A Walk Through The Rainforest by Martin Jenkins

In this exquisite picture book, the author takes his readers on a short walk through the tropical rain forest using the beautiful artwork of illustrator Vicky White.

The journey begins with an illustration showing the tropical rain forest in Malaysia, in a place called Taman Negara. The rain forest is described as "Hot and sticky and pretty dark." Jenkins wonders where all the animals are since the forest contains wild cats, pheasants, pigeons, squirrels, frogs, owls and many different types of insects. However, listening to the sounds in the forest reveals that although they can't be seen, there are many types of animals living there.

One thing that is visible in the tropical rain forest is the trees! There are many different kinds including one called a tualang which is likely two hundred years old. When looking closer at the trees however, most are big and old: there are few young trees. How will the forest replenish itself if there are no young trees? That question is answered as Jenkins continues his walk through the tropical forest, uncovering clues that lead him to determine how tropical rain forests continue to thrive and regenerate!

Discussion

To highlight some of the more fascinating features of the tropical rain forest, author Martin Jenkins poses a question about the lack of young trees in the forest and sets out to find the answer. Along the way, readers uncover some of the hidden animals of the tropical rain forest, and the processes that bring about the growth of new trees in the dense forest. The text is simple and straightforward, with the reader being led through the forest by a description of animals and their behaviours. Clues found in the rain forest suggest answers to the question posed.

The detailed illustrations of Vicky White help young readers visualize a ecological system many will not be very familiar with. These gorgeous illustrations are done in pencil and oil paint and are richly textured. It is these illustrations that really make this picture book special. There's a section on The World's Rain Forests and a section at the back of coloured illustrations of birds, insects and other invertebrates, mammals, and frogs and reptiles, many of which have been included in the illustrations. Readers are invited to go back and see if they can find these creatures in the illustrations.

In an era where many picture books have digitally created artwork, A Walk Through The Rain Forest is a treat, showing readers what traditional illustrations have to offer, while also highlighting some of the features of the tropical rainforest. A must-read book for children and adults alike!

Book Details:

A Walk Through The Rainforest by Martin Jenkins 

Somerville, Massachusetts: Candlewick Press    2022

Brothers In Arms by Susan Hood

During World War II, Poland was invaded first by the Soviet Union and then by Nazi Germany. Men, women and children fled south to Allied army training camps located in the Middle East. In Persia (now called Iran) one of these refugees "met a little boy holding a mysterious sack." This is where our story begins.

It is April 8, 1942 in the mountains of Persia, where a young woman named Irena, her mother and a lieutenant among the many travellers met a young boy holding a sack containing a bear cub! The bear cub enchanted Irena and so the lieutenant gave the boy some coins to purchase the cub.

However, the cub was full of mischief, stealing food and keeping them awake at night. Irena knew the cub, a Syrian brown bear, would grow to be over five hundred pounds! She knew she would not be able to keep him.

In August, 1942, Irena encountered Polish soldiers and their general who had fled from the Nazis in their country. They too were refugees and orphans. The brown bear helped with soldier morale and so the general agreed to adopt him. They named the bear, Wojtek (Voy-tek) which means "happy warrior." Wojtek did almost everything the soldiers did: he rode in the jeeps and marched upright alongside the soldiers. 

When the  Polish soldiers regrouped at Gedera where there was an Allied training camp, Wojtek accompanied them. In September 1942, Wojtek had formed a close relationship with one soldier, Corporal Piotr Prendys, who was nicknamed "Mother Bear". The bear loved to cuddle up in bed with Prendys, who had become separated from his wife in children during the war.

Wojtek had an enormous appetite and soon grew to be very large. Two teenage soldiers soon became his best friends. One soldier later stated that Wojtek was very sociable and kind. Eventually, a dalmation named Kirkuk was added and the two animals spent much time playing together.

In June, 1943, the soldiers were in Iraq. Wojtek struggled to cope with the intense heat and often like to shower with the men. He even once surprised an enemy spy hiding in the showers. The man revealed that they were planning to raid the camp and fearing he would be fed to the bear he gave up the names of his accomplices!

