. For example, “Grow an Avocado Plant” (pp. 72-23) can be made onto a science experiment if you grow several pits at a time under varied the growing conditions, perhaps testing whether certain water pollutants adversely effect growth.

Cybils Notes: I actually pulled this book out for review earlier and then returned it because I thought some of the activities were not completely safe as presented. For example, sorting trash to see what is in there is a fine idea (pp. 24-25), but there’s no suggestion to wear protective gloves (depending on the source of the trash) or even to wash your hands afterwards (any used cat litter in there?). At first glance Trash Running (page 3) sounds like a perfect way to combine exercise and environmental awareness, but after finding a bloody syringe in my curbside recycling bin once (someone tossed it there from the street), I think grabbing random trash while running could be extremely hazardous. What if there’s a syringe or piece of broken glass or poisonous spider in that paper wad you pick up? Do you want your children handling something like that, carrying it with them and potentially falling on it? Trash pick up should be done slowly, carefully and with attention fully on the task at hand.

But let’s not throw the book out altogether. To be fair, trash running is an activity that is being promoted by outside organizations, Latham is just passing the idea on. Many of the activities are safe and enlightening. The book would be a useful resource to accompany a lesson on the environment (say for Earth Day) or even a unit on earth science. With 25 activities to chose from, you are sure to find one that fits your needs.

Reading level: Ages 9-12
Hardcover: 128 pages
Publisher: Nomad Press (August 1, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1936313472
ISBN-13: 978-1936313471

Stem Friday is at Growing With Science today. Click through for links to more excellent STEM books.

If you would like to participate in STEM Friday in the future, go to the new STEM Friday blog for more information.

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Dog Heroes

Today let’s look at Magic Tree House Fact Tracker #24 called Dog Heroes, which is a Nonfiction Companion to Magic Tree House #46: Dogs in the Dead of Night by Mary Pope Osborne and Natalie Pope Boyce  and illustrated by Sal Murdocca. Dog Heroes has been nominated for a Cybils in the MG/YA nonfiction category.

This middle-grade book is just what you would expect from the popular Magic Tree House series. After going into a quick chapter with overall information about dogs, the authors regale the reader with enchanting stories of search and rescue dogs, dogs that responded to 9-11, all about service dogs, and famous dog heroes. It’s all enough to give even a cat lover the warm fuzzies.

The illustrations in the book alternate between black and white photographs of actual dog heroes, and fun and age-appropriate drawings by Sal Murdocca.

Cybils notes:  Although this book has loads of kid appeal, it really targets a slightly younger age group. Emergent readers, third and fourth graders love these books. That isn’t to say older kids wouldn’t enjoy these wonderful stories about dogs, but they probably would not want to be caught carrying the book around. Too bad, because it doesn’t fit the nonfiction picture book category either.

What do you think? Do you know middle graders who admit reading Magic Tree House books?

Reading level: Ages 9-12
Paperback: 128 pages
Publisher: Random House Books for Young Readers (August 9, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0375860126
ISBN-13: 978-0375860126

As a companion to:

Be sure to look for more information about children’s books at today’s Book Talk Tuesday.

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Flesh and Blood So Cheap

Our highlighted book today has been in the news. Last week Publisher’s Weekly announced Flesh and Blood So Cheap: The Triangle Fire and its Legacy by Albert Marrin is a finalist for the 2011 National Book Awards in Young People’s Literature. It has also been nominated for a Cybils in the MG/YA nonfiction category.

Written to be released right before the 100th anniversary of the Triangle Fire which occurred on March 25, 1911, Flesh & Blood sets the scene by describing a spring day at Washington Square (with a bit of foreshadowing in mentioning that it was built over a cemetery) where Frances Perkins was visiting one of her friends. Suddenly they saw smoke rising from a nearby building and heard fire engines. Racing to the scene, she became one of the witnesses to the horrible Triangle Fire that killed 146 people. It was New York City’s worst workplace disaster until 9-11, involving mainly immigrant women working under sweatshop conditions in a garment factory.

Marrin then travels to Europe to investigate why and how the immigrants had arrived in New York City. Most came from southern Italy or were Jews from Eastern Europe. Both were fleeing racism and poverty, although the southern Italians also experienced natural disasters that drove them from their homelands.

He follows immigrants in their often sordid journey to New York City. Leaving the boat at Ellis Island, most faced low-paying jobs and living in cramped tenement buildings. People had already begun to protest the horrific conditions of many of the factories when Marrin leads us back to the events of the fire, which he now recounts in shocking detail.

