What To Do About Alice?

What To Do About Alice? :

How Alice Roosevelt Broke the Rules, Charmed the World, and Drove her Father Teddy Crazy! 

by Barbara Kerley

illustrated by Edwin Fotheringham

 

Barbara Kerley has written 13 books for children and young adults, including picture books about Mark Twain, Waterhouse Hawkins, Alice Roosevelt, Walt Whitman, John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Edwin Fotheringham has done illustrations for CD and record covers, Neiman Marcus ads, magazines, fiction books and children's books. What To Do About Alice has been recognized with the following honors and awards: Sibert Honor Book, ALA Notable Book, Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book, the Irma Black Award Honor Book, the Parents Choice Award and the Washington State Scandiuzzi Children's Book Award.

What To Do About Alice? is a biography of Alice Roosevelt. The reader watches Alice grow from a small child into a married woman, while her father Teddy struggles with how to handle her colorful personality. She refuses to attend boarding school, joins an all-boys club, brings a pet snake to the White House, allows her name to be all over the press, gets a song written about her, gets a color named after her, was caught betting on a horse race, drover her own car while other women rode in carriages, and takes adventurous rendezvous over the world including Hawaii, China and Japan.

Kerley uses phrases like "eating up the world," "hungry to go places," and "voraciously," to describe Alice's desire to see and do everything she possibly could. Alice's independence shines bright through the text and I love the lines: "She watched the students of Miss Spence's boarding school walk oh-so-primly down the sidewalk. That didn't look like much fun to Alice. She wanted to own a pet monkey and wear pants." Those lines sum her up perfectly! 

The best part about this book is the hilarious illustrations. Fotheringham shows Alice jumping on the sofa, hanging upside down next to a monkey, riding a bike with her feet on the handle bars, sulking on her bed in a messy room, waving to the adorning crowd with her father next to her giving her a frustrated look, and doing the hula in Hawaii. My favorite illustration is of Alice and her step-siblings laughing and racing down the White House stairs and the text says "Alice tried to be helpful. She watched her younger brothers and sisters so her stepmother could get some rest." 

Professional Reviews for What To Do About Alice?

• Publishers Weekly: "Debut illustrator Fotheringham creates the perfect mood from the start: his stylish digital art sets a fast pace, making use of speed lines and multiple vignettes to evoke characters in perpetual motion. His compositions wittily incorporate headlines, iconic images and plenty of Alice blue, too."
• Booklist:  "invigorating look at larger-than-life Alice."

• School Library Journal: " This book provides a fascinating glimpse into both a bygone era and one of its more interesting denizens as well as a surefire antidote for any child who thinks that historical figures are boring."

Books by Barbara Kerley

Interview with Barbara Kerley 

About Edwin Fotheringham

Kerley Barbara. What to Do About Alice? : How Alice Roosevelt Broke the Rules, Charmed the World, and Drover her Father Teddy Crazy! New York: Scholastic Press, 2008. 

ISBN 0-439-92231-3

$14.52 at Barnes & Noble

Work consulted: Vardell, Sylvia M. Children's Literature in Action: A Librarian's Guide. Connecticut: Libraries Unlimited, 2008.

Kakapo Rescue

Kakapo Rescue

Saving the World's Strangest Parrot

Text by Sy Montgomery

Photographs by Nic Bishop 

 

Sy Montgomery has authored 15 books for adults and children and is a board member of the Rainforest Conservation fund, Restore! The North Woods and the Center for Tropical Conservation. She has received many honors including the 2010 Children's Book Guild Nonfiction Award. Nic Bishop has authored and/or illustrated over 20 books, most of them being books for children. Kakapo Rescue has received the following recognitions and awards: the 2011 Sibert award, BCCB Blue Ribbon 2010, 2011 ALA Notable Children's books, 2011 Orbis Pictus Recommended, Booklist 2010 Editor's Choice and Kirkus 2010 Best Children's Books.

Kakapo Rescue tells about a 10 day excursion of the New Zealand's National Kakapo Recovery Team to Codfish Island off the southern coast of New Zealand. The team works together to try and restore the kakapo population, prepare special food, install radio-wave tracking devices, monitor live video, and hatch and feed baby kakapo. Beautiful photographs accompany the text showing the teams adventures with the kakapo as well as other wildlife and the gorgeous landscapes of New Zealand. 

