Author: Loree Burns

THE PENDERWICKS ON GARDAM STREET
By Jeanne Birdsall
Knopf, 2008

Category: Middle Grade Fiction

It’s been more than a week since the ice storm of my last post, and I am still recovering. The schools in our town didn’t open until Thursday … and a giant snowstorm blew in and closed them again on Friday. It is very difficult to write—and to prepare for the holidays—when there is ice and snow everywhere and when your children are watching your every move!

On the upside, the kids and I have been reading up a storm of our own. THE PENDERWICKS ON GARDAM STREET was last week’s treat. I have to admit to a niggling worry about reading this book now, a full two years after the kids and I read THE PENDERWICKS together. The boys are ten, after all; would the capers of the Penderwick sisters still interest them?

Um, yes. Absolutely.

Even though their beloved Jeffrey didn’t have much of a role in the book. Even though they guessed the major plotline early on. Even though there was a lot of pre-teen crushing throughout. The boys (and their seven-year-old sister) were completely drawn in to the story. So was I.

I had the pleasure of meeting Jeanne in 2007, and I signed a copy of TRACKING TRASH for her. You will understand, then, why my breath caught a bit when I read this line, on page __ of THE PENDERWICKS ON GARDAM STREET:

[Hmmm. I returned the book to the library and cannot find the slip of paper on which I jotted the line in question. Ack! I will find the line and add it later. Suffice to say, it includes the words flotsam and jetsam, which, of course, litter my little book.]

Coincidence, of course. But it was kind of fun, just for a moment, to wonder …

 

© Loree Griffin Burns

This weekend I will continue to gather material for my CITIZEN SCIENTISTS book by heading to New York City’s Central Park for the 109th annual Christmas Bird Count. Some people think counting birds in the middle of winter sounds a bit crazy, whatever would those same people think of me, who plans to spend several days watching people count birds in the middle of winter?

This weekend’s weather promises to be frigid, but I know firsthand that Christmas Bird Counters are a hearty bunch; a little wintry weather won’t keep these dedicated citizen scientists from counting Central Park’s winter bird population. Also? A dusting of snow and overcast skies should make for gorgeous photographs.

In preparation for the trip, I’ve been reading up on birds and birding. There are a LOT of field guides and birding books out there, but I went back to my trusty FIELD GUIDE TO THE BIRDS OF NORTH AMERICA, Second Edition (National Geographic, 1987) and the newer BIRDING ESSENTIALS, by Jonathan Alderfer and John L. Dunn (National Geographic, 2007).

I’ve scoured the shelves for birding books for younger readers, too, and found several I adore. Sadly, both these favorites are out of print:

NATIONAL AUDUBON SOCIETY’S FIRST FIELD GUIDE BIRDS (Scholastic, 1998)
I really like this little field guide. The introductory material has just enough information to get kids excited about birds and how to spy on them, while the guide itself covers fifty of North America’s most common birds in easy-to-digest two-page spreads.

A KIDS FIRST BOOK OF BIRDWATCHING, by Scott Weidensaul (Quintet, 1990)
This is not a field guide, but a book for lingering over at home. It covers many of the popular North American birds with a little more detail than the guide above and includes a narrated cassette tape that I found marvelous. (Although I may be one of the few humans who still has cassette tape capability?)

I found both in the collection at my local library, though, and you may too.

Anyway, that’s what is up with me … all birds all the time, at least until January 5. Whatever you’ve got planned these coming weeks, I hope you are thrilled about it, too!

 

Yesterday at the library, the kids (two boys and a girl, for the record) and I scooped up this:

and this:

The ride home was mayhem as the four of us debated the order in which to read these long-awaited titles. Luckily, we are not in a rush to decide, because at the moment we are loving this:

On the subject of reading together as a family, I was intrigued (to use a euphemism) by this recent School Library Journal article. The author contends that boys don’t read because men don’t read, that women can read to their children forever and a day and boys will get nothing from it but a firmer conviction that those who can (men) do and those who can’t (women) read.

