On Fridays, a cadre of bloggers in the kidlit world focus their posts on poetry. (A roundup of today’s explorations can be found here.) I don’t participate often, but this week I was inspired by these two poems from slam artist Taylor Mali. Watch, and enjoy:
“What Teachers Make” by Taylor Mali
“Totally, Like, Whatever, You Know?” by Taylor Mali, typography by Ronnie Bruce
© Benjamin Griffin Burns
How I wish I could find more time to blog! I’ve had some great adventures over the past few weeks, adventures that have taken me from Rhode Island to Massachusetts to California and back home again. I’ve met book-loving science teachers, chatted with science-loving librarians, spent time with writers just starting out, and talked shop with colleagues I admire a great deal. I even had dinner with one of my literary heroes.
(Yes, I managed to control my fan-girl tendencies. Sort of. Mostly.)
I’ve also been working on a book with my kids–not for publication, but for fun. We’ve been organizing years of wildlife images collected on our property, and the result is a pretty amazing record of the creatures that live here with us … all identified and organized by kingdom, phylum, class, order, family, genus, and species.
(Yep. Geeky. And truly interesting. We’ve seen black bears and hummingbird clearwing moths and a whole lot of critters in between. Right here in our barely-an-acre suburban backyard. And now, if you come over for a visit, we can show them to you.)
And then there is my upcoming book, which is starting to look like an actual book and my goodness I cannot wait to share it with you. And I’m about to begin intensive field research for an even newer project, the subject of which thrills and scares me. And I’ve got this pile of amazing books I’ve read recently and want to sing about on this blog. And … and … and …
Deep. Breath.
I think I’ll start with this: Hello! How’ve you been? Is spring springing where you live? Because the air is warm and the sun is shining here in New England, and I am heading outside with my camera to breathe it all in, and to see if I can find the elusive pileated woodpecker that has been hanging around this winter. How about you? Have you been outside lately? Seen anything wonderful? Do tell.
And check back soon for details on, well, everything else.
I’m heading to the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA) annual conference … in San Francisco, baby! I’m excited at the prospect of all those science teachers to mingle with and learn from. Sunshine and warmth? Total bonuses.
At the conference, I’ll join Professors Susannah Richards and Jeanelle Day, and my colleague Alexandra Siy, to talk about practicing science in childhood, in the field, in books, and in the classroom. Ours promises to be a lively and informative discussion; please join us if you are at the conference. Here are the details:
Buzzing About Science:
Behind the Scenes with Scientific Trade Books that Invite Inquiry
Thursday, March 10, 2011
3:30pm-4:30pm
Hilton San Francisco, Union Square
Golden Gate Room 8
Photo courtesy Tracy Gandy
The 2011 March Into Reading festival weekend was stupendous. In addition to talking trash and writing with students at Pennfield School, tools with students at St. Michael’s School, and bees with students at Cluny School, I got to hang out with book lovers of all ages, including my new friend Caleb. He is six, and he gave me the handmade honey bee you see in the picture up there. How cute is that bee? How cute is that boy?
Thank you, Caleb.
And thank you to author escort extraordinaire Tracy Gandy, conference organizer Kitty Rok (and her many, many co-organizers), booksellers Judy Crosby and Jenny Williams, photographers Gloria and Richard Schmidt, Julie the Announcer (!), all my author and illustrator colleagues, and every single person who wandered through Saturday’s Enchanted Garden of Books at Salve Regina University. You all sure know how to throw a book party!
© Gloria Schmidt
© Benjamin Griffin Burns
The bright side of all this snow on the ground in central Massachusetts is the ease with which one can, say, track a porcupine in the woods. The prickly fellow in the photo above, for example, lives behind our house, and we find him most afternoons perched thirty feet above the melting slush, chewing bark and branches in the sun. Seeing him reassures me that spring is on the way, although I don’t believe porcupines are generally considered harbingers of spring. (February in New England can make one see spring everywhere. This I know for sure.)
Other (equally dubious?) signs of spring ’round here include a sudden burst of online activity related to THE HIVE DETECTIVES:
I was a guest blogger at Cynsations yesterday; you can read my post and join the conversation about nonfiction genres here.
Mary Quattlebaum at Washington Parent compiled a nice list of books to help us all welcome the growing season and warmer weather, and she included THE HIVE DETECTIVES. You can her full list of titles here.
And Ricklibrarian posted this nice review at his blog.
I’m heading south for Newport’s March Into Reading literacy festival this weekend. I’m betting I’ll see actual grass down there. And maybe crocuses?
