Thank you everyone for signing up for the Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge 2014. It is going to be an amazing year of sharing nonfiction books with one another.
Last week I mentioned that I was having difficulty finding 2014 nonfiction picture books that celebrated women. This messed up my plans for my March posts. Oh well! Last week, I featured 5 of my favorite picture book biographies of women. This week I am sharing nonfiction books that still have quite a few illustrations or photographs but are geared for a slightly older audience, and still celebrate women and their contributions and honor the intent of Women's History Month.
For Part II, I feature 5 of my favorite longer length biographies of women:
Cleopatra Rules! The Amazing Life of the Original Teen Queen by Vicky Alvear Shecter (Boyd Mills Press, 2010) - If you have not read this book, find it and read immediately. Written in a way that will pull in even the most reluctant nonfiction reader, the book is filled with great facts and just the right amount of humor.
Zora!: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston by Dennis Brindell Fradin; Judith Bloom Fradin (Clarion Books 2012) - I was so sad that I discovered this after I did my Literacy Café on the Harlem Renaissance. A very accessible biography on Zora Neale Hurston for ages 10 and up.
Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream by Tanya Lee Stone (Candlewick Press, 2009) - I am a huge fan of Tanya Lee Stone and this was the book that began my journey to learn about what was new in children's nonfiction and eventually led me to begin my nonfiction picture book challenge.
Wheels of Change: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom (With a Few Flat Tires Along the Way) by Sue Macy (National Geographic Children's Books, 2011) - Sue Macy is another author that I enjoy reading. However, I would have picked this one up just based on the title alone. I learned so much in reading this one. I had never thought about how a bicycle would provide women with a certain amount of mobility which would then lead to freedom.
Wideness and Wonder: The Life and Art of Georgia O'Keefe by Susan Goldman Rubin (Chronicle Books, 2011) - Whether you are a fan of the artist, Georgia O'Keefe, or just interested in women's biographies, this is an interesting read about the early influences over O'Keefe's art and development into the artist she would become.
And my bonus pick...I sat on the fence with this one...however, it was such an amazing book that I needed to include it.
Witches: The Absolutely True Tale of Disaster in Salem by Rosalyn Schanzer (National Geographic Children's Books, 2011) - When I read this book, I remember thinking that I knew about the Salem Witch Trials. However, there was a lot that I did not know and I could not put this down.
Don't forget to link up your nonfiction reviews...
Thank you everyone for signing up for the Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge 2014. It is going to be an amazing year of sharing nonfiction books with one another.
To celebrate Women's History Month,
I wanted to share a variety of new nonfiction picture books about the amazing women who made significant contributions to history. As I scrolled through my 2014 nonfiction picture book releases, I realized that there was a minimal number of books featuring women. How could that be when I had counted quite a few that were released in 2013. So I needed to change my post plans. Instead, I am going to honor several that have come out in the past couple of years.
In Part I, I will feature 5 of my favorite picture book biographies of women:
Eleanor, Quiet No More by Doreen Rappaport; Illustrated by Gary Kelley (Disney-Hyperion 2009) - A wonderful picture book biography on the amazing Eleanor Roosevelt.
Me...Jane by Patrick McDonnell (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, April 2011) - A very young picture book biography on Jane Goodell.
Women Explorers by Julie Cummins; Illustrated by Cheryl Harness (Dial, February 2012) - The story of ten women who went out and lived life not worrying about what others were thinking.
Thank you everyone for signing up for the Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge 2014. It is going to be an amazing year of sharing nonfiction books with one another.
To celebrate Women's History Month, I will be sharing different books about women over the next several Wednesdays. In today's post, I look at Florence Nightingale and Eleanor Prentiss. Though they were contemporaries of one another, their paths would not have crossed. Florence lived in England and traveled primarily in Europe. Eleanor grew up in Massachusetts and spent years learning to navigate a schooner, which eventually led her to sail from New York City to San Francisco in record-breaking time.
Both of these women are remarkable in their dogged-pursuit of the things they loved, which at the time were careers that women did not typically pursue, especially for Eleanor. As for Florence, yes, there were female nurses in her time, but her skill and knowledge led her to develop systems and practices that would influence nursing and patient care for years.
If you are looking for picture book biographies on these amazing women to be used in classroom or school libraries, I would definitely recommend the following books.
