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.

Tiny Creatures -- Perfect Picture Book Friday

Earth Day Every Day!

Title: Tiny Creatures: The World of Microbes
Author: Nicola Davies
Illustrator: Emily Sutton
Publisher: Candlewick Press, 2014 (US)

Themes: Science, Second person, STEAM, Microbes

Opening Lines: You know about big animals, and you know about small animals . . .but do you know that there are creatures so tiny that millions could fit on this ant's antenna?

Why I believe you will LOVE this Book:

As we live through this Pandemic with Covid-19, microbes are taking a front seat in our fear and desire to understand. This picture book provides an understanding of microbes, the good, the bad, the pretty, and the ugly.

This book helps readers grasp the benefits and dangers of microbes. It helps us grasp that they come in many shapes and sizes. There are many more healthy microbes than the bad ones.

Emily Sutton's watercolor illustrations are beautiful and help to make a kind of scary topic less scary.

This is one of those books that you may not pick up on any old average day, but once you do pick it up, I think you will go back to it even when we have any old average days again.

Resources and Activities:

Here is a video of the book being read aloud.

An inspiring video interview with Nicola Davies.

Nicola's Website

Emily Sutton's Website

Learn more about Microbiology

This video is current and puts the health of our earth into relationship with the health of humankind.

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.

Nine Months -- Perfect Picture Book Friday

Title: Nine Months Before a Baby is Born
Author: Miranda Paul
Illustrator: Jason Chin
Publisher: Neal Porter Books, 2019

I chose this book because I have a friend who is having a baby. I am so excited for the whole family. She announced to the world that her life is changing and they are preparing for another boy to join the family. As scientists and parents, I believe this book will be a great addition to their family discussions about the new baby.

The story is written in simple poetry describing in simple terms what is happening inside mommies belly.

On the left-hand spreads, we see illustrations of the baby from fertilized egg to the moment it's time for mom and dad to head to the hospital. Each illustration of the baby's formation and growth is actual size.

On the right-hand spread, the illustrations take you through the life of a family of three as they prepare for the arrival of the new baby.

The illustrations are created with watercolor and gauche. The family images are bright and show the changes of the seasons to help set up time passing. The illustrations of the baby in the belly are set on a deep blue background and the number of weeks that have past are included.

The book back-matter adds more in depth information about babies and how they grow. There are little snippets about things babies can do before they're born, comparisons of the gestation periods of humans vs. animals, and a section called what if? This section talks about multiple births, premature births, and miscarriage.

Why I like this book:

So often children grow up knowing that babies happen, but they are not shown a more in-depth look.  I feel like this book opens the door to conversations about how babies grow and what to expect about a new baby coming into the family.

I really like the side-by-side between the growth of the baby and the family preparing for that a new life to come home.

The simple text and beautiful illustrations can be read as a family or the child can spend time looking and discovering on his/her own.

Activities and Resources

There is an excellent exhibit at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. Check out the link for an online experience.

Check out the bibliography at the back of the book for more reading.

How to answer questions as they arise.

Explorers -- A Perfect Picture Book for Friday

I love museums. They are filled with so many wonders. I am also very nervous about museums. They are huge with lots of rooms and loads of people. It can get overwhelming. But everything is so impressive and awe inspiring.

In comes Explorers by Matthew Cordell. This wordless picture book is a whole new way to explore. Each image provides so much to see and think about. You are in the Museum, some iconic views of Chicago museums, and then rooms from . . . Wait. let's start at the beginning. The opening scene is an ode to the cover of The Beatles album Abbey Road. 

Then there's the iconic Chicago hot dog stands, and the people who set up shop selling trinkets and magic.

The story is about visiting a museum and discovering friendship along the way. The boy purchases a magic origami bird and plays with it through the museum. When it is caught by another child, the boy grabs it back and gets into trouble, but as stories go, that is not the end and the boy takes an unexpected tour in the museum.

This story begins before the title page with the scenes from above. Then the family and readers enter the museum.