Broken up into chapters and with more text in smaller font, Kakapo Rescue is meant for older children and young adults (grades 5-9) and is intended to stimulate interest and understanding of conservation for nature and animals that most readers may not experience during their day-to-day life. The book is filled with amazing photography and each page spread contains at least one photograph with accompanying captions. 

The text pulls at the reader's emotions and builds anticipation: "But what if he died of a contagious disease? What if there was something wrong with the food? Are the other kakapo in danger? What should we do?" (Montgomery 61). The book contains an index, a selected bibliography and information about giving private donations for the Kakapo Recovery Program.

Professional Reviews for Kakapo Rescue:

• Horn Book Magazine: "Montgomery's in-depth descriptions and Bishop's glorious photographs cover all aspects of the conservation effort."
• Booklist:  "Montgomery's delight in her subject is contagious, and throughout her enthusiastic text, she nimbly blends scientific and historical facts with immediate, sensory descriptions of fieldwork. Young readers will be fascinated by the incredible measures that the passionate workers follow."
• School Library Journal: " Excellent photos and a readable, conversational text provide an intimate look at a concerted effort to save a drastically endangered species unfamiliar to most of the world outside Down Under."

More books by Sy Montgomery
Interview with Nic Bishop
Classroom Activities 

Sy Montgomery. Kakapo Rescue: Saving the World's Strangest Parrot. New York: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 2010. 

ISBN 978-0-618-49417-0

$15.39 at Barnes & Noble

Work consulted: Vardell, Sylvia M. Children's Literature in Action: A Librarian's Guide. Connecticut: Libraries Unlimited, 2008.

Bones

Bones:

Skeletons and How They Work

Steve Jenkins

Steve Jenkins has written and illustrated 30 books for young readers and is a Caldecott Honor winner for What Do you Do with a Tail Like This? written in 2008. Bones  has been recognized with the following awards: A Junior Library Guild Selection for Fall 2010, ALA Notable Books for Children 2011, 2011 SB&F Prize Finalists Children's Science Picture Book and  2010 Cybils Nonfiction Picture Book Finalists.

Bones is an informational book for young readers that compares bones from different animals. Jenkins shows specific parts like arms, feet, and ribs, as well as full skeletons. Each page tells what size the bones are shown versus actual size. For example, the thigh bones are shown one-fourth actual size. In the back there is a section called "More About Bones: Facts, Stories, History, and Science" that offers more interesting information.  


Each page shows text and pictures on dark colored backgrounds, which makes the details easier to see. The pages are well organized with a small amount of text for each bone section placed in different areas corresponding to the photo placement. There are three gateway spreads that show the skeleton of an entire python, a whole human skeleton and different skulls. The extra pages in the back discuss what bones are made of, broken bones, cyclops and unicorns, fossils, animals with skeletons on the outside, the biggest bone, the largest skeleton and sharks. My favorite section is titled "Some Assembly Required" because it shows all 206 separate bones that make up the human skeleton. Then there's a spread inside that shows the same bones as a full skeleton. 
 

The text evokes curiosity from the reader by asking questions like "Where do you think this bone belongs?" Jenkins also states that joints "move in complex ways," and an animal's skeleton is "beautifully adapted," making the reader want to find out more.

Professional Reviews for Bones:

• Booklist: "the clean design of the intricate skeletons set against solid background colors is striking and provides a wonderful visual introduction."
• School Library Journal: "...A hodgepodge of fascinating facts. With applications that range from anatomy to evolution and mathematics, this book will find a place in every collection."
• Horn Book Magazine: "Bones of all shapes and sizes glow like jewels on richly colored backgrounds, allowing readers to pore over each and every nuance of Jenkins's intricate cut-paper illustrations."

More books by Steve Jenkins
Book trailer - Bones
Interview with Steve Jenkins

Steve Jenkins. Bones: Skeletons and How They Work. New York: Scholastic Press, 2010. 

ISBN 978-0-545-04651-0

 $14.52 at Barnes & Noble

Work consulted: Vardell, Sylvia M. Children's Literature in Action: A Librarian's Guide. Connecticut: Libraries Unlimited, 2008.