If We Were Gone -- Perfect Picture Book Friday

World Environment Day

Title: If We Were Gone: Imagining a World Without People

Author: John Coy

Illustrator: Natalie Capannelli 

Publisher: Millbrook Press, 2020

Themes: Environment, Earth Day, Call to Action

For ages:  5 and Up

We are in a time where the list of hard and scary topics feels completely overwhelming.  Yet, we need to talk about them. We need to take action. No, not need. We must have conversations. We must take action. 

I believe that the place to begin any conversation or action is with kindness, empathy, listening, and using our imaginations.

This book imagines a world without us in it. It asks important questions and offers opportunity for thought, discussion, and action. 

It begins: 

People need water to live.

We need air to breathe.

We need plants to survive.

But do they need us?

Maybe not.

Imagine what would happen 

if people were no longer here.

We are all in this world together.  In the natural world, diversity means survival. 

Activities and Resources

Learn more about World Environment Day

Spend time exploring, wondering, asking questions.

Take a walk. Move slowly and see what you notice. Take note. Take that same walk every week for a year. What changes do you see? 

Draw a picture of the world around you. What is important to your survival? What needs you to survive?

Pick up some garbage.

If we are the intelligent life forms on this planet we call home, how can we create a world of caring, community, equality, sustainability, health, and peace? 

Watch Jane Goodall: The Hope

In the documentary about her, Jane Goodall said, "Even if it's no use, I'm going to die trying." Later she said, "Every person makes some sort of impact o the planer every single day. We get to choose what sort of impact that is." 

How we treat our fellow man. How we treat the trees, the insects, the birds, the land that we live upon all have an impact. Your actions or inaction show what you have chosen. How do you want to be seen? 

Support your Local Indie Bookstore when you purchase a book.

Check out Susanna Hill's Perfect Picture Book Friday Blog post each week to learn about more cool books to read with your kids and add to your collection.

A Stone Sat Still -- Perfect Picture Book Friday

I have been watching the birds in my backyard a lot. In the spring, we have many bird species that only stop by the feeders for a short time before moving on to their nesting grounds. There are also birds who stop coming to the feeder in spring as they are migrating to their nesting ground. I have been paying attention to the birds for several years. I noticed that the red-winged black birds come back in early spring. I used to think of them as summer birds because they would and still do sit on tall grasses in the summer sun and heat and trill all day. After paying attention, I realized that they are very early harbinger of spring. The robins come back a little later, and for a short time, flock into yards and open spaces as large groups looking for tasty meals. I suspect they love the rainy days and the worms coming up from the deep soil. And then the dark-eyed juncos who spend the winter foraging for seed under the bird feeders hang out until all chances of snowstorms are over. I begin to pay close attention to the juncos in March and hope each morning that they will be gone. For me they are a sign that the weather is really changing for the better. I love the juncos in the winter. Their little black and white bodies bop around under the feeders remind me that it may be cold out, but I am as resilient as a little bird so I can go outside too. In the spring, I am ready for warmth and the blooming of flowers and trees. 

Today I chose A Stone Sat Still because it is a poem to nature. A poem to paying attention and noticing things that seem simple and uninteresting, but are actually complex and exciting.

Title: A Stone Sat Still

Author/Illustrator: Brendan Wenzel

Publisher: Chronicle Books, 2019

Opening Page:

A stone sat still

with the water, grass and dirt

and it was as it was

where it was in the world.

Why I believe you will love this book:

• It is lyrical and has a lovely repetition. 
• This story is filled with discussion opportunities and doors to learning more about nature topics. 
• The illustrations are made with cut paper, colored pencil, oil pastels, marker and the computer. They are soft and bright, wild and gentle.
• It is a story about using your senses and thinking about size. You can hear the crack of the shell, feel the warmth of the day, and understand that perception of size depends on what is is around. 

I am not doing this book justice. It is best enjoyed by just enjoying it. It is a book to sit with and ponder. It is the kind of book that catches your heart and holds on as a reminder of how special our world is.

Resources and Activities:

Here is a link to the book being read.

Brendan talks about the story behind this story. 

An interview with Brendan Wenzel.

Brendan's Website.

• Spend time in the woods, in your yard, on a nature trail, by a river, lake stream, ocean, or at your window and just sit and watch. What do you see? Make a list, draw pictures.
• What senses are you using as you watch? What senses are the animals, birds, insects using as they interact in the world? 
• Write a poem about what you discover.
• If a rock could talk, what do you think it would say about it's life experience?

