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6Feb

Two Heads are Better than One

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Uncategorized
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As a writer, I feel a shiver of dread when I find out someone else is publishing a book on the same topic as mine. But for young readers, having two books on the same topic can open up great learning opportunities. It gives them a chance to compare and contrast theme, word choice, authorial intent as shown by details included, and how the art works with the text. Two heads are better than one!

  • Cover of book shows Bobbi Gibb running

I admit that I was not happy when The Girl Who Ran by Kristina Yee came out just months before my own book about Bobbi Gibb, Girl Running. But other wiser people, realized that two books about one event can prompt great discussion about the process of writing biography. Later this year, Her Fearless Run: Kathrine Switzer’s Historic Boston Marathon by Kim Chaffee will add a third book to the set about early female marathoners. I like the idea that Chaffee, Yee, and I have created a set of books for young readers to compare and contrast.

Venn diagrams can be a great way to get kids to start brainstorming similarities and differences in texts. Those details can lead to more probing questions:

  • Why did this author choose these details?
  • How does the tone differ in the books? What kinds of feelings are they trying to evoke in the reader?
  • Are there pages where the art is very similar? Very different? How does the art help tell the story?

When it comes to teaching kids to read critically, two books is probably better than one! Here are some more book pairs that can lead to powerful comparisons:

  • Cover of book shows woman swimming next to shark
  • Cover of book shows girl watching sharks in a tank

Shark Lady: The True Story of How Eugenie Clark Became the Ocean’s Most Fearless Scientist by Jess Keating and
Swimming with Sharks: The Daring Discoveries of Eugenie Clark by Heather Lang

  • Cover of book shows Ada Lovelace and a cat
  • Cover of book shows Ada Lovelace with a wooden computer
  • Cover of book shows Ada Lovelace riding a mechanical flying horse

Ada’s Ideas: The Story of Ada Lovelace, the World’s First Computer Programmer by Fiona Robinson and  Ada Byron Lovelace and the Thinking Machine by Laurie Wallmark and Ada Lovelace, Poet of Science: The First Computer Programmer by Diane Stanley

  • Cover of book shows Albert Einstein surrounded by mathematical equations
  • Cover of book shows Albert Einstein looking into light
  • Albert Einstein as a boy stands on a pile of books

Odd Boy Out: Young Albert Einstein by Don Brown and On a Beam of Light: A Story of Albert Einstein by Jennifer Berne and Albie’s First Word: A Tale Inspired by Albert Einstein’s Childhood by Jacqueline Tourville

  • Frida Kahlo with her paints and her pets
  • Frida Kahlo in traditional clothing

Frida Kahlo and Her Animalitos by Monica Brown and Viva Frida by Yuyi Morales and Frida by Jonah Winter

  • Cover of book shows Jane Addams in front of a house with many children
  • Cover of book shows Jane Addams in front of a battlefield

The House that Jane Built: A Story about Jane Addams by Tonya Lee Stone and Dangerous Jane by Suzanne Slade

  • Cover of book shows Jane Goodall with binoculars, trained on a gorilla, at her eyes
  • Cover shows a jungle and an inset picture of a little girl with a toy monkey

The Watcher: Jane Goodall’s Life with the Chimps by Jeanette Winter and Me, Jane by Patrick McDonnell

  • Cover shows Malala writing with a pencil
  • Cover of book shows Malala clutching books
  • Cover of book shows Malala, smiling, with a book
  • Cover shows Malala with flowers and books

Malala’s Magic Pencil by Malala Yousafzai and For the Right to Learn by Rebecca Langston-George and Malala: Activist for Girls’ Education by Raphaele Frier and Free as a Bird: The Story of Malala by Lina Maslo

  • Cover shows woman planting a tree seedling
  • Cover of book shows woman next to tree filled with birds
  • Cover of book shows woman holding a small tree

Wangari’s Trees of Peace: A True Story from Africa by Jeanette Winter and Wangari Maathai: The Woman Who Planted Millions of Trees by Franck Prevot and Seeds of Change: Wangari’s Gift to the World by Jen Cullerton Johnson

Are there other book pairing you like to share with young readers?

