Quest for the Tree Kangaroo

Quest for the Tree Kangaroo, by Sy Montgomery, 2006

Montgomery, Sy, and Nic Bishop. Quest for the Tree Kangaroo: An Expedition to the Cloud Forest of New Guinea. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006. ISBN13: 978-0618-49641-9

Cover photography by Nic Bishop,
image from goodreads.com

Ages 10 and up

They look like big stuffed animals, or something Dr. Seuss may have dreamed up. With rounded faces, button eyes, a pink nose, fuzzy upright ears, and a long, thick tail, the Matschie's (pronounced “MATCH-eez”) tree kangaroo is a charmer. Author Sy Montgomery takes readers along on one of her many adventures – this time to help wildlife conservationist Lisa Dabek learn more about these elusive marsupials, which live in the cloud forests of Papua New Guinea.

Montgomery is an award-winning writer of non-fiction, science-based books for children, so readers can rely on the authenticity of her research and writing. Her story details the frustrations (long, exhausting hikes, lots of rain and mud) and victories (the team eventually captures and tags four tree kangaroos – a record!) of the two-week expedition to research the endangered species. Nic Bishop’s breathtaking photography is a wonderful companion to the fascinating text. He shows readers rainforest creatures with great detail, and fascinating shots of the expedition team at work. The stars of the book, the enchanting tree kangaroos, hop around and carry babies in pouches like regular kangaroos, and climb trees like monkeys with their sharp claws. Montgomery’s story and Bishop’s photos give readers an appreciation for an endangered animal they may never have heard of before. The book has a reader-friendly design, and Montgomery concludes her story with a “where are they now” update about the tree kangaroos they met and tagged during the expedition, as well as a helpful list of web resources to explore, a short guide to Tok Pisin, the native language of Papua New Guinea, and a thorough index. For children (and even adults) who want to know more about tree kangaroos, wildlife conservation, or the island country of Papua New Guinea, this book is a “tree-mendous” resource.

Reading/writing/science connections:

• In a sidebar article in the book, wildlife conservationist Lisa Dabek gives kids advice about how to follow their passion for wild animals. As Lisa suggests, have students research and write about their favorite animal. Extend their learning by encouraging them to take photos of the animal at a local zoo or in the wild (or in their own backyards) to accompany their research.
• Have students apply Lisa’s practice of taking field notes by having students watch the natural world outside and take notes about their observations. During a period of days or weeks, what were their prevalent observations? Did they notice any changes or patterns?
• Have students research and write about wildlife conservation. They could select to write about an endangered species, a wildlife conservationist and his or her work, or the work of a wildlife conservation organization such as the Rainforest Conservation Fund.
•  Encourage students to create a school garden (with a sponsor and permission, of course) that would attract birds, butterflies, and other animals searching for food and homes. There would be numerous learning extensions associated with such a project, in many different subject areas.

Awards:

Booklist Editor’s Choice (2006)

Best Book of the Year, School Library Journal (2006)

ASPCA Henry Bergh Children’s Book Award (2006)

Outstanding Science Trade Book for Students K-12 Selection, National Science Teachers Association Council on Children’s Books (2006)

Orbis Pictus Award from the National Council of Teachers of English (2007)

Robert F. Sibert Honor Book (2007)

Reviews:

“Montgomery’s friendliness and curiosity set the tone: she enthusiastically engages with the people, plants, and animals she encounters on the trip.” – The Horn Book Review

“Montgomery and photographer Nic Bishop tagged along with scientist Lisa Dabek as she journeyed to where these cuddly-looking creatures make their homes, an area of Papua New Guinea’s cloud forest so isolated that it can be reached only by an arduous three-day trek.” – The Washington Post

“Her detailed account highlights scientific work habits, including extensive planning, necessary patience, careful observations and recording and the continual questions that arise.… Bishop’s photographs, shots of the expedition members, striking close-ups of flora and fauna including the sought-for kangaroo and lush, green cloud forest scenes, are beautifully reproduced.”—Kirkus, starred review

"Personal focus and as-it-happens eventfulness will absorb young animal lovers.”—The Bulletin of the Center for Children’s Books

Montgomery gives an unusually strong, visceral sense of the work and cooperation fieldwork entails and the scope and uniqueness of this particular mission. – Booklist, starred review

“The book's fascinating glimpses into a little-explored region will hold the attention of anyone interested in unusual creatures and the efforts to study them.” – School Library Journal, starred review