Florence Nightingale by Demi (Henry Holt & Co, February 4, 2014) - I have not read or seen many picture book biographies on Florence Nightingale so I was curious about this one. Demi has created a biography on Florence Nightingale and her early years and what influenced her to pursue nursing and the conditions of hospitals and patient care as a career and life-long mission. Despite suffering from ill-health for much of her adult life, Nightingale never allowed it to detour her mission and focus. Her influence was so great that it is felt today with the work of the International Red Cross.
One of my favorite lines in this book is at the end...
We remember Florence Nightingale today as the driving force behind improvements in nursing during her time and as a woman of extraordinary vision, who believed that no problem, however big it seemed, was ever too big for her to solve.
Dare the Wind: The Record-breaking Voyage of Eleanor Prentiss and the Flying Cloud by Tracey Fern; Illustrated by Emily Arnold McCully (Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, February 18, 2014) - Tracey Fern brings to life both Eleanor Prentiss and her love of the sea. As I read through this picture book biography on Prentiss, I was caught up in the race she undertook from New York City around Cape Horn to San Francisco. When her schooner ran into trouble, I was amazed at how she was able to navigate out of it.
Two of my favorite lines in the book were...
Then Ellen remembered what her papa had taught her long ago: a true navigator must have the caution to read the sea, as well as the courage to dare the wind. There is no glory in second place, Ellen thought. Now is the time for courage.
Look for both of these picture book biographies at your local independent bookstore or public library.
Don't forget to link up your nonfiction reviews below:
Author: Tanya Lee Stone Illustrated: Marjorie Priceman Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (February 19, 2013) Source: Personal Copy Audience: Ages 5 to 8 Nonfiction * Biography * Women's History * Women Doctors
In the 1830s, when a brave and curious girl named Elizabeth
Blackwell was growing up, women were supposed to be wives and mothers.
Some women could be teachers or seamstresses, but career options were
few. Certainly no women were doctors. But Elizabeth refused to
accept the common beliefs that women weren’t smart enough to be doctors,
or that they were too weak for such hard work. And she would not take
no for an answer. Although she faced much opposition, she worked hard
and finally—when she graduated from medical school and went on to have a
brilliant career—proved her detractors wrong. This inspiring story of
the first female doctor shows how one strong-willed woman opened the
doors for all the female doctors to come.
My thoughts on this book:
First, I caught a glimpse of Who Says Women Can't Be Doctors? The Story of Elizabeth Blackwell a few months ago at ALA Midwinter. At that time, I knew it would be a perfect book for both Nonfiction Picture Book Wednesday and also for Women's History Month. This year, the theme of Women's History Month is Women Inspiring Innovation Through Imagination with a focus on women who have contributed to STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics) fields.
Second, Tanya Lee Stone is the author of this book. I almost feel like I need to say nothing more. Seriously, Stone is an amazing, amazing author of nonfiction books. I was recommending nonfiction titles to one of my librarians a few weeks ago, and suddenly I stopped and realized that nearly every title I had recommended was a book written by Stone. And to top it all off, Tanya Lee Stone writes both picture books and nonfiction for older readers.
I guess I should finally get to my thoughts on Who Says Women Can't Be Doctors?
Stone tells the story of Elizabeth Blackwell who became the first woman doctor in the United States. Not an easy thing in the mid-1800's. Blackwell received 28 rejections from medical schools until she received an acceptance letter from Geneva Medical School in upstate New York. Blackwell graduated from medical school in 1849 at the age of 28. Though the book ends with Blackwell's graduation from Medical School, the end notes provide further information about the challenges Elizabeth faced. Those challenges led her, with the assistance of her sister who also became a doctor, to eventually open up the New York Infirmary for Women and Children in 1857. This was followed by the opening of a Women's Medical College in 1868.
Though the book focuses more on Blackwell as a child and what factors led her to pursue becoming a doctor, the inclusion of the author's note rounds out the story. Stone's description of Blackwell's personality and spirit as a child is humorously portrayed through Priceman's illustrations. What shines through the story is the determination and strength that Blackwell possessed that allowed her to break ground for other women to later become doctors.
