FROM HERE TO THERE: a Journey of Ten Thousand Years

I've been immersed in fiction picture books while narrowing down Round One Cybils finalists among two hundred nominees. It's exciting to take a break from that category to share the news of an upcoming nonfiction picture book release. It's written by the amazing Vivian Kirkfield. I'm an avid fan of her nonfiction picture books, and I'll get to this newest title in a moment.  

First, though, I want to sing the praises of the author herself, someone who always goes the extra mile. Vivian's website is loaded with amazing content, including her blog about wonderful authors, celebrations of "book birthdays" by other creators, and information about her own extensive catalog. She offers school visits (virtual, for now, but still lively and loaded with learning), provides supplemental materials about her books, and has a tab to access critique services for aspiring writers. She volunteers enormous amounts of time via social media giveaways of mentorships and other coaching. Read more about her HERE. 

HMH BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS
January, 2021

The important thing for readers to know about Vivian is her ability to take deep dives into nonfiction content and then share her discoveries with irresistible storytelling skill. FROM HERE TO THERE: Inventions that Change the Way the World Moves is an impressive example of that, times ten. As her introduction explains, until mobility inventions developed, the only way to get from one place to another was to walk, run, be carried, or swim. As soon as animals were domesticated, the "be carried" idea caught on. 

In this excellent compilation, nine significant methods of more recent transportation developments are explored, with the "tenth" multiplier being the supplemental content at the end of the book. 

Opening endpapers launch readers eight thousand years into the past, when Inuit people developed canoes and kayaks. A select timeline begins there and takes giant steps forward, a few thousand years at a time, through skis, sailboats, riverboats, chariots, and even kites, wheelbarrows, and parachutes. The timeline reveals the eras in which evidence of such innovations were confirmed.

Kirkfield's full text takes a deeper dive into specific contributors to modern transportation. After reading nine detailed and delicious chapters, extensive back matter invites further exploration. Kids are challenged to consider creating their own inventions, with resources provided for further support in their efforts. An index makes this book a useful reference tool, including a selected bibliography providing chapter-by-chapter resources for each profile. Some diagrams and technical drawings from the original development of various devices are provided. Also included are source notes for quotations and excerpts embedded in the body of the text for each chapter. 

I'm making a point of these supplemental materials to stress the foundational strength of this book with its appealing and intriguing storytelling: accuracy and fact reliability. As we are guiding young readers through a world in which statements and stories "ring true" or may even seem too amazing to be true, it is important that they learn to take a closer look at those stories. Some may be constructed from questionable cloth (or thin air). This book serves as an outstanding example of ways that facts can be sorted from fiction, how questions can be answered with confidence. 

Now, to the chapters themselves. 

Each profile is placed in chronological sequence from the early 1700s to present day, and relates the story of the inventor(s) of these comparatively recent transportation inventions. Each reveals personality quirks, personal needs, inspiring moments, partnerships, struggles and setbacks. Each chapter can be read as an intact story, in any order. Each also integrates related content in useful sidebar text, an efficient and interesting way to provide societal context, impact, connections, and other details without disrupting the flow of very entertaining stories. The overall effect makes these contributions from the past feel relevant and important to present day life.

Chapter One begins with manned hot air balloon flight (1700s), moving on to the bicycle (originally the "running machine"!), the steam locomotive, gasoline-powered automobiles, interstate bus company services, liquid fuel-propelled rockets, folding wheelchairs, industrial robots, and computer-generated ship designs. In each case, the inventions are ones we take for granted (if we bother to think of them at all) but the stories of their inventors reveal how innovative and truly unprecedented these ideas were in their times. Each offers examples of persistence, cooperation, and visionary drive. There is variety and diversity among the inventors, and in every case their personalities will resonate with and inspire readers.

The final endpapers provide a select timeline of transportation inventions from the past two centuries, ending with the driverless automobile. I grew up in Ohio not far from the home of Orville and Wilbur Wright. Other than some fun field trips, I can't say that inventors of various forms of transportation ever intrigued me. Now, though, the remarkable characters profiled in each chapter of this book filled me with curiosity about the untold stories behind those pictured inventions on the timeline. I suspect many young readers will have similar reactions and they may dive into their own deep research about those untold stories. 

