Review of The Tower of Life, by Chana Stiefel, illustrated by Susan Gal

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

The Tower of Life

How Yaffa Eliach Rebuilt Her Town in Stories and Photographs

by Chana Stiefel
illustrated by Susan Gal

Scholastic Press, 2022. 40 pages.
Review written January 11, 2023, from a library book
Starred Review
2023 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #5 Children’s Nonfiction

The Tower of Life is a beautiful and bright picture book biography. As the book opens, we’re introduced to the main character as a child:

There once was a girl named Yaffa.
She was a spirited girl who loved her home and her family. She was born in a shtetl, a small Jewish town that pulsed with love, laughter, and light. The name of her shtetl was Eishyshok (Ay-shi-shok).

The acccompanying picture shows a happy chld playing in the bright yellow-green grass above a village with people in groups interacting with one another.

We’re told that Yaffa’s family had lived in Eishyshok for 900 years. We see a picture of a grandmother telling stories as the community gathers around. The following pages show a happy community, enjoying both snow and sunshine. We see a bustling marketplace.

But then we learn that Yaffa’s grandmother had a photography studio. She took photographs of all the people in the village. On Jewish New Year, it was a custom to send photographs to family all over the world, so that’s what people in the community did. We even see a reproduction of a photograph of Yaffa, smiling broadly as she feeds the chickens.

But then hard times came. The Germans came and rounded up the people of Eishyshok. But Yaffa’s family escaped and lived in the forest. The pictures describing that time are darker, but they are accented with bright red paint that keeps a sense of hope. Yaffa brought her family pictures along.

After the war, Yaffa ended up in America, and she became a professor of history. So she was asked by President Jimmy Carter to help make an exhibit for the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Thoughts of her own treasured photographs made her think of basing her exhibit on photographs from the rich lives in happier times.

Yaffa decided she would find the survivors and rebuild Eishyshok, not brick by brick, but photograph by photograph, story by story.

And the book concludes with a vertical format spread showing how Yaffa’s exhibit looks in the museum.

Today, if you travel to Washington, DC, you can see Yaffa’s “Tower of Life” in the US Holocaust Memorial Museum. More than 1,000 photos of the people of Eishyshok soar three stories high for all the world to see. A world filled with love, laughter, and light — a world that will never be forgotten.

I love the way this picture book makes something beautiful out of a story of the Holocaust, as Yaffa did herself, emphasizing life and light and including beautiful pictures. The book shows the reader that these people were so much more than victims, living beautiful lives.

chanastiefel.com
galgirlstudio.com
scholastic.com

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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.

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Review of Chinese Menu, by Grace Lin

Children's Nonfiction Review, Folk Tales, History, Stand-outs, Starred Review 0

Chinese Menu

The History, Myths, and Legends Behind Your Favorite Foods

by Grace Lin

Little, Brown and Company, 2023. 288 pages.
Review written January 3, 2024, from a library book.
Starred Review
2023 Sonderbooks Stand-out: #2 Children’s Nonfiction

This book is amazing. I read it slowly, story by story, and then made sure to finish up on New Year’s Eve so that I could make it one of my top Sonderbooks Stand-outs for 2023.

Grace Lin has won all the Honors: Newbery Honor, Caldecott Honor, Geisel Honor, National Book Award for Young People’s Literature Finalist, Mathical Book Prize Honor, and Children’s Literature Legacy Award Winner. Now I find myself hoping she’ll add Sibert Honor (or Medal) to that list, the award for Children’s Nonfiction.

This book itself is exquisite, decorated throughout with Grace Lin’s beautiful art. It’s a large, almost square format, and would work nicely as a coffee table book when you’re not poring through it.

What Grace Lin has done here is tell you stories behind food that appears on the menu of American Chinese restaurants. Here’s how she introduces it:

Have you ever eaten at a Chinese restaurant? Yes, I know, the food was so good! Yum! I get hungry just thinking about it.

But have you ever been curious about the names of the dishes you ordered there? For example, General Tso’s Chicken — have you wondered who General Tso was? Or Buddha Jumps Over the Wall — why would Buddha do something like that?

