Little Red Writing

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Chronicle  Books
(pub.9.24.2013) 36 pages 

A True Tale with 
A Cherry On Top

A uthor: Joan Holub
           and Illustrator: Melissa Sweet

    

C haracter:  Little Red Writing (a pencil)

O verview from the jacket flap: 

      "Once upon a time in pencil school, a teacher named Ms. 2 told her class, 'Today we're going to write a story.' 
     'Yippee!' said the birthday pencil.
     'Slammin'!' said the basketball pencil.
     'Sharp!' said Little Red.
     So begins a hilarious and exuberant retelling of 'Little Red Riding Hood,' in which a brave little red pencil finds her way through the many perils of storytelling, faces a ravenous pencil sharpener (the Wolf 3000) ... and saves the day."

T antalizing taste: 

"Once upon a time in pencil school, a teacher named Ms. 2 told her class, 'Today we're going to write a story!'

[On the blackboard]
STORY PATH

1. Idea, characters, setting
2. Trouble
3. Even bigger trouble
4. Fix the trouble 

and something more: Oh! I would have so loved to have used this book, Little Red Writing, when I taught 5th grade writing workshops! It's a story about how to write a story, and the first page sums it up: idea, character, setting, and TROUBLE. I often reminded my students that they needed to write about a conflict, a problem, and not just a list of occurences.  

This book is wonderfully illustrated by Melissa Sweet with her unique, whimsical style. The book has terrific teacher material, and I thought these were fun pencil facts:

"Hymen Lipman received the first patent for attaching an eraser to the end of a pencil in 1858.

The majority of pencils made in the United States are painted yellow.

Author Roald Dahl used only yellow pencils. He had 6 sharpened pencils ready at the beginning of each day and when all 6 pencils became unusable, he sharpened them again."

  
Thank you to Chronicle Books for providing me with a copy of this book!

A Splash of Red

The Life and Art of Horace Pippin

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Alfred A. Knopf/ Random House

(pub. 1.8.2013) 40 pages 

A True Tale with A Cherry On Top

A uthor: Jen Bryant

     and Illustrator: Melissa Sweet

C haracter: Horace Pippin

O verview from the publisher: 

     "As a child in the late 1800s, Horace Pippin loved to draw...He drew pictures for his sisters, his classmates, his co-workers. Even during W.W.I, Horace filled his notebooks with drawings from the trenches . . . until he was shot. Upon his return home, Horace couldn't lift his right arm, and couldn't make any art. Slowly, with lots of practice, he regained use of his arm, until once again, he was able to paint--and paint, and paint! Soon, people—including the famous painter N. C. Wyeth—started noticing Horace's art, and before long, his paintings were displayed in galleries and museums across the country..."

        

T antalizing taste: 

         "Then, if he could find a scrap of paper and a piece of charcoal, he drew pictures of what he'd seen that day.
        Horace loved to draw. He loved the feel of the charcoal as it slid across the floor. He loved looking at something in the room and making it come alive in front of him. He loved thinking about a friend or a pet, then drawing them from the picture in his mind."

                       

and something more: I was intrigued to read the collaborative efforts behind A Splash of Red. Melissa Sweet recounts the background in her Illustrator's Note: "Typically, authors and illustrators stay fairly separate when making a picture book, but after Jen [Bryant] wrote this text, we bucked the tide by researching Horace Pippin together. Driving through the back roads of eastern Pennsylvania, we shared what we both knew and loved about art and Pippin." 
          And, as Jen Bryant explains in her Author's Note: ".... once the story was written, Melissa and I retraced many of these paths [of her earlier research] and forged some new ones. We were inspired and amazed by the very real struggles in Horace Pippin's life and the incredible, simple elegance of his work. Through his art, he transcended personal loss, injury, poverty, violence, and racism, producing a body of work that remains wholly original and deeply American"... AND inspiring!