• Make a collage animal. 
• Here's a link to loads of collage ideas.
• Use found objects for you art. 
• Play with watercolors and use the pieces to cut up and make a new piece of art.
• Participate in Citizen Science projects. I have been adding my bird data to Ebird. I also participate in the Frog Calling Survey and will be doing a training on a pollinator project. I love it because I get to be in nature and hopefully help the wildlife by keeping track of the things I see.
• Recently I started a little photography project that I call, "Nine things I Noticed."  I take lots of pictures with my phone when I walk my dog. I pull together nine of the cool things I love and put them together in the Instagram Layout App.  Here are two that I have created. 
  

Well, nature and my dog are calling. Off to see what we notice today.

Support your Local Indie Bookstore when you purchase a book.

Check out Susanna Hill's Perfect Picture Book Friday Blog post each week to learn about more cool books to read with your kids and add to your collection.

Four Otters Toboggan-- Perfect Picture Book Friday

It's EARTH WEEK!

Title: Four Otters Toboggan: An Animal Counting Book

Author: Vivian Kirkfield

Illustrator: Mirka Hokkanen

Publisher: Pomegrante Kids, 2019

Themes: Nature, Counting, Conservation, STEAM, Earth Day

Opening Lines: 

Water waits.

Dawn breaks

in a chorus of bird song.

ONE willow flycatcher whistles

as the night slips silently away.

Text (c) Vivian Kirkfield, Illustration (c) Mirka Hokkanen, 2019

Why I Believe you will love this book:

Counting animals.

Text (c) Vivian Kirkfield, Illustration (c) Mirka Hokkanen, 2019

Poetry and the full circle of the day. A great story to read as you begin and end the day.

Text (c) Vivian Kirkfield, Illustration (c) Mirka Hokkanen, 2019

A theme of conservation with specific animals offers children a deeper look into the natural world allowing them to see the beauty and understand the need to care for the earth.

The art is beautiful. Mirka's printmaking is filled with detail and gentle colors that pull you in like the beauty of a new day. As they say "Earth without Art is just, Eh!" -- Demetri Martin

This is a lovely, simple, yet complex story that can be read to children of all ages. 

Activities and Resources:

• Be sure to read the backmatter and learn more about each animal in the story.

• Check out the activity guide. It is chock full of great things to do.

• Watch Mirka making prints for the book:

• Go on a scavenger hunt to see how many insects, mammals, and birds you see. 

Support your local Indie Bookstore when you purchase a new book.

Check out Susanna Hill's Perfect Picture Book Friday Blog post each week to learn about more cool books to read with your kids and add to your collection.

We Are Water Protectors -- Perfect Picture Book Friday

It is Earth Month and April 22nd is Earth Day, the 50th anniversary. Every Day is Earth Day. This is our planet and we need to care for it each and every day. We Are Water Protectors is brand new and it is a poem and prayer for our earth and the water that gives us life.

Title: We Are Water Protectors
Author: Carole Lindstrom
Illustrator: Michaela Goade
Publisher: Roaring Book Press, 2020

For Ages: 4 and Up

Themes: Earth, Water, Native Peoples, Protests

Opening lines: 
Water is the first medicine, Nokomis told me.
We come from water.
It nourished us inside our mother's body.
As it nourishes us here on Mother Earth.
Water is sacred.

Why I LOVE this book and think you will too:

Somehow throughout my life, I have been introduced to many Native People's and learned a little bit about their cultures. Their stories have given me a love of the earth and an appreciation of the people and their connection to the world.

This book is a beautiful connection to the stories, the people, and our need to connect with mother earth. It is a call to arms to protect our planet and the water that gives us life.

It is a prayer for the earth.

Michaela's illustrations are like a dream. They show the beauty and the horror in contrast to each other as poetically as the words written by Carole.

This book makes me want:  To read it over and over again. To linger on each image. To glide my fingers across the colors and the water. To hold it close to my heart to remind me of what is truly important in life. To push me to stand up and fight for what is right.

I hope it does the same for you and your children.

Listen to Carole Lindstrom Read the book

Activities and Resources:

Check out Carole's website.

https://www.michaelagoade.com/about

Go outside, dig in the dirt, play with water. Plants seeds, a tree, and flowers.

Play with watercolor paints.

Learn more about the complaints and concerns regarding the Dakota Access Pipeline

More on the Pipeline

Learn about the Native American cultures where you live.

Take Action.
Pick up garbage left behind.
Attend a rally.
Make signs.
Write to your government officials.
Change one little thing like giving up straws and balloons.

OK, I am off to listen to Matthew Winners Podcast interview with Carole and Michaela. You can too.

