Nonfiction Picture Book Cybils Winner!

We have a winner for the nonfiction picture book Cybils award! I was on the committe for nonfiction picture books and we all  agreed that Mrs. Harkness and the Panda was our favorite. Take a look at the book and the other winners here. I loved this book and think you will, too.

Nonfiction Picture Books

Mrs. Harkness and the Panda By Alicia Potter, illustrated by Melissa Sweet Alfred A. Knopf Books for Young Readers Nominated by: Cathy Potter

Who could forget the endearing face of a panda bear like the one on the cover of Mrs. Harkness and the Panda? It is more difficult to remember, however, who brought the first panda  bear to America. In 1934, when the story starts, only a few people even  knew pandas existed. Mrs. Harkness, a young New York dress designer,  seemed to be the least-likely person to go to far-off China to look for  one. Yet when her husband dies during an attempt to find a panda, off  she goes on the adventure of a lifetime to fulfill his quest.

Reading this book is an adventure of its own. It delves into China with rich  colors, using actual Chinese writing on the paper in the background of  the illustrations, photographs of Chinese coins, and even including some well-placed Chinese words. Each page and each reading reveals new  discoveries.

The story of a young woman heading off into the unknown is one of bravery  and perseverance that is sure to appeal to a wide range of readers. Mrs. Harkness would be perfect to introduce a geography or history lesson about China.  Although it is a biography, this book is also likely to stimulate  conversations about animal conservation, particularly discussions about  endangered animals and how our views of how to care for rare animals  have changed. It is truly a memorable and inspiring book.

See a complete review at Wrapped in Foil.

 

 

Infinity and Me

Infinity and Me

by Kate Hosford

Illusgtrated by Gabi Swiatkowska

Carolrhoda Books (Lerner), 2012

ISBN #978-0761367260

Ages 5 and up

“How many stars were in the sky? A million? A billion? Maybe the number was as big as infinity. I started to feel very small. How could I even think about something as big as infinity?

Uma loves her new red shoes, but she can’t help wondering how big infinity really is. Using comparisons with familiar objects, she gets an idea about how big it really is. This beautifully illustrated picture book is a terrific way to introduce young children to the indefinite concept of infinity. The text flows smoothly and does an excellent job of explaining an abstract concept. In the end, Uma gets an up-close idea of how big infinity really is.

This book fits a wide range of ages and would appeal to listeners and readers alike. It could trigger a fascinating discussion in class and is a good way to introduce a Common Core lesson in any classroom. Try this one. It belongs in every school library!

Activity

Use a strand of cooked spaghetti for this activity. After it has cooled, stretch the spaghetti strand out. Measure it and then cut it in half. Measure the halves in standard and metric units. Continue cutting the half in half until you are unable to cut it further. Then talk about how it might be possible to cut it even down to a size you can’t see any more.

CCSS.Math.Content.2.MD.A.2 Measure the length of an object twice, using length units of different lengths for the two measurements; describe how the two measurements relate to the size of the unit chosen.

Book provided by Blue Slip Media.

*This will be my last post for SimplyScience. I’m shuttering the blog because my writing career is getting so busy–that’s a good thing. Thank you to everyone who has read and shared my work. I’ll be leaving the archives up and who knows? Perhaps I’ll return in a year or so. Thanks to all of you!

Shirley

Environmental Disasters

Environmental Disasters

By Shirley Duke

Rourke, 2012 (available now)

ISBN #978-1-61741-784-9

Grades 4-6

Nonfiction

“In 2010 an explosion shattered a quiet April evening in theGulf of Mexico. Flames roared into the air on the Deepwater Horizon offshore oil platform. Startled workers scrambled to escape. Most of them reached safety. Millions of gallons of light crude oil gushed from the site.”

After writing a report on fires in 7^th grade, my interest in disasters grew, along with learning the science of them. It’s interesting that I ended up writing this book. It followed Enterprise STEM and Forces and Motion at Work, and it was fascinating to research. I learned much more about our environment and the charge we have to keep it healthy. The most interesting part of writing this book was revisiting the history of some disasters that had happened in my younger days.

Each section in Environmental Disasters relates the situation about how the disaster happened, explains the consequences, and tells what may prevent it in the future. The book opens with the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. It goes on to discuss solid wastes like those at Love Canal and the problems with plastics and electronic wastes, nuclear meltdowns here, in Chernobyl, and Japan, acid rain, and the ozone. It includes a chart of small changes children can make to get involved in making the Earth safer. Each chapter includes diagrams that illustrate new vocabulary and more details about the processes involved.

