Category: Book Loves

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Book Giveaway Fun …

“Oh, no. No. We are not breaking a poodle out of baggage claim.“

Anna, in Kate Messner’s CAPTURE THE FLAG

While all of you Kate Messner fans were leaving enthusiastic comments on Wednesday’s giveaway post, I’ve been re-living the adventure that is CAPTURE THE FLAG with my ten-year-old daughter.  Here’s what I have to say:

Andy Starowitz, YOU ARE GOING TO LOVE THIS BOOK!

I used a random number generator to pull Andy’s name out of a virtual hat. Please contact me, Andy, at lgb (at) loreeburns (dot) com with your mailing address and I will post this to you first thing on Monday.

If you didn’t win, don’t fret! CAPTURE THE FLAG will be released on July 1 and you can order yourself a signed copy through the good folks at The Bookstore Plus.  Simple instructions for placing that order can be found right here on Kate’s blog.

Thanks for playing, everyone. Happy reading. And for those of you who found your way here through the Teachers Write! extravaganza, happy writing, too. You rock!

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Book Giveaway: Capture the Flag by Kate Messner

 

CAPTURE THE FLAG, by Kate Messner (Scholastic Press, 2012)

Category: Middle-grade Novel

 

Do you know what I loved as a kid? Nancy Drew mysteries. I devoured them, kept checklists of those I’d read and wishlists of those I needed desperately to get my mitts on. Each summer, my friend Kelley and I re-opened our private detective agency–G&G Detectives–in homage to our heroine. When business was slow, we read more Nancy Drew books. Or wrote mysteries of our own. Eventually we’d read and written so many mysteries that we had no choice but tho share them: one dog-day, on a whim, we closed G&G Detectives and opened The Garland Street Library instead. It was made up almost entirely of Nancy Drew books.

Do you know what else? If there were a way to go back and talk to eleven-year-old Loree, she’d be tickled to know that she’d one day be friends and writing partners with Kate Messner. And that Kate would create a mystery series that starred a trio of kid detectives. Little Loree would love that trio of kids as much as Not-so-Little Loree does, I’m sure of it. And she would demand Not-so-Little Loree share the love.

So, in celebration of good mysteries, good books, good friends, and the long, lazy days of summer, I’d like to send YOU an advanced copy of my friend Kate Messner’s newest mystery, CAPTURE THE FLAG. You can read a little about Kate here, and a little about the book here. If you’d like an advanced copy for yourself or for your best friend or for that neighbor kid with a detective agency, and if you live in the continental United States, just leave a comment on this post before midnight on Friday, June 22. On Saturday morning, I’ll put all the names in a hat, pull one out, and let you know who the lucky detective is.

Good luck!

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Twice-stabbed on an Apple Tree

© Loree Griffin Burns

Yesterday, in central Massachusetts, the sun came out. In celebration, my daughter and I spent a couple of hours outside after school. She did her homework on the picnic table, I scoped out one of our two apple trees. I’ve been reading a truly inspiring book on tree-watching–SEEING TREES, by Nancy Ross Hugo and Robert Llewellyn–and have decided to take up the sport. Somewhere between noting the gorgeous pattern of the bark (it was spongy and wet, mottled dark and light all over and then sprinkled with moss and lichens) and checking out the leaves, I found some critters. Not surprisingly, I was distracted. Ants. Slugs. And a ladybug! Not just any ladybug, mind you, but one I’ve not yet seen in the wild.

Can you see it up there in the photo?

That, my friends, is a Twice-stabbed Ladybug (Chilocorus stigma). Or maybe its a Once-squashed Ladybug (Chilocorus hexacyclus)*? I will never know for sure, because when I tried to catch it for a closer look at its chromosomes**, it dropped down into the grass. Lost forever. But I did manage this picture, which I’ll submit to Lost Ladybug Project soon.

So, eleven different species on my ladybug life list now. Hooray for the sun, and for tree-watching, and for ladybugs!

* I am not making these names up, I swear. They are from this excellent ladybug field guide.