Well, I can tell you! Because those names are all clues to the tales behind the food. Almost all dishes on a Chinese menu have a story behind them. In a way, the menu at your Chinese restaurant is the table of contents for a feast of stories.

And this book is that feast.

That tells you what this book is — mostly a book of tales about how various dishes (so many of them!) were developed, most of them hundreds of years ago, with a timeline at the front of the book of Chinese dynasties and how the various dishes fit into them.

The tales are wonderful — Grace Lin is a delightful (Newbery-Honor-winning!) storyteller. But there’s even more than that in this book. Before she tells each story, she talks a bit about the dish itself and often her experience with it and what you might experience with it. The art all throughout the book (from a Caldecott Honor Winner!) is also amazing and detailed and beautiful.

I was entertained by these stories, but along the way I also learned all kinds of things about Chinese and American history and about food. Her research was amazing – there are 33 pages of back matter, including a detailed Bibliography. Yes, there’s lots of invented dialogue and modifications in the stories. This isn’t an academic work, and she’s a storyteller. But she’s transparent about the modifications she made and the reasoning behind them. Here’s how she explains that in the Introduction (with further explanations with individual stories):

Yes. These stories are real. They are real legends, real myths, and real histories. I did not make any of them up from my own imagination. They have all been researched (you can check the bibliography!) and there are a few stories that are not only real folklore but factually true, too!

That said, even though I did not fabricate any of these stories, I did, however, embellish some of them. Many of these stories are my own adapted retellings, combining various versions of legends together with imagined details and dialogue. But even when I did so, I tried hard to stay true to the spirit of the original tales and keep as many details as possible. For example, important female characters in the legends were sometimes nameless, so I gave these women names, with ones that would be appropriate for that time and place. But when the stories did name characters, I kept true to the tale — if the characters had no last name in the legend (such as Kun in the chopstick story), I left them with a single name. And, speaking of names, in Chinese tradition, the last name is said first and written before the given name. So, General Ding Baozhen — a real historical person — has the last name of Ding. The general’s first name is Baozhen. You can read Baozhen’s story while learning about Kung Pao Chicken!

I definitely need to visit a Chinese restaurant after reading this book!

gracelin.com

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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.

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Review of Paul Bunyan: The Invention of an American Legend, by Noah Van Sciver

Children's Nonfiction Review, Graphic Novel, History, Starred Review 0

Paul Bunyan

The Invention of an American Legend

by Noah Van Sciver

With stories and art by Marlena Myles
Introduction by Lee Francis IV
Postscript by Deondre Smiles

Toon Graphics, 2023. 48 pages.
Review written December 1, 2023, from a library book
Starred Review

The bulk of this book is the graphic novel story of Paul Bunyan and his blue ox Babe — but this story goes further and shows us an advertising man with a lumber company making up the tale, exaggerating other lumberjack tales, in order to make their company look like heroes for clearing the old growth forests that used to blanket North America.

Set in 1914 on a train in Minnesota, there’s a delay in the journey and an ad man from the lumber companies starts telling the tall tales of Paul Bunyan, mesmerizing the other passengers as they wait for the train to start again.

But in this version, we see that a slick ad man is inventing the stories. And he gets some pushback from people on the train who saw acres and acres of mighty forest cut down. The land is laid bare, and the lumber companies simply continued to move further west.

The other people listed on the title page are Indigenous creators whose stories and art appear before and after the main narrative. They give more context about how those same lumber companies pushed out Indigenous peoples to get access to the trees.

Put together, it’s a thought-provoking and moving story that shows how much more there is to the tall tales I heard as a kid.

toon-books.com

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Review of Tomfoolery! by Michelle Markel, illustrated by Barbara McClintock

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Tomfoolery!

Randolph Caldecott and the Rambunctious Coming-of-Age of Children’s Books

written by Michelle Markel
illustrated by Barbara McClintock

Chronicle Books, 2023. 40 pages.
Review written December 6, 2023, from a library book.
Starred Review

This picture book biography of Randolph Caldecott begins like this:

Come on in.

A whole world lives and breathes inside these pages. You’ll find frisky animals, sprightly characters, and a hero so chipper he can barely hold still on the paper.