Quick and happy note: Girl Running ended up on this year’s Amelia Bloomer list! 

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28Jun

I Like, I Don’t Like

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review
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Cover of "I Like, I Don't Like" shows two children writing the title.I Like, I Don’t Like,  an imported nonfiction picture book from Italy,  is a brief (85 words), elegantly designed book inspired by the Convention on the Rights of the Child. Every spread has, on the left side, a child doing some normal childlike activity. On the right side of the spread, a child in poverty is working in deplorable conditions. So one child says, “I like bricks” while building with Lego. On the facing page, children carrying bricks to a building site say, “I don’t like bricks.” A child playing soccer says, “I like soccer balls,” while on the facing page a child sewing soccer balls says, “I don’t like soccer balls.” It’s a sobering but sensitive depiction of child labor.

I wish the back matter had included explanations about each spread. For example, I didn’t really understand the “I don’t like popcorn” page. Where do children pop and then package large plastic bags of popcorn? And am I doing something to promote this type of child labor? It left me with unsettling questions that I’m not sure how to answer.

The art is collage, with both photographic and illustrated elements. This book is a great addition to the set of non-narrative nonfiction titles to use with young children. It uses comparison and contrast as a structure. It also could be an example of a book that takes a position and argues it.

The book is in translation from the Italian.

I Like, I Don’t Like by Anna Baccelliere, illustrated by Ale + Ale. Eerdmans: 2017.

Children with book around a globe

I participate every Wednesday in the Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge at Kid Lit Frenzy.

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20Apr

Whale Trails

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review
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Cover of book shows whale watching cruiseI’ve been thinking a lot lately about nonfiction text structures. I love lots of nonfiction picture books with traditional story structures: following a character through her life from birth to death, or recounting an event from beginning to end. But there are lots of other text structures possible, as well. Whale Trails: Before and Now elegantly sets up a compare/contrast structure to explore the differences between whale watching trips with whaling voyages.

The design of the book invites the reader to compare and contrast. Every spread has, on the left, full color with illustrations that bleed to the edges of the page. The right hand page of the spread, though has a black and white illustration enclosed within borders. But every spread deals with the same idea, showing how it differs or is the same across the centuries.

The narration is in first person present tense:

My father and I live for the sea. He is the captain of the Cuffee whale boat, and today I am his first mate.

But it invites us to look back to the past:

Before now, each generation of my family sailed these waters in search of whales.

We see the whale watching travelers traveling up the gangplank, and the whaling boat crew traveling up the gangplank; the route of the whale watching cruise and the route of the whaler; the gear aboard the whale watching cruise and the gear aboard the whaler, and so forth.

This fascinating book is another great example of a book with solid nonfiction content that ably uses a fictional framework–the girl who is serving as first mate today. Would you shelve this in the fiction section? Or the nonfiction? I’m not sure, but I think it’s clear to the reader what is fact and what is not.

I’ve never gone whale-watching, but I loved doing it virtually in this book!

Whale Trails: Before and Now, by Lesa Cline-Ransome. Christy Ottaviano Books: 2015.

Children surrounding a globe and the words "Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge 2016"

 

I participate in the Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge hosted by Kid Lit Frenzy. 

 

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20Jul

Daylight Starlight Wildlife

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review
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daylightDiurnal. Crepuscular. Nocturnal. This book pairs animals who are active at different times of day, implicitly inviting you to see similarities and differences between them (and explaining the technical chronotype terms in the back matter). The paintings are lovely–as one expects with Wendell Minor!–but the language was what most surprised and delighted me. It’s full of vivid words, lots of alliteration, and is fun to wrap your tongue around while reading aloud.

At night, pink-nosed opossum plods through the field and forages for food with her family on her back.

In the back matter, Minor mentions that he has seen all the creatures in this book in his own backyard. What a great challenge, to see how many creatures creep through your yard throughout the day!

Daylight Starlight Wildlife by Wendell Minor. Nancy Paulsen Books: 2015.

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