While it seems that the story is set in the Field Museum, if you have spent time in the museums in Chicago, I believe that Matthew is testing us to see if we know where all these scenes really are located. I believe he added scenes from The Peggy Notebaeret Museum, and The Art Institute.

Take a close up look at the entrance in the Field museum photo above. The pattern of the blocks above the doorway and the blocks on the upper right and left of the building, are mimicked on the benches in the book. I can't remember if the benches really look like that, but you will see this pattern repeated a lot throughout the Field Museum.

This book is about museums, family, magic, Chicago, and friendship. The more you look, the more magic will appear.

What will you discover on your explorations?

Resources and Activities:

Whether you live in Illinois or another state, there are many museums you can visit and become and explorer.

Did you know that Museums and National Parks offer free days? If you live in or around Chicago, here's a list of free days.

https://www.choosechicago.com/articles/museums-art/free-museum-days-in-chicago/

If you don't live in the Chicago area, be sure to check out your community. 

The University in my town has a small museum that is free and open to the public. There are many places you can visit at little or no cost, take some time to see what's in your neighborhood.

You will also find hidden in the images, the Mold-O-Rama machines that are fixtures at several locations in Illinois. You can learn more about them here.

You can make your own flying origami bird.

Learn more about Matthew and follow him on Instagram.

A bit about wordless picture books.

You can also check out his wife, Julie Halpern's books too.

Wild Fibonacci-- Perfect Picture Book Friday

Happy Fibonacci Day!

11/23 is Fibonacci Day! A great day to celebrate the Fibonacci sequence and spiral. Pull out your cornucopia and get it ready for Thanksgiving.

My pick for this week is:

Title: Wild Fibonacci: Nature's Secret Code Revealed

Author: Joy N. Hulme

Illustrator: Carol Schwartz 

Publisher: Tricycle Press, 2005

For ages 6 and up

Wild Fibonacci opens with front matter explaining the Fibonacci sequence and the spiral. It also offers ways to discover the sequence through exploration in nature.

Themes: Fibonacci, Mathematics, poetry, Nature, STEM

Opening Page:

In the Fibonacci sequence 

each new number comes

from adding up the two before

and figuring the sum.

This number set is used to plot

a graceful curving line

that's often found in nature

as part of its design. 

The book continues showing the sequence through counting wild animals and each animal depicted shows the curve of the spiral on a part of the animal's body.

Why I like this book:

The sequence and the spiral are fascinating and appear in so many places. Introducing children to this concept will open the door to them seeing the word in new and exciting ways.

This book mainly focuses on the Fibonacci sequence, but uses animals and obvious body parts that fit the curve of the Fibonacci spiral.

The art work is engaging and realistic.

Activities and Resources:

Learn more about Leonardo Fibonacci.

• Lean about Fibonacci's hypothetical rabbit question and see how this sequence became popularized.
• Take a walk and search for objects, and animals that have spiral features. 
• Start a journal of your discoveries adding drawings and/text to help you understand what you have found.
• Use the spiral as a compositional style.
• Learn more to understand more.
• Write a Fibonacci Poem

Here's one I wrote:

Nautilus Shell

Once
live.
Chambered
Nautilus
thread-like siphuncle                       (sigh-funk-el)
jet propulsing, moving backward
through the ocean. Rising, lowering, traveling the sea.
Hungry octopus spies a meal.
Soft delicious treat.
Empty shell
rides waves
to
shore.

Sarah Tobias (C) 2019

Definition of siphuncle.

Crab Cake -- Perfect Picture Book Friday

Title: Crab Cake: Turning the Tide Together
Author/Illustrator: Andrea Tsurumi
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019

First lines: Under the sea, where sunlight touches sand, lies a place that's home to many incredible creatures. Clownfish hides in the stinging anemone (ah-neh-mo-nee). Manta Ray gets cleaned. . .  And Crab bakes cakes.