With Blackwell's text and Priceman's spirited illustrations, young readers will find this story very accessible. If you love looking for nonfiction picture books or nonfiction biographies, then you will want to add Who Says Women Can't Be Doctors? The Story of Elizabeth Blackwell to your personal collection or to a classroom or school library.
Look for this book at your local bookstore and shop indie when possible.
Author: Kathleen Krull Illustrator: Carlyn Beccia Publisher: Walker Childrens Source: Personal Copy Audience: Grades 3rd to 5th Nonfiction * Women's History * American History * Famous Authors
Description on GoodReads: Louisa May Alcott is best known for penning Little Women,
but few are aware of the experience that influenced her writing
most-her time as a nurse during the Civil War. Caring for soldiers'
wounds and writing letters home for them inspired a new realism in her
work. When her own letters home were published as Hospital Sketches, she had her first success as a writer. The acclaim for her new writing style inspired her to use this approach in Little Women,
which was one of the first novels to be set during the Civil War. It
was the book that made her dreams come true, and a story she could never
have written without the time she spent healing others in service of
her country
My thoughts on the book:
One of my favorite authors when I was in 5th grade was Louisa May Alcott. I read and loved Little Women, Little Men, Jo's Boys, and Eight Cousins. However, I never really bothered to look into who Louisa May Alcott was or what influenced her as a woman and writer. Recently, I read the biographical picture book Louisa: The Life of Louisa May Alcott by Yona Zeldis McDonough (Henry Holt, and Co., 2009) I found the book fascinating and the historical information interesting.
In Louisa May's Battle: How the Civil War Led to Little Women, Kathleen Krull focuses on Alcott's experiences as a nurse during the Civil War and how it influenced her as a person and also as a writer. Krull brings to life Alcott's experience from the train ride to the her travels on a ship to her experience tending soldiers. Unfortunately, Alcott wasn't immune from the illnesses facing the men and boys she was caring for. Several weeks in, she became ill with Typhoid fever. Alcott was never quite the same after her illness, but when she was well enough to consider work again, she began revisiting her writing with more success than she had before.
The combination of Krull's text accompanied by Beccia's paintings make this book a success for me. Krull provides additional sources at the end as well as some additional information of Women in Medicine. This is a great addition for any classroom or school library, and a wonderful book to celebrate Women's History Month.
For some background information for my readers - When did you decide to become
a writer? And how did you come upon being a writer of nonfiction books for
children?
When I was a junior in high school, I won a competition
sponsored by my local New Jersey newspaper that enabled me to attend the
National High School Institute in Journalism at Northwestern University. That
five-week summer experience was the foundation for my career as a nonfiction
author. I had always liked to
write and was the editor in chief of my junior high and high school newspapers,
but the Northwestern program gave me the practical and ethical tools that have
used throughout my career. I see myself primarily as a reporter, but one who
usually reports on events and developments that happened in the past.
Basketball Belles came out about a year ago. When I read it, I
immediately had to tell others about it. What was the inspiration for
writing the story of about Agnes Morley and her team mates?
I first learned about the 1896 game portrayed in Basketball Belles more than 15 years
ago, when I was writing Winning Ways: A
Photohistory of American Women in Sports. At that time, I read some of the
reporting about the game in the San Francisco newspapers. Since no men were
allowed to watch the game, all of the reporters were women, and it was really
interesting to read their perspectives on this sports event. As it happens, my
college thesis advisor at Princeton had become a tenured professor at Stanford,
and that made the idea of researching this game, which was between Stanford and
Cal Berkeley, even more enticing. I didn’t decide to focus on Agnes Morley till
much later in the process, when I realized I needed a central character and decided
it had to be a player. I researched the backgrounds of a lot of players, but I
felt I got to know Agnes best because I read some of the short stories she
wrote, and her memoir. The circumstances of her childhood made her the perfect
protagonist.
How many hours of research goes into writing a nonfiction picture book
like Basketball Belles and how do you work to ensure that the facts are as
accurate as possible?
Since my writing background is as a journalist, I’m a
stickler for facts and the “truth.” I struggled with that when I was working on
Basketball Belles. It was my first
picture book, and I knew I had to make the story compelling and exciting, but I
also wanted it to be true. One of the drafts centered on a fictional girl who
was attending the game so she could write a school report, but it felt wrong
injecting a fictional character into the mix. I’m glad I jettisoned her and
highlighted Agnes Morley instead.
