Circles of Hope for Earth Day
20 Apr 2012 1 Comment
in Ecology, Nonfiction, Picture Books, Spring stories Tags: Earth Day, Emily Arnold McCully, John Muir, Julie Dunlap, Karen Lynn Williams
Make Earth Day a hopeful one with rousing outdoor and indoor activities, complemented by a colorful mix of fiction and nonfiction. One of my favorite picture books for ages 6 to 8 is Karen Lynn Williams’s Circles of Hope, set in Haiti.
Williams, the author of many acclaimed multicultural picture books (Four Feet, Two Sandals, 2007; and Beatrice’s Dream, 2011), situates her simple tale of a boy’s struggle to keep a tree alive within the larger context of his homeland’s economic struggles. Facile decides to plant a mango tree for baby sister Lucia, but it turns out to be a difficult task. Goats eat the first sapling he plants … rain washes away the second … and a fire destroys the third. Then the observant boy realizes he can use stones to protect the tree, and hope blossoms. The illustrator, Saport, adeptly uses pastels of orange and yellow to depict Haiti’s sunny, dry hillsides and creates charming fat circles for the green trees, the rounded hills, and the stones surrounding more and more trees on the island. Williams closes her gentle story with “One year at a time, little circles of hope began to grow on the mountainsides of Haiti, and inside each circle grew a tree.” She supplies a fine teacher’s guide, as well, for her sensitive, positive story. Pair this with the nonfiction book This Tree Counts! to instill in children a greater appreciation for the importance of trees.
Older children (ages 8 to 10) adore the exciting and true story John Muir and Stickeen: An Icy Adventure with a No-Good Dog. John Muir initially feels a dog has no business on a treacherous expedition in Alaska. He changes his mind, though, when he and Stickeen become lost on a glacier during a storm, and the dog behaves courageously. Farnsworth’s splendid, realistic oil paintings heighten the reader’s awareness of the perilous, frozen landscape. This adventure tale provides children with a fabulous introduction to the remarkable American conservationist and founder of the Sierra Club. 
For another aspect of John Muir, try Emily Arnold McCully’s Squirrel and John Muir, featuring the possible relationship between the real-life rebellious Floy Hutchings, nicknamed Squirrel, and John Muir, who inspired her love of nature.
Looking for middle-school novels relating to respect for the Earth? See my post on One Day and One Amazing Morning on Orange Street, as well as novels by Carl Hiassen, such as Hoot.
Related articles
- Muir Woods National Monument (sheryllrea.wordpress.com)
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Wilma Rudolph Beat the Odds
02 Mar 2012 4 Comments
in Biographies/Autobiographies, Nonfiction, Picture Books, Sports Tags: Kathleen Krull, Wilma Rudolph, Women's History Month
Who says true stories can’t be more thrilling than fiction? Whip out Kathleen Krull’s acclaimed picture-book biography Wilma Unlimited for a rousing read-aloud experience for all. 
Many children don’t know Wilma Rudolph made history by winning three gold medals for running in the 1960 Olympics in Rome. That won’t stop them from cheering for the athlete who contracted polio at the age of 5 and was told she would likely never walk again.
Born in 1940, in Clarksville, TN, Wilma was the youngest of 19 brothers and sisters. She defied others’ low expectations of her by relying on her own strong will. Not only did she manage to shed her leg braces and walk, she went on to play high-school basketball. That’s how a track and field coach discovered her talent and offered her a college scholarship, thereby enabling her to become the first in her family to attend college.
Neither physical hardships, poverty, nor racism could hold back Wilma Rudolph. Enhanced by striking illustrations by David Diaz, this story can’t help but inspire others and show how perseverance can lead to triumph. Why not get this Women’s History Month off to a running start with this winner?
Author Kathleen Krull Provides Tips on Using Biographies in the Classroom.