Why am I featuring a nonfiction "chapter book" in a picture book blog? Because it is, in reality, a sort of anthology of separate picture books, with the illustrations carrying important elements of the individual profiles. I was provided an advance PDF file of this forthcoming book, so the images throughout were in black and white. Even so, the art illustrations by Gilbert Ford suited this work beautifully. His retro-style and action-packed scenes enhanced both the history and the propulsive quality of each invention. In some places the images revealed the drama or emotional content of the related text. In many instances the images take on more technical detail to clarify and support understanding of science or mechanical elements within the profiles. 

This book is a prime example of ways that literary content can be used for STEM education and too-often neglected social studies. I urge you to get your hands on this book as soon as you can. (It's available for advance orders now, HERE). While you are waiting to read it, you can learn more about Vivian by reading her other books, which I love, including posts about two of them HERE and HERE.

Writer for children—reader forever…that’s Vivian Kirkfield in five words. Her bucket list contains many more than five words – but she’s already checked off skydiving, parasailing, banana-boat riding, and visiting critique buddies all around the world. When she isn’t looking for ways to fall from the sky or sink under the water, she can be found writing picture books in the picturesque village of Bedford, NH. A retired kindergarten teacher with a masters in Early Childhood Education, Vivian inspires budding writers during classroom visits and shares insights with aspiring authors at conferences and on her blog, Picture Books Help Kids Soar where she hosts the #50PreciousWords International Writing Contest and the #50PreciousWordsforKids Challenge. She is the author of many picture books including Sweet Dreams, Sarah, a 2020 Notable Social Studies Trade Book Selection, Making Their Voices Heard: The Inspiring Friendship of Ella Fitzgerald and Marilyn Monroe; and the upcoming From Here to There: Inventions That Changed the Way the World Moves, already a Junior Library Guild Selection that launches from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt on January 19, 2021. You can connect with her on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Linkedin, or just about any place people with picture books are found.

Social media links:

www.facebook.com/viviankirkfield

www.twitter.com/viviankirkfield

www.instagram.com/viviankirkfield

Nicknamed "Smelly"? Not a Bad Thing!

Calkins Creek, October, 2020

I reviewed a previous nonfiction picture book by Beth Anderson earlier this year. It's a biography set in New York City, LIZZIE DEMANDS A SEAT: Elizabeth Jennings Fights for Streetcar Rights. In it, Anderson reveals the story of an historic figure who was new to me (and to many), Elizabeth Jennings. This is a celebration of a black woman with a spine and a voice, always an exciting subject for me to read about. It also reveals historic insights into an earlier era of this metropolis. Those were days when major mass transit was above ground streetcars.

"Smelly" Kelly and His Super Senses: How James Kelly's Nose Saved the New York City Subway  takes place a bit later when the subway system has become the transit hub for the city, its lifeline, but always expanding and under construction. 
Anderson is back with another profile of a New Yorker whose story is not widely known, but deserves to be. Delightfully illustrated by Jenn Harney, this telling reveals a hero in the underworld-- the underground world of subway operation, that is. His super-sniffer detects and locates potential mishaps that could endanger the system, and LIVES! Within the opening pages, readers learn that young-James was aware of but not impressed by his super-sensitive nose-power. In a single page-turn adult-Kelly lands in New York City. He soon begins work in the subway and his talent proves to be priceless. His sniffer not only averted catastrophes from gas leaks and water drips coming in contact with electrical sparks, he tracked down burst plumbing pipes and other odors to reveal unseen damage. 
Kelly took his nickname and unofficial hero status seriously, reading deeply to learn more about ways science and technology could support his role of super-subway-saver. This  complex story is told with pizzazz, making the revelations about a grown man and urban infrastructure remarkably lively and appealing. The color choices, text placement, lighting and movement in illustrations make this an action-packed and fun read. 

Interior illustration, "Smelly" Kelly and His Super Senses
Beth Anderson/Jenn Harney

Kelly's nose and reputation took him far beyond the subway when smell-sleuthing was required. He supplemented his sniffer with his science studies to narrow down destructive leaks, he trained apprentices in his techniques, and he faced every challenge with persistence.  Eventually, he drew on his childhood experiences with elephant odors to solve a mystery. Anderson portrays a climactic and dramatic event in which Kelly's nose and ears were of no use, but put his analytic skills and bravery to work to save a life. 