The book has bright photographs with captions containing pertinent information not included in the text. It has a glossary, websites, and index, and an about the author section.

Activity 1

Look up information about the Chernobyl nuclear meltdown, the Three Mile Island disaster, and the more recent Japanese reactor problems following the tsunami. Use a graphic organizer or develop your own  to contrast and compare two of those disasters and their results.

Three Mile Island

Chernobyl

Japan

Activity 2 (easier)

Make a timeline of disasters and display it. Use the book’s information to begin and find others to include.

Find more disasters at this site.

National Science Standards: matter and its interactions; human impacts on Earth systems

CCSS: I.5.3:

3. Explain the relationships or interactions between two or more individuals, events, ideas, or

concepts in a historical, scientific, or technical text based on specific information in the text.

100 People Who Made History

100 People Who Made History

By Ben Gilliland

DK Publishing, 2012

ISBN #9780756690038

Grades 3-7 (Publisher lists ages 7-12)

Nonfiction

“There are adventurous discoverers who boldly go where no one has gone before, sailing the high seas and finding new lands. Then there are the more stay-at-home types, who toil away in labs and the like and—eureka—discover something that will save millions of lives. Behind every great discovery is a remarkable person, whose courage and determination—and sometime plain luck—made the world the place it is today.”

I opened the book and the page fell to Dimitri Mendeleev, the scientist who developed the first periodic table of the elements. Early pages of the book begin with the great explorers, like Marco Polo and Christopher Columbus, and then moves on to the great early scientists: Galileo Galilei, Isaac Newton, and Charles Darwin.

Each spread is devoted to a great explorer, philosopher, historian, leader, or inventor in many different fields, including popular culture and the arts. The two pages are presented in a series of sidebars set off by photographs that break the information into small chunks packed with facts. One section details their early life, education, how they arrived at their achievement, and other sets of interesting facts. The bottom text and art on the pages tells of others who came along and used the information to develop further ideas.

The back matter includes a section titled “Let’s Applaud…,” which includes those who didn’t quite make the top 100 of American and Canadian history, a glossary, and index. This book allows readers to “Meet the people who shaped the modern world” and allows them to make their own discoveries of those intrepid explorers who changed the world in some way. 

This book fits easily into elementary and middle school libraries and is well-suited to the Common Core Curriculum. It contains a helpful table of contents grouped by achievements and would be a fascinating read for any age interested in learning more about a specific person. It’s a great jumping off place for biographies and first nonfiction research. I loved the book and I think kids will, too.

Activity

Select an explorer from two different categories. List the events in their life. Then make a chart to compare their experiences. 

This site has more information about other people and their achievements.

Here’s another list.

National Science Standard: Core Idea ETS2: Links Among Engineering, Technology, Science, and Society; ETS2.A: Interdependence of Science, Engineering, and Technology

CCSS: I.5.3. Explain the relationships or interactions between two or more individuals, events, ideas, or concepts in a historical, scientific, or technical text based on specific information in the text.

Book provided by DK Publishing

Busy as a Bee

Busy as a Bee

by Thea Feldman

Kingfisher, Kingfisher Readers,  2013

Level1 Beginning to Read

ISBN: 9780753433195

Grades K-1

Nonfiction early reader

“Buzz! What is that? It is a bee!”

The introduction to this early nonfiction reader is followed by a large photograph of a bee, designed, to catch the reader’s interest.  The text continues with interesting bee facts like why it buzzes, why they fly from flower to flower,  the life cycle, and where they live, along with other bee details. The final page reviews the information and back matter in this 32 page book includes a glossary.

This book is a wonderful way to introduce nonfiction to beginning readers and gets a jump start on the Common Core need to include informational texts in the curriculum. The set goes up to Level 5, but Busy as a Bee is a great way to start young readers with nonfiction.

Activity

After reading the book, list the facts the reader learned about bees. Then read about ants, another animal living in a community. Write down the ant facts, and then make a chart to compare some of the ways they are alike and different.

National Geographic has good ant information.

KidsKonnect has more ant facts.