Why I love this book: 

One: It is beautiful. Andrea's illustrations are full of color, detail and emotion. You could sit and look at each page for hours.

Two: It's about the creatures in the ocean. I love the ocean.

This is true. To add to it, if you are snorkeling in shallow coral areas, you can actually hear the Parrotfish crunching on the coral. And, if you think about it, when you put you feet on the sandy bottom, you are standing on Parrotfish poop (the sand).

Three: The play on words. Crab Cakes, get it? Popular people food and in this story, Crab bakes cake.

Four: It's an important story about saving our ocean.

Five: Fear can freeze us in our tracks, but if one person or crab shakes things up just a little bit, great things can happen.

And Six: Cake!

It's delicious, beautiful, poignant, and important!

Activities and Resources:

Learn more about the ocean life shown in the book. Who knows, you may discover some fun and strange facts along the way. Check out books from your school or public library.

Visit an Aquarium:  In Chicago, the Shedd Aquarium offers free days to Illinois Residents and is a Museums for All partner. Check out the Aquarium closest to you and spend the day under the sea.

Take Action! Even if you don't live near an ocean, there are loads of things you can do to help protect your family, the planet, and future generations.

• When you go to the beach, a park, or forest, take a bag and pick up garbage you find.
• Be sure to recycle.
• Rethink what you use, can you do without it? Can you use it again? Can you . . . .
• As the story of the Starfish goes, you alone may not be able to do a whole lot, but by tossing that starfish back into the sea, you have made a difference to that one starfish.
• Learn about the EU's ban on single use plastics.
• Did you know that Maine is the first state in the US to ban Styrofoam? 
• Start a program in your neighborhood/school and see how you can make it grow. Maybe the program is to teach people about the ocean, or the life cycle of butterflies, or how to grow a garden, or collecting plastic bottle caps to have made into benches. The sky's the limit.
• Write letters to your government officials, let them know you want change and you are willing to help make it happen.

Learn about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

https://lgbpodcast.libsyn.com/

Be sure to listen to Matthew C. Winner and Andrea Tsurumi talking about the book on The Children's Book Podcast Blog. This is one of my favorite podcasts so far. I enjoy them all, but the joy, compassion, humor, and enthusiasm that Andrea and Matthew have in this interview is contagious. You can subscribe to The Children's Book Podcast through just about any podcast app.

Remember, 71% of our earth is covered by water. You are made up of 60% water. Clean water is important. Not just the oceans, but our lakes, rivers, and streams too.

Be Like Crab and . . . Bake A Cake

Any cake. If you want to share it with me, I need it to be gluten free. 

I found this mix from Simple Mills at the grocery store, and it's really tasty. 

Be sure to check out Susanna Hill's Blog where you can look for reviews by book, title, and by themes. And you can check out her weekly #PPBF post along with links to many more wonderful posts here.

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 -- Lost Words

April is Earth Month and National Poetry Month. Two things that go together as well as peanut butter and chocolate, tacos on Tuesday, rain and rainbows, worms and soil, flowers and sunshine . . . you get my drift. 

Today's Perfect Picture Book doesn't fit squarely in the picture book category of books. It's 128 pages and the acrostic poems require time and thought to allow their words and meaning to sink in and take hold of your heart and mind.  Yet, it is filled with beautiful illustrations and is a non-fiction poetry picture book.

For me, it conjures up the Wild Flowers of America book that sat on our book shelf as I was growing up (see image at the end of this post). I would browse the pages on rainy days, make drawings of the flowers with my crayons and paper, and even occasionally use it as the reference tool it was designed to be. So while neither are traditional picture books, they are books that take you into nature and without being pushed or prodded, your own imagination is sparked.

Title: Lost Words: A Spell Book

Author: Robert MacFarlane
Illustrator: Jackie Morris

Publishing Information:  2017 in the UK by Penguin Books Ltd. and 2018 in Canada and US by House of Anasasi Press Inc.

