Review of You Are My Friend, by Aimee Reid, pictures by Matt Phelan

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Picture Book Review, Starred Review 0

You Are My Friend

The Story of Mister Rogers and His Neighborhood

words by Aimee Reid
pictures by Matt Phelan

Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2019. 40 pages.
Starred Review
Review written August 15, 2019, from a library book

You Are My Friend is an appropriately simple picture book biography about Fred Rogers and why he began his classic television show.

It simply tells about his lonely childhood dealing with illness and bullying, and some of the ways he coped, such as puppets and music. It talks about his mother telling him to look for helpers and finding friends in his own neighborhood.

The book covers all the important points about his life and his show, while lingering over some key scenes. I love the scene after his grandfather let him walk on the big stone wall on his farm.

When at last Fred came back inside,
he had a skinned knee, but he was happy.
His grandpa told Fred that he liked him
just the way he was.
He said Fred was special and that,
just by being himself,
Fred made the day special, too.
Fred let those words sink deep inside him.
As he thought them, he felt braver.

The explanation of his motivation for creating his show comes from Mister Rogers’ testimony to the United States Senate on behalf of public funding for television.

One day, when Fred was grown up, he saw a television program. People were throwing pies in each other’s faces. Fred did not like the pie throwing, but he thought television could be wonderful. What if, instead of showing people fighting, TV could show people helping one another? Right then, Fred decided that was what he wanted to do.

This book explains the man behind the neighborhood on a level that small children can understand and their parents will particularly appreciate. The illustrations are a perfect accompaniment.

mattphelan.com
abramsbooks.com

Buy from Amazon.com

This review is only on the blog.

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?

Review of Even More Lesser Spotted Animals, by Martin Brown

Children's Nonfiction Review, Science 0

Even More Lesser Spotted Animals

More Brilliant Beasts You Never Knew You Needed to Know About

by Martin Brown

Scholastic, 2019. First published in the United Kingdom in 2019. 52 pages.

Even More Lesser Spotted Animals is, not surprisingly, a sequel to Lesser Spotted Animals, which I reviewed in 2017 and booktalked in the elementary schools.

I’ve got a soft spot for Martin Brown’s illustrations. He’s the illustrator of the Horrible Histories books that my son devoured when he was in elementary school. As in Horrible Histories, he puts comical speech bubbles in the illustrations and makes them tremendously entertaining. He also knows how to pull out the most interesting information to kids.

Like its predecessor, this book focuses on species and subspecies that nobody ever talks about. Many of them have entertaining quirks. The forest musk deer, for example, is a deer that sits in trees. And the dingiso is a kangaroo that lives in trees. Then there are sengis, which are as small as a guinea pig with a nose and appetite like an anteater.

In this book, I learned about the existence of both kangaroo rats and rat kangaroos. You might think bears are too common to appear in this book, but did you know that the Syrian Brown Bear doesn’t live in Syria? It is also vulnerable to extinction. The maned wolf is not actually a wolf, but a dog that looks like a fox with long legs.

Those are some of the interesting animals this book explores, with a spread for each animal and a box of basic facts about each one. The fun parts are the cartoons that occur throughout the book. Give this book to a child who enjoys animal facts, and they’ll absorb all kinds of information. An entertaining way to learn. And as the author says in the Introduction, “But how can we help something survive if we don’t even know it exists?”

scholastic.com

Buy from Amazon.com

This review is only on the blog.

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but I maintain my website and blogs on my own time. The views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?

Review of Sylvie, by Sylvie Kantorovitz

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Graphic Memoir, Starred Review 0

Sylvie

by Sylvie Kantorovitz

Walker Books, 2021. 346 pages.
Review written May 19, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review

I love graphic novel memoirs for kids – and so do kids. Graphic novelists, using pictures as well as words, are better than anyone at expressing what it was like to be a kid.

In Sylvie the author tells about what it was like growing up in a Jewish family in France. Her family moved from Morocco when she was small. Sylvie always wanted to be an artist, but her mother pushed her to study science and math and other more impressive fields.

Sylvie’s father was the principal of a “Boys’ Normal School,” a college where students earned teaching degrees, and her family had an apartment at the end of a row of classrooms. So Sylvie grew up in a school. She had three younger siblings, and when the third came along, she got to move into an attic room in the school, with more privacy and room to do art.

