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15Jan

Sweet Dreams Sarah

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review
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Cover shows African American woman holding tools in a carpentry shop

Sweet Dreams Sarah by Vivian Kirkfield is a nonfiction picture book that hits the sweet spot of combining STEM principles with social studies content.

In the book, we see the engineering process at work. Every element of the story zeroes in on the engineering process:

identify the problem

brainstorm solutions

construct a prototype

analyze the results

redesign

A nineteenth century, newly-freed woman, Sarah, tries to solve a problem for the customers in her furniture shop. They live in tiny apartments and the furniture she sells is just too bulky. Once she has identified the problem, she brainstorms solutions and builds a prototype. The prototype has problems so she redesigns it. When her patent is rejected, she revises and resubmits it. Her story would be a great introduction to a unit on invention

At the same time, her story has lots of social studies content that can spark conversation and build understanding in kids. It addresses slavery, Reconstruction, entrepreneurship, and how government processes (like patents) work. Importantly, it discusses the roles of women in history in a clear way.

The book is clear and fun to read aloud. It keeps the story active and moving along with refrains like, “Measure. Cut. Sand.”

And now I want one of the desk-beds that Sarah invented!

Sweet Dreams Sarah by Vivian Kirkfield, illustrated by Chris Ewald. (Creston Books: 2019).

Image shows a tree growing from a book and reads Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge 2020
Join Allyson Beecher at kidlitfrenzy.com.

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4Sep

Just Like Rube Goldberg

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review Uncategorized
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Sarah Aronson’s wonderful biography Just Like Rube Goldberg opens by engaging the reader with an intriguing question.

Cover of book is written in letters that look like they are part of a Rube Goldberg machine.

“Question: How do you become a successful, award-winning artist and famous inventor without ever inventing anything at all? (This is not a trick question.”

Often in picture book biographies, the narrative voice intentionally recedes behind the story. But here, Aronson, brings the storyteller’s voice to the front, asking us questions, and making observations and judgments. It works incredibly well to frame the accomplishments of an important person whose work is hard to categorize.

Of course the story also hits all the important points of biography: we learn about Goldberg’s childhood, his training, his challenges and how he overcame them. The art by Robert Neubecker includes reproductions of Goldberg’s comics as well as the artist’s own full-color exuberant Rube Goldberg machines.

Activities and discussion guide for the book are here.

Just Like Rube Goldberg by Sarah Aronson, illustrated by Matthew Neubecker. Beach Lane Books: 2019.

Picture announced "Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge 2019"

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22Aug

Pass Go

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review Uncategorized
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Cover of book shows people around a boardgame.The story of an invention can be surprisingly convoluted. Pass Go and Collect $200 does a great job of tracing the complicated story of the boardgame Monopoly.

Monopoly arguably started as Landlord’s Game, a game created by Elizabeth Magie to critique capitalism. Tanya Lee Stone deftly describes the social conditions that led Magie to patent the idea in 1904. She traces Magie’s attempts to market the game and shows the ways the game took on a life of its own. We see individuals making their own gameboards and passing the rules one, one to another, until Charles Darrow, tried his hand at it.

Darrow had great graphic design instincts and was the source of many of the iconic graphic elements of Monopoly. He was also the one who eventually sold the game to Parker Brothers, igniting the feud over who was the real inventor of the game.

I was especially impressed by how balanced Stone is in her discussion of both Magie’s and Darrow’s claims. While she’s obviously trying to help people remember an innovative woman’s role in the game, she doesn’t hestiate to give Darrow his due. It’s a great model of how to make an argument without ignoring the opposing viewpoint.

The back matter in the book is really fun, too. There’s a section with Monopoly math questions, Monopoly trivia, a list of sources, and–my favorite–an author’s note. In the author’s note, Stone tells how the idea for the book came from an editor who apologized at the time for it’s not being an idea about a woman. Little did she know that it was an idea about a woman!

The book will be especially popular with kids who love Monopoly, but there’s something in it for everyone.

Pass Go and Collect $200: The Real Story of How Monopoly Was Invented by Tanya Lee Stone, illustrated by Steven Salerno, Christy Ottaviano Books: 2018.

Picture of children surrounding a globe

Alyson Beecher hosts the Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge at kidlitfrenzy.com. Visit there for more great nonfiction picture books!

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26Jul

John Deere, That’s Who!

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review
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deereUntil recently I’ve always lived in big cities or their suburbs. A few years ago, though, our family moved to the country. We don’t live on a farm, but I quickly learned that farm machinery, farm tools, and farm concerns (is the rain going to let up long enough for the wheat harvest?) loom large when you’re living surrounded by farms. I started noticing that very few picture books these days speak to country kids. So I was delighted to see John Deere, That’s Who! 