**Okay, now I’m making things up. The only way to distinguish the two species is to examine the chromosomes, but I had no intention of doing so. I’m not that geeky. Plus, I don’t have the proper microscopes yet.

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The Way of Natural History

THE WAY OF NATURAL HISTORY
edited by Thomas Lowe Fleischner
Trinity University Press, 2011

Category: Essay Collection for Adults

I have spent the past month drinking deeply from this collection of essays, jotting notes in margins, mulling ideas, appreciating voices and places new to me. I’m feeling tipsy. There is so much to admire in these pages, and to love. Like this lesson from John Anderson’s essay Sauntering toward Bethlehem:

“More and more I have come to believe that the context of any action may be at least as important as the action itself, and that this also applies to our learning and teaching. An analysis of bear dung that gives a precise distribution of foodstuffs consumed or fits the bear into some clearly defined trophic level doubtless has an elegance and beauty of its own, but it is neither the bear nor the berries that the bear ate, nor the crushed grass stems springing back from the bear’s pugmarks, nor the taste of the morning air before anyone else in camp is awake, nor your feeling of breathless excitement that direct contact with the truly other can bring.”

And this, from Laura Sewall’s Perceiving a World of Relations:

“What sort of sensibility might emerge with one’s attention commonly cast out over a river? Could it be that a fluid, flexible form of consciousness–a certain sensibility–is born of attention to River? Could an internal ease arise after contemplating Lake’s still depth? As children, might we learn the nature of transformation by watching tadpoles become frogs in the fecund months of spring? Might we then be predisposed toward a belief in our own potential to transform?”

THE WAY OF NATURAL HISTORY captured me as much by content as by style. Perhaps it would capture you, too?

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The Other Way to Listen

THE OTHER WAY TO LISTEN
by Bird Baylor and Peter Parnall
Atheneum, 1978

Category: Picture Book

These days, my life is boxes and newspapers and packing up to move. I’m slow at this task, especially now that I am smack in the middle of boxing up my library. I’ve got a few (too many) books, and being both anal and geeky, have always wanted to catalog them. This seems the perfect opportunity. So, before I box them, I’ve been adding each and every title to my LibraryThing page.

The other thing that slows me some is reading. Each time I pull an old beloved off the shelf, I’m tempted to clear a spot on the couch and visit with it a while. That happened this morning with Byrd Baylor and Peter Parnall’s THE OTHER WAY TO LISTEN. And I’ll tell you this: reading this book is a fine way to start a day.  One might argue a reading of this picture book as the finest way to start every day.

On the surface, it’s a quiet picture book about a young girl and an old man and the one trying to learn from the other how to listen. Really listen.

“He was so

good

at listening—

once

he heard

wildflower seeds

burst open,

beginning

to grow

underground.”

My kids have heard this story before, but humored me and listened to it again this morning. It still confuses them, as I think it would have confused me once, too. (You know, back when I was more literal … and not so good at listening.) Like the old man and his protege in the story, I can’t really teach my kids what the book means. But I can box it up and move it over to the new house, keep it safe on my shelf, read it to them now and again. Encourage them to think on other ways to listen.  Remind them,

“you have to

learn it

from

the hills

and ants

and lizards

and weeds

and things

like that.

They do

the teaching

around here.”

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Book Love: The Beak of the Finch

© Loree Griffin Burns


Check. Out. That. Photo.

On the bottom: THE BEAK OF THE FINCH, the book that changed the way I think about sharing science and, quite possibly, the course of my scientific career. (I’m not kidding. I’d still be a lab rat had this book not crossed my desk back in 1995. Read it.)

On the top: my gorgeous, wholly original, and completely amazing new purse, made from an actual copy of THE BEAK OF THE FINCH* by the uber-talented Caitlin Phillips at Rebound Designs.

Have you ever seen anything so excellent in your life? I am the happiest book geek on the planet.

* Said copy was contributed by its kind and generous author, Jonathan Weiner, who took pity on a devoted fan who wanted a purse but couldn’t bear to give up her copy of his book. Thank you, Jonathan!