The remainder of the book follows the reforms that were eventually passed. Frances Perkins, who was introduced in the first chapter, was one of the leaders of the reform movement and becomes the first female cabinet member as Secretary of Labor for President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The final section is an overview of modern day sweatshops, found throughout Asia. In an even-handed way, Marrin investigates not only the problems with these factories, but also the fact that people that work in them find the alternatives even worse.

How does Flesh & Blood stack up against the other historical accounts I have been reading for Cybils, for example Bootleg: Murder, Moonshine, and the Lawless Years of Prohibition by Karen Blumenthal or Sugar Changed the World: A Story of Magic, Spice, Slavery, Freedom, and Science by Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos? Marrin has done a very competent job of covering the events. While reading, however, I got the impression he took up this book as an assignment. Somehow it lacks the passion or heart of the other two books, which makes it less memorable for me.

Regardless, Flesh and Blood So Cheap: The Triangle Fire and its Legacy is definitely going to be a talked-about book this year.

Have you read it? What do you think?

Reading level: Young Adult
Hardcover: 192 pages
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers (February 8, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0375868895
ISBN-13: 978-0375868894

nonfictionmonday

Nonfiction Monday is a blogging celebration of nonfiction books for kids. We invite you to join us. For more information and a schedule, stop by the new Nonfiction Monday blog to see who is hosting each week.

This week’s post is at Simply Science.

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Bootleg: Murder, Moonshine, and the Lawless Years of Prohibition

Bootleg: Murder, Moonshine, and the Lawless Years of Prohibition by Karen Blumenthal is a thoroughly-researched young adult book that delves into the history and outcomes of Prohibition, the first constitutional amendment to be repealed by another constitutional amendment in the United States. 

After starting with an account of the alarming events of the Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre when Al Capone’s men (who  were heavily involved in the manufacture and distribution of illegal alcohol) killed members of a rival gang in a particularly bloody way, Blumenthal asks a simple but important question about Prohibition,”How had such good intentions gone so terribly, terribly wrong?”

To answer the question, she goes back to the early history of the colonies. Did you know that the Pilgrims brought alcoholic beverages with them on the Mayflower? In those days before sanitation, it was presumably safer to drink alcoholic beverages than straight water. It wasn’t until the 1800’s that people began to seriously question whether it was healthy to drink large quantities of alcohol. Temperance groups sprung up and by the end of the century they had incorporated strong anti-drinking messages in textbooks and other materials used in schools (mostly propaganda). Morris Sheppard, the Congressman who was later to become the so-called “Father of Prohibition,” attributed his distaste for alcohol to his early exposure to those materials in his sixth grade science class. Eventually Prohibition was passed, which led its supporters to hope for a better, alcohol-free America.

As we now know, it had the opposite effect. Instead of lowering crime rates, Prohibition made regular citizens into lawbreakers and criminals into harsher, richer criminals. After it was repealed, lawmakers used Prohibition as a cautionary tale against writing national laws that are neither enforceable nor accepted by large portions of the population.

The storytelling is compelling, although it did bog down a bit towards the end. For example, the author suddenly introduces Al Capone’s brother, Richard Hart, who turned out to be a lawman who arrested bootleggers and shut down stills. The contrast between the brothers is a startling one, but Richard Hart is only mentioned for two short paragraphs and then he disappears. I think the contrast epitomized how families were torn apart by Prohibition, yet the storyline was not developed.

Another point that was introduced but not followed up was how our government relied on taxes on alcohol as an important source of revenue. Blumenthal mentions that the first tax imposed on American-made goods was on hard liquor in 1791. She doesn’t mention, however, the likelihood that the re-imposing of the national income tax in 1913 freed the government from having to rely on alcohol taxes, thus paving the way for Prohibition.

Those points do not detract from an otherwise well-written book. Like Sugar Changed the World, it is interesting to see how our human cravings for a product can change our behavior and ultimately our history. It was also intriguing to see how the emerging role of women in politics and women’s suffrage were intertwined with the story of Prohibition.

Bootleg: Murder, Moonshine, and the Lawless Years of Prohibition would be great reading for an American history or women’s studies course, or for anyone interested in American culture. This book was nominated for a Cybils award in the MG/YA nonfiction category.

Reading level: Young Adult
Hardcover: 160 pages
Publisher: Flash Point (May 24, 2011)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 159643449X
ISBN-13: 978-1596434493