Book Blog #7: Round

Title: Round

Author: Joyce Sidman (illustrations by Taeeun Yoo)

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (2017)

Age: 3-7 years

Lexile Reading Level: n/a

Awards: Best Books of the Year (School Library Journal), more awards to come!

Review:

Round is a simple book. But there can be an elegance to simplicity and Round has it in spades. Sidman's words are a poem that is a joy to read both introspectively and out loud. The book is essentially an ode to round things - from the most simple to the most complex. For example, she writes about how the moon shows itself, "night after night, rounder and rounder, until the whole sky holds its breath." And then the next page she turns her gaze inwards: "I can be round, too. In a circle of friends with no one left out." At the very end of the book Sidman devotes two pages to the question: Why are so many things in nature round? Her answers - round is cozy, sturdy, it spreads out, etc. - all have brief explanations. These explanations are so wonderful! Some are incredibly basic while others are more detailed but in a way that a preschooler could still understand them. Speaking of, this book would be an excellent choice for a preschool storytime or even a K-2 classroom. It is, essentially, a nonfiction book disguised as a picture book. It is instantly accessible and would be enjoyed by all.

There is a childlike quality to the artwork that works. At first I wanted more. Part of that is because I was coming off of writing/reviewing Katherine Roy's How to Be an Elephant and others - books where the artwork demands attention. Books where the artwork is, arguably, just as important as the text. But, after several re-reads, I think the art fits. It is gentle. Peaceful. The harsh edges & brushstrokes are rounded away. This is a book for a young child to treasure and I think the artwork is a part of that. It's comfortable and reassuring. All in all, it's a lovely book and one I look forward to reading at my storytimes and to my own children.

Recommended Pairings:

1. Now - Antoinette Portis
2. Ask Me - Bernard Waring
3. Life - Cynthia Rylant

All three of my suggested pairings share one major thing in common with Round: self-reflection. Each book inspires the reader (and listener) to think. Now makes you think about all the wonderful things around you, what your favorites are, and serves as a great reminder to enjoy the moment. Ask Me is a personal favorite about a father and daughter taking a simple walk through their neighborhood on a fall day. It echoes Now's sentiments about the joy of the moment and brings tears to my eyes nearly every time I read it. Life - like Round, published in 2017 - is a rather profound picture book that uses animals and their lives as an impetus for our introspection. These three books are a mix of fiction and nonfiction but I think that is okay with a book like Round that straddles a fine line between the two worlds.

Suggested Activities:

The easy activity to do with Round is to explore things that are, you guessed it, round. You could build a very fun storytime or preschool lesson around round. (Throw in Press Here! as a readalike - which is all about touching little round dots.) Or it could be part of a bigger look at shapes in general. But, as reflected in my recommended pairings, I think you could go a little deeper with the book and explore what it makes the reader/listener think/feel. Finally, Sidman's explanation at the end of her book about why things in nature are round is incredibly useful for librarians and teachers. It could be the impetus for a deeper look at things in nature that are round or, more generally speaking, why animals and plants in nature are the way they are.

Book Blog #6: How To Be An Elephant

Title: How to be an Elephant: Growing Up in the African Wild

Author: Katherine Roy

Publisher: David Macauley Studio (2017)

Age: 7-11 years

Lexile Reading Level: n/a (her previous book's lexile level was NC1330L)

Awards: Best Books of the Year (School Library Journal), more awards to come!

Review

I adored Roy's 2015 book Neighborhood Sharks so I've been anticipating her follow up with bated breath. How to be an Elephant did not disappoint. Roy's books remind me of the old trope: "Come for the X, stay for the Y." With Roy you come for the art but you stay for the education. 