This picture book biography tells the story of the inventor and blacksmith who invented and produced a better plow and whose name is on many farm vehicles today. Country kids will, I suspect, love learning about the man whose name they see on machinery about them. But the book speaks to city kids as well, with its themes of overcoming adversity and trying different strategies to solve problems.

The title of the book is also a refrain in this easy-to-read text. Maurer keeps the word count low so it’s a quick read.

The art by Tim Zeltner has a two dimensional feel to it, as if it were painted on wood by a self-taught frontier artist. And it actually was painted on plywood! You can see the telltale cracks in the paint in the art.

This is a great read aloud for lazy summer days, with the smell of new-cut hay drifting by.

John Deere, That’s Who! by Tracy Nelson Maurer, illustrated by Tim Zeltner. Henry Holt: 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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23Nov

The Marvelous Thing that Came from a Spring

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review
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A Slinky "walking down" a staircase

(My review of a nonfiction middle grade title, Super Gear, was on Nerdy Book Club earlier this week. You can see it here.)

Chance. Serendipity. Accident. The Marvelous Thing that Came from a Spring: The Accidental Invention of theToy that Swept the Nation shows that the process of creating something new may start with an accident, but requires lots of diligent hard work after that start. Gilbert Ford tells the story of the invention of the toy phenomenon, the Slinky, starting with a naval engineer’s observation of how a torsion spring moved as it fell from a shelf.

But Richard James’ observation that day also required marketing, packaging, and promotion, to say nothing of production. The book shows how James and his wife, Betty, hustled to make a simple spring into a popular toy. The conclusion of the story summarizes:

It took the teamwork of a dreamer and a planner to turn an ordiinary spring…into a truly marvelous thing!

The writing in the book is clear and accessible, and the art is wonderful. Ford made digital illustrations, printed them out, and then used them with found objects to create dioramas, which were then photographed. I found myself lingering on page after page trying to figure out all the layers of the illustration process.

The back  matter tells about ways Slinky has been used in the real world and briefly mentions that Betty eventually took over production of the Slinky (and left me suspecting that there’s more to the story of the James family than is told in this book).

The themes of the book would fit beautifully with a school unit on invention. Books like Whoosh! Lonnie Johnson and the Super-Soaker, The Hole Story of the Doughnut, or Earmuffs for Everyone would be fun to read in company with The Marvelous Thing that Came From a Spring. The book would also pair nicely with Philip Stead’s Ideas are All Around.

The Marvelous Thing that Came from a Spring: The Accidental Invention of theToy that Swept the Nation by Gilbert Ford, photography by Greg Endires. Atheneum: 2016

Children around a globe.

 

 

 

I participate in the Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge at KidLit Frenzy.

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14Sep

Whoosh! Lonnie Johnson and Super-soakers

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review
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Cover of Whoosh! shows African American inventor with a super-soaker

[Quick note before today’s book: There is a giveaway of my book, Mountain Chef, today at “From the Mixed-Up Files.” Come on over and enter!]

In Whoosh! Lonnie Johnson’s Super-soaking Stream of Inventions, Chris Barton paints a portrait of the temperament of an inventor. We watch Lonnie Johnson from his childhood on up facing the problems of creating something new: testing, trouble-shooting, revising, and just plain keeping track of loads of gear.

In addition to telling the story of how Johnson came up with the super soaker, the book tells about his contributions to the US space program and NASA’s Galileo probe. It can be tricky to condense an entire life to 32 pages, but Barton’s retelling stays focused on his theme–what Johnson had to do to invent–and is lively throughout.

I was surprised that the book didn’t talk at all about the scientific principles behind the super soaker. The back matter sends the curious reader to the internet to unravel that mystery.

I loved the back matter’s call to action: “…if you want to better understand how Lonnie Johnson himself works, then you’ll put this book down, step away from the computer screen, and get permission to take something apart.”

The back matter also talks about Barton’s experience interviewing Johnson and the widow of one of his co-workers.

Don Tate’s cartoon-style illustrations are appealing. Just keep the pages away from those super-soakers!

Whoosh! Lonnie Johnson’s Super-soaking Stream of Inventions by Chris Barton, illustrated by Don Tate. Charlesbridge: 2016.

Children around a globe.

 

 

 

Check out the Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge at Kid Lit Frenzy.