Mrs. Harkness and the Panda

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hosted today by Capstone Connect

Alfred A. Knopf (Random House Children's Books)

(pub. 3.13.2012)  40 pages 

A True Tale with A Cherry On Top

A uthor: Alicia Potter

     and Illustrator:  Melissa Sweet

C haracter:  Ruth Harkness

O verview from the publisher: 

     In 1934, Ruth Harkness had never seen a panda bear. Not many people in the world had.
     But soon the young Mrs. Harkness would inherit an expedition from her explorer husband: the hunt for a panda. She knew that bringing back a panda would be hard. Impossible, even. But she intended to try.
     So she went to China, where she found a guide, built traps, gathered supplies, and had explorers' clothes made—unheard of for a woman in those days.  Then she set out up the Yangtze River and into the wilderness.  What she discovered would awe America: an adorable baby panda she named Su Lin, which means "a little bit of something very cute."
      With breathtaking illustrations from Caldecott Honor artist Melissa Sweet, this little-known true story shares the tale of an adventurous woman who was bold and brave—and the unforgettable journey that helped shape American attitudes toward wildlife.

T antalizing taste: 

       "Mrs. Harkness wanted to go with him. But women were considered too dainty for exploring. Still, she hoped to join Mr. Harkness at the end of the expedition. An adventure together!
       Many months passed. Then, on a winter afternoon, Mrs. Harkness received terrible news. Her husband had died in China. Mrs. Harkness was very sad. She had loved him so.
       That love inspired her to carry on with his work.
       Mrs. Harkness would go to China.  She would find the panda."

and something more:   I liked that the Author's Note in Mrs. Harkness and the Panda discussed the "question [of] whether it was right to take a baby panda from the wild. Our attitudes about animal conservation and zoos, as well as our knowledge of pandas' behavior, are much different than they were in the 1930s. Back then, before the advent of television and widespread commercial air travel, zoos were the primary way for people, including scientists to learn about and appreciate animals - particularly rare or unusual species.
       But even today, many conservationists admire Harkness's contribution to zoology. In bringing Su Lin to America, Harkness introduced the world to a tubby, bamboo-chomping ambassador. After Su Lin, the race to kill pandas for sport eventually lost much of its appeal. Instead, people rooted for their survival."  
      The concept of Su Lin as an "ambassador" for his species reminds me of my experience with my nonfiction picture book, Astro the Steller Sea Lion.  As I wrote in a piece for Children's Literature Network:  "At a book talk last year, I had the opportunity to introduce the incredible children’s book author and environmentalist, T.A. Barron, and share my book with him. He said it’s as if Astro is 'an ambassador for his species now.'  And that’s truly what he seems to be.  People have learned not only about Astro, but also about Steller sea lions, an endangered species, and the need to protect their habitat and limit commercial fishing."  And that makes me very pleased -- the idea of Astro the Ambassador.     

Balloons Over Broadway

The True Story of the Puppeteer

of Macy's Parade 

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hosted today by 100 Scope Notes

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

(pub. 11.1.2011)  40 pages 

A True Tale with A Cherry On Top

A uthor and illustrator: Melissa Sweet

C haracter: Tony Sarg

O verview from the jacket flap: 

         "Every Thanksgiving morning for more than eighty years, mammoth-size balloons have risen to the skies to wobble and sway, sally and shimmy, up and down the canyons of New York City.

      Just how did this beloved tradition come to Broadway? Who first invented these wondrous 'upside-down marionettes'?

      Meet TONY SARG: the boy who loved to figure out how things moved - the boy who became the puppeteer of Macy's parade!

T antalizing taste: 

     "High above the crowds, they flounced in the afternoon wind, pulling the rope handlers this way and that. Yet with every heave-ho, the balloons gestured and articulated like wild puppets and the crowd screamed for more." 

and something more:  I loved reading this terrific book (Winner of the 2012 NCTE Orbis Pictus Award) to my favorite class of second graders. They appreciated the tall illustration (the book is turned vertically for that page) of the huge towering blue elephant balloon in the parade.  And, afterwards, several children asked me to explain how Tony, as a boy, rigged up the pulleys to feed the chickens from his bed in the morning. And, they were impressed that "his dad, so impressed, never made Tony do another chore." A child's dream to be given a free pass regarding chores, right?