scrounge: /skrounj/ informal verb: to actively seek [books] from any available source
Book Scrounger's note: The following is a guest review by Doug, a.k.a. Professor Puzzler.
The Story of Ruby Bridges is a children's book which tells the story of the desegregation of William Frantz Elementary School in New Orleans. The story focuses primarily on Ruby's bravery, her faith, and her desire to find forgiveness for the mobs of angry people who wanted to stop her from attending the school.
Speaking of the mobs, author Robert Coles does an excellent job of describing the troubles that Ruby faced, at an age-appropriate level for a children's book. He speaks of angry mobs, and shouting, and protest signs, and of people wanting to hurt Ruby, but avoids discussing any of the specifics of the threats she faced. I liked this choice on the author's part, as it gives parents the freedom to discuss the more vicious aspects of the story when they feel it is most appropriate for their own children.
Robert Coles was probably best suited of anyone to write this book, as he was the child psychiatrist who met weekly with Ruby during her first year at Frantz Elementary. His work with Ruby led him, eventually, to write a book titled Children of Crisis: A Study of Courage and Fear, which he eventually developed into a series of books that won him the Pulitzer Prize in 1973.
Of course, any children's book is dependent not just on the author, but also on the illustrator; an illustrator can make or break a book. In this case, George Ford is an integral part of making this book a success. The illustrations are beautiful, with great use of light, shadow and coloration to draw attention to the focus of the book -- Ruby herself. Whether she is sitting alone in a classroom, with her family at church, or dwarfed by an angry mob and the marshals protecting her, it is always Ruby that captures your eye.
Scrounged From: Our local library
Format: Hardcover
Author: Robert Coles
Illustrator: George Ford
Pages: 32
Content Advisory: Thematic elements, as described above.
A Child's Book of Art helps introduce young children to art history, or even just art in general, using relatable categories such as pets, family, outdoors, etc. This is one of the largest books we have, and so the pictures are big and easy for children to inspect carefully if they feel like it.
Each category includes several paintings from a large range of time periods and painters. Art history can also become a discussion about history in general, as children get to see portraits of children their age dressed very differently!
Even though I'm not much of an "art person," I still enjoy reading this book with my kids. I recognized a name here and there, and maybe even learned something myself.
Scrounged From: AbeBooks.com
Format: Hardcover
Author: Lucy Micklethwait
Pages: 64
Content Advisory: Fairly clean for art history, but some barely noticable nudity in a couple places.
This is a fun and informative series of books, written and illustrated by Robert E. Wells, that helps introduce some basic science concepts to children. They are geared mainly toward pre-kindergarten through third grade, but they can be enjoyed by any age.
Our favorite of the ones we've read is How Do You Lift a Lion? which introduces simple machines such as the lever, wheel, and pulley. The illustrations are clear and clever, and show how a lion could be lifted if you had enough leverage. We are also shown how to pull a panda on a pallet, and how it could be possible to deliver a big basket of bananas to a baboon birthday party using pulleys.
Is a Blue Whale the Biggest Thing There Is? is another entry in the series. Here we are shown progressively bigger things from whales to earth to stars, until we get to the size (or what is known of it) of the whole universe! You definitely feel small after reading this book, and the illlustrations are very amusing at times (such as a crate of "sun-sized oranges" to demonstrate how our sun compares in size to a red supergiant).
What's Smaller Than a Pygmy Shrew? covers the same idea, but getting progressively smaller, from a shrew to a ladybug to protozoa and protons. This one may be harder to wrap one's mind around, but does a great job of helping us to visualize the idea that there is a whole kingdom of living organisms that are too small for our eyes to see.
We also enjoy What's Faster Than a Speeding Cheetah? which shows us many things that are faster than a cheetah, such as a peregrine falcon, a rocket, and a meteoroid.
These are the only titles we've read so far, but there are several others that sound just as interesting, such as Why Do Elephants Need the Sun?
The Story Orchestra: Four Seasons in One Day was published in October 2016 by Frances Lincoln Children's Books. It is both a visual and auditory trip through all four of the seasons, accompanied by musical snippets from Antonio Vivaldi's The Four Seasons.
The first thing I noticed about this book is how vibrant the illustrations are. The color pallete changes from warm to cool to correspond with the general feel of each season. The story follows a girl named Isabelle, her small apple tree, and her dog Pickle as they journey and experience changes through all four seasons in one day. The illustrations depict spring showers and new babies, summer flowers and a thunderstorm, autumn harvest and migration, and winter's chill and snow.
In addition to the visual feast, each page has a "button" to push to hear a small snippet from the corresponding "season" of Vivaldi's music. The button is printed on the page, but when you press it (with the page lying flat), the back cover plays the music. Even though I'm not an orchestral music buff, I still recognized some of these memorable tunes. The thunderstorm one was especially fitting. And the sound quality is very good -- much better than a typical preschooler "sound book."
On the last page, there is a short biography of Vivaldi, and we get to see all the buttons together, this time with descriptions of each snippet of music that can help us to speculate on why each season's music was written the way it was. We're invited to "hear" the shivering in the cold during the winter piece, and to listen for the slower pacing in the summer piece.
Overall, this book is not only beautifully illustrated and informative, but it is a great way to introduce children to a wonderful piece of music, and the famous composer who wrote it.
Scrounged From: A Christmas present
Format: Hardcover
Author/Illustrator: Jessica Courtney-Tickle
Pages: 24
Content Advisory: None
Book Scrounger's note: The following is a guest review by Doug, a.k.a Professor Puzzler:
I just wrote a book review for Little Beaver and the Echo; this is another book that I absolutely love the pairing of text (by Sherri Duskey Rinker) and illustrations (by Tom Lichtenheld). As a matter of fact, in Goodnight, Goodnight, Construction Site, I would say that I like the illustrations more than the text. Don't get me wrong, I do like the text -- although there are some rhythmic stumbles in the poetry that caught me off-guard the first couple times I read it. But when I'm reading this book to my kids, I'm barely paying attention to the words I'm reading, because I'm looking at all those delightful illustrations.
The use of color is great, and in particular, the illustrator used different tinted papers for the various "times of day" illustrations, which resulted in all the daytime pictures, all the sunset pictures, and all the nighttime pictures each having the appropriate color warmth to them, because each shared a base color.
The story (which isn't really a story; there's no real plot to the book) focuses on the activities of five construction vehicles: a crane truck, a cement mixer, a dump truck, a bulldozer, and an excavator. Each machine (you can see the excavator in the picture here) has its own unique personality and facial features. Each vehicle has a section of the book, ending with the vehicle snuggling up for a good night's sleep after a long day's work. After each section, the book ends with a couple pages of wishing the team a good night.
If you have young children who are fascinated with construction vehicles, you should not be without this book!
Scrounged From: Amazon, for our four-year-old
Format: Hardcover
Author: Sherri Duskey Rinker
Illustrator: Tom Lichtenheld
Pages: 32
Content Advisory: None
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