Give me a break.

The idea that the (alleged) non-reading habits of a world full of boys can be blamed on the (alleged) non-reading habits of a world full of fathers is ludicrous. The idea that the reading habits of a world full of mothers can be labeled futile is asinine. There is so much more at play in the life of each boy, each father, and each mother.

Grumble. Grumble. Grumble.

Click the link above to read the article for yourself, and check out this response over at Guys Lit Wire, including the comments, to ponder a little more.

 

BIRDS IN THE BUSHES,
A Story About Margaret Morse Nice
By Julie Dunlap
Illustrations by Ralph L. Ramstad
Carolrhoda, 1996

Category: Middle Grade Biography

You know that question you sometimes hear, the one that goes: “If you could travel back in time and have lunch with one person from history, who would it be?” Since reading Julie Dunlap’s middle grade biography BIRDS IN THE BUSHES, I’ve decided that my answer to that question is: Margaret Morse Nice.

I picked the book up on a whim. I am preparing for some field research that will soon have me tracking birdwatchers (actually, bird counters) for a new book, and when I searched the children’s catalog at my local library this line of flap copy caught my eye: “Even becoming a wife and mother of five daughters couldn’t keep her in the house and away from birds.”

In some ways, Margaret’s story is familiar, even today: an intelligent woman bucks tradition, goes to college, earns a degree, embarks on a science career, falls in love, begins a family, and leaves her work behind.

But in other ways, Margaret’s story is wholly unique and inspiring.

She married in 1909, at the age of twenty-four. She abandoned her plans for a Ph.D. She raised five children. But she never, ever let go of her passion for discovery. She was creative, she found a way to work within her means (think massive, eight-year song sparrow study in the woods behind her house), and she learned important things about the world around her.

If I could have that lunch with Margaret, I’d insist on packing the food so that she could spend her precious time out in the field studying sparrows. When we finally did settle down with sandwiches and iced tea—after her daily observations were finished—I’d ask her about being a woman and a scientist, about being a mother and an investigator, about doing science independent of academia. Most of all, I’d ask her about those birds in the bushes, her beloved song sparrows.

What inspirational person would you like to have lunch with today?

 

CHASING MONARCHS
By Robert Michael Pyle
Mariner Books, 1999

Category: Nonfiction for Grownups

Robert Michael Pyle wrote another book—which I haven’t read yet—that bears the greatest subtitle ever: LIFE AS FIELD TRIP. Increasingly, I see my life this way … a series of very excellent field trips punctuated with quiet time for recording those trips in words. It is a good way to live.

In the Pyle book I read over this holiday weekend, CHASING MONARCHS, Pyle takes an incredible field trip with one of my favorite insects, the monarch butterfly. He packed some snacks, his trusty butterfly net (he calls her Martha), and headed for the northwesternmost monarch breeding sites, which happen to be in British Columbia. There he scoured milkweed patches for monarchs, captured and tagged as many as he could, and paid careful attention to the direction his subjects flew off in when released. Then he hopped back in his car and followed them.

Now that is a field trip.

Pyle ended up in Mexico, which is surprising because popular opinion has long held that western monarchs migrate not to Mexico but to southern California. (A field trip with scientific implications … can this get any better? I think not.) This is not a book for the faint of heart, but anyone with a sincere interest in monarch butterflies and their annual migration will enjoy the trip.

Speaking of field trips, tonight the kids and I stepped onto the back deck about an hour after sunset and spotted a celestial triangle of the moon, Venus, and Jupiter. Many thanks to Uncle Brendan, who not only bought us the telescope you see here, but also called to remind us to bring it outside tonight!

© Benjamin Griffin Burns

© Loree Griffin Burns

Jupiter is the easier-to-see bright spot to the right of the crescent moon. Venus is harder to see, but if you squint at the above photo just south of the area between the moon and Jupiter, you’ll see it. Pretty cool!