But in the 1850s, there are no children’s books like this one. Many are published, but their pictures look stiff, full of pretty poses and cluttered scenery. No one has yet imagined how much fun an illustrated book could be.

No one, until…

Quick!

If you don’t move fast, you’re going to miss him — Randolph Caldecott, future famous illustrator. A fever has weakened his heart and left him frail, but he loves to be outdoors . . .

This amazing book shows us what made Randolph Caldecott different. We do see examples of picture books before Caldecott on that first page, and then the rest of the book is done in Caldecott’s style — with movement on every single page. There’s only one exception — the page where Randolph is sitting alone on a chair in his flat in London, sad and wishing to be back in the countryside. Even in that page, your eye is drawn out the window to the rooftops of London. Barbara McClintock expertly incorporates Caldecott’s own work in the illustrations — also full of movement — with even a grand full-color spread of Mr. Gilpin’s ride taken straight from Caldecott’s work — the same scene used for one face of the Caldecott Medal.

The page talking about Caldecott’s international success and how he transformed children’s picture books is especially wonderful, as it shows many Caldecott Medalists looking at their own books — I recognize several, including Maurice Sendak, Jerry Pinkney, and Dan Santat. My one complaint about the book is that they did not include a list of authors pictured in the back matter. They did include a list of Randolph Caldecott’s books and told which illustrations include reproductions of Caldecott’s own art and which of his books they came from.

I liked this even better than the author’s book Balderdash! about John Newbery, I think because the topic is so visual, and the artist could incorporate Randolph Caldecott’s own illustrations to show us how good he was at bringing characters to life.

Ha! And that’s interesting: In Balderdash! she mentioned that John Newbery used the story of Goody Two-Shoes to show that children could learn from stories better than sermons. But in this book, Goody Two-Shoes is one of the books shown as an example of picture books with stiff poses and little movement. So essentially, John Newbery helped publishers get started on making books for children, and Randolph Caldecott helped them make books with dynamic illustrations that captured kids’ attention.

michellemarkel.com
barbaramcclintockbooks.com
chroniclekids.com

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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.

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Review of The Gardener of Alcatraz, by Emma Bland Smith, illustrated by Jenn Ely

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

The Gardener of Alcatraz

by Emma Bland Smith
illustrated by Jenn Ely

Charlesbridge, 2022. 40 pages.
Review written March 1, 2023, from a library book.
Starred Review
2022 Cybils Finalist Elementary Nonfiction

This picture book biography tells the true story of Elliott Michener, who was imprisoned on Alcatraz Island in 1941 for counterfeiting money. At first, he worked on plans to escape. But then his life changed when he was given the job of working in the gardens.

As time passed, a funny thing happened. This gardening thing started to grow on him. He studied seed packets and books from the prison library. He built a greenhouse and tried out composting. He even created his own narcissus hybrid.

He ended up gaining the trust of the new warden and his wife and working in their home. Later, he was transferred to Leavenworth and wrote to the warden about how much he missed Alcatraz and his gardens there. Fortunately, the warden helped him get early parole, and he eventually became a landscaper.

It’s all told with colorful pictures and details that pull you into the story. The backdrop of San Francisco Bay in many pictures adds to the beauty of the book. There are 5 pages of backmatter, and we learn that the author found wonderful primary sources, including Elliott’s correspondence with the warden and prison reports. She used those to make the story come alive, in a sort of nonfiction version of The Secret Garden, where working with plants changed a man’s life.

emmabsmith.com
jennely.com
charlesbridge.com

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Review of Good Books for Bad Children, written by Beth Kephart, illustrated by Chloe Bristol

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Good Books for Bad Children

The Genius of Ursula Nordstrom

written by Beth Kephart
illustrated by Chloe Bristol

anne schwartz books, 2023. 44 pages.
Review written October 26, 2023, from a library book.
Starred Review

Good Books for Bad Children is a picture book biography of one of the giants of children’s literature — Ursula Nordstrom, the editor behind hundreds of classics.

The book begins with some spreads about her lonely childhood, early fondness for books, and time in boarding school. Then she couldn’t afford college and got a clerk job in the textbook department at Harper & Brothers publishers. But that led to meeting the head of the Department of Books for Boys and Girls in the cafeteria. And that led to becoming her assistant. And that led to becoming the head of the department four years later in 1940. And that led to many fabulous children’s books being created over the next decades.