If you want to learn more about author Sy Montgomery, here is a link to her website. It’s got some great resources for teachers to accompany the reading of her books:

http://symontgomery.com

If you’d like to learn more about tree kangaroos, here’s one of the web links from the book:

http://www.zoo.org/treekangaroo

Here’s a great video on tree kangaroos from National Geographic:

http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/news/animals-news/crittercam-tree-kangaroo-vin/

Maximilian and the Mystery of the Guardian Angel

Here is a video book trailer I recently created for the book Maximilian and the Mystery of the Guardian Angel. This bilingual book, written and illustrated by Xavier Garza, delves into the world of lucha libre, and should be a great (and quick) read for upper elementary and middle school boys. It is a Pura Belpré Award Honor Book for 2012. I hope you enjoy the video!

Harlem: A Poem

Harlem: A Poem, by Walter Dean Myers, 1997

Myers, Walter Dean, and Christopher Myers, ill. Harlem: A Poem. New York: Scholastic Press, 1997. ISBN13: 9780590543408

Ages 9 and up

If you’ve never been to Harlem, the predominantly African-American neighborhood in New York City, you will feel like you’ve been there after reading Harlem: A Poem, by Walter Dean Myers.

Myers, in his free verse poetry, takes us on a tour of the sights, sounds, and people of this historic neighborhood, where the influence of writers like Langston Hughes and Countee Cullen, leaders of the Harlem Renaissance, can still be felt:

“There is lilt

Tempo, cadence

A language of darkness

Darkness known

Darkness sharpened at Mintons

Darkness lightened at the Cotton Club

Sent Flying from Abyssinian Baptist

To the Apollo.”

Myers’ descriptive language includes similes that help the reader empathize with life in the city:

Illustration by Christopher Myers,
image from goodreads.com

“…Heavy hearted tambourine rhythms

Loosed in the hard city

Like a scream torn from the throat

Of an ancient clarinet…”

Christopher Myers, the author’s son, is the illustrator of this book. His collage and oil painting illustrations help to make the poem come alive. They are vivid, expressive, and dynamic in their portrayals of life in Harlem. You can almost hear the children laughing in the street as you read the poem and take in the illustration of children playing in the water coming out of a hydrant:

“Yellow/tan/brown/black/red

Green/gray/bright

Colors loud enough to be heard

Light on asphalt streets

Sun yellow shirts on burnt umber

Bodies

Demanding to be heard, seen

Sending out warriors…”

This is a free verse poem with a rhythm created by the busy streets, jazz clubs, and everyday street scenes in Harlem. Myers gives the reader an insider’s view with descriptive flair that engages the reader’s mind and the five senses. It is probably best read aloud, with all of the feeling that Myers has instilled in it.

Reading/writing/art connections:

·      As an extension to reading this poem, students could use the inquiry method to explore Harlem’s history and it’s citizens’ contributions to American culture.

·      Students can create free verse poems about their own neighborhoods. Have students focus on description – utilizing the five senses to help the reader visualize the poem in his or her mind.

·      Integrate art into the study of this poem by having students illustrate their own poems with a collage and paint combination similar to the one used by illustrator Christopher Myers.

·      Students can research more poetry about cultures they would like to learn more about.

Awards:

Caldecott Honor (1998)

Coretta Scott King Award for Illustrator Honor (1998)

ALA's Top Ten Best Books for Young Adults (1998)

Boston Globe Honor Book for Fiction/Poetry (1998)

Horn Book Honor Book for Fiction/Poetry (1998)

Reviews:

"See if anyone can sit still when the book is read aloud."--Kirkus

"An arresting and heartfelt tribute to a well-known, but little understood community."--School Library Journal

"Throughout, the past overlays the present, like a legacy passed down…."--Publishers Weekly

"It is Harlem as a visual experience that YAs will return to again and again, to admire and wonder at what is realized with truly extraordinary grace and power."—Booklist

“Walter's poem pulsates with the jazzy rhythms and street sounds, the color and the people that make Harlem distinctive.”—Children’s Literature

“Take the opportunity to introduce and talk about this book.”—VOYA

If you want to learn more about author Walter Dean Myers, here is a link to his website:

http://www.walterdeanmyers.net

To learn more about illustrator Christopher Myers, watch this video interview from readingrockets.org:

http://www.readingrockets.org/books/interviews/myersc/

The Braid

The Braid, by Helen Frost, 2006

Frost, Helen. The Braid. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2006. ISBN 978-0-37430962-6

Ages 12 and up

Emulating the title of her book, The Braid, author Helen Frost weaves together the story of two sisters, Sarah and Jeannie, who are separated by circumstances that leave Sarah, the eldest sister, in Scotland with her grandmother while the rest of the family is forced to emigrate to Canada.

