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Close to Immortality

13/3/2022

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They are gnarled and scarred and twisted by harsh wind, weather, fire and disease.  They live above 9,000 feet where there is little other vegetation. They are the oldest living trees on the planet.  Yet they survive.  All of this is interesting or unusual, even amazing but, according to award-winning author Alexandra Siy, but none of these are its secrets.  One tree, named Methuselah, is almost 5,000 years old.  Its location is a secret for its own protection. There are many visitors to the national park in California's White Mountains who are fascinated by these toughest of all living things. But the location of Methuselah is not its secret. By the time you reach page 8 of this picture book for kids 5-9 and up, the dramatic, dance-like illustrations by Marlo Garnsworthy and Siy's enticing prose has the reader hooked.  What are the secrets of the Bristlecones? 

Although the Bristlecones show their age, they are pulsing with life.
              "Branches flexing, needles sunning, sugar surging, sap flowing, roots soaking--
                the ancient bristlecone pine grows, ring by ring."

And it is these rings, which form every year, that contain the secrets of the Bristlecones, -- nothing less than the history of Earth's climate.  Pretty timely, no?  Scientists remove core samples of the tree trunks to "read" this story that goes back through the millennia, recording events such as a lightning strike in 1122 or volcanic eruptions in 2036 BC. The backmatter of the book includes more details of survival and links to websites for those who want to know more.

Siy and Garnsworthy have created  a picture book for all ages that is creative nonfiction at its best.  It spotlights STEAM, including an "A" for "art" plus science that shows us HOW we know while infusing a desire to WANT to know.  It innovatively includes suspense, romance, and wonder in a tale of these battle-scarred heroes of the plant kingdom. 

Here is the link to the Bristlecone page on Alexandra Siy's website.  Publication is June 19, 2022.



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What's the Enemy Up To?

7/11/2021

 
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PictureSteve Strummer, Public Domain
      One of the most important contributions of author-driven nonfiction is a point of view.  Carla Killough McClafferty is noted for the interesting slants she takes in her meticulously researched books.  Her last book Buried Lives, is a sensitive discussion of the enslaved people of George Washington.  In her latest book Spies in the American Revolution for Kids she looks at history through the lens of how and why intelligence about the British was essential to the Colonial Army to win a war where they were up against one of the most formidable military powers of the 18th century.
          What are the characteristics of a good spy?  Loyalty to one's cause and people, a good memory for detail, the abilities to blend in, to lie effectively, to keep  secrets and more. Both sides had spies working all the time.  If caught, the punishment could be severe, even death.  So spies were often interesting people.  Sometimes they formed a group or "ring" so they worked together.  Sometimes they pretended to be a spy for one side but were really working for the other.  They had clever methods of imparting intelligence, long before there was any long distance, instantaneous communication. 
          Carla McClafferty explores the importance of enemy intelligence as it played out during the American Revolutionary War.  She brings history to life with tales of the brave men and women, both patriots and loyalists, who kept their eyes open about the moves of the enemy. Benedict Arnold, once a patriot, became the icon of a traitor.  I was particularly interested in his emissary, John André, who was captured in September of 1790 in my home town of Tarrytown, NY. He was carrying Benedict Arnold's surrender  of the fort at West Point, which Arnold was selling out for a fee.  There is a statue of the capture in Patriot's Park, near the Tarrytown library.  He was hanged as a spy at noon on October 2, 1790. 
           McClafferty's lively take on the intelligence behind the Revolution is a unique and engaging vantage point for some of the key turning points of the war with lots of openings for questions and conversation.  There's nothing like a good story to get kids involved.  



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A Slice of the Amazon Rainforest

28/8/2021

 
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Inside the pages of Roxie Munro's artist's view of the Amazon rainforest lurks a giant anteater who is the actual size of this forest creature.  It's almost six feet long from tail to tip of the snout!

I know because I measured.  How she does this is one of the intriguing ways this master of  children's innovative nonfiction communicates.  It's also a reason to see this book in its true form--as a book.  

The Amazon rainforest is an overwhelming experience because of its size, the diversity of life and the scope of interdependence between species.  Roxie Munro samples its denizens, all of them actual size, from the forest floor up through its main layers: the understory, the canopy, and the emergent layer, which looks like a giant green cauliflower from an eagle's eye or from an airplane.  Her glorious art is also a puzzle.  Can you find the leaf-cutter ants carrying their oversized loads?  When does the anteater start appearing?  And for how many pages?  What about those legged-animals that don't walk?

The objective of this book is to make children care about this essential-to-the-planet ecosystem.  Roxie Munro shows her love of her subject matter with exquisitely detailed and well-researched depictions and selections of representative mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, insects, arachnids and centipedes. You meet each sampling of the animal kingdom through an entertaining, unique attribute that whets curiosity: 

       "Blue morpho butterflies, like all butterflies, have taste sensors in their legs.  They stand on their food and taste with their feet."