National Science Standard: organisms and their environment

Common Core: Ask and answer questions about key details (RI.1.1); identify the main topic and recall key details of a text (RI.1.2)

Book provided by Kingfisher.

OCEAN SUNLIGHT

 

Ocean Sunlight

How Tiny Plants Feed the Seas

By Molly Bang and Penny Chisholm

The Blue Sky Press, 2012

ISBN #978-0545273220

Grades K-5

Nonfiction picture book

“Dive into the sea! Now flip over slowly, and look up. The water is shimmering with light—my light. I am your sun, your golden star. All ocean life depends on me; so does all life on land.”

I love books about the food chain, and this one delivers on a grand scale. Ocean Sunlight begins with an  explanation of photosynthesis and its value, and then goes on to relate that ocean plant life is part of the food chain. Seaweed is obvious, but the explanation of the food-producing phytoplankton is one of the best I’ve seen.

The book continues with the photic levels, explaining the amounts of light at the different divisions of the world’s oceans and shows the food chains in them. It continues to the deepest levels and discusses adaptations that the life has there to survive, including marine snow, the detritus that falls to the sea floor. The cycle concludes with the sun’s heat causing the water to move upward and bring the nutrients and CO₂ back around.

This book can be read with many different grade levels and matched to the level of the children’s understanding. The art is bright and inviting and adds details to the informational text. It’s a lovely book and could lead to many discussions about food chains and webs while making a perfect introduction to the concept.

Several pages of back matter give much more detail, but as a science teacher, I’d love to have seen sources, a glossary, and more reading included in the back matter. Nonetheless, it’s a terrific book and one that every science teacher should know and introduce.

Activity 1 (younger)

List the plant and animal life in one of the food chains depicted in the book. Create a diagram or flow chart to show the different levels. Label and illustrate the food chain.

National Geographic has good information.

Here’s a fun food chain e-game.

Activity 2 (older)

Look up the word chemosynthesis. Compare and contrast the food production by chemosynthesis with photosynthesis. Identify what hydrothermal vents are. Then explain how tube worms and clams at deep sea vents use the hydrogen sulfide to make food.

This site has good information, but you might want to enlarge it so it doesn’t look so intimidating.

National Geographic has good information.

This site has a comparison of photosynthesis and chemosynthesis.

Author website with information

This review was a good one.

National Science Standard: LS2: Ecosystems: Interactions, energy, and dynamics

Common Core: CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.4.5 Describe the overall structure (e.g., chronology, comparison, cause/effect, problem/solution) of events, ideas, concepts, or information in a text or part of a text.

Book provided by Scholastic for Librarians’ Choices Book Reviews

Step Gently Out

Step Gently Out

By Helen Frost

Photos by Rick Lieder

Candlewick Press, 2012

ISBN: 978-0-7636-5601-0

Grades PreK and up

Nonfiction poetry

“Step gently out,

be still,

and watch

a single blade

of grass.”

Gentle words carry the reader through a rhyming poem celebrating the beauty of insects and arachnids who share our world, if only you’ll look around. The words glide across the pages of up-close, beautiful photographs and it brings the reader along, too.

The praying mantis photograph is one of my favorites. The back matter includes a paragraph of information about each of the insects and orb spider mentioned in the poem. This lovely book will bring a hush to the listeners and provides an intimate, close-up view of the life hiding right under our eyes.

Activity

Make a chart showing the differences between an insect and a spider. Illustrate or use words to show the differences.

Then write words that help describe insects and spiders and the ways in which they are alike and different

This site has an excellent explanation of the differences for young children.

This site has information and a lesson about spiders and insects.

This site has an explanation of the differences.

A Fuse Eight Production has a more comprehensive review for Step Gently Out

100 Scope Notes has a lovely review and a suggestion for Step Gently Out. Great idea!

National Science Standards: LS2: Ecosystems: Interactions, energy, and dynamics

Common Core:

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.1.4 Describe people, places, things, and events with relevant details, expressing ideas and feelings clearly.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.SL.1.5 Add drawings or other visual displays to descriptions when appropriate to clarify ideas, thoughts, and feelings.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.2.4 Determine the meaning of words and phrases in a text relevant to a grade 2 topic or subject area.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.2.6 Identify the main purpose of a text, including what the author wants to answer, explain, or describe.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RI.2.7 Explain how specific images (e.g., a diagram showing how a machine works) contribute to and clarify a text.