The author doesn’t give us a list of books she edited. (I would have liked one in the back, but it surely would have taken up too much space.) Instead, she keeps it interesting for child readers and gives us a story behind the publication of several classics: encouraging Crockett Johnson about Harold and the Purple Crayon, listening to the first line of Goodnight Moon on the phone, laughing with Ruth Krauss over lines for A Hole Is to Dig, and more.

Here’s my favorite spread in that section:

Sometimes Ursula would find a way
to help her writers and artists end their stories.
Like when Maurise Sendak
came to her with a tale about a boy named Max
who goes on a wild stomp of an adventure.

The problem?
Maurice didn’t know how to get Max back home.

“Well, why did Max want to go home?” Ursula asked and asked again.

“Well, he wanted to be where someone loved him best of all,
but he couldn’t really say that,” Maurice said at last.

“Why not?” Ursula asked.

It was the perfect question,
which led to the perfect ending
for Where the Wild Things Are.

I also love the way the author gets across Ursula Nordstrom’s attitude that children need all kinds of books, because there are all kinds of children out there. Indeed, she worked to make good books for bad children.

I was already a fan of Ursula Nordstrom because of reading Dear Genius, a book of her letters collected by Leonard Marcus. I’m happy that now children can learn about this lovely person who made a big difference in the world.

bethkephartbooks.com
chloebristol.com

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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.

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Review of The Forest in the Sea, by Anita Sanchez

Children's Nonfiction Review, Science 0

The Forest in the Sea

Seaweed Solutions to Planetary Problems

by Anita Sanchez

Holiday House, 2023. 92 pages.
Review written April 11, 2023, from a library book.

This is another example of a children’s book that taught me all kinds of science I didn’t know. In this case, it’s the science of seaweed.

The book begins with a story of cows on Prince Edward Island whose lives – and milk – got better when they had seaweed added to their food. In a later chapter, I learned that adding certain kinds of seaweed to cattle feed can keep them from producing methane — and methane from cows is a major force behind climate change.

I learned that there are many different kinds of seaweed, and that they aren’t actually part of the plant or animal kingdoms, but a type of algae. They are fundamental to oceanic ecosystems, and I learned about the Sargasso Sea, which is all about dense mats of floating seaweed called sargassum, sort of a golden floating inverted rain forest, full of a rich variety of marine life.

But this book especially focused on many areas of research using seaweed to solve human problems. This paragraph from the back of the book sums many of them up:

Imagine what the future might hold. Biodegradable plastic made from seaweed. Cars fueled with seaweed. You might drink clean, safe water filtered by seaweed. Maybe you’ll live in a house roofed with insulation of compressed seaweed, or wear clothing made of seaweed fabric. Someday this book might be printed on paper made from seaweed. There’s no end to the possibilities.

It all adds up to a book packed with interesting facts and generously illustrated with photographs.

HolidayHouse.com/BooksforaBetterEarth

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Review of The Girl Who Heard the Music, by Marni Fogelson with Mahani Teave, pictures by Marta Álvarez Miguéns

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

The Girl Who Heard the Music

How One Pianist and 85,000 Bottles and Cans Brought Hope New Hope to an Island

words by Marni Fogelson
with Mahani Teave
pictures by Marta Álvarez Miguéns

Sourcebooks, 2023. 36 pages.
Review written May 1, 2023, from a library book.
Starred Review

This picture book biography tells the story of Mahani Teave, a girl from Rapa Nui, one of the most remote inhabited islands on earth. They didn’t even have a piano on the island when she was born, but when Mahani was nine, a retired music teacher moved to Rapa Nui with a piano, and Mahani was hooked. She got further lessons after the teacher left, but had to go off the island for more training. She became a concert pianist who performed all over the world.

But an especially inspiring part of her story was that she co-founded a nonprofit which built a music school on the island — built of trash from the nearby ocean!

Although the Rapa Nui School of Music and the Arts was made with tons of trash, it’s powered by nature! Solar panels turn energy from the sun into electricity, and giant barrels hold rainwater for gardens.