Ages: 0 - 100

Description from Amazon: In 2007, when a new edition of the Oxford Junior Dictionary ― widely used in schools around the world ― was published, a sharp-eyed reader soon noticed that around forty common words concerning nature had been dropped. Apparently they were no longer being used enough by children to merit their place in the dictionary. The list of these “lost words” included acorn, adder, bluebell, dandelion, fern, heron, kingfisher, newt, otter, and willow. Among the words taking their place were attachment, blog, broadband, bullet-point, cut-and-paste, and voice-mail. The news of these substitutions ― the outdoor and natural being displaced by the indoor and virtual ― became seen by many as a powerful sign of the growing gulf between childhood and the natural world.
Ten years later, Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris set out to make a “spell book” that will conjure back twenty of these lost words, and the beings they name, from acorn to wren. By the magic of word and paint, they sought to summon these words again into the voices, stories, and dreams of children and adults alike, and to celebrate the wonder and importance of everyday nature. The Lost Words is that book ― a work that has already cast its extraordinary spell on hundreds of thousands of people and begun a grass-roots movement to re-wild childhood across Britain, Europe, and North America.

Opening Lines: Once upon a time, words began to vanish from the language of children. They disappeared so quietly at first almost no one noticed -- fading away like water on the stone.

Why I love this book: I first read about this book in a post from the Children in Nature Network. Sadly, that post slipped my mind until a friend shared an article about the book with me a couple months ago. I immediately ordered it. Each time I open the pages, I turn them with awe and reverence. The title on the cover is gold embossed and the cover illustrations are a small sample of the beauty that is held within the pages.

Each lost word is given three double page spreads. The opening spread for the word is a letter jumble with the letters of the word in a unique color. The second spread includes an acrostic poem on the left and a watercolor illustration of the word on the right. The final spread is a scene depicting the word in its surrounding world.

A book worthy of book cases everywhere. Each word can become an adventure to the outdoors.

The poems are deep and full of mystery and love.

It is a book you can look at and read over and over again.

Activities and Resources:

Activities and and Explorer's Guide from the John Muir Trust

Writing Acrostic Poems

More about Acrostic Poems and using the word at the beginning, middle and end of each line.

Make a flower chain crown

Nature Journaling for Kids

Wet on wet Watercolor Painting

Bird Identification

The book from our family book shelf.

My Acrostic poem from this mornings visit of nine turkeys:

Tom turkey struts his stuff
Under the bird feeders.
Rugged feathers raised, puffed, and shimmering in the morning light.
Kingly posture ignored by the ladies.
Every turkey more interested in breakfast,
Yet Tom persists hopefully.

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 -- Rube Goldberg

It has felt like a crazy route to finally getting this post completed. I had planned to post it last Friday, but we got a new dog from a shelter who is just beginning to adjust to life in a real home.

Ginger our new family member

Last Friday, I went into my office to finish this post, but got distracted by some emails. Then a call from my husband suggesting we take the dog to the dog park so she could run free for a while provided another distraction. I figured I would come back and finish after our trip to the park. Instead, at the dog park I was running with Ginger and took a slow-motion flight through the air landing with my arm smashing into my rib cage. (The good news is that I did not fall into the dog poop that had been left by other dog owners and I did not fall on my dog.) Breath knocked from me, searing pain, and great embarrassment. I tried to shake it off just like my other past clumsy experiences. A couple hours later, the pain was getting worse so we spent a couple more hours in the ER to find that I had managed to crack a rib in my spectacular fall.  Suffice it to say that between the pain medication and the day turning to night, my blog post was abandoned but not forgotten.

So without further ado, I present to you:

Just Like Rube Goldberg: The Incredible True Story of the Man Behind the Machine

Written by: Sarah Aronson

Illustrated by: Robert Neubecker

Published by: Beach Lane Books an imprint of Simon and Schuster Children's Publishing Division

Ages: 6 - 11 

Themes: STEAM, simple machines, cartooning, biography, persistence

Synopsis: From Amazon: Discover how Rube Goldberg followed his dreams to become an award-winning cartoonist, inventor, and even an adjective in the dictionary in this inspiring and funny biographical picture book. 

