Nonfiction Monday: Vegetables

Sometimes a Gail Gibbons book is exactly what you (and your preschool-aged child) want:  colorful, concise, and informative.  This one is about The Vegetables We Eat (Holiday House, 2007).  It might be more accurate to say that it's about some vegetables we eat and some I wish the kids would eat more of, but in any case, it's just the thing to read alongside the big stack of seed catalogs that have been coming in the mail since December 24 (our favorite is Seeds of Change; the 2008 catalog focuses on urban gardening).  Now we know that there are eight different kinds of vegetables, grouped according to the part of the vegetable that is eaten (leaf, bulb, flower bud, root, tuber, stem, fruit, and seed).  Which ones do we eat?  Which ones will we grow?  Gibbons also covers how vegetables are grown (on small and "great big" vegetable farms, as well as in your own garden), where they are sold (at farmers' markets and grocery stores), and how they're eaten.  Watercolor and ink illustrations are bright and cheeful; I love the vegetables that spell out "Vegetables" on the cover.

[I can't resist suggesting that you pair The Vegetables We Eat with Caldecott Honor book Tops and Bottoms by Janet Stevens (Harcourt, 1995).  My kids just discovered this book (our library bought a new copy, I assume because the old one was worn out from being read so much).  It's a trickster tale with roots in slave stories of the American South:  clever Hare agrees to split successive harvests with lazy Bear, tops and bottoms.  Which crops does Hare grow for their bottoms?  Which ones does he grow for their tops?]

Nonfiction Monday: The Story of Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day is one of my favorite holidays.  I know there are people who don't like it, but they're getting a (handmade) valentine from me anyway.  A lot of people do, just like in grade school:  I don't think of Valentine's Day as only a romantic holiday.  As Clyde Bulla writes in The Story of Valentine's Day (newly illustrated by Susan Estelle Kwas; HarperCollins, 1999), "It is a day to give small gifts of love and friendship to someone special."  This small book would make a perfect valentine (hint)--there's even a heart-shaped bookplate inside.  Also a brief and very readable history of Valentine's Day, beginning with the ancient Roman festival of Lupercalia; and of valentines themselves.  Back matter includes instructions for making old-fashioned "pinprick" valentines, examples of acrostic valentines, and a recipe for Valentine Cookies.  I really like the new illustrations by Susan Estelle Kwas, too (especially the Cupid on the cover).  Leo and Milly really liked the idea of celebrating Lupercalia, but I think we'll stick to making valentines over here!  Maybe we'll have to make one for Lupercus.

[Nonfiction Monday]

Nonfiction Monday: Pompeii

What is it about the story of Pompeii that is so compelling?  I think it's not so much the volcanic eruption--although that's certainly compelling--as the record of everyday life in a Roman town that Vesuvius inadvertently created almost 2000 years ago.  Pompeii Lost and Found by Mary Pope Osborne, with frescoes by Bonnie Christensen (Knopf, 2006), is primarily about the record, and is the perfect introduction to the story of Pompeii for young readers.

About the illustrations in Pompeii Lost and Found:  According to the flap copy, Christensen "brings to works of nonfiction a style of art that is especially suited to the period in which each book is set."  For this book, she painted actual frescoes inspired in color and style by ones found in Pompeii (a note in the back of the book describes the technique).  One of the first spreads features small frescoes of six objects found in the ruins and asks readers to guess how they were used (answers in the back; my kids really liked this).  Many of the later spreads include a smaller fresco of a found object that relates to the larger fresco of a scene from everyday life:  a scene in the bustling outdoor marketplace (forum) is accompanied by scales and gold coins; one of a dinner party is accompanied by a loaf of bread and a glass pitcher.  I like the way this design encourages kids to imagine being archaeologists and reminds them throughout of the archeological evidence that allows us to imagine life in Pompeii, 79 AD.

Nonfiction Monday: Ox, House, Stick

Today is the first Nonfiction Monday for children's book bloggers.  Thanks to Anastasia Suen for designating a day to post about nonfiction, which I love and which doesn't get as much attention as it might.  I also like having some sort of structure to my posting (see Poetry Friday, which I missed last week).  And we read a lot of nonfiction at our house.  Right now, it's mostly about Ancient Rome.  Maybe I should just make this Ancient Roman Week at bookstogether!

I knew right away that my first Nonfiction Monday post would be about this book:  Ox, House, Stick:  The History of Our Alphabet by Don Robb; illustrated by Anne Smith (Charlesbridge, 2007).  [Jules at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast had the same idea; see her review here.]  After all, our alphabet is Roman.

Ox, House, Stick was a Cybils nominee in the middle grade nonfiction category, and I would have been delighted if it had won (unfortunately, it's not a finalist).  The book, like the alphabet it describes, is a marvel of clarity, both visual--the illustrator, Anne Smith, is also a graphic artist--and informative.

It begins with a few pages about how people communicate; how written language developed from pictures and symbols to letters; and how those letters--our alphabet--spread "around the Mediterranean and through the centuries."  The rest of the book traces the origins of each letter or group of letters, interspersed with brief discussions of things like pronunciation, writing practices, and the invention of print.

All things that interest me, of course, but Leo was fascinated, too, as soon as he saw the ox head in the A (turn it upside down).  Thank you, Ancient Romans.

[And thanks again, Anastasia!  See more Nonfiction Monday posts listed here.]