Wood, Wire, Wings

Emma Lilian Todd Invents an Airplane

Calkins Creek

(Boyds Mills & Kane)

(pub. 2.25.2020) 

48 pages

A True Tale with

A Cherry On Top   

A uthor: Kristen W. Larson
       and illustrator: Tracy Subisak

C haracter: Emma Lilian

O verview:

       

    "Emma Lilian Todd's mind was always soaring--she loved to solve problems. Lilian tinkered and fiddled with all sorts of objects, turning dreams into useful inventions. As a child, she took apart and reassembled clocks to figure out how they worked. As an adult, typing up patents at the U.S. Patent Office, Lilian built the inventions in her mind, including many designs for flying machines. However, they all seemed too impractical. Lilian knew she could design one that worked. She took inspiration from both nature and her many failures, driving herself to perfect the design that would eventually successfully fly. Illustrator Tracy Subisak's art brings to life author Kirsten W. Larson's story of this little-known but important engineer."

T antalizing taste: 

     "Lilian spent hours considering the crows circling overhead, studying the angle of an albatross's wing, and constructing models that hung like chandeliers from the ceiling.

     Before long, her airplane took over her apartment - then it took over her life.

And something more:  The Author's Note explains that "while many early airplane designers competed to fly faster, higher, and farther, Lilian focused on making airplanes a practical form of transportation, like the trolley... She also became the Aeronautic Society's first woman member and founded the Junior Aero Club in America, which taught children the science of flight and encouraged invention. After her airplanes' successful flight, Lilian donated it to the New York National Guard, making the Guard the first state military to have an airplane."

The Efficient, Inventive (Often Annoying) Melvil Dewey

Calkins Creek (Boyds Mills& Kane)

(pub. 11.10.2020) 

40 pages

A True Tale with

A Cherry On Top   

A uthor: 
Alexis O'Neill
       and illustrator:   

Edwin Fotheringham

 
C haracter:  Melvil Dewey

O verview: 

        

"Melvil Dewey’s love of organization and words at a very early age drove him to develop and implement his Dewey Decimal Classification system, a school to train librarians, inventions to streamline librarians’ work, and more, leaving a significant and lasting impact in libraries throughout the world."

T antalizing taste: 

     "Melvil Dewey loves putting things in order.

    Oh, no - what's he doing now?

    He's organized the chaos of his mother's kitchen cupboard. And now the cellar.

    There. Nice and neat.      

    Melvil loves keeping track of things.

    He's recording his height. His weight. How much money he has earned.

    Melvil loves books. He tucks his money into this pocket and goes for a ten-mile walk.

    Wait - where is he going?"

And something more: I attended the wonderful virtual release celebration of The Efficient, Inventive (Often Annoying) Melvil Dewey, and later Alexis shared with me the inspiration for the book: "A goofy video about the Dewey Decimal Classification system sent to me by a school library sparked this book about this quirky and controversial creator of the DDC. The number 10 held Dewey in thrall throughout his life. His birthday is on December 10. As a kid, he walked 10 miles from his home in Adams Center to Watertown, New York to purchase a dictionary for a reported $10. He even said, 'I am so loyal to decimals that I even like to sleep decimally” – 10 hours a night!'"

Yogi

The Life, Loves, 
and Language of
Baseball Legend
Yogi Berra

Calkins Creek
(Boyds Mill & Kane)
(pub. 2.5.2019) 
 48 pages

A True Tale with
A Cherry On Top   

A uthor:  Barbara Rosenstock

 and illustrator: Terry Widener
 
C haracter: Yogi Berra
O verview: 
     "Lawrence 'Yogi' Berra loved his family, his neighborhood, his friends, and, most of all, baseball. He was crazy about it.
      But baseball didn't love him back - at least not right away. Yogi didn't look like other players. When he finally made it to the Major Leagues, Yogi endured pranks and harassment from players, sportswriters, and fans. Their words hurt but they didn't stop him. Yogi soon became known for playing exceptional ball and talking a good game. Yogi's quirky sayings - his 'Yogi-isms'- became the stuff of legend.
     Barb Rosenstock's dynamic text and Terry Widener's powerful illustrations celebrate the talents, loves, and inspirational words of Yogi Berra who earned a World Series ring for each finger, and who made baseball love him back."