Check out the 2nd annual KidsLit CelebratesWomen’s History Month.
and see …
An African-American Book Feast to Savor
03 Feb 2012 Leave a Comment
in middle grade, Nonfiction, Picture Books Tags: American Library Association, Bryan Collier, children's book awards, Jerry Pinkney, literacy, Marilyn Nelson, Walter Dean Myers
Celebrating its 20th anniversary, the free African-American Children’s Book Fair returns 
Saturday to the Community College of Philadelphia. One of my favorites, the fabulous Bryan Collier (see this prior post), will be there, in addition to the indomitable illustrator Jerry Pinkney and author Walter Dean Myers, national ambassador for young people’s literature. Acclaimed illustrators such as E.B. Lewis, Floyd Cooper, and Sean Qualls are on the schedule, as well as the award-winning poet Marilyn Nelson.
And …
The American Library Association’s announcement of the 2012 children’s book awards is a great source for ideas for kids of all ages. Of those winners, many are great to read aloud to children 5 to 8, including …
and for ages 8 to 12, consider 
Congratulations to the beloved author/illustrator Ashley Bryan (see my prior post) for the Coretta Scott King – Virginia Hamilton Award for Lifetime achievement.
“Beyond the mountain, more mountains”
16 Jan 2012 2 Comments
in Biographies/Autobiographies, Civil Rights, middle grade, MLK day stories, Nonfiction, Women's history, Young adult
Acclaimed CNN journalist Charlayne Hunter-Gault gives a vivid and inspiring account of how she 
“stood on the shoulders of giants” in fulfilling her own significant role in the Civil Rights movement.
Among the 1.8 million who traveled to Washington, DC, to witness the 2009 inauguration of Barack Obama as the nation’s first black president were the author and her husband. Opening her memoir with a description of the event, Ms. Hunter-Gault says it led her to reflect on her own participation in the arduous trek toward equality.
Mingled with her excitement were bittersweet memories of the many braves ones lost along the way, whether through racist violence or from natural causes, including her friend and classmate Hamilton Holmes, who “walked into history with me through the gates of the University of Georgia.” Obama’s election marked a special place in that long journey fueled by the lyrics of the spiritual: “Ain’t gonna let nobody turn me ’roun’/ . . . Keep on walkin’ / Keep on talkin’/ Walking up the Freedom Trail.”
Ms. Hunter-Gault employs a lively pace and an accessible, photo-filled format that provides historical context for her role in the Civil Rights movement. The black-and-white copies of New York Times front pages provide fascinating insight into the events she relates, beginning with the 1954 Supreme Court ruling that rejected the legitimacy of “separate but equal” facilities, including public schools. Despite the law, years of inequity and dimmed prospects dragged on, as no state in the Deep South initiated desegregation. Separate schools, trains, buses, parks, pools, restaurants, bathrooms, and even water fountains pocked the region. The author cites the conditions at her elementary school in little Covington, GA, which had raggedy, incomplete old textbooks, and no cafeteria.
In Atlanta, where her family moved when she was about 10, she benefited from dedicated teachers and a nurturing environment. “We lived happily apart and generally removed from the worst manifestations of segregation, hardly ever encountering overt hostility from whites.”
Such a fragile balance foundered, though, after four black students at North Carolina Agricultural and Technical College held a sit-in at Woolworth’s five-and-dime, in Greensboro, NC, in 1960. Soon sit-ins spread across the south, including Atlanta, as African-Americans glimpsed the possibilities of a more just society. Thousands of local college students took to the streets of downtown Atlanta in 1960. Charlayne began her reporting career by covering such events for the bold new Atlanta Inquirer. (Another staff writer, Julian Bond, became its managing editor before vaulting into a many-storied political career.)
A significant prospect prevented Ms. Hunter-Gault from participating in those protests. Although she had been admitted to Wayne State in Michigan, several Atlanta civil rights leaders encouraged her and another outstanding high-school classmates to apply to the all-white University of Georgia, the oldest public university in the nation. At a time when it was uncommon for white students to attend college so far from home, black students’ choices were limited. Georgia, like some other Southern states, provided money for black students to study out of state.