In September 1943, the Polish soldiers moved to another camp where they were reunited with Wojtek's friend, Kirkuk. Both animals were stung by a scorpion and became seriously ill. Sadly Kirkuk did not survive.

In January, 1944, the soldiers travelled to Egypt and then onto a boar, the MS Batory to travel to Italy. However, the British Admiralty would not allow Wojtek, a bear to sail. The Polish soldiers knew that Wojtek would not be able to survive on his own, so they came up with a unique solution: they enlisted in the Polish II Corps, 22nd Artillery Supply Company! 

From this point on, Wojtek became a very important member of the company, not just helping with morale but even helping the soldiers. 

Discussion

Brothers In Arms is an informative picture book about the famous Syrian brown bear, Wojtek, adopted by a group of Polish soldiers during World War II. Young readers can find out more about these real events, by exploring the sections at the back of the book, Photos of Wojtek and Friends, a Timeline of the events mentioned in the book, Maps of Wojtek's Travels, as well as sources to explore Wojtek's story. 

 

Award-winning author, Susan Hood interviewed a number of individuals including Barbara Alicia Janczak, granddaughter of Anatol Tarnowiecki, the lieutenant who purchased the bear cub for Irena Bokiewicz,  Dr. Andrzej Suchcitz a historian at the Polish Institute and Sikorski Museum, and Wojciech Narebski, the only surviving member of the 22nd Artillery Supply Company.

Hood explains the context of the story in her Author's Note at the beginning, describing how the conflict in Poland led to refugees streaming into the Middle East. There is also a list of the major characters in the story so readers will understand how they are connected. With the stage now set, readers can follow events through the years of the war, as Wojtek grows from a cuddly bear cub to a playful adult bear and finally to a soldier in the Polish artillery where he helped his fellow soldiers!

Helping with the storytelling, are the colourful illustrations by artist Jamie Green who used Procreate to create the digital illustrations. Older readers are encouraged to follow the story with Soldier Bear by Dumon Tak.

Book Details:

Brothers In Arms by Susan Hood
New York: HarperCollins Children's Books      2022
48 pp

Victory. Stand! Raising My Fist For Justice by Tommie Smith, Derrick Barnes & Dawud Anyabwile

Set against the backdrop of the 200 metre race at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico, Tommie Smith tells his story in this excellent graphic novel, Victory. Stand!

The book opens with Tommie remembering the race at Ciudad Universitaria, Mexico, October 16, 1968. Tommie is in the starting block, preparing to race. He was afraid and filled with anxiety but determined. In the semifinals, only a half hour earlier, Tommie had pulled a muscle in his upper left thigh. He was worried the threats he had received over what he was planning had succeeded but that was not the case, so far. He flew out of the blocks....

The scene flashes back to Tommie's life growing up in a poor family  where he was the seventh of twelve children. In his early life, they lived in Acworth, Texas where his family lived in a wooden shack with no running water, heat or air conditioning. His father was a sharecropper, which meant he worked land he did not own and was once part of a slave plantation. His father grew and picked cotton but also worked sugar cane and corn. Tommie's mother, whom they called Mulla, was strong and kind and not only cooked and cleaned, but also worked in the fields.

Tommie's parents believed that everything came from their faith in God. The family went to church every Sunday to worship, but Tommie had questions. Why did the white people own nicer homes, with indoor plumbing? Why did his mother have to work so hard while the wife of the white man who owned the land did not? Tommie and his brothers and sisters had to walk to a one room school where all the grades were taught by one teacher. "If we were all God's children, why did it seem as if those with fair skin, eyes, and hair were receiving most, if not all, of the benevolence, the favor?"

 

Eventually Tommie's parents moved the family from Texas to California where they hoped life would be better. In the early 1900's, many Black Americans fled the south, migrating to northern cities like Detroit, Chicago and New York. Industrialization had made their work picking cotton obsolete. During and after World War II, more than four hundred thousand Blacks migrated to California. Tommie's family travelled to Stratford, California in Central Valley, to a labor camp. They lived in rough shacks, sharing an outhouse and a place to wash up. 

