Review of Just Like Beverly, by Vicki Conrad, illustrated by David Hohn

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

Just Like Beverly

A Biography of Beverly Cleary

by Vicki Conrad
illustrated by David Hohn

Little Bigfoot (Sasquatch Books), 2019. 52 pages.
Starred Review

Here’s a delightful picture book biography of Beverly Cleary. I’ve read her own story of her life, and this book does a great job of pulling out details that would be interesting to children.

I love the way the illustrator makes Beverly look very much like Ramona.

The book focuses on Beverly’s childhood. She struggled with reading, because she had smallpox while the other children in her class were learning to read. But then a wonderful teacher came along and helped Beverly catch up, and she discovered the joy of reading. Later teachers encouraged her in her writing ability.

Beverly studied to become a children’s librarian, and eventually worked to write stories especially for the boys who came into her library. They wanted stories about “kids like us” – exactly what Beverly had wanted when she was their age. The book points out how she used her own childhood experiences in her books.

There are eight pages of back matter, where I found a listing of some of her accomplishments and honors, including the Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, the Newbery Medal, the National Book Award, and the Living Legend Award from the Library of Congress. National Drop Everything and Read Day was established in her honor on her ninetieth birthday, and there’s a Beverly Cleary Sculpture Garden in Portland, Oregon, where she grew up. Beverly Cleary is still alive, though the book wisely doesn’t make much of this fact, and simply mentions that she celebrated her hundredth birthday on April 12, 2016. ***Note: Beverly Cleary has died since I wrote this review. She lived to be 104. I think I wrote this review in 2019 and decided to finally just post it!

This book is a wonderful tribute to a great author, written at the level of children ready for her books.

beverlycleary.com
sasquatchbooks.com

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Review of The Genius Under the Table, by Eugene Yelchin

Award Winners, Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Starred Review 0

The Genius Under the Table

Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain

by Eugene Yelchin

Candlewick Press, 2021. 201 pages.
Review written December 2, 2021, from a library book
Starred Review
2022 Capitol Choices selection
2022 Sidney Taylor Honor Book

Eugene Yelchin tells us his story of growing up in Leningrad under the Soviet regime. The characters in his story are larger than life, whom we meet on the first page, loudly complaining about American tourists cutting in front of them in the line to get into Lenin’s mausoleum.

Yevgeny was only six years old in that incident and was somewhat overwhelmed by seeing Lenin’s mummy. Their family lived in a cramped one-bedroom apartment and the only place for Yevgeny to sleep was under his grandma’s big table. He liked the private space under the table, and used the bottom of the table to draw pictures.

His mother worked for the Vaganova Ballet Academy, and was obsessed with Mikhail Barishnikov, the academy’s most famous graduate. This obsession gets woven through the book, as his mother wishes Yevgeny had talent like Misha. And their family’s discussion of the likelihood of him defecting gets their own building’s spy appointed to accompany him on his trip to Canada.

Yevgeny’s big brother Victor has talent – he’s a champion figure skater. But what can Yevgeny do? He fakes interest in ballet to please his mother, but that’s not going to work out very well.

Then propaganda starts coming on the radio and even among their neighbors against Jews. Eugene’s child’s perspective of all these events is both funny and poignant. And all of it is illustrated with his drawings – which he tried to reproduce from what he drew under his grandma’s table.

The book ends rather abruptly, after a very sad event. He tries to make it hopeful, and I know he ended up leaving Soviet Russia, but I wish the book had given a hint of how he got there.

Overall, this book is packed with humor and insight. A fun look for kids at a different world – behind the Iron Curtain during the Cold War.

candlewick.com

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Review of Maryam’s Magic, by Megan Reid, illustrations by Aaliya Jaleel

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, Mathematical, Starred Review 0

Maryam’s Magic

The Story of Mathematician Maryam Mirzakhani

by Megan Reid
illustrations by Aaliya Jaleel

Balzer + Bray (HarperCollins), 2021. 36 pages.
Review written December 16, 2021, from a library book
Starred Review

Many years ago, having just graduated from college, I went to grad school in the field of mathematics at UCLA. Out of 120 people beginning math grad students there that year, only 5 of us were women. So in 2014, when Maryam Mirzakhani became the first woman (and the first Iranian) to win the Fields Medal — the top prize in mathematics — I was delighted.

