Category: Picture book- nonfiction

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A Butterfly Is Patient: The Book Is Spectacular

At one point in the new book A Butterfly Is Patient by Dianna Hutts Aston and illustrated by Sylvia Long, the author writes, “A butterfly is spectacular!” As you read it you immediately want to echo, “This book is spectacular, too!”

The team of Aston and Long have already written and illustrated two award-winning books, An Egg is Quiet and A Seed is Sleepy. This new addition is even better, if that is possible. How do you top perfection? They found a way.

Start with the front endpapers, a collection of vibrant caterpillars with names like “Moonlight Jewel” and “Hieroglyphic Flat.” Skip to the back endpapers and you will find equally vibrant illustrations of the butterflies that come from those caterpillars. You can spend hours studying the endpapers alone.

Aston packs some hard science into the text, using words such as pollination, camouflage, predator, and migration. She has obviously done her research. It is so lyrically written, however, that learning is beautiful. Each and every page is a delight.

Looking for a gift book? As well as being a high quality, enjoyable, and informative picture book for children, the glorious art and design of A Butterfly Is Patient make it a potential coffee table art book for adults (albeit a thin one). Yes, it is that good. This book is a must for libraries, for children interested in science, and anyone interested in nature.

Don’t be as patient as a butterfly, go check out a copy for yourself today! I’d love to hear what you think of it.

See another review by Amanda at A Patchwork of Books

Related butterfly science activities at Growing with Science

Reading level: Ages 4-8
Publisher: Chronicle Books (May 18, 2011)
ISBN-10: 0811864790
ISBN-13: 978-0811864794

Click on button to return to main science book list.

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 Books Together.

This book was provided for review purposes.

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The Ugly Duckling Dinosaur: A Prehistoric Tale

We have been on a dinosaur kick this week. Today we have the delightful fiction picture book The Ugly Duckling Dinosaur: A Prehistoric Tale by Cheryl Bardoe and illustrated by Roy D. Kennedy, a new take on the well-known ugly duckling tale.

When mother duck’s last egg takes an extra long time to hatch, she isn’t worried. But when the newest duckling pops from the shell, everyone thinks “That is the ugliest duckling I’ve ever seen!” Through a humorous series of mishaps, the ugly duckling learns he is not a duckling at all, but a magnificent Tyrannosaurus rex.

Like yesterday’s The Voyage of Turtle Rex, this book mixes fiction and nonfiction. In this case, the book falls squarely on the side of fiction, although a lot of research went into getting the details right. As she points out in her Author’s Note at the end, Bardoe based her mother duck and ducklings on an actual bird that lived during the time of the dinosaurs, Vegavis iaai. The creatures that the main character stumbles across are actual dinosaurs, like Stegosaurus, and Deinonychus.

The watercolor illustrations by Roy D. Kennedy of big-eyed birds and dinosaurs add to the child-friendly silliness of the book. In the Artist’s Note in the back he writes he used watercolors because that is the medium used by scientific illustrators, but that “there had to be some poetic license.”

As an adult reading this book you might think the plot is stale or the premise a bit of a stretch, but in the eyes of a child it is fresh and fun. The message that it is okay to be different definitely stands up well in today’s environment. Plus The Ugly Duckling Dinosaur could be just the right book to tempt the dinosaur fan enamored with nonfiction to branch out into fiction.

For a fun romp through prehistory with a worthwhile message, be sure to give it a try.

Reading level: Ages 4-8
Publisher: Abrams Books for Young Readers (May 1, 2011)
ISBN-10: 9780810997394
ISBN-13: 978-0810997394

Book was provided for review purposes.

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

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The Voyage of Turtle Rex

Kurt Cyrus has done it again with his new book, The Voyage of Turtle Rex. Cyrus travels on the border between fiction and nonfiction successfully with the dramatic story of a giant sea turtle’s adventures growing up in ancient seas.

If you are familiar with Cyrus’ previous award-winning book, Tadpole Rex, you already know about his breathtaking, vibrant illustrations and tightly-crafted rhyme.  Although a computer screen does not do them justice, Cyrus has examples of some of the illustrations at his website. How does Cyrus create the stark black lines of varying width that give such depth to each page? He uses a scratchboard technique and adds details like bubbles and a crust of barnacles to make the giant sea turtle come alive.

Not only has Cyrus done his research about the creature, Archelon, itself (he even includes the fact the turtles may sleep under the mud for long periods), but also he obviously spent the time to craft the story to perfection. Showing the contrast in size between the tiny baby turtles on the beach in the beginning, to the adult turtles laying eggs on the same beach at the end, by including the same local dinosaurs for scale in both scenes is pure genius. He also brings the story neatly to present day with a few perfectly-chosen words.

The Voyage of Turtle Rex is a must-have book for your shelf, because it can be used in so many ways. You could pull it out for a poetry unit, a science unit, and for any reader interested in dinosaurs. This book sure to thrill and entrall dinosaur-loving children of all ages.

See an interview with Kurt Cyrus at Miss Rumphius Effect

Growing with Science has related science activities

Reading level: Ages 4-8
Publisher: Harcourt Children’s Books (April 4, 2011)
ISBN-10: 9780547429243
ISBN-13: 978-0547429243

Book was supplied for review purposes.

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 Writing Nonfiction for Children.

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Is A Worry Worrying You?

Is a Worry Worrying You? by Ferida Wolff and Herriet May Savitz, and illustrated by Marie LeTourneau may not take all your worries away, but it is a wonderful way to start a conversation about anxieties, a situation that may be debilitating to some. The text is not only soothing and humorous, but also suggests logical and appropriate solutions. What a perfect balance!

The first things you notice about the book are the whimsical illustrations. The monster representing worry is a hairy beast reminiscent of the monsters from Where The Wild Things Are. Much of the humor is emphasized and elaborated in the illustrations.

The text shows the reader that everyone has worries, it is normal. But you don’t have to be a prisoner of those worries. By telling about some situations where a child might worry (a few of which are extremely silly, like an eagle nesting in your hair) and how to deal with each one, a child will add real world coping skills to his or her tool kit.

Having recently read an article about how picture book authors need have a subtle message to attract adults to buy the book as well as being appropriate for young readers, I was thinking about how well this works in Is a Worry Worrying You? The book shows the way by being absolutely child friendly, but the topic and message work well for adults, too. Everyone can definitely benefit from having a copy on their shelf to reference whenever stressful events arise.

The publisher’s website has instructions for a related activity of making a worry box. it is towards the bottom of the page.

Reading level: Ages 4-8
Paperback: 32 pages
Publisher: Tanglewood Press (May 8, 2007)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1933718056
ISBN-13: 978-1933718057

The electronic review copy was provided via Net Galley.

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