Classics, Nonfiction, and Children's Literature
I Would Teach You to Fly by Sarah Asper-Smith (Sasquatch Books, 2022) shows mother animals caring for and teaching their baby animals. I Would Teach You focuses on parents of all divisions of the animal kingdom, all of whom are teaching their young. In a sweet bedtime tone, I Would Teach You ends with the sweet
Drop: An Adventure Through the Water Cycle by Emily Kate Moon (Dial Books for Young Readers, 2021). Watercolor (specifically, India ink mixed with water) seems to be the perfect medium for illustrating the water cycle. In Drop, the author/illustrator emphasizes the eternal existence of Drop as she has cycled through Earth’s atmosphere and surface over
Elephants Remember: A True Story by Jennifer O’Connell (Tilbury House, 2022) tells the true story of the “Elephant Whisperer,” Lawrence Anthony, who ran a wild animal reserve in Zululand, South Africa. Despite the wild nature of a herd of elephants, with Anthony’s care and civility, the herd is able to thrive in his reserve. When
Look Where We Live! by Scot Ritchie (Kids Can Press, 2015) is a great nonfiction book for learning about building up a community. Beginning with a map of town, Look Where We Live! shows all of the ways that workers, families, and children are connected within a community, and how they can all sustain one
In the Indian Ocean, fishermen discovered a wounded turtle, which they adopted and named her Yoshitaro. In Yoshi’s Big Swim by Mary Wagley Copp, illustrated by Kaja Kajfez (Capstone, December 2022), Yoshi’s story of healing, growing, and her final swim teach young readers not just about one loggerhead sea turtle but also about how we
The story in Make Way for Ducklings is so well known that even those who haven’t read the book may be familiar with the statue of the mother duck and her ducklings that stands in the Boston Public Garden. Even those that have read the book, though, probably didn’t know how difficult it was for
Ice Cycle by Maria Gianferrari, illustrated by Jieting Chen (Millbrook Press, 2022) is subtitled “Poems about the Life of Ice,” and I must say that, just as I had never considered the variety of animals living near icebergs, I had never considered varieties of ice on which those animals live! Yes, as Gianferrari shows in
The world lost a legend when we lost Tomie dePaola recently. The Cloud Book that he wrote and illustrated (Holiday House, 1975). is a one-of-a-kind, semi-comprehensive volume about clouds for early elementary children. It is written in the second person, immediately drawing in a young child. First, the book introduces clouds as drops of water
Clouds by Anne Rockwell, illustrated by Frane Lessac (HarperCollins, 2008, Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Stage 1) provides a gentle introduction to clouds, with a nice tone that brings the reader into the text, encouraging observation of the worlds around us. As Rockwell provides explanations about types of clouds, the illustrator, Lessac, provides the same clouds image of where
As with many of the Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out series books, Franklyn M. Branley’s Down Comes the Rain, illustrated by James Graham Hale (Let’s-Read-and-Find-Out Stage 2, Harper Collins, 1963/1997), interests the child reader by giving examples of simple things for children to do and try throughout. For example, it suggests activities such as dipping one’s fingers in water,
Did a Dinosaur Drink This Water? by Robert D. Wells (Albert Whitman & Company, 2006) discusses water in all of its forms, connecting the water dinosaurs drank to the water that brings us nutrients. Using the need for water for everything on Earth (from plants to animals to ourselves), he captures the essence of the
I did not know the large variety of living things that live in the Alaska tundra near glaciers until I read Who Lives Near a Glacier?: Alaska Animals in the Wild by Susi Gregg Fowler (Little Bigfoot, 2022). Gorgeous up-close paintings and child-friendly poetry capture this animal variety, from dragonflies to seals to ice worms.
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