As for how much research I did, the answer is: LOTS! I went
to Stanford and Cal to use their libraries and even spoke to the current
women’s basketball coaches there. That wasn’t at all necessary, but I’m a
basketball fan and it was such a treat. It also helped me put that first game
in perspective. I think I read every article written about that game, before
and after it was played, in all the San Francisco papers, as well as those from
Berkeley and Stanford. I tried to follow up on the stories of as many players
as I could. I think there’s another book in that, or at least an article. The
group of players went on to be teachers, doctors, and scientists, as well as
wives and mothers. It was quite a crew.
Do you have any writing rituals or routines?
I’m big on organization. When I start a project, I label a
series of file folders so I can file my research articles according to the
chapters they belong in. I also have folders for photographs, memos and
correspondence, back matter, and other topics. That helps tremendously because
I gather lots of material and it does me no good if it just sits in a pile on
my desk. If I file it away, I can usually find it when I need it.
While I can read my research anywhere, most of my work is
done at my desk, in front of my computer. A few years ago I got a Mac with a
27-inch screen because I like to have a lot of windows open at once. When I’m
writing, I’ll often refer to Internet sites to check facts or confirm
spellings. When I’m doing online photo research, I’ll compare a number of
photographs head to head to decide which ones work best for me.
My other ritual is to let things gel by taking occasional
breaks to play an online game. When I was working on a PC, I would play Spider
Solitaire. Now I’m somewhat obsessed with the Jigsaw Puzzle Generator on the
National Geographic Web site (http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/your-shot/jigsaw-puzzles).
That makes jigsaw puzzles out of photographs, and you use your mouse to put the
pieces together. It’s a great way to step back from the intensity of writing,
and it usually ends up helping me move the story forward when I go back to it.
Recently, I heard some historical fiction writers talk about their research and
how some of the techniques could be used by children as part of the writing
process. Are there certain things that you can suggest to teachers that
they can use to assist young writers?
Whenever I write about a period in history, I try to read
the newspapers of that time. Often, I use the Library of Congress’s Historic
Newspapers collection (http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov). It covers newspapers
from 1836 to 1922 and is easily searchable. If you want to find out what the
papers were saying about basketball in 1896, for example, you can use search
parameters to find the articles in the newspapers in the collection, which
includes papers from 30 states and the District of Columbia. You can even
target specific states or newspapers in your search.
I’m also big on timelines. I’m currently trying to lock down
an idea for a new YA nonfiction book, and I actually downloaded a timelines app
that automatically plugs information I input onto a graphic timeline. It really
helps me look at the big picture. For example, I input the lifespans of about
20 people I’m considering covering in the book, and with the timeline I can see
at a glance who was born first, who lived the longest, and when their lives
overlapped. It’s a very useful tool, whether your research covers a century or
only a year.
One of the challenges many of my librarian friends run into is with
the number of pages in a nonfiction book for 4th to 8th graders. Many
children will come in asking for a biography or nonfiction work on a particular
topic and say that it needs to be 150 pages I have noticed that many
nonfiction books for this age group fall between 96 to 130 pages. Many of these
books are fantastic. Any thoughts on how to help teachers recognize the
quality of a nonfiction book despite this randomly set number of page criteria
not being met?
When I started writing nonfiction for that age range in
1993, many books were straight narratives. The trim sizes of the pages were
similar to those of fiction books
and they usually had rivers of text, broken up by some captioned
pictures. Today, trim sizes are bigger to make room for sidebars and features
and primary source reprints. While there is still a narrative thread in most
books, there’s also supplemental material that helps readers gain additional
perspective on the story (and fulfills the mandate of the Common Core to teach
kids to use primary sources). If kids read all of these sidebars and analyze
the images, they may very well spend as much time with a 96-page book as their
predecessors did with a 150-page straight narrative. I’d urge teachers to
reevaluate the strict mandate on page length to allow for the realities of the
new nonfiction.
Anything that you can share about future books that you are working
on?
My next
project is a picture book about Roller Derby in 1948. It’s another subject I
first wrote about in Winning Ways.
There was a point in time when Roller Derby was first televised, and it both
exploded in popularity and led people to embrace television as a medium that
could show live action events. The book will focus on that moment in time, and
on the skater with one of my favorite sports nicknames ever, Midge “Toughie”
Brasuhn.