Charlayne and Hamilton Holmes, then enrolled at Morehouse, agreed to accept the challenge. Knowing an arrest would likely result from participating in a sit-in, she refused to give the University of Georgia an excuse to reject her application. For a few more months, Charlayne would wait for her opportunity to challenge racism.
In the fall, the author returned to Wayne State but was summoned to Atlanta for the December trial that would determine whether she and Hamilton would be allowed to enroll at UGA. The NYT headline proclaimed their success: “2 NEGRO STUDENTS ENTER GEORGIA U.: Integration Effected as U.S. Court Blocks Governor’s Effort to Shut School.”
The author began the year of 1961 by walking through the iconic black-iron arch that marks the entrance to the oldest part of the campus. Those steps would lead not only to her own success, but also to her own groundbreaking role in the Civil Rights movement. Although she endured cold stares, taunts, and a window-shattering brick, she found strength in recalling the Twenty-third Psalm, which her grandmother had taught her. And while the author alludes to being isolated in her own room (in the gracious four-story Myers Hall, where I lived in the late 1970s), she balances that experience with recollections of the horrifying violence encountered by Civil Rights activists throughout the South, especially as they worked for voting rights in the dangerous state of Mississippi.
Ms. Hunter-Gault triumphed with her journalism degree from UGA and then headed to New York, but many of her contemporaries, such as the Freedom Riders, intent on protecting voting rights, braved beatings and worse. John Lewis, the group’s first to take a blow, in Rockhill, SC, recalled being “prepared to die.” Many, in fact, did—black and white, young and old.
To the Mountaintop speaks to the power of the press in both accelerating and deepening public awareness of inequality, as journalists such as Ms. Hunter-Gault explore once-overlooked events and perspectives. “I could still make a contribution by reporting on people who had been excluded from the white-controlled media. I resolved to seek out stories that showed black people in all their humanity–their problems, as well as their achievements, struggles as well as victories.” From Harlem to Gaza, from Somalia to South Africa, she has cultivated those stories and shared them with the world.
Even as Ms. Hunter-Gault looks back on her own career and on the highlights of the movement, she points to issues that deserve action, including the still-unsolved Civil Rights-era murders. Citing the Haitian proverb “Beyond the mountain, more mountains,” she stresses that the struggle for justice is never over. A timeline and the full text of 10 NYT articles provide additional context for this engrossing and uplifting account.
Reprinted with permission from the New York Journal of Books.
Related link
- Civil Rights Digital Library Educators, don’t miss this fascinating source for primary resources. As the site points out, “The initiative promotes an enhanced understanding of the [Civil Rights] Movement through its three principal components: 1) a digital video archive of historical news film allowing learners to be nearly eyewitnesses to key events of the Civil Rights Movement, 2) a civil rights portal providing a seamless virtual library on the Movement by connecting related digital collections on a national scale, and 3) a learning objects component delivering secondary Web-based resources – such as contextual stories, encyclopedia articles, lesson plans, and activities–to facilitate the use of the video content in the learning process.”
Late one winter night …
10 Jan 2012 Leave a Comment
in Folk and Fairy Tales, Nonfiction, Picture Books, Winter stories Tags: Ashley Ramsden, Ed Young
Late one winter night, a weary traveler trudges through a fierce snowstorm. 
Just as he feels he can go no farther, he spies the blazing lights of a house in the distance. He might yet survive—if only he can cross the frosty meadow and find a warm, dry place to spend the night.
Outside the house, the bundled-up walker finds an old man chopping wood and approaches him to ask: “Good evening, Father. I’m so glad I found you. Would you, by any chance, have a room where I could spend the night?” Such a simple question would normally lead to a simple answer, right?
Storyteller Ashley Ramsden, however, has staked out a wilder territory in his first picture book. He bases Seven Fathers on a lesser-known Norwegian folktale collected by the famous folklorists Asbjornsen and Moe (Norwegian Folk Tales. Reprinted by Pantheon, 1982.) Founder of the International School of Storytelling in Sussex, England, and co-author of a book on storytelling, Ramsden’s narrative powers are in full force here. His finely honed prose is studded with the repeated question that propels the tale into an increasingly strange landscape. Along the way, Mr. Ramsden traverses multiple levels of meaning, crafting a tale especially appealing to older children of a philosophical bent.