The stories of growing up feel universal. She touches on things like family conflict, feeling like an outsider, friendships starting and ending, and making decisions about what she wants to do. And she’s in France! It’s all told with humor, and her creative drawings bring it to life.

walkerbooksus.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/sylvie.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?

Review of I Am an American, by Martha Brockenbrough with Grace Lin, illustrated by Julia Kuo

Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Starred Review 0

I Am an American

The Wong Kim Ark Story

written by Martha Brockenbrough
with Grace Lin
illustrated by Julia Kuo

Little, Brown and Company, 2021. 36 pages.
Review written January 14, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review

This nonfiction picture book simply and clearly explains an important case in the history of American immigration and citizenship.

I like the way it begins, showing a loving mother holding her son:

Long ago, a boy was born in an apartment above a shop in San Francisco.

His name was Wong Kim Ark — and he believed something that would change this country.

I am an American.

The book tells about the neighborhood in Chinatown where he lived and shows the boy growing up. It shows the community prospering. But then when hard times hit, many blamed the Chinese and laws were passed that Chinese people could not become citizens.

But Kim Ark was born in America and considered himself an American. His parents moved back to China, but the first time Kim Ark had ever been to China was when he visited them. Only seventeen, he went back to California and lived with his aunt and uncle, working as a cook.

Laws got stricter. He wanted to visit his parents again. To follow the law, he found three white witnesses to sign a document swearing he was born in California and was an American. But when he returned, authorities locked him up on a ship for more than four months. Friends had to file a lawsuit to win his freedom — and his case went all the way to the Supreme Court.

The book makes this decision interesting and talks about both sides of the argument — with a happy result. The last page of the main text shows children of many different skin tones running toward the viewer with the Golden Gate Bridge behind them.

But Kim Ark’s victory means that today, every child born in the United States and its territories is an American, too…
no matter what language your parents speak,
what you look like,
or what you believe about God.

If you’re born in the United States or its territories, you belong here, and it’s your right to call yourself American.
It’s your right to call this home.
Always.

This is a lovely presentation of a complicated topic, presented in an engaging way for children.

marthabrockenbrough.com
gracelin.com
juliakuo.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/i_am_an_american.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?

Review of Blips on a Screen, by Kate Hannigan, illustrated by Zachariah OHora

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Blips on a Screen

How Ralph Baer Invented TV Video Gaming and Launched a Worldwide Obsession

written by Kate Hannigan
illustrated by Zachariah OHora

Alfred A. Knopf, 2022. 44 pages.
Review written June 8, 2022, from a library book.
Starred Review

Here’s a picture book biography of the guy who invented the first video game. I think of creating video games as something for people who are good with computers, but Ralph Baer came at it from the perspective of someone skilled in electronics and understanding how televisions work. And of course that makes sense, because video games came along before home computers.

Rolf Baer was born in Germany, but his family fled from Hitler and the Nazis in 1938 a few weeks before the border closed. In America, he changed his name to Ralph.

Ralph was always interested in inventing. He worked in radio repair and used his radio skills during World War II. From there, it was a natural next step to work on televisions. He worked for military electronics, but couldn’t get over the idea of figuring out how to play games on a TV.

The book tells about the process he went through, which included getting a patent, so his company was able to license his new invention when the boom took off. But before that happened, he got plenty of rejection for his idea. But after the Odyssey finally came out in 1972, it began a new obsession with video games.

The book makes the process understandable and accessible to kids. I always love Zachariah OHora’s illustrations, and his cartoons give a simplified picture of the essentials of this story.

This book tells about an inventor who created something important to kids and it also talks about the process of getting an invention produced — in a fascinating and informative picture book.

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/blips_on_a_screen.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?

Review of The Tide Pool Waits, by Candace Fleming, pictures by Amy Hevron

Children's Nonfiction Review, Picture Book Review, Science, Starred Review 0

The Tide Pool Waits

by Candace Fleming
pictures by Amy Hevron

Neal Porter Books (Holiday House), 2022. 40 pages.
Review written May 27, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review

The Tide Pool Waits is a beautifully simple picture book about a complex scientific topic. I learned things I didn’t know about tide pools, and it was presented in a way that even small children can understand.

The main text is simple. We meet many different kind of creatures in the tide pool. After each one is presented, we see the words, “They wait.”

Here’s the last group:

There are others, too.
Under rocks.
In the tangle of floating, fanning seaweed.
Beneath the sand and between patches of sponge.

They all wait.