It also meant a big change for Tommie and his sisters and brothers. In Texas the children of Black sharecroppers worked in the fields most months helping with the crops. But in California, all children were required to attend school and so Tommie was pulled off the bus taking him and his family to the fields. That day Tommie and his siblings got off the bus and walked to Stratford Elementary.

The school too was much different: there were separate grades and the classes were integrated. But Tommie found he was invisible to teachers who never called on him for answers or asked him to help out.

After his father paid off the debt to the people who brought his family to California, things began to improve. Tommie's father moved them into better homes as Tommie grew taller. Two events however, were to foreshadow his future. The first was being bullied by a white boy who Tommie eventually confronted and beat up. The second was being asked to race older students when he was a student at Central Union in Lemoore. The coach of the track team, who was also the PE teacher AND the school principal, Mr.Focht asked Tommie's sister, Sally to get him out of class to race against her and also the fastest boy in seventh grade. Tommie won the race handily. Tommie adored and loved his sister Sally so much, that beating her for the first time in a race made him realize anything was possible.

Mr. Focht did not seem to have any issues with the Black students at Central Union and he set out to help Tommie's family. He told Tommie's father not to move up north to Fresno, offering him a job as a school custodian. For Tommie it was the beginning of a future that would involve his participation in many sports, but ultimately track and field and offer him a way to take a stand against the injustices he and his family had experienced.

Tommie soon found himself excelling in many sports including football, basketball and track and field. He won trophies and medals, which in turn got him scholarships to university. As he moved up in competition, Tommie found he could not ignore what was going in his country with regards to equality for Blacks. It was his athletic abilities that would propel him to a destiny he could never have imagined.

Discussion

Victory. Stand! is the story of Tommie Smith whose life centered around his one act of defiance during the 1968 Olympics. Using the graphic novel format incorporating the black and white illustrations of award winning comics artist Dawud Anyabwile, The graphic novel employs flashbacks, opening with Tommie Smith's races at the 1968 Olympics in Mexico. It then alternates between the two periods, the Olympic races in 1968 and Tommie's story of growing up and his path to the Olympics through four chapters, from Chapter 1 Country Boy to Chapter 4 Still Standing.  Victory. Stand! presents the most important details of Tommie Smith's life and how he came to make a stand for equality on the international stage.

Smith had lived first hand the inequality that continued to exist in the United States, despite constitutional changes that were supposed to guarantee equality to all Americans. Describing his early life, how hard his parents worked in the fields, their impoverished living conditions, the one-room school for Black students and how the children of sharecroppers missed school to work, Smith presents to young readers some of the inequalities Blacks faced in the 1940's and 1950's. These inequities meant it was very difficult for Black Americans to improve their situation and Smith soon came to recognize this. As he grew into adulthood, Tommie Smith encountered more inequalities: discrimination in housing, in higher education and even services like renting hotel rooms or being served in a restaurant we inaccessible to him as a Black man.

A series of events throughout the 1960's appear to have been the catalyst that led Smith to become actively involved in the civil rights movement and ultimately to protest at the 1968 Olympic Games. Repeated attempts throughout the early 1960's by young Black activists to peacefully obtain racial equality met with little success and often violent opposition that led to jail, injuries and death. The murder of three young civil rights activists in Neshoba County, Mississippi in 1964, the violent actions of police against marchers from Selma Alabama in 1965 were just two such events.

As Black athletes began to dominate certain collegiate and professional sports, they also began to realize they could effect change by demanding change. As more Black athletes began to speak out against racism and demand equality, Smith felt that he had a part to play as well. Issues of inequality also existed in academia and on college campuses. Smith, along with many other Black collegiate athletes became part of a group, Olympic Project for Human Rights (OPHR) formed by Black Panther, Harry Edwards and Ken Noel, a track athlete. The OPHR was to become an important part of Smith's life.

With the approach of the Olympics, Smith was in a unique position. Now in his early twenties and educated he had more life experience and understood what was at stake. With the assassinations of civil rights leader, Martin Luther King Jr. in April, 1968 and then civil rights supporter, Sen.Robert Kennedy in June, 1968, America was in crisis. Black athletes decided against a boycott of the Olympics after South Africa was banned and a number of Black coaches and officials were added to the Olympic team but they also knew they had to protest what was happening at home too. After winning the 200 m in record time, Smith had no definitive concept of how he would protest until he received his medal. 