The traveler’s respectfully worded question meets with the same odd response each time: “I’m not the father of the house. You’ll have to ask my father.” Six more times, he must seek another man, each one somehow older than the other.
The bizarre nature of the man’s quest flares to life with Ed Young’s unique collages, laid on clay-colored paper throughout the book. The illustrator ushers us into the story with snow-spattered scenes, the protagonist roughly outlined in thick black ink lines.
Mr. Young, a Caldecott medalist, intersperses splotches of paint and simple drawings with an intriguing range of cut paper. As the protagonist warms up a bit, we get to see his face, drawn with a few black lines, peering out of his thick white hood, all the while keeping on his fur mittens. Mr. Young’s approach is minimalistic yet expressive, as in his depiction of the second father, his hair white-scrawled and his cheeks pinked by a fire the illustrator has built out of flame-looking scraps of paper.
On and on the traveler goes, penetrating further into a world where time has become elastic. As each father gets older, it becomes difficult to hear and, eventually, even to see him. The sixth father has shrunken so small he fits in a cradle. Yet even he tells the man he must go and ask that question to his father. The story traces the symbolic nature of the journey until it reaches its satisfying conclusion.
While younger children might not grasp the implications of a spiritual quest, they will understand the folktale’s message of respect for elders and the importance of perseverance. For those seven and older, Seven Fathers offers a folktale brimming with subtle humor and mystery fresh as new-fallen snow.
Reprinted with permission from New York Journal of Books
And for more frosty folk or fairy tales:
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Paris From a Distance
27 Nov 2011 2 Comments
in Biographies/Autobiographies, Nonfiction, Picture Books Tags: Alberto Santos-Dumont, Brian Selznick, Eva Montanari, Hugo, Invention of Hugo Cabret, Martin Scorsese, Paris, Victoria Griffith
Last night I lurked behind a clock in Paris, thanks to Martin Scorsese’s acclaimed new film Hugo, based on Brian Selznick’s wildly creative novel The Invention of Hugo Cabret. The entrancing vistas featuring the Eifel Tower, the city’s twinkling lights, and the dizzying tiers of iron stairways that support the massive timepiece swept me back to a magical era. While I approach cinematic versions of novels with a soupcon of skepticism, I can wholeheartedly recommend this one as worthy of its literary source. 
For a fresh peek at an older Paris, pick up Victoria Griffith’s recent picture-book biography, The Fabulous Flying Machines of Alberto Santos-Dumont, which highlights the overlooked Brazilian inventor who was the first to lift off and land a completely self-propelled plane. (The Wrights’ 1903 airplane needed strong winds and even a rail system to send it aloft.) Alberto’s remarkable flight, which occurred November 12, 1906, outside Paris, is depicted with cheerful movement and intriguing perspectives in the pastel-and-oil paintings of Eva Montanari.
At first, we get to float over the city with Alberto in his dirigible, the inventor’s own unique and celebrated mode of transportation. Griffith’s story sparkles with Montanari’s double spreads bubbling with images of ladies’ elongated gowns, a wave of rushing horse-drawn carriages (no match for Alberto’s airship!), and the sidewalk cafes filled with coffee drinkers at little round marble-topped tables.
Alberto devotes the next three years to building a new and better flying machine. Touchingly, he envisions a world where his invention would mean the end of all wars. “Once people are able to fly to different countries, they will see how much we have in common. We will all be friends,” he tells a hat-shop attendant in the book.
If only that vision had prevailed. Instead, others would get credit for inventing the airplane and then profit from its use for warfare, as Griffiths explains in her note, accompanied by vintage photos of Alberto Santos-Dumont and his inventions.
For a child (ages 7 to 10) with a taste for reality, this biography is just the ticket.
Related Articles: Parents’ Choice Award for The Fabulous Flying Machines of Alberto Santos-Dumont.