And wait.

And wait.

But then the waves crash! They wait for just the right time to sweep over the shore.

They surge over barnacles, mussels, and snails,
stir the tangle of seaweed,
shake the crevice-cracked rocks,
rise higher and higher and higher until . . .

the pool is part
of the sea once more.

The tide has come.
The wait is over.

Then the book looks at those same creatures we already met, and we see that they do different things now that the tide has come in. Sea anemones bloom, barnacles open their shells and eat, various animals hunt, and some return to the open sea.

There’s a flurry of activity until the tide goes out again.

At the back of the book, there’s “An Illustrated Guide to This Tide Pool.” We learn more about the specific animals featured and their place in the tide pool and how their behavior changes when the tide is in or out. There’s even an illustration on the last page showing which creatures live in which zone of the tide pool — where different zones get different amounts of water.

So the main text is simple language, suitable for storytime. But the back matter fills out the information for curious older readers like me. The illustration style is bold and simple — and does make the different creatures easy to distinguish.

A marvelous beginning science picture book.

HolidayHouse.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/tide_pool_waits.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?

Review Pura’s Cuentos, Annette Bay Pimentel, illustrated by Magaly Morales

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Pura’s Cuentos

How Pura Belpré Reshaped Libraries with Her Stories

by Annette Bay Pimentel
illustrated by Magaly Morales

Abrams Books for Young Readers, 2021. 36 pages.
Review written April 16, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review

Here’s a lovely and lively picture book biography about the librarian who helped start a trend of bilingual storytimes, and whom the award for children’s books by Latinx creators is named after.

The book begins with Pura’s childhood in Puerto Rico and how much she loved her abuela’s stories. Then she came to New York and became a librarian, but she didn’t find the stories from her childhood on the library shelves. All the same, she enjoyed telling stories.

Oh, Pura can tell a story! She hisses . . . murmurs . . . roars. Children lean forward. They giggle . . . shiver . . . sigh.

She is allowed to tell only stories that have been printed in a book. That’s the rule. So she always tells stranger’s stories.

But Pura knows that not all the stories worth telling are in books. She wants to make children giggle at silly Señor Gallo and cry over Pérez the mouse. She wants to tell Abuela’s stories!

Pura decides: She will break the rule.

The book tells how Pura got permission to shake things up by demonstrating her storytelling skills. And after that step, she began telling stories in Spanish as well as English, to bring in more of the neighborhood children.

As the years went by, she got children more and more involved, even making puppets to tell the stories. Eventually, she collected stories from her childhood in published books.

The Author’s Note at the back gives more information about Pura Belpré’s illustrious career. For me, it’s nice to know about the person honored forever after by the award. For kids, this is an enchanting picture book biography about how everyone’s stories are important.

annettebaypimentel.com
abramsyoungreaders.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/puras_cuentos.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?

Review of Tu Youyou’s Discovery, by Songju Ma Daemicke, illustrated by Lin

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Tu Youyou’s Discovery

Finding a Cure for Malaria

by Songju Ma Daemicke
illustrated by Lin

Albert Whitman & Company, 2021. 32 pages.
Review written November 29, 2021, from a library book
Starred Review

Tu Youyou’s Discovery is a picture book that tells the story of how a Chinese lady born in 1930 studied Chinese Traditional Medicine in her modern research lab, and through much hard work discovered a cure for malaria. In 2015, she received the Nobel Prize in Medicine, becoming the first Chinese woman to win a Nobel Prize of any kind.

The story of her life and work is simply told in understandable terms. It tells about her research and stories in traditional medicine of an herbal remedy that sounded promising – but how it didn’t work in her many lab trials.

I like this part, told over four pages with simple illustrations:

Still, the experiments kept failing – more than one hundred with no success.

Some male researchers began to question Youyou’s leadership and doubt the direction of her research. Western countries with advanced technologies hadn’t found a cure. Was using herbal medicine to cure malaria an impossible goal?

But Youyou was stubborn. Her faith in traditional Chinese medicine was unshakable. She kept working and testing.

Then something incredible happened.

After 190 unsuccessful experiments, the test result of sample 191 stunned the team. The qinghao extract prepared at a temperature of only 94 degrees Fahrenheit had killed the parasites completely!

The note at the back tells us that this new therapy saved 6.8 million lives between 2001 and 2015. At the back, there’s also a section “Tu Youyou and the Scientific Method” listing the steps of the Scientific Method and how they were used by Tu Youyou’s team.