Looking for more great books to read with your kids. Be sure to check out Susanna Hill's Perfect Picture Book Friday Blog Post.

Perfect Picture Book Friday . . . On Sunday. Three for the Price of One

Well, the days got busy and here we are on Sunday. Any day is a good day to read a picture book; even better is to read three picture books. The first two books, I  learned about from other #PPBF bloggers, the last I found at my local public library. They are all beautiful in their own way.

Title: The Boy Who Grew A Forest: The True Story of Jadav Payeng

Written by: Sophia Gholz

Illustrated by: Kayla Harren

Publisher: Sleeping Bear Press, 2019

Opening: "The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time to plant a tree is now. -- proverb 

In India, on a large river, among farms and families hard at work, there lived a boy who loved trees. Trees meant shade, food, and shelter for many.

Themes: trees, biography, ecology 

Why I love this book: 

🌞 Trees, ecology, protecting the earth.

🌞 Such beautiful  illustrations. 

🌞 This is a beautifully written biography of an unknown person who made a big difference  for his community.  While it's a story about a young man in India planting trees, it goes beyond that, Jadav Payeng's efforts, helped to protect his people from flooding, provided wood for building, and provided habitats and shelters for wildlife. It is a story that shows not only a person willing to work hard to protect and improve the land, it's a story about how everything is connected.

Activities:

🌳 Plant a tree.

🌍 Work in the garden.

🌳 Learn more about the author and illustrator. 

🌍 Learn about India and Jadav Peyeng's home

Title: You are Never Alone

Written by: Elin Kelsey

Illustrated by: Soyeon Kim

Publisher: Owlkids Books, 2019

Themes: ecosystems, Interconnections, earth

Opening Lines: Every moment this beautiful planet showers you with gifts. Clouds rain fresh water to quench your thirst. Your lungs swell with oxygen plants create. 

Why I love this book:

While this book is not technically non-fiction, it is based in non-fiction sharing many ways that we are all connected with each other and the earth. It is an earth hug. Soyeon Kim's illustrations feel like they come from the past of the Little Golden Book era of Mary Blair. The tiny people with the the grand world and micro worlds of the story are made up of all shapes and colors. They appear almost as fairies, and yet they are children connecting to the world, seeing and experiencing it up close. 

So beautiful.  Perfect for bedtime or after lunch and recess. A book to feel good about the earth and spark discussion.

Activities:

🌞 Spend time outside. Take a close up look at the world around you.

🌞 Learn more about all of the connections shared in this book.

🌞 Do something kind for someone you have never met.

🌞 Learn more about the author and illustrator. 

Title: Out of Wonder: Poems Celebrating Poets

Written by: Kwame Alexander with Chris Colderley and Marjory Wentworth

Illustrated by: Ekua Holmes

Publisher: Candlewick Press, 2017

Coretta Scott King Award

Themes: Poetry, Poets

Opening: Part 1: Got Style? Poets love to make up their own rules about writing; that's what makes it so much fun. Sometime e.e.cummings and Nikki Giovanni use ellipses (...) to separate ideas and lowercase letters at the beginning of sentences. Langston Hughes, who loved jazz, was a master of repetition, rhythm, rhyming couplets, and quatrains. The poems in this section pay tribute to the poets being celebrated adopting their styles and rhythms.

How to Write a Poem

Celebrating Naomi Shihab Nye

Hush.

Grab a pencil

some paper and spunk.

Let loose your heart -- 

raise your voice.

. . . .

-- Kwame Alexander

Why I love this book:

The poems celebrating each poet are beautiful.  They introduce you to the writers through the eyes of the authors with poems written in each poet's style. 

At the end of the book there is a section with a short biography of each of the poets featured. It is a nice starting place to learn more about the poets.

This beautiful book of poetry celebrating poets, opens your eyes to the wonders of poetry, the beauty of the world as seen through poet eyes, and truly celebrates many poets from many cultures and time periods in history. 

Ekua Holmes' mixed-media collage art illustrations add even more life and color to each poem and poet.

Activities:
✏ Write some poetry.
✏ Read books by each of the poets featured.

Be sure to check out Susanna Hill's Blog where you can look for reviews by book, title, and by themes. 

Perfect Picture Book Friday -- Leaflets three . . .

This week it's back to nature. Spring is here in the Midwest. Trees are leafing out, the grass is green, flowers are growing, the summer birds are arriving, finding mates, and preparing nests. Bees and butterflies are flittering and searching for food. We are getting loads of rain and still have cooler temperatures, but nature and wildlife continue unabated including the plant discussed in this week's Perfect Picture Book. . .