Anderson participated in In an interview about this new release on Maria Marshall's blog, THE PICTURE BOOK BUILDER, here. Her website and that interview include a quote worthy of note:

"Writing is mining.

It’s digging deep inside

for special memories, emotions, and meaning.

It’s burrowing into history for inspiring characters and moments

that change the course of events."

~ Beth Anderson 

As a reader and writer I admire this mission statement and appreciate the results in her books. Her research is seamlessly woven into lives that leap from the page in settings that have a life of their own. It was my privilege to read an early copy in PDF file, with no promise of a review. Publisher Calkins Creek is a reliable producer of high-quality picture books and I look forward to having physical copies in hand and to give as gifts.

This is not available for distribution until October, but I am posting my review now because you can place advance orders, from an independent bookstore, please. Those early orders can help books and publishers and stores survive, and you won't be charged until the books are ready to go out, in most cases. Find your nearest stores here. You can also request your local library to order it. If you enjoy nonfiction (nearly biographic) picture books, this one is a must-have. 

Brief Notes anchoring this post in current events:
#BLACKLIVESMATTER note: 
It is oddly comforting that many recommended titles about anti-racism  for adult readingare delayed in delivery because they are sold out and require reprinting. Library copies are on long holds, too. Please be patient, and read deeply when you can. 
Then, let it sink in and ACT.

A helpful comparison for those STILL feeling a gut response to BLACK LIVES MATTER with  "All Lives Matter":
When annual events support BREAST CANCER, is your gut response- 
"But ALL Cancer matters"? 
If not, why is it so hard for you to accept that all lives DO NOT matter when we are living in a society that treats BLACK LIVES and other People of Color with less value and security, or with outright contempt?  If ALL Lives Matter had been true for those who are NOT White, in the present and in history, this conversation wouldn't be necessary.

Covid19 response continues to vary on a national and world scale. Many states  "opened up" while providing little guidance, support, or enforcement of wearing masks, keeping physical distance, and staying home when possible. In those cases, extreme upsurges in positive test results, active cases, hospitalizations, and shortages of ICU beds and other resources are cause for concern. 
This morning our country (USA) continues to "lead the world" in confirmed cases and deaths. Individual states are outpacing entire countries. Shamefully.

ADVENTURES TO SCHOOL: Around the World

It's that time again... back to school, around the world!  Whether a child can walk out their front door and take a few steps to the schoolhouse door (as I did), or boards a bus, or walks miles on a dirt road (as my mother did), getting there matters. Many kids feel the stirring excitement of going to school in their bones, usually fostered by their parents' messages about the value of learning. 

little bee books, 2018

ADVENTURES TO SCHOOL: Real-Life Journeys of Students From Around the World is co-authored by Baptiste and Miranda Paul and illustrated by Isabel Muñoz. It makes a compelling case that this feeling is a universal experience. 

This delightful recent picture book uses imagined but convincing first-person-voiced young locals describing trips to school under challenging circumstances. This combines with informative illustrations and narrative text to reveal daily school-travel in remote areas around the world. The balance of voices/perspectives is effective in connecting and developing empathy as well as curiosity and respect. Expository sidebars include images of each country's flag, an iconic indigenous animal, and up-to-date facts about the featured country as a whole.

Author notes in front- and back-matter are helpful in recognizing the universal importance of education and the extent to which families value and support learning and progress for their children. Notes about research and authenticating sources are especially valuable, including cautions about online videos, often viral, making claims about places and people that are no longer true or perhaps never were. 
I particularly appreciated the range of locations across many continents (including North America) and the album-like double page spread at the back to assemble images and place-designations for the fictionalized characters within the book. One additional feature I would have enjoyed would be a world map marking and labeling each character with a location. I can easily see this book being used to launch a geography/map unit of study, for a classroom or for individual readers and families.

I'm pleased and privileged to say that both Miranda and Baptiste are personal friends of mine, and I was expecting to invite them to answer a few interview questions here. Before asking, if they'd have time in their busy lives, I developed a list of questions. Then I went online to search for prior interviews so that I could eliminate duplicates and be sure to provide something fresh for readers. In the process I found that Maria Marshall had posted an extensive interview with Miranda and Baptiste on her blog, THE PICTURE BOOK BUZZ (HERE). It's not surprising that some of my questions matched hers, but she had covered every topic on my list! I was especially interested in how they had divided up the writing work, and was excited to read about their process in this earlier post. Actually, Maria's questions were even more comprehensive than my own, included the same interior spread and author photos, and also provided information about upcoming books and links to other reviews.