A lovely story of a remarkable female scientist.

songjumadaemicke.com
albertwhitman.com

Buy from Amazon.com

This review is only on the blog.

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?

Review of Africa, Amazing Africa, by Atinuke, illustrated by Mouni Feddag

Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Starred Review 0

Africa, Amazing Africa

Country by Country

by Atinuke
illustrated by Mouni Feddag

Candlewick Press, 2021. First published in the United Kingdom in 2019. 78 pages.
Review written April 26, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review

This wonderful oversized picture book tells the reader all about Africa. The information is arranged by region, and every single African country gets a page with colorful pictures and information about what makes that country special. The details are given with a clear fondness for the continent, and the introductory page for each region includes ways to say “Welcome!” in the many languages spoken there.

I was hoping that reading this book would make me a better Worldle player. (In Worldle, you see the outline of a country and try to guess the name. Hints tell you which direction the answer is in and how far away from your guess.) I’m not sure I remembered all the information I read, but it gave me appreciation for the wide-ranging variety of climates and landscapes and cities and people found in Africa. If I still had school-age kids, this would be a fun book to leave out for them to browse at will.

Here is a bit from the Introduction. You can get a taste of how enthusiastic the author is about Africa.

Writing this book has been an adventure. I wanted to write it so that I could share the things I find exciting about Africa. But while I was working on it, I found out a zillion more really exciting things.

Did you know that the first human beings to walk this earth were African? They went on to populate the whole planet. So we are all from Africa originally!

Did you know that Africa is gigantic? It is as big as Europe, the United States, Mexico, India, and Japan all put together! . . .

Africa is changing all the time: new countries are being created or swallowed up, old traditions are being lost and new ones developing. This book can only give an idea of what Africa is like in the moment that I am writing. So enjoy this book for what it is: a tiny glimpse into this wonderful continent.

I could not squeeze everything that I know and love about Africa into this book. There is room to say only two or three things about each country. But I hope this book will make you want to find out more about the most amazing continent on the planet!

I learned so much reading this book about modern Africa!

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/africa_amazing_africa.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?

Review of Galloping Gertie, by Amanda Abler, illustrated by Levi Hastings

Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Starred Review 0

Galloping Gertie

The True Story of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge Collapse

by Amanda Abler
illustrated by Levi Hastings

Little Bigfoot (Sasquatch Books), 2021. 48 pages.
Review written February 19, 2022, from a library book
Starred Review

Galloping Gertie tells the story of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge that collapsed in 1940 only four months after it opened.

To keep the book from being too somber, it gives us the point of view of a boy named Dale Wirsing. He could see the bridge from his house and walked across it once with his parents. The windy day of the bridge’s collapse was Dale’s birthday. As a kid, he thought it was an incredibly exciting event to watch the bridge twist in the wind and eventually blow apart.

The book gives plenty more background, both in the text itself and in the back matter.

A local engineer, Clark Eldridge, had designed the bridge to be lightweight and flexible . . . perhaps a little too flexible.

When the wind blew, the center span bounced up and down. The men who built the bridge nicknamed her “Galloping Gertie.” People said they could see the cars ahead of them disappear and reappear as they drove across her. Others claimed it was like riding a roller coaster!

We are presented with the drama of the day of collapse, and how the few people on the bridge before it shut down did make it to safety (but alas! not the dog). The bridge designer, being local, had driven across the bridge early that morning and actually watched its destruction.

I knew about the bridge because of an exhibit on bridges at the St. Louis Science Center – where our family used to go frequently with my kids. It had a video running of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge collapse and claimed the reason was due to resonance — so I was interested in the discussion at the back that said experts now believe the collapse was due to aeroelastic flutter. I also enjoyed the terms to search for on YouTube and I again watched the bridge collapse.

This subject could be very grim, but this author and illustrator make it dramatic, compelling, and fascinating.

LeviHastings.com
sasquatchbooks.com

Buy from Amazon.com

Find this review on Sonderbooks at: www.sonderbooks.com/Childrens_Nonfiction/galloping_gertie.html

Disclosure: I am an Amazon Affiliate, and will earn a small percentage if you order a book on Amazon after clicking through from my site.

Disclaimer: I am a professional librarian, but the views expressed are solely my own, and in no way represent the official views of my employer or of any committee or group of which I am part.

What did you think of this book?