Title: Leaflets Three, Let it Be! the story of poison ivy
Author: Anita Sanchez
Illustrated by: Robin Brickman
Publisher: Boyd Mills Press, 2014

Opening Lines: Winter woods are dark. Bare branches rattle in the icy wind. A thick brown vine creeps up a tree. Shaggy rootlets help it cling to the bark.

Themes: Nature, plants, STEM, food webs, 3-D art,

Description and Why I love this book:
An ode to poison ivy. This is one of those books that provides you with an understanding of a plant beyond our narrow itchy world of the plant. It helps a person of any age understand that while the oil in the plant may give humans a rash and make us itch, the plant itself provides food and protection for many animals.

I will admit, that just thinking about coming into contact with poison ivy makes me feel itchy, but I also know that the more I know about it the better I can protect myself from ending up with the itchy rash. The only thing that would have made this book better would have been to provide a pronunciation of the word urushiol. (That's the oil that causes a rash on humans.) That is being really nit picky and in no way takes away from the book and below, you can hear how it is pronounced.

This book takes you through a full year cycle of the plant to learn how it benefits wildlife while at the same time showing you all of its parts and colors, shapes, and sizes so that you can let it be. The back matter is written in a Q &A format and answers the burning questions you may have when you actually end up with a rash and blisters.

On the very last page, there is an artist's not about how Robin Brickman created the incredible life-like artwork for this book. So much loving attention to the plant and wildlife.

As I was putting the last touches on this post, it hit me that the title has a double meaning. "Let it be." Don't touch it because you don't want the itchy rash. Also, don't touch it because it is a beneficial plant in nature. You may not want it growing in your home garden and may need to get rid of it in places where people spend time, but allow it to grow as in natural areas so animals, birds and insects have access to its benefits.

I first learned about this book reading Melissa Stewart's Celebrate Science blog and a post by Anita Sanchez. A great post and a wonderful blog to follow if you like science and/or writing non-fiction.

Every nature center and earth science program should have a copy of this book. Then they should have a program on poison ivy and food webs.


Finally, if you want to find more cool picture books check out Susanna Hill's Blog where you can look for reviews by book, title, and by themes.

Perfect Picture Book Friday: Flowers Talk

You probably know that milkweed is very important to monarch butterflies because that's where they lay their eggs and then the caterpillars eat the leaves to grow big and strong so they can become butterflies. When it comes to quenching a butterflies thirst, they enjoy the nectar of many different types of flowers.

Flower Talk: How Plants Use Color to Communicate

Author: Sara Levine (www.saralevinebooks.com)
Illustrated by: Masha D'Yans (www.masha.com)

Published by: Millbrook Press, 2019

Themes: STEM,  Flowers, Nature, pollination

Ages: 6 - 11

Synopsis: A grouchy cantankerous cactus (prickly pear variety) tells the audience about how flowers use their colors, shapes, and scents to attract insects, birds, and and even mammals to help them make their seeds.

First Lines: "Hey, you! Pssst! Down Here! That's right -- I'm a plant, and I'm talking to you! But don't get too used to it. We don't make a habit of talking to humans."

Why I love this book: Pollinators are all the rage these days. We do need to save the bees and butterflies so it's a good thing we are talking about it! This books looks at the ecosystem and food web from the point of view of the flower and the symbiotic relationship between flowers and pollinators. It helps us understand the role that flowers and plants play in in the food web. This non-fiction story that will make you look at flowers in a new way.

Masha's watercolor illustrations are bright and exciting. The cactus narrator's prickly personality comes through on each page.

Excellent backmatter about flower pollination.

And really, talking to plants is fun. We should do it more often. You never know what you will discover.

A Q&A with Sara Levine

The blog post where I learned about this book.

Activities:

Create your own flower or nature scavenger hunt. Use the same one each season and see what things are the same and what things are different.

Take a hike in your local parks or forest preserves.

Start a Nature Journal

Play with watercolors. I found this little Nature Sketchbook that is easy to take with me and works well with all types of art mediums. Great for making art on the go or as a nature journal. I love this little watercolor set because it's easy to take with you and has lots of colors. A watercolor brush that holds water makes painting on the go super easy.

Make your own pollinator garden or participate in a local community garden.
A pollinator garden can be as small as a pot of native plants on your balcony or front porch. Make sure that you choose flowers that are native to where you live. Those flowers will provide the best food sources for native insects and birds.

And . . . If you want to find more cool picture books check out Susanna Hill's Blog where you can look for reviews by book, title, and by themes.