I'm A Little Confused

If I ever write a picture book, I want it to be illustrated the way Matt Faulkner illustrates Laurie Halse Anderson's Thank You, Sarah.His artwork is realistic but witty. It pops and carries some of the story.

The text of the book is a little confusing for this reader, though. Thank You, Sarah is the story of how Sarah Josepha Hale managed to get Thanksgiving recognized as a national holiday. That is an interesting take on a Thanksgiving book. Seriously, just how many stories about Piligrims can a kid (or anyone else)take? But Hale comes across in this tale like one of those small town cranks, the sterotypical busybodies who nag and nag until they get what they want. I didn't see exactly how she was "bold, brave, stubborn, and smart," at least, in the context of this story.

In all fairness, kids may not know the nagging small-town gadfly stereotype and may not see it in Hale as she's portrayed here. The youngest readers (the publisher is marketing the book to grades K through 5) may very well appreciate the fact that someone created a holiday for us.

At the end of the book are four pages of an odd assortment of information. The information about Thanksgiving and Hale is appropriate and intereting, but then there's the equivalent of a page on the Civil War that seems out of place, even though Thanksgiving was finally made a holiday by Lincoln in 1863. I felt this section of the book could have been more focused.

Hale is a fascinating figure, having served as an editor of women's magazines back in their very early days. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century, women's magazines definitely had an impact on American culture. They are supposed to have been influential in getting controls on patent medicines, for instance. Maybe Thank You, Sarah is a good introduction to Hale for very young children who can't be expected to have much interest in her more significant work, but I'm not sure.

A Dinosaur Book For Nonfiction Monday

I can take dinosaurs or leave them, myself. What I really like reading about are the dinosaur hunters of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Benjamin Waterhouse Hawkins wasn't a paleontologist, but a sculptor. In the 1850s, he created sculptures of dinosaurs using information from paleontologist Richard Owen. The dinner party given inside one of his sculptures is the stuff of legend. Seriously, I heard about it years ago back in the day when I used to read dinosaur books aloud to a young relative.

The whole Hawkins' story is told in TheDinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins by Barbara Kerley. The book covers the famous dinner party and the Waterhouse dinosaur exhibition at the Crystal Palace in 1854. In addition, Kerley tells me some things I didn't know. It turns out Hawkins tried to do for dinosaurs in the U.S. what he did for them in England.

The lengthy Author's and Illustrator's Notes at the end of the book make good reading, too.

And who illustrated this lovely book that Blogger won't let me show you this evening? Why Brian Selznick, of Hugo Cabret fame.

In her Author's Note, Barbara Kerley says that what drew her to Waterhouse Hawkins was the dinner party given in one of his dinosaurs. What draws me to his story is that he and Owen were wrong in their depiction of dinosaurs. This is not to belittle the two men. On the contrary, what fascinates me about this whole situation is that knowledge changes as we discover more of it. It can happen to anybody, even the greatest talents of any particular age.

Talk about something that's hard to accept.

Adding With Monet And Picasso

I think many people think of art only as something that is stored in museums, and they steer clear of those places. I loved Math-terpieces by Greg Tang (illustrated by Greg Paprocki) because it connects Art, which may have elitist connotations for some, with something most of us probably believe is far more practical--math. Talk about a multi-tasking opportunity! Parents can get in reading time with their kids, expose them to art, and teach math concepts all at once. Or a parent can hand the book to young readers so that they can get some reading time in with their art and math.

Each two-page spread includes a reproduction of a well-known work of art, a poem related to it that includes the artist's name and a math problem related to groups of items on the opposite page that were "lifted" from the original art work. For instance, if you're looking at Claude Monet's White Water Lilies, the math problem will involve adding together the different groupings of water lilies on the opposite page.

It's lovely to look at and functional, too.

Not The Kind Of List I Usually See

Though I can't make any claims to being a science-oriented person, in a past-life (or while living in an alternative timeline, either way you want to think of it), I was a PTO Science Fair chairperson for two years. What I lacked in technical knowledge I tried to make up for with administrative enthusiasm.

Thus, I was attracted to Open Wide, Look Inside's Outstanding Science Books Published in 2007. As an administrative-type, I was interested to see that the list is broken down into categories.

More Flotsam

Loree Griffin Burns author of Tracking Trash: Flotsam, Jetsam, and the Science of Ocean Motion was interviewed Monday on WBUR in Massachusetts. Great interview. Seriously. Griffin Burns has some fascinating stuff to talk about.

And I'm not even all that fond of the ocean.

Griffin Burns has a page at her website on the trips she took while researching Tracking Trash that's worth checking out, too.

Thanks to the New England Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators listserv for the info on the interview.