“Watch and Read: Starring Hugo Cabret”
The Puppeteer Who Made the Parade
13 Nov 2011 3 Comments
in Autumn Read-alouds, Biographies/Autobiographies, Holidays, Nonfiction, Picture Books Tags: Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, Melissa Sweet, Thanksgiving, Tony Sarg
Some movers and shakers are in it for the sake of sheer fun. Tony Sarg loved toys so much he never abandoned them. Instead, he devised puppets that could float along Broadway for a parade like no other. Balloons Over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy’s Parade is Melissa Sweet’s joyous tribute to the man and to creativity itself.
Oh, the snipping and flipping and sketching that went into creating this fantastic nonfiction book. Beginning with end papers featuring vintage pages of The Tony Sarg Marionette Book and finishing with a dramatic 1933 New York Times ad (“HERE COMES THE PARADE!! IT’S IMMENSE! IT’S COLOSSAL! COME A-RUNNING!!), Ms. Sweet delivers a package that soars with color and energy.
Tony Sarg (rhymes with “aargh”) might not be a household name, but he invented the floats that fill multitudes of TV screens every Thanksgiving Day. Here’s how Sweet opens the story:
images courtesy of author/illustrator
As with her other inventive work, including the Caldecott-Honor book A River of Words by Jen Bryant, Melissa Sweet constructs her illustrations with a bright array of materials. You can see behind the image of young Tony, appearing as if from an old book, she includes a layer of magenta topped with a cut-fabric border featuring whimsical circles. Throughout the book, she intersperses her own lively drawings and paintings with a pleasing variety of objects — rulers, buttons, and even her own actual puppets, to tell this story in an engaging and original way. I can’t imagine the Caldecott committee will overlook this book as a contender for the upcoming annual prize for illustrations.
The story of how Tony Sarg initiated a Thanksgiving rite with his 1928 parade based on street carnivals from around the world makes for a rousing read-aloud. And how many children will be inspired to make their own puppets? For ideas, see Sweet’s appealing activity kit at Houghton Mifflin.
Related Article
“Five Questions for Melissa Sweet” from Horn Book.
What They Found in the Attic
07 Nov 2011 7 Comments
in Biographies/Autobiographies, Nonfiction, Young adult Tags: Anne Frank, book giveaway, Buddy Elias, Diary of a Young Girl, Gerti Elias, Mirjam Pressler
One of the most exquisite joys of reading is not knowing when a book will embed itself in your own memories and consequently, in your world view. I was 13 when I first read Anne Frank’s The Diary of a Young Girl. Like so many others, I was a shy, awkward girl when I discovered a tender kindred spirit, a bolder, more talented and more perceptive version of the self I inhabited. I continue to picture Anne at a small desk, writing in her diary (called Kitty), as in this photo from the Anne Frank Museum.
This image of Anne Frank is forever incomplete. Recently, though, a remarkable cache of 6,000 family photos, letters, drawings, poems, and postcards stored in the attic of Anne’s aunt has been curated and published in Treasures From the Attic: The Extraordinary Story of Anne Frank’s Family.
Last week, Anne’s cousin Buddy Elias recalled at a reading in Manhattan how they were “two wild kids” who liked to put on puppet shows, ice skate, and tramp in the Swiss Alps. I inadvertently stumbled upon the site of her summer playground a few years ago when I ventured to the pristine hamlet of Sils-Maria. There, in a stark room of the whitewashed two-story house where Nietzsche wrote parts of Thus Spoke Zarathustra, I found a photo of Anne Frank on the wall. From the window by his old wooden desk I glimpsed the chalet where Anne and cousin Buddy (whom she nicknamed “Bernd”) frolicked. Today, the beauty of
that region Nietzsche called “the land of silver colors” still feels set apart from an often grim world.