First, the art. It's gorgeous. Roy's painints are museum quality watercolors. But it's also something more. Something I haven't quite put my finger on. There's a depth and a richness to her paintings but also an intimacy. That might come from her choice to use watercolors but it's also her technique. She is able to create things that are not there: smells, sounds, etc - that are so vibrant that you can easily believe that they are  there. For example, there's a fantastic painting that goes along with an explanation of a baby elephant's sense of smell and how reliant the elephant is on the sense. Roy uses different colors to show the smells - Mom, stranger danger, Aunt Elsa, the daily special. Each smell is a series of flourishes and ribbons that I actually found myself following. They were so realistic that you could, for a second, believe that that's what the odors in the African plains really do look like!

  

Second, the text. How to be and Elephant, like Neighborhood Sharks, is a textbook in disguise. Roy explains not just what life is like for a baby elephant but also how it grows, adapts, and changes from infancy to young adult. You can't read a Roy book without learning something and guess what? You'll enjoy it! Roy uses graphs, charts, diagrams, models, maps, you name it - to explain different aspects of an elephant's lifespan. The books remind me of the David Macauley books I loved growing up. Interestingly, Macauley's publishing company published Roy's books.

Recommended Pairings:

1. Elephants - Rebecca Heller
2. National Geographic Kids Mission: Elephant Rescue - Ashlee Brown Blewett 
3. Elephant Rescue: Changing the Future for Endangered Wildlife - Jody Morgan

All three of these books are about elephant conservation and protection. (Please see note in Suggested Activities.) The first book is a day in the life of a baby elephant but also deals with the threats the baby faces. It's a very sweet book and as a bonus, all proceeds from the sale of the book are given to the Amboseli Trust for Elephants, a non-profit organization working to ensure the long-term conservation and welfare of Africa’s elephants. The second book is from National Geographic and its a pretty in-depth book about the efforts to protect elephants with some first hand accounts from the people on the front lines. It also has activities and challenges for the reader. As befitting a National Geographic work, the photographs in the book are gorgeous. The final book focuses more on the efforts to protect the elephant rather than the actual elephant (though there is a bit on the animal as well). Lots of in-depth behind-the-scenes stuff on what it takes both in the field and in government to protect elephants and why it's important. 

Suggested Activities: 

In an interview with School Library Journal, Roy was asked about elephants and the threat to their survival. Her response:

I think that kids can handle a lot of real-world information and that we often do them a disservice when we water it down. Cute and cuddly can definitely help us connect to an animal in fiction, but when that animal is reduced to only its friendly characteristics, or given entirely human ­behavior within that animal’s body, then we can lose track of what an elephant actually is—and how important they are beyond entertainment. Elephants are cute, but they can also be fierce and terribly boring. Herbivores do a lot of standing around and chewing grass, but just by eating and walking and ­pooping, elephants have been shaping the African landscape for literally millions of years, and any number of ­species have evolved to rely on the changes that elephants exert on their habitat. All over the globe today, the environment is at odds with the economy, and the future of wildlife—and our future, really—is in the hands of lawmakers and world leaders. We have to choose who we’re going to be, and what kind of world we want to leave behind for our children. My hope is that this book, and helping educate kids about the way things really live, is a step in the right direction.

I think the suggested activities for the book should honor her sentiments. Both teachers and librarians could design programs that focus on animal conservation and protection. For example, right now the issue of elephant hunting and poaching is once again in the news because our President inexplicably announced the removal of a ban on importing elephant "trophies." (He later said that he was delaying his decision.) This could be a good time to talk about the the threats that elephants face in the wild from hunters and, subsequently, their declining numbers. While I don't live close to a zoo or wildlife sanctuary that has elephants (Chicago is the closest), some teachers/librarians could use those resources. But we don't have to limit ourselves to just learning about elephants. Earlier this semester I wrote about the graphic novel Primates in a LitBit assignment. That book focused on the research of primates by three different women but it also dealt with efforts to protect those animals. There are numerous high quality books, materials, websites, and other resources that we can use to talk about animal conservation and protection with our students/patrons. Roy even provides a list of the sources she used for the book on her website: 

http://katherineroy.com/elephants/how-to-be-an-elephant-sources/