Frost gives the reader some important historical context for this story in her introduction, which is crucial to the reader’s understanding as she sets the stage for this touching story. In the 1850’s, Scotland went through its second wave of the Highland Clearances, where wealthy landowners evicted thousands of Scottish Highlanders from their land, primarily to make room for sheep farming. The tenant farmers and their families were forced to start over on the lowlands seashore, or were forced to emigrate to Canada or the United States.

Illustration by Louise Brierley,
image from goodreads.com

The night before the family is being forced to emigrate, Sarah braids her hair together with that of her sister, Jeannie. As Jeannie sleeps, Sarah cuts the braid and leaves half for her sister as a remembrance just before she runs away to the hills to avoid the forced relocation. The family must leave without her. During the agonizing voyage across the Atlantic, the family patriarch and two youngest children die of cholera, leaving Jeannie and her mother on their own in a country where they don’t know anyone and must survive on their own. Meanwhile, Sarah, on the other side of the ocean, finds herself in love, but pregnant out of wedlock, and scared of the consequences for herself and her child. Alternating between the sisters’ points of view, the story tells of the hardships, loves lost and found, and an ending that includes a reunion by letter. It is a powerful story of love, sacrifice, and family.

Frost wrote this story in free verse poetry, with a woven intricacy that rivals a Celtic knot, from which the author admits she derived her poetic inspiration. In her “Notes on Form” after the end of the poem, she describes the poem’s structure as having three elements: narrative poems in two alternating voices, praise poems which praise something mentioned in the previous narrative poem, and line lengths based on syllabic counts. The praise poems, which are all eight lines in length, are braided together horizontally, with the last line of the previous praise poem written as the first line of the next praise poem. The long narrative poems are braided vertically. The last words of each line in one narrative poem are the first words in each line of the next narrative poem. And in the narrative poems, the syllabic count of each line is the same number of that girl’s age, both of which increase as the story progresses through the years (Frost, 2006). The complexity of the poem is remarkable, but could be lost on readers if it weren’t for Frost’s explanation at the end. Then of course, most readers like myself will probably go back into the text to find examples of the author’s explanations.

The book is not illustrated, but artist Louise Brierley’s folk-art style watercolor cover illustration shows a poignant scene from the book where Sarah is staring out at the sea as she is being rowed in a boat to another island to live with her grandmother.

Reading and writing connections:

·      As part of reading of this poem, students could use the inquiry method to explore the Highland Clearances – what they were, why they happened, and the consequences.

·      Have students try their hands at interwoven poetry. It doesn’t have to have the complexity of Frost’s poem, but challenge them to use letters and/or words in such a way that they are somehow intertwined or patterned in the poem.

·      Students can also explore immigration through inquiry. What significant events in history caused surges in immigration to places such as Canada, Australia, and the United States? What are relevant issues in immigration today?

Awards:

Kirkus Reviews Editor’s Choice, 2006

School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, 2006

Bank Street Best Children’s Book of the Year, 2007

Reviews:

"Incredible imagery, rich vocabulary and powerful storytelling."--Kirkus

"This gem of a book ultimately tackles age-old issues of teen pregnancy, death, poverty, and first love in a timeless manner… Accomplished and impressive."--School Library Journal, starred review

"Frost’s ingeniously structured novel in verse… may be set in 1850, but its themes will resonate with today’s teens… Memorable."--Publishers Weekly, starred review

"Amazing, lyrical, and fascinating. Frost’s work is astonishing in both its design and execution."—Booklist

If you want to learn more about author Helen Frost, here is a link to her website:

http://www.helenfrost.net

Edgar Allan Poe's Pie

Edgar Allan Poe’s Pie: Math Puzzlers in Classic Poems, by J. Patrick Lewis, 2012

Lewis, J. Patrick, and Michael Slack, ill. Edgar Allan Poe’s Pie. New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2012. ISBN 978-0547513386

Illustration by Michael Slack,
image from goodreads.com

Ages 6 and up

Are they poems? Are they math problems? Are they parodies? Yes! All of the above! In this collection of parodies of famous poems, J. Patrick Lewis has rewritten them in the original author’s style while artfully infusing each poem with a math word problem to challenge the reader’s skills.