One of the touching chapters of Treasures from the Attic focuses on the experiences the two cousins shared. After Anne and sister Margot’s death, Otto sent Buddy a copy of Anne’s diary entry for October 18, 1942, which is reproduced in Treasures … . As an energetic 13-year-old, she anticipated becoming Bernd’s skating partner. Anne imagined “a film later for Holland and Switzerland,” in which she would wear a white costume of her own design. The book enables us to see Anne’s sweet, childish drawing and her strong, slanted penmanship.
Then we get to see the humorous playing cards Buddy drew for the children when they vacationed in Sils-Maria. The sense of loss must descend upon all who read the story of this family who perceived themselves as quite bourgeois. Others, of course, had a very different outlook, and we continue to live with the results of that unfathomable tragedy.
Image via Wikipedia
I am offering a free copy of Treasures from the Attic to one random reader who leaves a comment about this post or about how he or she has been affected by Anne’s diary. The new book by Mirjam Pressler with Gerti Elias is for young adults and older readers and adds much to our understanding and appreciation of the Frank family’s unique legacy. Deadline: November 24, Thanksgiving.
Related articles
- A Dear Cousin Recalls His Childhood Playmate, Anne Frank (cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com)
Children of the World
19 Sep 2011 10 Comments
in Nonfiction Tags: Anthony Asael, art, Art in All of Us, David J. Smith, Global community, Margriet Ruurs, photography, Poetry, Stephanie Rabemiafara
I dare you to pick up this book and resist devouring it. 
Everyone looking for resources to instill in children a greater awareness and appreciation of the world’s diversity will want to add Children of the World to their library.
Photographers Anthony Asael and Stephanie Rabemiafara have compiled a vibrant collection of photos, along with children’s artwork and poetry, to show how people feel about their native land. From Afghanistan to Zimbabwe, the world beckons from the colorful pages of this inspiring, accessible nonfiction book. It’s a breeze to use, thanks to the table of contents and a page pinpointing the features readers will find on each of the 192 UN nations included. Mr. Asael and Ms. Rabemiafara have wisely chosen to focus on simple, essential aspects of the nations: language(s) spoken, popular foods, and favorite sports or activities. Following the profiles are statistics from Unicef’s State of the World’s Children reports, credits, and a sprinkling of children’s artwork.
Arranged alphabetically, each nation, identified by continent and with a map, stars in its own bright double-spread. The left-hand page features artwork by a local child, a poem in another child’s own language and handwriting, and the English translation of that poem. On the right is a full-page photograph of a child or children in their environment.The photographs, taken from various angles and times of day, range from stunning close-ups to lively group shots that capture a specific locale.
One of the many impressive aspects of Children of the World is the care the compilers took to combine their photos with the children’s artwork in ways that enhance our appreciation of a culture. Take, for instance, the spread on Kuwait. We learn natives of this Middle-East nation speak Arabic and English, that they eat many different rice dishes and drink laban, a yogurt-based drink, and that they play soccer and water sports. A nine-year-old’s poem called “The Smile of Kuwait” tells of the children who “are the flowers of its garden … the enemies of guns … [who] refuse to see in our fields the light of fire… . How can we accept to see birds’ nests destroyed in our homeland?” Flame-colored markers in a seven-year’s artwork showcase three brightly veiled females, the youngest of whom appears ready to play a game of hopscotch. On the right, we see a photo of a radiant smiling girl, her black hair adorned with a twinkling lattice of golden circles, rectangles, and flowers.
In gazing at such sweet faces, children will no doubt sense the similarities and differences among us. This, in fact, is a goal of the compilers, who seek to cultivate “cross-cultural understanding and to empower a sense of global citizenship” with their not-for-profit organization Art in All of Us, which the book’s proceeds will support.
Perfect for one-on-one sharing or for a boatload of elementary-school curricular units, Children of the World shines with hope and creativity. Pick it up, and it will reciprocate.
And for older children, ages 8-12:
For teaching tips on If the World Were a Village, see the excellent guide at Kids Can.