Although his action of raising his fist in defiance against systemic racism in America cost him almost everything, Smith remains adamant today that he would do the same thing again. In reading Victory. Stand!, readers will understand why Smith and Carlos acted. After years of peaceful protest, ongoing violence and murder of Black activists and leaders, and equality laws that were not enforced, Blacks in America chose increasing militancy both at home and on the international stage. Black American athletes also had to contend with Avery Brundage, head of the IOCC and a known racist who had supported Nazi Germany in the 1930's. Smith paid a high price for his actions: he never competed again so the world never knew what else he might have accomplished on the track, which is truly a shame. He lost his job and eventually his marriage failed. Despite this he persevered obtaining several degrees and teaching and coaching at Oberlin College and Santa Monica College.

In this regards, Victory. Stand! is a testament to Tommie Smith's courage, determination, resiliency and integrity. Victory. Stand! is highly recommended and should be partnered with John Lewis's graphic memoir series, March.

Book Details:

Victory. Stand!: Raising My Fist For Justice by Tommie Smith, Derrick Barnes & Dawud Anyabwile
New York: Norton Young Readers       2022
202 pp.

African Town by Irene Latham & Charles Waters

It is 1859. Eighteen-year-old Kossola, which means "I do not lose my fruits anymore." is the eldest child of his father's second wife Iya. Kossola, a young Yoruba man living in the village of Bante, is enjoying market day. It is a day when people come from all over to buy goats, cows, yams, fufu, and much more. Bante is enclosed on all sides by tall walls.

Kossola has been training for four years to be a soldier, preparing to be initiated  into oro, the secret society of men and highest levels of the Yoruba religion. He is marked as a soldier, to track, hunt and protect, by having his cheek marked with a knife, and his front teeth chipped so that he has a circle shaped opening. As a soldier, Kossola is to guard one of the town's eight gates. One night he hears rustling and sounds the alert for the people to hide in the woods. He later learns that an attack was thwarted.

Afterwards, Kossola learns that he will begin the oro initiation ceremony. He and the other initiates and men spend nine days outside Bante. He hasn't yet completed his initiation when his nineteenth birthday comes but Kossola is already thinking of taking a wife. The girl he's interested in is Aderonke.

Meanwhile, across the ocean, Captain Timothy Meaher, almost fifty years old, hosts a dinner aboard the Roger B. Tancey. He and his guests discuss "Congress's refusal to reopen the international slave trade" which  they believe is absolutely necessary to make their businesses profitable. Attending the dinner are Mr. Deacon, who is a New York City businessman, Mr. Ayers also a Northeasterner who makes pills, and a Louisiana farmer named Mr. Matthews. It is Matthews who suggests that slaves can be brought in illegally and he's willing to bet one hundred dollars on this. But Captain Timothy is willing to wager a thousand dollars that he can smuggle slaves into Mobile, Alabama without the authorities discovering them.

So Captain Timothy, unable to take the time to make the journey himself, hires Captain William Foster, a younger man and a Canadian to do just that. They secure a ship, the Clotilda. Foster suggests they sail to Ouidah in Dahomey, along West Africa's Slave Coast to collect their "cargo".

J.B who grew up an orphan and has worked on ships since the age of ten, learns that Captain Foster is hiring for the Clotilda and is hired on. He feels good that it will be a regular shipping job because he doesn't want to work on any slave ship. Meaher meanwhile decides he will hire a tugboat skipper, Hollingsworth to bring in his cargo so that he can hide them in the swamps before selling them off.

The Clotilda is almost five years old, made of oak and pine planks held together with iron. It knows that Foster and Meaher are lying when they tell people the ship will be carrying lumber. With all the supplies that have been loaded, the Clotilda knows there is enough for a shipload of Africans and is horrified to be part of the illegal slave trade. The eleven-man crew boards along with Foster who sneaks aboard gold and has also falsified papers indicating they are travelling to St. Thomas with lumber.

