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Extreme Animals: The Toughest Creatures on Earth
Written by Nicola Davies
Illustrated by Neal LaytonIn a style much like their other book Poop: A Natural History of the Unmentionable, author and illustrator team Nicola Davies and Neal Layton returns with a new book on necessities of life. This is a fascinating book about how different animals have the same basic needs in life: finding food and water, staying warm or cool, living in the right atmospheric pressure, and breathing air. For any living creature, plant, insect or mammalian, not having enough food, or being too cold is a tremendous stress on their body. Though pencil-drawn illustrations are not sophisticated or technical, they will however certainly appeal to kids. Students who may have studied polar bears and penguins before may enjoy reading about these animals in this approach. These new facts may also stay with the students longer, as these animals are presented as a comparison to the human body. For examples, human beings do not have feathers or 8 legs, but they do share the need to stay warm and find food and water.
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Discovering Nature's Alphabet
Written by Krystina Castella & Brian Boyl
This is not your typical alphabet book. Instead of a picture of an apple next to the letter A, Castella and Boyl use photograph of objects that are shaped as letters. For example, the letter P is a picture of a part of a flower where the tip has curled around. The authors state that none of the pictures were staged and were found in the form that is show in the photographs. Which makes me wonder how many letters I have missed on my last walk. The result is a book that makes it interesting to trace the letters of the alphabet. It also encourages students to look and find letters in not so obvious places. The engaging photographs can lead to lots of art and/or letter recognition lessons.
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Dear Miss Breed: True Stories of the Japanese American Incarceration During World War II and a Librarian Who Made a Difference
Written by Joanne F. Oppenheim
Dear Miss Breed is a book about a San Diego Librarian, Clara Breed and how she stayed in touch with a group of Japanese children and teenagers during the years following the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Oppenheim pieced together all the letters that were sent to Miss Breed while the “children” were interned at Poston, Arizona. Though, very little of what Miss Breed sent to the children survived, this book does include articles or excerpts of what Miss Breed wrote for various news or magazine organizations. In addition, throughout the book Oppenheim sprinkles testimony from the 1981 congressional hearings of the commission on Wartime Relocation and Internment of Civilians, photos, political cartoons, quotes and letters from people at the time, such as Eleanor Roosevelt. This book is an in depth snapshot of what United States was like during this time for a group of children whose only crime was being Americans with the Wrong Ancestors.