I know when to take a step back and give the stage to others, and this is a perfect case. I also know when I've found another picture book blog to which I should subscribe, which I did (and you should, too). Please, take the time to click the link to this comprehensive blog post (Repeated HERE!) 

So, instead of an interview, I'll remind you to get your hands on this book and share it with kids. While you're at it, check out my previous post about IT'S YOUR FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL, BUSY BUS! by Jody Jensen Schaffer. Both books tap into the excitement of returning to school, and between the two of them there's something for any age!

Two Books About the Night

I had another post prepared for this week. 
Fate intervened. 
I arrived home yesterday after attending a full day workshop on picture book storyboarding and found these two titles in my mailbox. I'd been hearing and reading about each of them separately, only to have them sent to me by a friend who was unable to put them to use in his own blog. 

Like a deer in the headlights I was stopped in my tracks, compelled to read, examine, compare, and share these extraordinary recent releases.

Orchard Books, an imprint of Scholastic, 2013

The first is NIGHT LIGHT, created by illustrator, designer, and art director Nicholas Blechman. It works beautifully as a concept book that is anything but simple. Double page spreads alternate from full-bleed black to full-bleed vibrant colors. Black spreads present a simple left-page number riddle and a corresponding right-page cut-out revealing a punch (or punches) of pure color, progressing from one to ten. These black spreads turn the page to double page spreads revealing left-pages providing the correct word and a "re-application" of the punchout(s) suited to the response. Right-pages reveal visuals of the correct response within a double-page scene rendered in bold, crisp-edged abstract forms. 

This is a concept book that just keeps on giving, depicting many forms of transportation, offering opportunities to count not just lights and punchouts but other geometric forms and the figures they comprise, and inviting discussions using words related to color, position, size, and shape. Each response page suggests a story of its own, including the endpapers. 

As if that's not enough of a good thing, the font throughout is formed as if by the iconic Hasbro LITE-BRITE toys. The final pages switch back to one light, glowing through the night, with a page turn to a boy in bed reading this book, seated in a car-type bed, with toy-sized versions of each vehicle scattered around his room. In a very real sense this is a bedtime book, too.Constructed on very heavy stock with sewn binding it almost has a board book quality to it, including the flat full opening of each page.

Kids Can Press, 2013

Just so you know, I've never had a tree house. I've been wracking my brain to recall if I've ever even been in one. So far, I'm coming up empty. But I've always thought having a treehouse would be a dream come true. 
As a child, and in various homes since then, I lived in tall houses surrounded by trees, creating one or more rooms whose window views created the effect of being in a tree house. For just one year in college I rented a third floor apartment with a screened-in back porch totally surrounded by leafy green trees. Perhaps that's why  IN THE TREE HOUSE, written by Andrew Larsen and illustrated by Dusan Petricic holds such appeal for me.  Or perhaps having a tree house is a universal craving felt by anyone growing up in a wooded climate.
At any rate, author Larsen seems to agree, since the young boy character's dreamy designs trigger his older brother to join the planning until their dad chimes in that he's always wanted a tree house, too. Together they create that dream, which the text describes as ideal and the images reveal to be quite rudimentary, safe but fun.

That's not the end of the story, though, since it involves a time sequence quite unusual in picture books. It opens with the young boy perched in his treehouse on a stifling summer night, but immediately flashes back to tell how the treehouse came to be. Only then does "real" time return, more than a year later, when older brother seems to have outgrown the tree house, leaving younger brother even more deflated than the oppressive heat.

That's when the magic happens. In contrast to NIGHT LIGHT, these pages are primarily white space, with line-drawn figures and subdued colors. That is until the brutally hot night when there is a power failure. Then the full-bleed black double page spreads provide the drama and intensity of flashlights and starlight, which entice big brother back up that tree house ladder.

This is an unusual picture book on many counts- the time span portrayed, the generationally-shared dreams, the dual stories, and the visual mid-book shift. In very different but equally exciting ways, IN THE TREE HOUSE is as richly layered and appealing as NIGHT LIGHT. They appear to have different target age-ranges, yet both have a reach that extends far beyond a surface reading or a person's age.

And that's what I call the power of high quality picture books.