And here’s a picture book biography of this groundbreaking woman! Another thing to be delighted about. Young children can learn that brilliant mathematicians can be female.

The book tells how Maryam thought she didn’t like math as a child, but wanted to be a writer and an artist. Then she discovered geometry — and the author of this picture book says she took a storytelling artists’ approach to doing math.

It’s always a challenge to represent the work of mathematicians in a picture book biography. I like the loopy artwork the illustrator chose, tying in with the author’s explanation of Maryam’s process:

When it was hard to solve a difficult equation, Maryam covered her house’s floor with big sheets of paper and knelt to trace them with loops and lines, just as she had when she was young.

By now, Maryam was married with a child of her own. She drew so much that sometimes her daughter, Anahita, would tell people proudly that her mommy was a painter.

One of Maryam’s theorems was called “the magic wand theorem.” Here’s the explanation of that theorem:

She explained it using the image of a pool table, with balls that zigged and zagged forever. If you covered the balls in paint, how long would it take for their scattered paths to color the table completely?

Maryam’s magic wand math helped people all over the world. Astronauts could plot safer courses for their rocket ships. Meteorologists could predict weather patterns with more speed and accuracy. Doctors could understand how dangerous diseases grew and spread.

Sadly, Maryam died of breast cancer three years after winning the Fields Medal. This book beautifully explains her lasting legacy in a way children can understand.

meganreid.co
aaliyamj.com
harpercollinschildrens.com

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Review of The 1619 Project: Born on the Water, by Nikole Hannah-Jones and Renée Watson, illustrated by Nikkolas Smith

Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Starred Review 0

The 1619 Project

Born on the Water

by Nikole Hannah-Jones and Renée Watson
illustrated by Nikkolas Smith

Kokila (Penguin Random House), 2021. 44 pages.
Review written December 27, 2021, from a library book
Starred Review

This book, like Your Legacy (which is for even younger children), shows African American children that the history of their people didn’t start with slavery. The book is presented as a series of poems. The story begins with a girl asked to do a school assignment, with a family tree and telling which country her family is from. She’s upset that she can only go back three generations. Then her grandmother tells her about their people, who were born on the water.

And she begins the story in Africa. There are ten lovely pages telling about their ancestors in Africa. Some bits of that:

Their story does not begin
with whips and chains.

They spoke Kimbundu,
had their own words
for love
for friend
for family.

Their hands had a knowing.
They knew how to hold a baby close,
how to rock the child to keep her from crying.

But the white people took them away and kidnapped them.

Ours is no immigration story.

They did not get to pack bags stuffed
with cherished things, with the doll grandmama
had woven from tall grass,
with the baby blanket handed down
from generation to generation all the way back,
so far back that it carried the scent of the ancestors.

We’re told about the White Lion, the first ship to bring slavery to America in 1619.

They had no things. But they had their minds.
The old ways, the harvest songs, the just-right mix of herbs
etched in their memories.

They had their bodies. Histories and bloodlines
and drums pulsing in their veins.
With trembling fingers
they braided seeds into their hair, defiantly hiding
tiny pieces of home
to plant one day
in new soils.

Many died on that ship, almost half, whether from despair or defiance or sickness and hunger. But those who survived resolved to live no matter what. Here’s the part that explains the title of the book:

Packed in dark misery,
strangers chained together
head to feet, hip to hip,
in the bottom of a ship
called the White Lion,
they saw that these strangers —
men, women, children, kidnapped, too,
from many villages —
these were their people now.

These many people
became one people,
a new people.

And that is why the people say,
We were born on the water.
We come from the people who refused to die.

The rest of the book talks about what those people born on the water accomplished, despite being enslaved. How they resisted, simply by living on. How they used their gifts and their intelligence to overcome and accomplish great things.

“Never forget you come from a people
of great strength,” Grandma says.
“Be proud of our story, your story.”

Let me add a note that I think it’s terrible it will be controversial to get this book out in the schools where kids can read it. This book is not shaming white people. Yes, it tells the truth about what many white people did. But the point of the story is that Black children can rightly be proud in the hope and resilience and intelligence and resourcefulness of their ancestors. And it would be great for white children to also know about this heritage their classmates proudly bear.

