Nonfiction Archives - Page 90 of 111

January 17, 2011March 19, 2020

Hiding In Deserts

Hiding in Deserts by by Deborah Underwood is part of an educational series about animals camouflaged in their environments. Like others in the series, each section shows an animal hidden in an appropriate setting and then the next page shows the animal revealed as the background is faded away.

Although there are several books about camouflage available these days, I liked this one for its straightforward, no-nonsense presentation. It is also recommended by the National Science Teacher’s Association.

Activities to use with this book:
BrainPop Jr. has some camouflage information and activities

Reading level: Ages 5-7
Publisher: Heinemann Raintree Educational Books (September 2010)
ISBN-10: 1432940333
ISBN-13: 978-1432940331

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 NC Teacher Stuff.

January 11, 2011

ALA Announces Awards

American Library Association announced the various youth media award winners yesterday. Go on over to their website and read all about it.

Of course, we were interested in the Robert F. Sibert Medal for most distinguished informational book for children. The 2011 winner is Kakapo Rescue: Saving the World’s Strangest Parrot, written by Sy Montgomery, which was reviewed just last week here at Wrapped In Foil. Cool!

January 10, 2011January 15, 2011

Spilling Ink: A Young Writer’s Handbook

Spilling Ink: A Young Writer’s Handbook by Anne Mazer and Ellen Potter is yet another wonderful book on the MG/YA Nonfiction shortlist for Cybils. Many adults are going to say they wish they had a copy of when they were young. It is fun, insightful and full of creative tips to get words on a page and then transform them into something special. The best part is that it is filled with laugh-out-loud humor and touching personal anecdotes. Who won’t respond to an author who thanks her son for diapering the dog?

Ironically, although this is a nonfiction book, it covers how to write fiction. The authors do a fabulous job of explaining the ins and outs of creating characters, plots, settings, and the process of writing. Anne writes that there are many ways to start writing a story. You can even make model out of jello, if that works for you. Wouldn’t it be great if every English/Language Arts teacher in the country picked up a copy of this book, backed off from the emphasis on plotting stories using graphic organizers and gave children big blobs of jello to work with instead?

With a young woman on the cover, and two women authors, is this a book for boys who want to write, too? The authors state right up front that it was their goal to appeal to boys as well as girls, and to their credit they’ve succeeded pretty well. Most people who want to become a serious writer, or even simply a better writer, will find some useful messages in Spilling Ink.

Reading level: Young Adult
Hardcover: 288 pages
Publisher: Flash Point (March 30, 2010)
ISBN-10: 1596435143
ISBN-13: 978-1596435148

Anne Mazer and Ellen Potter have written some fantastic books. A personal family favorite is The Salamander Room by Anne Mazer. Check Anne’s website and Ellen’s website for more information about the authors and their books, or see the lists below.

If you are a fan of children’s nonfiction books, be sure to visit the new Nonfiction Monday Facebook page.

January 3, 2011January 3, 2011

Kakapo Rescue: Saving the World’s Strangest Parrot

Have you seen Kakapo Rescue: Saving the World’s Strangest Parrot by Sy Montgomery and photographs by Nic Bishop yet? It is on the shortlist for the Cybils in the Middle Grade/Young Adult Nonfiction category. Fuse #8 has predicted it might be in line for the Sibert Medal. If you haven’t seen it, you may wonder what all the fuss is about. It just another book in the Scientists in the Field series, right?

The fuss is all about the strangest, most wondrous, and captivating bird on the planet, called a kakapo parrot.

My family first learned about the adorable kakapo parrot from Sir David Attenborough’s The Life of Birds. The kakapo lives in New Zealand, known for its unusual bird life. In this case “unusual” is an understatement. These large, flightless parrots (weighing up to eight pounds) have soft green feathers that smell strongly of honey, of all things. The sweet smell is thought to come from a bacteria that lives on the birds. They are active at night, and hide during the day in burrows under the ground. That is not where you would expect to find a parrot at all.

Photograph from Brent Barrett at Wikipedia

This tale does have a sad part. Over the last few hundred years, the kakapo numbers have plummeted. A few times they were thought to be nearly extinct. Right now conservationists are trying valiantly to save the less than 100 birds that remain.

With the team of experienced nature writer Sy Montgomery and and fabulous photographer Nic Bishop, you know Kakapo Rescue: Saving the World’s Strangest Parrot is going to be high quality. Two of their previous books have been Sibert Honor books. What really tips this book into another category is their obvious passion for the topic. You can tell these two are thrilled to be freezing and wet on a remote island near Antartica chasing the kakapo story to share with us.

Photograph by Mnolf at Wikipedia

As Montgomery so eloquently reminds us, we don’t know the ending to this particular story yet. “We could be witness to one of the most thrilling conservation success stories in human history – or one of the noblest but most tragic failures.”

What do you think?

Reading level: Ages 9-12
Hardcover: 80 pages
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children (May 24, 2010)
ISBN-10: 0618494170
ISBN-13: 978-0618494170

If you are a fan of children’s nonfiction books, be sure to visit the new Nonfiction Monday Facebook page.