I’m also working on an idea about women in early television,
but it’s too early to tell you much about that yet.
Thanks Sue for stopping by and celebrating National Women's History Month with us. I am so going to check out the Library of Congress's Historic Newspaper link and the app for timelines sounds interesting.
I just discovered a great blog resource for Women's History Month. In 2011, authors & illustrators & bloggers came together to write 31 blog posts focused on book reviews and guest posts related to famous women or topics related to Women's History. Don't miss out on this year's 31 special blog posts.
Information about the organizers taken from the blog:
This second annual celebration of Women’s History Month through
literature for children and young adults is organized by bloggers Margo
Tanenbaum, of The Fourth Musketeer, and Lisa Taylor, of Shelf-employed. Margo, who blogs about historical fiction and history books for young people at The Fourth Musketeer,
recently earned her master's degree in library science.She works
part-time at two public libraries in Southern California, and hopes to
secure a position as a children's librarian. Lisa lives in New Jersey,
where she is a youth services librarian in a county library system. She
may be found blogging at Shelf-employed or the ALSC Blog. Both Lisa and Margo review for School Library Journal and are currently serving as Round Two Cybils judges in the nonfiction categories.
Author: Sue Macy Illustrator: Matt Collins Publisher: Holiday House (February 2011) Audience: Ages 7 to 11 Source: F & G from ALA MidWinter
Non-fiction * Women's History * Sports
Description from GoodReads: This dynamic picture book about the birth of women's basketball will keep young readers riveted. Raised on a cattle ranch, Agnes Morley was sent to Stanford University to learn to be a lady. Yet in no time she exchanged her breeches and spurs for bloomers and a basketball; and in April 1896 she made history. In a heart—pounding game against the University of California at Berkeley, Agnes led her team to victory in the first-ever intercollegiate women's basketball game, earning national attention and putting women's basketball on the map.
Let me start off by saying, I am not a sports fan - especially not a basketball fan - but this book won me over. Well, I'm still not a basketball fan but I am happy to be a cheerleader for Basketball Belles: How Two Teams And One Scrappy Player Put Women's Hoops On The Map. While at ALA Midwinter, I managed to come away with a stack of F & G's (Folded & Gathered - think Advanced Reader's Copy but for picture books) from various publishers. As I read them, I made stacks - the "well it is okay" stack, the "I definitely can use this" stack, and the "Wow! Oh Wow!" stack. There were only about 2 or 3 in the "Wow! Oh Wow!" stack and Basketball Belles was one of them.
With Matt Collins amazing illustrations, I was immediately whisked back into the late 1890's. Macy's story of Agnes Morley who was sent to Stanford in an attempt to make her "more of a lady" captured for me what it must have been like for a woman in that time period. Having spent four years in the Amherst/Northampton area and surrounded by the rich history of women's colleges (Smith, Mt. Holyoke) it was exciting for me to read about this other piece of women's history. By focusing on the April 4, 1896 historic game between Stanford and Berkley, Macy is able to delve deeply into what that experience must have been like for not only the players but for the spectators as well. Admittedly, despite Macy's well written text and powerful words, I had to read this story through several times because for the first one or two read throughs I was so caught up in Collin's illustrations. Initially, I was just trying to imagine what it would be like to wear the kinds of clothes they had to wear in those days. The long sleeve tunics and bloomers not to mention the shoes. His attention to details fully enhances the text and captures the reader.
Skip the italicized part if you don't want to be spoiled (well we all know how the game ends...it was played after all in 1896), but this ending text very much sums up the book beautifully:
"Victory is ours! We laugh and hug one another, beside
ourselves with joy. We even give a cheer for the other team,
and they for us. What a sight we all are! Our hair is messy.
Our bloomers are torn. Our faces are streaked with sweat.
This might not be what my mother had in mind when she sent
me to Stanford to become a lady. But I think that a lady can be
tough and strong as well as refind and polite. She can even
play basketball." - Sue Macy, Basketball Belles
As I mentioned earlier, this is a "Wow! Oh, Wow!" book for me. I bought a copy for me, for a friend, for the school library, and keep shouting about it to anyone who will listen. I hope that this book earns the recognition that it deserves.