© 2008 MIR photos courtesy Gloria Schmidt and Jenny Williams
Back in 2008, I attended the March Into Reading literacy festival at Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island. It was one of my first major speaking events, and I was moved by students and starstruck by colleagues at every turn, as evidenced in my excessive blogging during and after the event. (See, for example, this, and this, and this, and this.) At the very end of my very last March Into Reading blog post (yes, there is one more here), I mentioned how much I’d like to go back to Newport one day. And guess what? This week, I’m going back.
Hooray!
I’ll be visiting with students in Newport area schools all day on Friday, and on Saturday I’ll join authors Melissa Stewart, Wendy Watson, Clara Silverstein, Jane Bregoli, and Laura Backman at one kickin’ book festival. The O’Hare Academic Center on the campus of Salve Regina University will become an Enchanted Garden of Books from 9:30am until 1:00pm, with children’s discovery rooms, author and illustrator workshops, book sales and signings, and even a petting zoo. You’ll find a complete schedule of workshops and events at the official event webpage.
Hope to see you in Rhode Island!
THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS
By Rebecca Skloot
Crown, 2010
Category: Nonfiction for adults
Every once in a while I read a book that reminds me that sharing true stories about real people is only the second most satisfying way I spend my literary time. The first? Reading true stories about real people written by my colleagues. This month I listened to the audio version of Rebecca Skloot’s THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS, and I can tell you for sure that this book is a model of what creative nonfiction can be. It’s brilliant.
HeLa was the first human cell line successfully grown long-term in a petri dish, and I remember reading years ago in a graduate school textbook that the cells came from a woman whose initials are disguised in the word HeLa itself: Helen Lane. The textbook was wrong. The real woman’s name was Henrietta Lacks, and her true story—and the true story of her family—is heartbreaking and inspiring and I am so glad that Rebecca Skloot has finally shared it with the world. And that I got to read it.
The SB&F Prize for Excellence in Science Books, coordinated by the wonderful editors at the review journal Science Books and Films (SB&F) and sponsored by the science-loving folks at Subaru, were awarded this past weekend at the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). In case the abundance of acronyms have you doubting there was much fun to be had, allow me to elaborate …
They painted our book cover onto the hood of a Subaru:
And since I couldn’t drive the car inside the convention center, I posed on top of it instead:
Ellen Harasimowicz and I signed books beside it, too:
And I met Ms. Frizzle! Okay, not exactly Ms. Frizzle … but I did meet Joanna Cole and Bruce Degan, creators of the Magic Schoolbus books and SB&F Prize winners in the picture book category (below, right). And I met Sean Connolly, too, the SB&F Prize winner in the hands-on category (below, left). Here we all are clutching our fancy new awards:
Call me crazy, but that was fun!
Thank you to Subaru, AAAS, SB&F, Heather Malcomson, Terry Young, Maren Ostergard and all of the scientists, librarians, editors, and book lovers who helped make this weekend celebration of science books for kids such a blast.
All photos © Ellen Harasimowicz
January is award season in the children’s publishing world, and the result is lists and lists of books I’d like to read. I’ve compiled a few of my favorite nonfiction book lists here …
From the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), the 2011 Orbis Pictus Award and Finalists
From the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), the 2011 Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students K-12
From the American Library Association, the 2011 YALSA Award for Excellence in Young Adult Nonfiction winner and finalists
Also from the American Library Association, the 2011 Sibert Medal winner and honor books
From the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and Subaru, the 2010 SB&F Prize for Excellence in Science Books winners and finalists
And don’t forget the Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers’ 2010 Literary Awards finalists in the Nonfiction Picture Book and Nonfiction Middle Grade and Young Adult Book categories
* * *
Are there lists of this year’s award-winning non-fiction that I’ve missed? Please let me know and I’ll add them.
And what do you think of that rockin’ banner up there? I thought it was a bit loud, but its creator, my son, thinks that is because I’m a bit old.
Finally, did you know you can find all things nonfiction from around the blogosphere every Monday at Nonfiction Monday? Here’s today’s roundup, courtesy of the blog Great Kid Books. Check it out.
© Loree Griffin Burns
“This experiment is important, because, as far as we know, no one in history (including adults) has done this experiment before.”
So say the twenty-five 8- to 10-year-old children from Blackawton Primary School in Devon, England, whose study of the bumble bee Bombus terrestris was published in the December 22, 2010 issue of the journal Biology Letters.
Their experiments are clever, their results are interesting, and their scientific report is delightful. I highly recommend you put your thinking cap on (its a fairly complicated experiment) and read it.
I love that the Blackawton teachers created an elementary science experience based on the simple idea that science is a game everyone can play. I admire the editors at Biology Letters, who acknowledged this idea in such a powerful way: by publishing their paper. And I adore the closing sentence of the paper itself: “Science is cool and fun because you get to do stuff that no one has ever done before.”
Hear! Hear!