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27Jul

The Hole Story of the Doughnut

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review
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Cover of the book, showing a sea captain inside a giant doughnut.The origins of some everyday objects are lost. But in The Hole Story of the Doughnut, Pat Miller goes back to a 1916 newspaper article to unearth the story of the doughnut’s beginning. It’s actually a humble tale. A sixteen year old ship’s cook experimented with a way to get rid of the undercooked center of a fried breakfast cake. And it worked!

Miller describes the much more exotic origin stories that popped up around the doughnut–that a cake was speared on a ship’s wheel during a gale, or that it was designed to look like the lifesaving ring that had snatched a sailor from certain drowning death. The back matter even tells about a dastardly plot to seize credit for the doughnut. But eventually Hanson Gregory’s rightful claim to be the inventor of the doughnut was restored.

The book is appealing since it’s about a food we all love, but it’s also an important look at innovation. Kids–and all of us–may imagine that inventions and innovations require extraordinary circumstances. But this book is a gentle reminder that more often innovation happens in everyday ways as people notice and try to solve problems. The book would pair beautifully with Earmuffs for Everyone! by Meghan McCarthy or Miracle Mud by David A. Kelly, both about how the process of invention works to solve everyday problems.

Spread shows text in a circle box on one side and facing page shows the art in a circular box, as if it has been cut out of the facing page.The design of the book and the illustrations by Vincent X. Kirsch are delightful. Every spread mimics a doughnut, with one page having the text in a white circular text box clipped out of the illustration, while the facing page presents the circular illustration that has been cut out to make room for the text.

You can listen to an interview with the author here.

The Hole Story of the Doughnut by Pat Miller, illustrated by Vincent X. Kirsch. Houghton Mifflin: 2016.

I participate in the Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge every Wednesday at Kid Lit Frenzy. Come join us!

Children around a globe.

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10Feb

What a Wheel

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review
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ferris

Every carnival has one now, but the first Ferris Wheel was an engineering marvel. Barbara Lowell tells the story of its invention in a straightforward way:

George Ferris was an engineer who had big ideas. he turned his big ideas into bridges made of steel. Bridges that crossed high over rivers. Bridges that were strong and safe. George made sure of that.

I was especially impressed that she managed to keep the story engaging and fun to read without inventing any dialogue. Instead she uses interesting details to keep us reading. We don’t hear planners talking about the World’s Fair but we learn:

There would be lots to see and do. Including balloon rides. An ostrich farm. And Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show.

When the Ferris Wheel is finally finished, we don’t hear any celebratory dialogue but we learn:

George and Mrs. Ferris hopped into one car. A forty-piece marching band squeezed into another, and up, up, up they went. The band played “America.”

It’s a fun story and fun to read.

George Ferris: What a Wheel, by Barbara Lowell, illustrated by Jerry Hoare and with photos. Penguin (Core Concepts): 2014.

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4Feb

Electrical Wizard

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review
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tesla

The story of Nikola Tesla’s life told here is pretty engrossing and the illustrations are good, but the back matter is fantastic! There’s an essay showing ways Tesla was ahead of his time, a bit about the rivalry between Edison and Tesla, and “Scientific Notes” giving scientific explanations for concepts mentioned in the book. All that besides the normal stuff–primary sources used, films about Tesla, what to read if you’re looking for more.

My advice: read the book, enjoy the pictures, and then dive into the back matter!

Electrical Wizard: How Nikola Tesla Lit Up the World, by Elizabeth Rusch, illustrated by Oliver Dominguez. Candlewick:2013.

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12Jan

Ben Franklin’s Big Splash

Posted by: annettepimentel@gmail.com Categories: Review
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Ben Franklin  This book is based on a passage in a letter (helpfully included in the book’s back matter) where Franklin describes his youthful invention of a swimming aid: swim fins and flippers! Using that single paragraph as her starting point, Barb Rosenstock imagines the process young Ben Franklin–or anyone–would follow to invent something new.

The book is a buoyant read. Every page is filled with “s” alliteration in lists of verbs telling what Franklin did to develop his invention:

speculated…stared…sprinted away

sketched…snapped up…shaped…sanded…strung on…strapped on

sprinted…stood…stripped off…strapped…stuck…spread…stomped…splashed in…sunk

And this is just the beginning of the “s” lists! Many of the verbs are helpfully highlighted, which would make this book a dream to teach in a lesson on alliteration.

Ben’s invention doesn’t really work that well. In fact, you could say it was a belly flop. But Rosenstock’s text leaves us with a shiver of giddiness rather than a feeling of defeat.

It’s a fun story about the process of invention, the scientific method, and one of America’s founding father. What’s not to like?

Ben Franklin’s Big Splash: The Mostly True Story of His First Invention by Barb Rosenstock, illustrated by S.D. Schindler. Calkins Creek: 2014

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