The story of African Americans does not begin with slavery.

nikolehannahjones.com
reneewatson.net
nikkolas.art
penguin.com

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Review of Crazy Contraptions, by Laura Perdew

Children's Nonfiction Review, Science, Starred Review 0

Crazy Contraptions

Build Rube Goldberg Machines That Swoop, Spin, Stack, and Swivel
With Hands-on Engineering Activities

by Laura Perdew
illustrated by Micah Rauch

Nomad Press, 2019. 122 pages.
Review written April 13, 2020, from a library book
Starred Review

This is another book I’d planned to booktalk in 2020 but hadn’t actually gotten around to reading until the library closed for the pandemic. I still hope to booktalk it some day, and I’d even like to do a Rube-Goldberg-Machine-Building program inspired by its approach.

This is a book that teaches kids how to make Rube Goldberg machines, or I should say inspires kids to create their own Rube Goldberg machines.

I love the approach. First, they start with the overall concept and tell about Rube Goldberg. But then they present each of the six types of simple machines and suggest activities of trying out that type of simple machine in your own creation.

For example, here’s the first activity in the Inclined Planes chapter:

Use an inclined plane and something that can roll or slide down the plane to knock over an object. Yes, this is a ridiculous little task! That’s what crazy contraptions are all about.

With each activity, they have the reader brainstorm ideas and supplies, draw a plan, build, test, evaluate, and possibly redesign.

The next exercise has you build a pyramid and use two inclined planes to knock it down.

Further activities include ringing a bell using both a lever and an inclined plane, watering a plant using a homemade conveyor belt (with wheels), rolling dice using at least one inclined plane, one lever, one wheel and axle, and one pulley, and launching a boat with a contraption that includes a wedge that separates or splits two things apart.

Challenges at the end include making a over-sized contraption in your yard and making a micro-sized contraption that you can fit in a box.

It’s all fun and playful and just packed with science. There are QR-codes linked to videos that demonstrate related principles. I confess I didn’t follow the QR-codes, but kids who do will become even more engaged.

I went through a time when I was a kid that I loved making domino runs. This book will take kids far beyond that. Perfect for kids who like to tinker.

nomadpress.net

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Review of The Great Stink, by Colleen Paeff, illustrated by Nancy Carpenter

Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Starred Review 0

The Great Stink

How Joseph Bazalgette Solved London’s Poop Pollution Problem

by Colleen Paeff
illustrated by Nancy Carpenter

Margaret K. McElderry Books (Simon & Schuster), 2021. 40 pages.
Review written October 20, 2021, from a library book
Starred Review

As soon as I saw the cover of this book, I knew it will be an easy one to booktalk (if we get to go into schools again before summer).

It’s about the history of how humans dealt with poop – and all the people who died of cholera in London before they realized it’s actually not a good idea to let human waste get into drinking water.

The book takes on the man who was largely responsible for updating London’s sewers so the Thames no longer reeked of poop. Historically, there was a summer where the smell coming off the Thames was actually called “The Great Stink.”

The story is told with entertaining illustrations and enough disgusting facts to keep anyone’s attention.

Sadly, at the end of the book we learn there are still problems with poop pollution in many places all over the world – including the United States. Happily, after that spread, we get a spread with stories of communities doing something about the problem today. And then there’s plenty of helpful back matter, if readers want to know more.

An entertaining look at an important historical innovation.

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Review of What Linnaeus Saw, by Karen Magnuson Beil

Biography, Children's Nonfiction Review, History, Science 0

What Linnaeus Saw

A Scientist’s Quest to Name Every Living Thing

by Karen Magnuson Beil

Norton Young Readers, 2019. 256 pages.
Review written January 14, 2020, from a library book.

This book is a middle school and up biography of Carl Linnaeus, who founded the science of taxonomy by coming up with a system to classify and name all creatures on earth. He even thought at the time that he could complete this task. But in his attempt, he furthered scientific progress tremendously by giving scientists all over the world a way to know they were talking about the same animals.

Carl Linnaeus was born in 1707 in Sweden. His parents badly wanted him to be a pastor, but he wasn’t suited for that at all. He headed into medicine, much to their disappointment – being a medical doctor wasn’t a respected profession at that time. But it was a profession suited for someone obsessed with botany, the study of plants. At those times, doctors made their own medicines. His study of plants and his methodical nature ended up changing the world.

Part of what’s so interesting about this story is how differently the world was seen in those days. Something that earned Linnaeus fame was determining that the Seven-Headed Hydra of Hamburg was a fake. I love that it took a scientist to figure that out!