T antalizing taste: 
     "Lawdie loved his coaches. But coaches didn't always love him back. Wait for a good pitch! Don't slide like that! You're gonna fall over, Berra! He took a lot of teasing for his squat body, long arms, and waddling walk. When he wasn't on the field, Lawdie studied the game from the sidelines with his arms and legs crossed. After his friends saw a movie where a yogi sat cross-legged and charmed snakes, Lawdie was called 'Yogi.'

And something more: The back matter includes a wealth of information about Yogi Berra, including a discussion of Yogi's sayings: "Yogi Berra's quotations, or Yogi-isms, are legendary. Original sources for his sayings are notoriously difficult to pin down. Many Yogi-isms seem to be original, but others may have been used by someone else first, then popularized by Berra... Yogi's own memories of what and why he made some remarks changed over time."
      But, as explained in Barbara Rosenstock's Author's Note, "He's the most quoted athlete in Bartlett's Familiar Quotations and among the most quoted Americans of all time."

"You've got to be careful if you don't know where you're  going because you might not get there." - Yogi
 

Clean Sweep

Frank Zamboni's
Ice Machine

Tundra Books
(published 1.5.2016) 32 pages 

A True Tale
with A Cherry On Top 

A uthor: Monica Kulling
      and Illustrator: Renne Benoit

C haracter: Frank Zamboni

O verview from the jacket flap: 

    "In 1940, Frank Zamboni, along with his brother and cousin, opened their own skating rink in California. Their biggest frustration was the time it took the crew to resurface the ice - up to an hour and a half! Skaters grew impatient with the wait. Could Frank turn a ninety-minute job for five men into a ten-minute task for only one?
     Working in the shed behind his ice rink, Frank drew designs and built models of machines he hoped would do the job. Frank worked on his invention for nine years, making each model better than the one before. Finally, in 1949, Frank tested the Model A and it did exactly what he wanted it to - it gave ice a smooth finish in a fraction of the time. The Zamboni ice resurfacer had arrived, and ice rinks haven't been the same since."
     
T antalizing taste: 

   "Frank labored in a workshop behind Iceland. Sometimes folks stopped to ask what he was doing. When Frank told them, they often offered advice, such as 'It can't be done,' or 'Sounds crazy to me.'
    So Frank dug in his heels and tried harder.
     But the Second World War came along and put a stop to Frank's work.
     When the war ended, Frank was able to buy military parts, like an engine and axles, cheaply. He built his ice-resurfacing machine on the chassis, or base frame, of a Jeep...
     Over the years, Frank would build many models, each one an improvement on the last...
     In 1951, Sonja Henie, Norway's figure-skating superstar, bought two Zamboni ice-resurfacing machines. Henie had won gold medals three times in a row at the Olympics. Now she was making movies and performing ice shows.
     Frank painted Henie's machines fire-engine red."

and something more: The last page of CLEAN SWEEP features fun facts about the Zamboni machine, including ...  
     "The machine can remove up to 60 cubic feet of ice in one pass. That's enough shavings to make 3,661 snow cones.
     In 1960, it appeared for the first time at the Olympic Winter Games.
     In 2001, a Zamboni machine, with a top speed of nine miles an hour, was driven across Canada, from St. John's, Newfoundland, to Victoria, British Columbia, a trip that took four months.
     Zamboni machines are on every continent except Antarctica."

Fearless Flyer

Ruth Law and 
Her Flying Machine

Calkins Creek
(published 3.1.2016) 40 pages 

A True Tale
with A Cherry On Top 

A uthor: Heather Lang
      and Illustrator: Raul Colon

C haracter: Ruth Law

O verview from the jacket flap: 

    "Before 1916, no pilot had attempted to fly from Chicago to New York City in one day. 
     No pilot would think of making the trip with an old flying machine and an out-of-date engine.
     And if the pilot was a woman? 
     Impossible!
     So the experts said.
     But they didn't know Ruth Law.
     On a windy November morning, she revved her plane's engine and took off on that impossible cross-county flight.
     What Ruth Law did next amazed America."

