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Africa Is Not a Country by Margy Burns Knight and Mark Melnicove

Feb13

“Africa is not a country—it is a vast continent made up of 53 nations. . . From the tiny island nations of Comoros, Syechelles, and Sao Tome and Principe, to its largest country (Sudan), Africa is the only continent with land in all four hemispheres.”

Z-baby (age 10) read this book, and commented as she read:

“You mean Africa is bigger than the United States?”

“It says Africa is almost as wide as it is tall. No way!”

“Here’s what I don’t understand: why is it when they talk about Africa on the radio they always talk about the children? Something’s always happening to the children?”

“Pula is the name of the money in Botswana and it also means rain.”

“It told about this girl who sold milk, and she carried it on her head.”

I thought this book, consisting of several brief stories of children in various African countries and colorful illustrations depicting the children’s lives, was a good introduction to the continent of Africa and the idea that it is a vast place with many different nations and cultures. Z-baby learned some things, but she was not terribly impressed with the book or its content.

Unit study and curriculum uses for Africa Is Not a Country: Africa, world geography, Black History Month, cultural geography.

Nonfiction Monday is being celebrated today at the blog Wrapped in Foil.

Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand

Feb14

Amazing story. If it weren’t so heavily footnoted and corroborated, I would find it difficult to believe such a miraculous survival story. Louis Zamperini, the subject of this riveting biography, was an Olympic runner. He won a bronze medal in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, and he planned to compete in the 1940 Olympics. Louie, as he was called, was getting close to breaking the four minute mile, but World War II derailed Louis’s Olympic and world record hopes. However, the rest of the story which chronicles Louie’s experiences during and after World War II is even more astounding and transcendent than any world record in a sporting event. I don’t think I’ve ever read about anyone who survived the multiple ordeals that Zamperini was able to live through and then also managed, by the grace of God, to live a full and joyful life afterwards.

One of my urchins says she doesn’t believe in miracles. I think she’s saying she’s never heard a Voice from on high or seen a person instantly healed or witnessed the sudden appearance of manna from heaven. However, if what happened in the life of Louis Zamperini wasn’t a series of miracles, I don’t know what to call it. First of all, Louis and the pilot of his B-24 bomber survive a crash in the Pacific and forty plus days on a raft without supplies in the ocean. And it only get worse when the two Americans land on the Marshall Islands and are “rescued” by the Japanese army.

But the greatest miracle of all comes after the war is over for everyone else, when Louie is still trapped in the prison of his own mind.

No one could reach Louie, because he had never really come home. In prison camp, he’d been beaten into dehumanized obedience to a world order in which the Bird (a cruel Japanese prison guard) was absolute sovereign, and it was under this world order that he still lived. The Bird had taken his dignity and left him feeling humiliated, ashamed, and powerless, and Louie believed that only the Bird could restore him, by suffering and dying in the grip of his hands. A once singularly hopeful man now believed that his only hope lay in murder.
The paradox of vengefulness is that it makes men dependent upon those who have harmed them, believing that their release from pain will come only when they make their tormentors suffer. In seeking the Bird’s death to free himself, Louie had chained himself, once again, to his tyrant. During the war, the Bird had been unwilling to let go of Louie; after the war, Louie was unable to let go of the Bird.

This book actually brought me to tears, something that seldom happens to me while reading. I was reminded that as Corrie Ten Boom often said, “There is no pit so deep that God is not deeper still.”

I was also reminded of my conviction that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were necessary evils. The Japanese were not planning to ever surrender to the Allies. In the book, Hillenbrand tells how the POWs in Japan saw women and children being trained to defend the homeland to the last person. And the Japanese had a “kill-all policy” which ordered prison camp commanders to kill all the prisoners of war if it ever became evident that they might be rescued and repatriated. This policy was carried out in several Japanese prison camps, and “virtually every POW believed that the destruction of this city (Hiroshima) had saved them from execution.”

Man’s inhumanity to man continues on into this century, but if we are to avoid and prevent future horrors, we must remember the past. And we must be presented with stories that affirm the possibility of redemption, even from the darkest of atrocities.

Nonfiction Monday: The Day-Glo Brothers by Chris Barton

Oct12

The Day-Glo Brothers is subtitled “The True Story of Bob and Joe Switzer’s Bright Ideas and Brand-New Colors.”

These are the closest examples I could get of Day-Glo (fluorescent) colors:

Fluorescent Green
Day-Glo Yellow
Day-Glo Orange

They’re those colors that crossing guards wear and that characterized the 1960’s, and they glow in the daylight or when illuminated by an ultraviolet light source. The Switzer brothers, Bob and Joe, invented these colors just before World War II, and the colors became useful in wartime, especially on aircraft carriers and in naval warfare and rescue, and later in peacetime as companies and individuals began to think of multiple uses for these easily visible colors.

I can see how a book like this one might inspire young inventors and scientists who are still in elementary school to think about the many unexplored areas of science and about the intersections between science and other disciplines, in this case art and advertising. Mr. Barton tells the story in straightforward prose and yet includes enough anecdotes about the Switzers’ lives and personalities to keep readers interested. The bright Day-Glo illustrations on black background complement the story perfectly.