Another interesting choice features unusual libraries: 
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Following Patient Butterflies
22 Aug 2011 6 Comments
in Folk and Fairy Tales, Insects, Nonfiction, Picture Books, Summer Tags: Butterflies, Dianna Hutts Aston, Gerardo Suzan, insects, Judy Sierra, Margarita Engle, multicultural literature, Outdoors, Sylvia Long, Victoria Chess, Virginia L. Kroll
As I sit on my back porch reading, I often look up to watch the world flutter by at a languid pace. I’m surrounded by a border of overgrown abelia bushes that arch and bloom, luring silent hummingbirds and graceful Eastern Tiger Swallowtails. 
I stretch in the blessed shade and marvel at the strong wings that come this way each summer.
Aston, Dianna Hutts. A Butterfly Is Patient. Illus. by Sylvia Long. Chronicle, 2011.
Poetic text and bright, detailed watercolors lift this informative nonfiction book to lofty heights. Employing the same accessible format of their two previous winners, An Egg Is Quiet and A Seed Is Sleepy, this talented duo trace the insects’ development from egg to flight. Along the way, readers will learn how butterflies and moths differ, as well as facts about metamorphosis, pollination, camouflage, and migration. Young and old will succumb to the temptation to pore over Long’s lifelike close-ups of dozens of caterpillars and butterflies, clearly labeled without detracting from the beauty of each winged creature. “A butterfly is creative,” the author notes. So is this lovely book, fine as wing scales “stacked like shingles on a roof.” Recommended for ages 7-10.
Engle, Margarita. Summer Birds: The Butterflies of Maria Merian. illus. by Julie Paschkis. Holt, 2010.
“Each year, the sky fills with summer birds. Many people call them butterflies. Everyone believes that these insects come from mud, as if by magic. I disagree.” In the Middle Ages, people believed insects were evil. Maria Merian, a brave German girl born in 1647, defied her culture’s conception of nature and its expectations for women. Intrigued by butterflies, she observed their life cycle and carefully painted the insects and their habitats. The illustrator’s vivid jewel tones and profusion of vines and imaginary creatures evoke the passionate nature of this remarkable woman, copies of whose prints now live in the world’s art museums. Engle’s concluding note provides additional details on Maria Merian, who went on to become a scientist, artist and world explorer. Educators can use this fine picture-book biography for a bevy of cross-curricular activities and discussions. For ages 7-10.
Kroll, Virginia L. Butterfly Boy. illus. by Gerardo Suzan. Boyds Mills, 2003. 
This tender story features young Emilio and his invalid grandfather, who find delight in a flock of red admiral butterflies. The boy senses his abuelo is “smiling inside, even though his mouth could no longer show it.” Emilio is able to get near the bright insects, inspiring his neighbor to call him “Butterfly Boy.” During the winter, he reads in a book that the butterflies are attracted to white surfaces, such as their garage wall. Emilio’s excitement upon their return in the spring turns to dismay as he sees his father is painting the garage blue. What can he do? Emilio snatches his white shirt from the clothesline and puts it on — and the red butterflies flock to him. Like Abuelo and his family, readers will find reason to smile when reading this sensitive story enlivened by Suzan’s bright, playful watercolors. Ages 5-8.
Sierra, Judy. The Beautiful Butterfly: A Folktale from Spain. illus. by Victoria Chess. Clarion, 2000. 
Make room for laughter with Sierra’s lilting variant of a Spanish folktale that features a lady butterfly courted by a motley procession of suitors. A cricket arrives first, wanting to marry her. The butterfly poses this crucial question: “And if I do marry you, how will you sing to our babies?” The cricket’s annoying click fails the test. Next, the frog comes to woo. His ugly “Croo-AH!” just won’t do. Finally, a mouse, with a soothing “ee-ee-ee-ee-ee,” is the perfect choice. Unexpectedly, though, Mouse falls into a pond and is eaten by a fish. Sierra comes to the rescue here; realizing this conclusion saddened children, she researched the story’s variants and discovered some endings that involved underwear. Butterfly and everyone who hears the news mourns, some in outlandish ways. The turning point comes when the king runs around in his royal underwear. Even the fish laughs — and out pops the mouse. Don’t miss this one! Ages 6-8.