The journey is filled with troubles from the very beginning. The gold Foster has hidden in the ship causes the the compass to malfunction sending the Clotilda off course. For forty days and nights the ship endures repeated storms including a cyclone and is pursued by two Portuguese man-of-war. One of the crew, J.B. discovers he has signed onto a "slaver" and is furious. He and the other crew rebel and force Foster to offer to pay them double to continue the voyage. In Portugal, Foster bribes the American consul and the Portuguese officials to look the other way.

In Africa, King Glele sends out his warriors to hunt down prisoners to sell and sacrifice to honor their ancestors, including his recently deceased father. They attack Bante, capturing Kossola and many others and murder their king. On the march to Dahomey, Kossola meets Kupollee, another Yoruba man who is roped to him. They are taken to Glele's palace surrounded by an iron fence adorned with human skulls. Gumpa, a nephew of Glele doesn't approve of what he's doing, so Glele has him imprisoned along with the Bante captives and eventually sent to the barracoon.

All of the captives are put through a sorting process, some are left behind but most are sent to Ouidah where they will be forced onto the Clotilda, which lies in wait for them. Those to be sent to America include Kossola, Abile, Kehounco, and Kupollee. At Ouidah, the captives are poked and prodded in every way by Captain Foster and those chosen as slaves are placed in canoes to be taken aboard the Clotilda. They do not realize they are not merely prisoners but now slaves who will never see their homeland nor their families again in this life.

Discussion

African Town is a beautifully crafted novel-in-verse about a real historical event, the smuggling of one hundred ten Africans from Dahomey, now known as Benin, in 1860 to Alabama. The novel covers the events beginning in Mobile, Alabama and Bante, African in 1859 up until the death of Captain William Foster in 1901. 

Although the novel is a work of fiction, the events portrayed in the novel really happened: Timothy Meaher made a bet he could circumvent the law forbidding the bringing in of slaves to the United States from Africa. To that end, he hired William Foster to sail to Ouidah in the Clotilda under false pretenses. The Africans who ended up on the Clotilda were captured by fellow Africans and sold to Foster for transport across the Atlantic. They were then  sold to various buyers in Alabama after being hidden in the swamps surrounding Mobile. 

After the Civil War, those slaves now free, eventually came to create African Town, building their own homes, a school and businesses, demonstrating their remarkable resiliency, determination, frugality and business acumen. Amazingly, to this day the Meahers continue to be a very prominent family in Mobile, Alabama and although Timothy Meaher's great-grandson Robert Meaher admits slavery is wrong, he is appallingly quick to deflect the blame to others. 

To tell this story, Latham and Waters use fourteen different characters including the ship, Clotilda. The major characters include Kossola, Kupollee, Abile, Gumpa, Kehounco, Glele, Timothy Meaher, and William Foster. The authors used the survivors' original African names as this was what was what they requested be done for an earlier publication. They drew on a wealth of information from journals written by both Meaher and Foster and by interviews given by the survivors including Kossola.

African Town utilizes various poetry forms and styles for each of the fourteen characters, and thankfully the authors describe each type in a section at the back titled Poetry Forms/Styles. The poetry of Latham and Waters is evocative, capturing a many of the emotions one would expect from men, women and children who have been ripped away from their homes, their lives and their families. 

Many of the poems capture the sadness, fear, loneliness and confusion of the captured African men and women. One of the characters, James Dennison who was already a slave, watches as the new Africans are brought to the plantation. "When I go to sleep each night, I can hear their cries pierce the lilac skies with loneliness and pain that breaks the moon open."

But the poetry also captures the comfort, support and love they show one another on the journey across the ocean under unbearable conditions and throughout their lives. Helping one another was key to surviving the trip across the Atlantic in the cramped, filthy hold of the ship. Abile and Kehounco join together to support one another, "We may be only two, but dignity is easier to muster as a team. My heart settles when she grips my hand." Abile states in the poem, Sisters By Choice.

Their resilience and determination to survive, their refusal to allow the white men to take away their humanity, is especially seen in the characters of Kossola and Gumpa. In a poem, Brotherhood, Kossola states,
"...But de affection
I feel for Kupolle, Ausy,
and de other men is much
de same - a sense of brotherhood,
like we know de same secrets.
De sailors may have stripped
and chained us, left us in de hold
for weeks, but we're still breathing.
We're all warriors and survivors."