The back matter of the book answers readers' questions and has a key to the placement of featured creatures in the lavishly illustrated pages (the answers to the seek-n-find game).   Munro explains the layers of the rainforest and the importance of its preservation. And there are lots of references for further study.

Anteaters, Bats & Boas: The AMAZON RAINFOREST from the FOREST FLOOR to the TREETOPS is a book that celebrates life and nature, all wonderfully  accessible through the power of art and a discerning author.  




A Local Event the Rippled Through Black History and  Generations

22/2/2021

 
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Equal justice for Black Americans is a long tale of two steps forward; one step back.  After a short-lived Reconstruction (1865-1877), white Americans began clawing back rights that Black citizens were entitled to.  One small story began in 1890 New Orleans, Louisiana, when Homer Plessy, a 29-year-old Black family man agreed to challenge the "Separate Car Act," which stated that Blacks had to ride in "separate-but-equal" railroad cars.  His arrest for sitting in the "wrong" car was planned by a committee of Black citizens.  The case was a losing one.  When it was denied by the Supreme Court in 1896, "Plessy v. Ferguson" opened the door for 60+ years of oppressive Jim Crow laws.

iNK author, Amy Nathan, has a knack for finding stories of racial injustice that are local, relatable to kids, and make history come alive for them.  In 1967, Keith Plessy was a fifth grader in New Orleans when the case bearing his surname came up in history class. Maybe he was related to Homer Plessy? "The answer to questions I was trying to get as a kid were not in that history book in school."  All these years later, Amy Nathan has written the book that would have captivated Keith Plessy.  It  not only tells the story of an unjust law but also connects it to a time and place.    It turns out that another child, Phoebe Ferguson, exactly the same age as Keith Plessy was a descendant of the judge who was the white party in  Plessy V. Ferguson.  When they eventually discovered each other together in their forties, they decided to attempt to right the wrongs that stemmed from Plessy v. Ferguson decision.  

Together: An Inspiring Response to the "Separate-But-Equal" Supreme Court Decision that Divided America is a page-turning, very accessible account of the past and its impact. Keith Plessy and Phoebe Ferguson created a foundation to educate people who visit New Orleans with beautiful, well-written historic markers-- history-on-the-go for residents and tourists.  One of Amy's earlier books, Round and Round Together: Taking a Merry-Go-Round Ride into the Civil Rights Movement, tells a Maryland story of the integration of an amusement park, and is now part of the curriculum of the schools where the event took place.  Together is another book to wake up children in New Orleans and beyond.  

When history is local and impactful, a well-told story like Together opens the portals of history to children who are numbed to its power by the flaccid text-book approach that destroys any spark to learn more.  






Science and Prescience

9/11/2020

 
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WIN MCNAMEE / GETTY IMAGES
On June 17, 2020, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME)   had recorded 120,730 deaths from COVID-19 in the U. S and projected we would surpass 200,000 deaths by October first.  Were they right?  Let's check.  On October 1, 2020 the actual number of deaths was 206,733.  Hmmmm.  How could they be so accurate?  Did they use a crystal ball?

A recent NY Times article cites a study by Stanford University to quantify the mortality fallout of death by Corona as a result of 18 of Trump's pandemically- inappropriate rallies between June and September.  Their results:  more than 30,000 infections and 700 deaths.  They used data, statistics, and mathematical models to estimate what close encounters by the unmasked could generate.  

Wanna know how many dead Americans are projected to die between the election and Inauguration Day if we continue on our current path? Using that amazing graph the answer is: 140,817. If we relax the COVID restrictions ala the Trump rallies, the projection is that 211,122 COVID deaths arrive by January 20.  Now suppose we were all mandated to wear masks and 90% of us complied,  COVID will still rage but the number decreases.  We're projected to lose 89,588.  Again, doing the math( with the help of my trusty technology-invented calculator), a mask mandate  will save the lives of 51,229 of our fellow citizens in that time period.  

This is why data and analysis and models are crucial.  They are guidelines for the future.  The path they predict are only as good as the accuracy of the numbers plugged in.   Tests give us the numbers.  Tracing estimates exposure to those who test positive.  And we have proven methods for counting  the numbers of hospitalizations and people on ventilators and hospital deaths.  These are data we can trust.  

So it doesn't matter if you don't believe in science.  You're gonna find out eventually.  If you live long enough.  



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     Vicki Cobb

    *Award-winning author of more than 90 nonfiction books for children, mostly in science.
    *Former Contributor to the Huffington Post
    *Founder/President of iNK Think Tank, Inc.
    *Passionate advocate for the joy of learning for every child and teacher.


    Disclaimer: All opinions, typos, and grammatical errors are my own,  especially small word omissions which I often don't notice in my fervor.  

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iNK Think Tank, Inc. is a nonprofit with the mission of using nonfiction children's literature in classrooms

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