T antalizing taste: 

   "Slowly she gained altitude.
    As quickly as the wind had gusted, it vanished. Would she have enough gasoline?
    Ruth held onto the left and right levers at all times. One wrong move would send her tumbling from the sky.Holding the right lever with her knees, she turned the knobs on the map box, strapped to her leg. 
    I had a tremendous feeling of freedom, of exhilaration, of power. I was steering my own course by a little six-inch map." 

and something more: The Author's Note of Fearless Flyer explains that "Ruth never let barriers set by society hold her back...When Orville Wright refused to teach her to fly, she found another instructor. Ruth took flying seriously... Ruth believed the key to her success was her mechanical knowledge. She spent many hours learning her plane - the engine, the nuts and bolts, the wires. She whittled struts and grinded valves until her hands blistered."  
     The book begins with this quote:  "When I was a little girl, I used to dream of flying, not with terror ... but with wonder and delight. I would be a swallow flying south, or an eagle swooping down from the clouds, and then, all of a sudden, I'd wake up, just a little girl ready to cry because she had no wings." And then she gained her wings, by persevering to become a pilot!

Dorothea's Eyes

Dorothea Lange
Photographs the Truth

Calkins Creek

(published 3.1.2016)

40 pages

A True Tale

with A Cherry On Top 

A uthor: Barb Rosenstock
and Illustrator: Gerard DuBois

C character: Dorothea Lange
                 

O verview from the jacket flap:

"From the time she was a little girl, Dorothea Lange saw the world with her eyes and her heart. Before she ever owned a camera, she knew she was born to be a photographer. It didn't matter that polio made it difficult for her to walk. It didn't matter that girls weren't supposed to be photographers.
     To take her pictures, Dorothea deliberately blended into the background. She used her phtogorsaphs to tell the stories of the people the world ignored - the homeless, the jobless, the poor.
    In this powerful and inspiring book, Barb Rosenstock and Gerard DuBois reveal the story of Dorothea's remarkable life and illuminate how her photographs continue to tell the world the truth."

T antalizing taste:

   "Dorothea leaves her comfortable life and takes her camera on the road. She scans dirt lanes, peers down back paths, and squints up broken stops. Fathers stoop in fields, working for pennies. Mothers nurse sick children, lying thirsty in makeshift tents. Whole families live in jalopies - blown out by the dust storms wracking the land. 
     Dorothea limps [from childhood polio] toward these hungry strangers. 
     Her heart knows all about people the world ignores."

and something more: I was interested to learn from the back matter of Dorothea's Eyes that Dorothea Lange's "photographs influenced John Steinbeck's novel The Grapes of Wrath and Lange is listed in The 100 Most Influential Women of All Time by Deborah Felder. Despite decades of ill health from ulcers and post-polo syndrome, Dorothea Lange continued photographing faces - from strangers on five continents to her adored grandchildren - until the end of her life."  And as a San Francisco Museum of Modern Art docent, I am pleased that I can now share more about Dorothea Lange with students who visit the museum and see the photos by Dorothea Lange.

For the Birds

The Life of Roger Tory Peterson

This post is part of Nonfiction Monday hosted today by Shelf-employed and joins It's Monday! What are you reading? at Teacher Mentor Texts

Calkins Creek (Boyds Mills Press)

(pub. 10.1.2011) 40 pages 

A True Tale with A Cherry On Top

A uthor: Peggy Thomas

         and Illustrator: Laura Jacques

C haracter:  Roger Tory Peterson 

O verview from the jacket flap: 

      "To some, he was 'Professor Nuts Peterson,' but to the world he was Roger Tory Peterson. For the Birds - The Life of Roger Tory Peterson tracks this American artist, activist, and passionate bird lover from his days as a child, to art student, to creator of the Peterson Field Guides, to global environmentalist.  Peterson's guides were revolutionary -- simply written and drawn for everyone to enjoy the birds, animals, and plants of the outdoors."

       

T antalizing taste: 

       

     "No osprey eggs hatched that year. Throughout the Northeast, peregrine falcons were also disappearing, and down South, bald eagle nests were empty. Roger and other scientists believed that the cause might be the widespread spraying of DDT, the pesticide he had studied years ago. Someone had to stand up for the birds before they vanished completely."

and something more: For several generations, our family has been visiting a wonderful lake in Northern Idaho, and we did notice a decline in ospreys nesting at the tops of the trees lining the lake.  But gradually over the years, we've seen a return of these amazing birds and also a few bald eagles.  Thank goodness for people such as Roger Tory Peterson who said: "The other creatures with which we share this world have their rights too, but not speaking our language, they have no voice, no vote; it is our moral duty to take care of them."