Buy some Day-Glo make-up.
Day-Glo Brothers Activity and Discussion Guide
Chris Barton’s blog, Bartography.

This book has been nominated for the Cybil Award in the Nonfiction Picture Book category. I received my copy of Day-Glo Brothers from the publisher for the purpose of review. Nonfiction Monday is hosted today at Jean Little Library.

Nonfiction Monday: Indians Who Lived in Texas by Betsy Warren

Oct5

IMG_0323This out-of-print book by Texas author Betsy Warren gives details about the dress, food, and other customs of ten Native American groups that lived in the area we now call Texas. These tribes were the Caddo and the Wichita of Northeast Texas, the Karankawa, the Coahuiltecans, and the Atakapans of the Texas Gulf coast, the Jumanos who farmed in West Texas along the Rio Grande, the Tonkawa of Central Texas, and the hunting tribes of the West Texas plains: Kiowas, Lipan Apaches, and Comanches.

This book has been around for quite a while (first published in 1970), but the information and the treatment of the subject remain valid and respectful, other than the fact that the author uses the term “Indian” to refer to the native groups that lived in Texas. I gather that the preferred term is “Native American.”

I found two other books about native Texans while searching at Amazon and at my library’s website.

The first Texans: sixteen tribes of native peoples and how they lived by Carolyn Mitchell Burnett obviously covers more tribes of Indians. This book was published by Eakin Press in 1995.

Learn about– Texas Indians: a learning and activity book: color your own guide to the Indians that once roamed Texas, text and editorial direction by Georg Zappler. University of Texas Press, 2007. This one is the most up-to-date text that I found on the subject, but as noted, it’s a coloring book. My seventh and eighth graders might be a little insulted by being given a coloring book for informational purposes.

I think I’ll stick with Betsy Warren’s old stand-by survey of Texas Indians for my upcoming seventh/eighth grade Texas history class even if I have to buy multiple copies of the book from used book sellers. It’s a good book, 46 pages long, with pictures and maps showing the areas where each Native Texan tribe lived. Short, sweet, and informative. What more could you ask for?

Nonfiction Monday: Written in Bone by Sally M. Walker

Sep21

factfirst1Written in Bone: Buried Lives of Jamestown and Colonial Maryland by Sally M. Walker. Carolrhoda Books, 2009.

As this book migrated around the house it garnered varying reactions from the urchins and other family members:

Karate Kid (12): It’s O.K. I liked the bones.

Z-baby (8): Is that a skeleton? Is it a real skeleton from a real person?

Artiste Daughter (20): That’s what I want to be, a forensic anthropologist. Can I read it when you get through with it?

Engineer Husband: That’s a great book! Where did it come from?

I found it a little difficult to concentrate on the information in the book at first, but I soon became intrigued. This book is not dumbed-down or over-simplified for the younger set. In fact, like much YA fiction, this book would be perfectly appropriate for adult reading. Anyone who wants a layman’s introduction to a particular subject should get in the habit of checking out the children’s or young adult section of the library since the authors of nonfiction for young people are careful to explain things as completely as possible while keeping it easy enough for nonprofessionals to understand and appreciate.

In Written in Bone, Ms. Walker accompanies forensic anthropologist Douglas Owsley, a scientist at the Smithsonian Institution, at his invitation, as he and colleagues from several related disciplines study the remains of some of the Jamestown settlers and of other early colonials who lived in the Chesapeake region of Maryland. The stories of eight different inhabitants of early colonial America are told in nine chapters. The information about how archeology and anthropological studies are done is detailed, comprehensive, and interesting, and I understood most of it –a great accomplishment on the part of the author since my eyes usually glaze over at the mention of the word “science.” One technique that author uses to keep the pages turning is the end of the chapter (commercial break) teaser: “Inside the tent, Doug Owsley, Kari Bruwelheide, archeological conservators, and medical personnel analyzed and sampled the remains for further scientific analysis. What they found amazed and puzzled them.” I could just picture this book as a PBS special, a really good one.

The chapter titles are sure to intrigue readers, too:

1. A Grave Mystery
2. Who Were You?
3. Out of the Grave
4. The Captain
5. The Body in the Basement
6. The Luxury of Lead
7. THe Lead-Coffin People
8. Expect the Unexpected
9. Remember Me

You want to read chapter five first, don’t you?

Ms. Walker does use some imagination and historical documentation to fill in the possible details of the lives of the people whose skeletons were excavated. Those lives include colonials that scientists believe were a teenage boy killed in Jamestown in a skirmish with the Indians, a ship’s captain, an indentured servant, a colonial official, his first wife, and his sickly baby, and an African slave girl. It’s amazing how much scientists can discover about these people and their daily lives as they use all sorts of new technologies to uncover the skeletons’ secrets. I’m really a history buff, not a science fan, but I loved the way the science made the history come alive.

Finally, I can’t leave this book without mentioning the beautiful full color photographs that accompany the text on nearly every page. The photos are large enough to see details, and the page layout isn’t too busy with too many little pictures but rather just enough photographic evidence to illuminate the written content. I wish I could reproduce one or two of the photos here, but you’ll just have to get a copy of the book and see for yourself.

How’s that for a nonfiction teaser?