There are 14 well-known poems, such as “April Rain Song” by Langston Hughes, that older readers may be familiar with. Many readers will recognize the meter in Lewis’ parodies, such as “Edgar Allan Poe’s Pie,” inspired by “The Raven”:

“Once upon a midnight rotten,

Cold, and rainy, I’d forgotten

All about the apple pie

Still cooling from the hour before.”

The poem then goes on to ask the reader “How many cuts give me ten pieces?” with the clue “Never four!” This first poem was the easiest problem to solve, with the problems getting progressively more difficult. The answers to the problems are explained in small print that is printed upside down on each poem’s two-page spread, which makes it easy for readers to get instant confirmation of their answer.

Lewis uses clever word and number play to morph poems such as “Boa Constrictor” by Shel Silverstein into “Shel Silverstein’s Hippo-po-tah-tum”:

“Oh, I’m being eaten

By a hippo-po-tah-tum

At 4 percent per bite!”

Lewis goes on to ask the reader to calculate how many bites it took to eat the whole victim.

The author stays true to the rhythm, rhyme, and sound of the original poems, while making them fresh again with his witty rewriting and ingenious math problems. Above all, Lewis is having fun with these poems, and it shows. The light-hearted poems range from limericks (“Edward Lear’s Elephant with Hot Dog”) to a full page of quatrain stanzas (“Lewis Carroll’s Fish and Chips”).

Michael Slack’s brightly colored and imaginative illustrations, digitally painted in Photoshop, add a hilarious twist to the poems. The artist shows his sense of humor in details such as a cowboy and his horse wearing tightie whitie briefs while admiring boxer shorts on a clothes line for “Robert Frost’s Boxer Shorts” (inspired by Frost’s “Stopping By Woods On A Snowy Evening”). Many of the illustrations also give a nod to the original poem, such as a pair of raven’s claws ready to snatch up an apple pie, or a boa constrictor’s head peering over the rear end of a hippo.

Now, I will personally admit that I’m not mathematically inclined. I got 11 out of the 14 poem problems correct. The three I got wrong were due to my misunderstanding of what the author wanted from the problem, which could also be an issue for some younger readers. However, whenever you start reading the poems, you can’t help but want to grab a pen and paper and try to solve the problem at hand. Although the poetry is appropriate for ages 6 and up, the math involved is probably more appropriate for grades 3 and up.

Reading and writing connections:

·      Have students find and read the original poems that were parodied in this book. Have them compare and contrast the originals with Lewis’ parodies.

·      After reminding students that not all poems have to rhyme, have them create their own word problems in poetic form. Encourage them to create multi-step problems like the author does. They can then exchange poems and solve each others’ math problems.

·      Explore various types of poems, such as acrostics, limericks, haiku, and free verse to create poems that are about math and/or math concepts, but don’t necessarily have a problem embedded. For example,

“Line segment

you are on your own.

Stuck between two points,

your boundaries for infinity.”

                              R. Grape

·      Have students publish the final versions of their poems with original artwork, and consider creating a printed or digital book of their works.

·      If you or your students want to explore more math poetry, try mathstory.com at:

http://mathstory.com/poems/mathpoemspage.html#.UHTv6rQVOXQ

·      If you or your students want to explore more math poetry, try the following books:

·      Hopkins, Lee Bennett, and Karen Barbour, ill. Marvelous Math. New York. Simon & Schuster, 1997. ISBN 0-689-80658-2

·      Sandburg, Carl, and Ted Rand, ill. Arithmetic. Orlando, FL. HBJ Publishers, 1970.

ISBN 0-15-203865-5

Reviews:

"Lewis cleverly combines math and language arts with this collection of humorous poetry parodies that present readers with math word problems to solve."--Kirkus

"Teachers and parents might challenge youngsters to try solving the math problems, then introduce them to the classic poems by reading them together."--School Library Journal

"Slack's bug-eyed caricatures are an exuberant complement to Lewis's delightfully offbeat union of poetry and math."--Publishers Weekly, starred review

"This book could come in handy for a variety of different classroom purposes."—Booklist

If you want to learn more about author (and Children’s Poet Laureate) J. Patrick Lewis and illustrator Michael Slack, here are links to their websites:

http://www.jpatricklewis.com

http://www.slackart.com