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Seeds from a Birch Tree

SEEDS FROM A BIRCH TREE
Writing Haiku and the Spiritual Journey
By Clark Strand
Hyperion, 1997

Category: Adult Non-fiction (Craft)

I found a copy of SEEDS FROM A BIRCH TREE on the used book sale shelf of the Peacedale Public Library, where my kids and I passed a rainy August afternoon during our vacation on the Rhode Island coast. For fifty cents, it was mine, and our (wet) vacation took an unexpected and sunnier turn. The things I’d brought to read sat neglected as I communed instead with this little masterpiece. And wrote haiku.

(Me? Writing haiku? I know it sounds crazy, but …)

Strand’s thoughtful look at the form and his zen approach to creating it is perfect for the tentative beginner. He doesn’t talk about composing poems so much as experiencing nature in a purposeful and meaningful way and, if the words come, recording the experience in seventeen syllables.

(Hey! Even I can do that.)

And Strand frames reading haiku as a spiritual practice, an idea that completely resonated with me.

(Slowing down? Looking deeply? Honoring the spiritual? What better time for that than a vacation?)

SEEDS was as inspirational to me as any book I have ever read. I wasn’t looking for it. I didn’t expect it. But there it was. I’ve taken to carrying a notebook when I’m outside in the woods, an idea taken from Strand. Now I walk, and watch, and count syllables off on my fingers. It’s an addicting habit, a lovely practice, and I hope it stays with me.

silent, unmoving,
pine trees cast their hopes to wind
forest seedshower

© Loree Griffin Burns, all rights reserved

For a hefty dose of nonfiction, check out this week’s Nonfiction Monday roundup, over at Wrapped in Foil.

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Can I See Your I.D.?

CAN I SEE YOUR I.D.?
True Stories of False Identities
By Chris Barton
Illustrations by Paul Hoppe
Dial, 2011

Category: Middle Grade Nonfiction

I wanted to get my hands on this book for two reasons. First, Chris Barton wrote it. (Duh.) Second, I’d read somewhere the entire collection of thematically-linked true stories was written in the second person; this I had to read.

For those of you who haven’t thought about narrative mode in a while, the second person refers to the use of the personal pronoun “you.” As in:

“You are a fibber. A confabulator. Mary Baker, you’re a liar.”

Those are the opening lines from Barton’s profile of Mary Baker, who spent a couple crazy weeks in the summer of 1817 impersonating an exotic Asian princess. Her story is interesting in its own right, but because of the Barton’s choice to tell it in the second person, and to bundle it with ten additional short biographies of pretenders, readers are treated to something unexpected: front row seats in her interrogation.

And in the end, this is what struck me most about this book. Barton’s use of second person is a huge part of why it works so well, even though his is a somewhat unorthodox use of the form. Typically, a nonfiction writer will use second person to pull a reader into a piece, hoping she will see herself as the “you.” That is exactly why I used second person in CITIZEN SCIENTISTS, my book on kids and nature study. I wanted to invite readers into the experiences I was writing about:

“Butterfly eyes can detect movement, so when you sneak up on your monarch, net raised high over your head, be sure to move slowly. Do not point. Do not let your shadow fall on the butterfly. Breathe quietly.”

The reader is there with me in the meadow, catching butterflies. And if the form has worked the way I intended, she will be breathing quietly, waiting to see what happens next.

In Barton’s second person narrative, though, “you” is not the reader at all; “you” is the person being profiled. By taking this approach in a collection of ten biographies, Chris asserts his role not only as the book’s narrator, but as a trustworthy interrogator. As a reader, I came to understand that he would ask the right questions of his subjects, get me to the bottom of their strange stories of deception. I read along for the ride. And even though the ten subjects were from different times and places in history, they were strongly linked, in my mind, by their interrogator. (Er, biographer.)

I really, really enjoyed this book. Check it out, and whatever you do, do not skip the Afterword.  It is also written in the second person, but this time the “you” refers to Chris himself. That is, Barton is both the interrogator and the person being interrogated in this final chapter. My head nearly exploded as I tried to follow along. Totally brilliant.