First Line:"Question: How do you become a successful award-winning artist and famous inventor without ever inventing anything at all? (This is not a trick question.)"

Why I love this book:

Beginning with the cover of the book, you see Rube Goldberg machine designs in action. Even if you have never heard the phrase, Rube Goldberg Machine, you have most likely seen a drawing of one or even created one of your own. But, this book is not really about the machine, it is about the man. 

His name is Rube Goldberg. He loved drawing and cartooning from a young age. When his parents discouraged him from becoming an artist and cartoonist, he persisted. Sarah Aronson takes you on a journey with Goldberg and makes you a part of the story.

The illustrations are filled with wonderful details and lots of humor. The style is bright with details yet hearkens to the half-tone dot printing of newspapers.

This book has three hooks: It's a biography of a cool person, it's about following your dreams, and it's a story that encourages artistic endeavors. 

I am also excited to share this book because I get to highlight an Illinois author. Check out her website.

Activities to go with this book:

A Simple Starting Point to Creating a Rube Goldberg Machine

Design and Build a Rube Goldberg Machine

Another post of building a Rube Goldberg Machine

How to Draw Funny Cartoons

Tips for writing comics

More on writing comics

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.

World Water Day -- Perfect Picture Book Friday

Today is World Water Day. 2019 Leaving no one behind.

This is a perfect picture book for World Water Day, environmentalists, farming, sustainability, and caring for our earth.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/40899042-i-am-farmer

I Am Farmer: Growing an Environmental Movement in Cameroon by Baptiste and Miranda Paul is a book about clean water, gardening, and making the world a better place. It is a book about a man who took what was considered a derogatory nickname, "Farmer", and turned it into a life changing grassroots effort sowing the seeds of a better world. 

As I sit at my computer in my home, a glass of clean water at the ready, I think about why people in the United States should care about reading this book. We have drinking water, we have farms, and food is readily available. Yet, this is not the full truth.

Water testing in local schools showed high levels of lead in many of the sinks and drinking fountains. Thankfully, the facilities and operations department took steps to keep children safe and remove access to the faucets and fountains that were a problem.

Flint Michigan suffered a horrible water crisis that is still not fully resolved. Even if the water is safe, there are trust issues that leave the residents fearful and hesitant to drink the water.

Droughts in the US impact millions of people every day. 

We can learn how we can improve the world from one man's grassroots efforts in Cameroon.

Farmer Tantoh always loved working in the dirt. He wanted to be a farmer. After he recovered from Typhoid fever which he contracted from drinking unclean water, his mission expanded to ensure that others would not suffer as he did. 

This book takes a child into the dirt, offers a broader understanding of the world beyond their neighborhood, and offers actions that children and adults can take here and abroad. If that's not enough, there are more lessons in this story. When you know who you are and what is important to you, you don't care about being teased and given a silly nickname. You make it work for you. You follow your dreams and do what you believe in.

This poetically written biography/call to action makes a wonderful read-aloud. Liz Zunon's collage illustrations are bright and beautiful using photographs, cut paper, watercolors, and hand lettering. Zunon also illustrated Miranda Paul's One Plastic Bag: Isatou Ceesay and the Recycling Women of the Gambia Both of these books would be great to share any day of the week.

In 2005 Farmer Tantoh, started the Save Your Future Foundation. Check it out. You can help locally and globally.

Want to learn more about gardening with kids? https://kidsgardening.org/gardening-basics/

Planting Trees: https://www.usgs.gov/science-support/osqi/yes/resources-teachers/

Spring tree and flower crafts: https://handsonaswegrow.com/spring-art-projects-for-kids/

Become and Environmentalist now: https://lookforlittlehelpers.com/2018/04/16/environmental-service-learning-projects/

And if you want more perfect picture books check out Susanna Hill's Perfect Picture Book Friday post.