So this book is not only the story of a child prodigy, but also a story of fighting for the environment. Rapa Nui is near a place where ocean currents bring trash thrown into the water elsewhere. As well as helping with that mess, the island is working toward being sustainable and waste-free by 2030.

It all adds up to an interesting and inspiring story of a kid who started with a love of music and grew up to help her people and her home.

sourcebookskids.com

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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.

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Review of Caves, by Nell Cross Beckerman, illustrated by Kalen Chock

Children's Nonfiction Review, Science, Starred Review 0

Caves

by Nell Cross Beckerman
illustrated by Kalen Chock

Orchard Books, 2022. 40 pages.
Review written March 9, 2023, from a library book.
Starred Review

This nonfiction picture book is a simple introduction to caves for kids.

It talks about different kinds of caves and what it’s like to explore them. (Don’t go alone!) And it looks at some notable caves around the world. The main text is simple, poetic, and evocative. Then there’s more detail in smaller print about particular caves that are mentioned.

What makes this book extra striking are the stunning paintings in this extra-large picture book. Paintings like the underwater cave in Florida or the caves lit by glowworms in New Zealand pull you in and make you feel like you’re experiencing the caves. I was amazed that this is the illustrator’s picture book debut. I hope we see much more of his work!

This book has lots of facts about caves, but is sure to leave kids extra curious about them. The notes at the end give ideas for getting involved in local spelunking groups.

NellCrossBeckerman.com
scholastic.com

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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.

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Stranded! A MOSTLY True Story from Iceland, by Ævar Pór Benediktsson, art by Anne Wilson

Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Starred Review 0

Stranded!

A MOSTLY True Story from Iceland

by Ævar Pór Benediktsson
art by Anne Wilson

Barefoot Books, 2023. 36 pages.
Review written September 12, 2023, from a library book.
Starred Review

This book is so much fun! It’s a story that’s true in all essential ways, told in picture book format. Since it’s true, kids will need to go looking for it in the nonfiction section, and they’ll be richly rewarded if they do. Teachers, this would make a great story to read to a class.

The author sets up the reader with a note on the title page:

Everything in this story is true,
except for one little thing.
See if you can spot it!
I will tell you what it is at the end.

With that note, he highlights the many extraordinary parts of the story. You think, surely he’s fibbing! But no, he then tells you that part is true. (And, spoiler, the one falsehood ends up not being essential to the story.)

Here’s how the story begins:

This is a story about my grandfather:
how he got stranded on a volcanic island,
was almost turned into barbecue
and found the most important moment in the world.

He continues with a jovial tone, speaking directly to the reader. He starts out by introducing Iceland and a favorite Icelandic story that every day has one moment filled with magic, and if you can find that magical moment and make a wish, it will come true.

Then he tells about a volcanic eruption off the coast of Iceland that caused a brand-new island to be formed.

For most people, this news was met with the following thought: Oh, how interesting. I will observe this new development from a safe distance, because, as everybody knows, volcanoes are very dangerous.

For my grandfather, however, this news meant only one thing:

“I must go there!”

So his grandfather and a friend got a ride from a fisherman and went to this newly-formed island. Their main rule for exploring the island was this:

If the bottom of your boots started melting,
you probably should be standing somewhere else!

(Which is, when I think about it, a good rule for life in general, not just when you’re visiting an island that is more or less an active volcano.)

They have an amazing time exploring, and it’s portrayed with glorious bright pictures. But after exploring all through the night, in the morning, the fisherman doesn’t come back for them.

They don’t have much food or drink and it gets cold at night. So they slept next to the volcano to keep warm, planning to take turns watching for lava. But they both fell asleep — and in the morning the grandfather’s glasses in his pocket had been melted into two pieces of glass and a twisted string of plastic.

So — they have more adventures and their eventual escape from the island — extraordinary and true — is attributed to the magical wishing moment.

Five pages of back matter tell about Iceland, volcanoes, the island of Surtsey, and Norse gods. All along, we’ve got bright and beautiful pictures highlighting flowing lava and northern lights.

It all adds up to a marvelous tale that will rivet young elementary school students – and teach them, too.

AevarWritesBooks.com
anne-wilson.co.uk
barefootbooks.com

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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.

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