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Mud Pies and Other Recipes

MUD PIES AND OTHER RECIPES: A COOKBOOK FOR DOLLS
By Marjorie Winslow
Illustrated by Erik Blegvad
Walker and Company, 1961

Category: Hands-on Children’s Nonfiction

“Doll cookery is not a very exacting art,” Marjorie Winslow admits in the foreword to this irresistible tribute to that staple of an outdoor childhood: making mudpies. “If a recipe calls for a cupful of something, you can use a measuring cup or a teacup or a buttercup.” The pages that follow are filled with whimsical recipes, plenty of natural ingredients (pine cones, acorn caps, shredded marigold blossoms, and fresh rainwater, to name a few) and endless options for the backyard chef.

How do you toss a Seesaw salad? “Arrange yourself on a seesaw with the bowl in front of you and a friend at the other end. Toss as long as it’s fun, or until well blended.” Of course.

Too tired to cook up a fancy meal? Try a quick Mud Puddle Soup: “Find a mud puddle after a rainstorm and seat your dolls around it. Serve.”

My daughter’s copy of MUD PIES was a gift from a friend more than five years ago, and it looks like a well-loved and much-used cookbook should: dog-eared, annotated, splattered with berry juice, and crunchy with crumbs (of sand). When she pulls it out and starts to cook, I’m mesmerized; this is a book that was first published nearly a decade before I was born, after all, and she and I can still play at it for hours. Here’s a recipe we wrote together this past week, during a soggy couple days near the beach in Rhode Island. It gives you a flavor for the sort of creativity this gem of a book inspires:

Late Summer Beach Soup

Place 6 rain-soaked rose hips in the bottom of a small saucepan. Cover with fresh seawater. Simmer gently on a patch of grass, stirring occasionally, until the sun comes out. Before serving, add shredded beach roses and a sprinkling of sand. Ladle into bowls and serve immediately.

Bon Appetit!

Edited to add: Check out a round-up of today’s Nonfiction Monday posts over at Ana’s Nonfiction Blog.

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Blizzard of Glass

blizzardofglass

BLIZZARD OF GLASS: THE HALIFAX EXPLOSION OF 1917
By Sally M. Walker
Henry Holt, 2011

Category: Middle Grade/Young Adult Nonfiction

I picked up an Advance Reader’s Edition of this book at the annual conference of the American Library Association last month. Technically, I am too biased to review it: Sally Walker is a friend and Henry Holt is publishing my own next book. But I’m not the sort of girl that would let those things sway her into praising a book she didn’t love … and I love this book too much not to sing about it.

In 1917, a ship carrying munitions into Halifax Harbor collided with another ship, setting off what was then the largest man-made explosion in history. The accident happened on an otherwise humdrum December morning, and Sally Walker tells the story perfectly, bringing readers into Halifax, showing them around, feeding them breakfast, walking them to school, and leading them, moment by painstaking moment, toward the disaster that changed the community forever. She gives special attention to those facets of the story that will most intrigue young people, and she does so with respect and care for both her subjects and her readers.

This is narrative nonfiction at its finest, folks. A page-turner right out of the history books, a disaster story told not for its shock value, but for its enduring value. Today’s kids are surrounded by disaster—natural or manmade, real or in sound-byte. To some of them, it may feel as if disaster is a new thing, as if dealing with it is something humans are not equipped for. The fact is—and BLIZZARD OF GLASS readers come to understand this—we humans have dealt with disaster for our entire history. And time and again, we’ve come together, in community, to help one another through. That message rings powerfully in this book, and its why I made sure both my tweens had a chance to read it before I passed it along, with rave reviews, to my town librarian.

BLIZZARD OF GLASS will be available in bookstores on November 22, 2011. Don’t miss it!

Edited to add:

It’s Nonfiction Monday, which means a gaggle of bloggers are talking about children’s nonfiction. You can see a roundup of today’s offerings at the proseandkahn blog. As always, you can read up on Nonfiction Monday celebrations at the official website.