The book is full of illustrations, and many of them are reproductions from Linnaeus’s notebooks. There are sidebars with interesting notes, and the story of his life is told in an engaging way. This is an interesting story about someone I never before realized was so important.

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Source: This review is based on a library book from Fairfax County Public Library.

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Review of Popcorn Country, by Cris Peterson, photographs by David R. Lundquist

Children's Nonfiction Review, Science 0

Popcorn Country

The Story of America’s Favorite Snack

by Cris Peterson
photographs by David R. Lundquist

Boyds Mills Press (Highlights), 2019. 32 pages.
Review written February 8, 2020, from a library book

Fair warning: This book will make you hungry for popcorn. I’m a big fan of popcorn, so I couldn’t resist learning about it in this picture book.

I didn’t realize that popcorn is a special kind of corn grown specifically to pop.

There are four kinds of corn grown in the United States: dent corn, also called field corn, sweet corn, flint corn, and popcorn.

We see those other examples, then we learn how popcorn is grown, harvested, and processed, with photographs all along the way.

There are some interesting spreads when it tells how samples are tested for pop-ability. And then the popcorn is loaded on trucks and ships. I hadn’t realized that the United States produces nearly all the world’s popcorn.

There are more interesting facts at the back. The main body of the book itself is a lovely way to tell young elementary school kids where there favorite snack comes from.

crispeterson.com
boydsmillspress.com

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Review of Friends Forever, by Shannon Hale and LeUyen Pham

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

Friends Forever

by Shannon Hale
artwork by LeUyen Pham
color by Hilary Sycamore and LeUyen Pham

First Second, 2021. 300 pages.
Review written September 21, 2021, from a library book
Starred Review

Friends Forever is the third in Shannon Hale’s graphic novel trilogy of memoirs about middle school. This one covers eighth grade.

The things Shannon faces in eighth grade aren’t surprising: issues with friends, family, boys, her own looks, popularity, how people see her, and what is she good at. But since these are things most eighth graders have to deal with – it’s great to have a story out there in an accessible graphic novel form of a kid facing those things.

I’m not sure I’d want to revisit the angst of eighth grade to write a book about it. Shannon Hale has done this in an encouraging and uplifting way, and kids today will benefit.

And don’t think this is only a problem novel. It’s also an entertaining true story about the ups and downs of middle school – but she doesn’t neglect the upside. This is a fun and quick read about one particular eighth grade kid who indeed grew up to be a famous author.

shannonhale.com
leuyenpham.com
firstsecondbooks.com

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Review of A Shot in the Arm, by Don Brown

Children's Nonfiction Review, Graphic Novel, History 0

Big Ideas That Changed the World

A Shot in the Arm

by Don Brown

Amulet Books, 2021. 138 pages.
Starred Review
Review written July 28, 2021, from a library book

This is a graphic format work of nonfiction – like a graphic novel, but full of facts, presented all the more clearly because it’s so visual.

This book presents the history of vaccines, narrated by Lady Mary Wortley Montagu of the 17th century, who brought smallpox vaccinations to England.

We first learn about the history of smallpox – it was around even in ancient Egypt. And many cultures found ways of fighting it. In China, as early as 1000 CE, they tried infecting people with a mild form of the disease. (How they did that makes some interesting panels.) In India, they did that as well, and Lady Mary discovered it in the Ottoman Empire when she lived there with her husband.

The book goes on to explain the history of inoculation and vaccination and different diseases that have been tackled.

The book does mention COVID-19, but was written before the vaccine was out. Here’s the last paragraph of the main text:

By November 2020 scientists were reporting positive results for several possible vaccines. If one or more are approved, then within months disease-preventing doses can begin to be administered to people around the world. Billions of dollars are being spent to make this happen. Still, no vaccine has ever been created as quickly or in that quantity.

The world holds its breath . . . and hopes.

There’s nothing in here about the reaction to the COVID-19 vaccine, because that hadn’t happened yet. But there’s nothing new under the sun, and this is in the section about smallpox inoculation:

Here’s an odd twist . . . Some people in the Ottoman Empire known as “fatalists” rejected inoculation because they believed that stopping disease interfered with God’s plans . . .

I think God would prefer a healthy flock.

Even though I knew most of the basics about this, the book was still eye-opening and informative for me. The graphic format makes it quick reading and easy to digest. But what a timely topic!

booksbybrown.com
amuletbooks.com

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