Even after the Civil War when they are free, the survivors refuse to be broken. Initially they plan to return to Bante in Africa and work hard, are frugal and save. When that plan never materializes, the group moves on to other options. They decide to "Make our own Africa". Gumpa suggests that "If we cannot escape this exile, then we are owed land to build our own community, to take our African customs and apply them in this country among ourselves." When Timothy Meaher refuses to give them land, they strategically work to buy land from him and other white people, once again working to help themselves and their children. Soon their dream of their "own Africa" comes to fruition in African Town. 

African Town is an engaging novel, that focuses not so much on the horrors of what actually happened in the last act of enslaving a group of people from Africa to America, but more on the incredible resiliency, courage and determination of the people who endured such evil. It is a remarkable testament to the character and humanity of the Clotilda survivors.

To help their readers put the story into context, Latham and Waters have included an introduction by Joycelyn M. Davis, descendent of Oluale (Charlie Lewis and Mary Lewis), a map showing the voyage of the Clotilda, a detailed Author's Note, More About the Characters (those living after 1901), a note on Africatown Today, A Selected Time Line, Glossary, Poetry Form/Styles, and various resources for further research. 

The following articles may be of interest:

American's last slave ship stole them from home: https://vk.com/@new_forwardls_ru-americas-last-slave-ship-stole-them-from-home-and-it-couldnt

Clotilda: Last American slave ship is discovered in Alabama: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/clotilda-the-last-american-slave-ship-found-in-alabama

"Last known slave ship is remarkably well preserved, researchers say": https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/25/us/clotilda-slaveship-africa-alabama.html

Book Details:

African Town by Irene Latham & Charles Waters
New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons Ltd.   
438 pp.

Yours 'Til Niagara Falls by Brenda Z. Guiberson

In this colourful picture book, Niagara Falls tells its own story beginning when millions of years ago the land was covered by an ocean filled with trilobites and crinoids. At this time it was not a waterfalls. Millions of years passed, and their remains accumulated on the ocean floor eventually hardening into dolostone. 

Even eighteen thousand years ago, Niagara Falls was still not a waterfalls. It was the time of the most recent Ice Age when large ice sheets, miles thick covered the land. These glaciers scrapped and gouged out valleys and gorges. Woolly mammoths and saber-tooth tigers roamed the land.

Just over twelve thousand years ago, the glacial ice melted and the water formed glacial lakes and rivers. One river formed between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, plunging over a steep cliff made of dolostone and shale. That falls would be named Niagara Falls. Humans soon appeared at the falls, watching with wonder, and listening to the thundering voice of the water. The waterfall became the center of stories, of Hinu the Great Thunderer who hid in the cave behind the water. Settlers who came later, made up the story of a maiden, called the Maid of the Mist who could be seen in the mist of the waterfall.

 

Over many, many years the roaring waters cut into the layers of rock causing the waterfall to move up the river. In 1678, the waterfall was visited by Father Louis Hennepin who wrote about how large it was. Soon the Niagara Falls became famous because of his writings which were read by many people. 

The area around the falls grew busy with tourists and attractions like the Maid of the Mist I which began offering tours in 1846. The falls even became an attraction for daredevils. But it also offered a way for those who were enslaved in the United States to cross over into freedom in Canada. In 1881, the water of Niagara Falls was harnessed to provide electricity. The water today continues to flow over the cliffs of dolostone and shale, and the erosion continues. Some day, far into the future, Niagara Falls will reach Lake Ontario and the falls will no longer exist. 

Discussion

Yours 'Til Niagara Falls is a nonfiction book about the history of this famous waterfall, told from the perspective of Niagara Falls! Using the vibrant illustrations of artist William Low, Niagara Falls takes us through time from its beginning as sediments laid down in a large inland see that divided North America, to its discovery by early humans after the last Ice Age, to its modern-day tourist iteration. The beautiful illustrations were created using ink, crayon, Adobe Photoshop and Adobe Illustrator and capture the rich blues and greens of the falls.

Guiberson doesn't just focus on Niagara Falls' interesting geologic history, but also the unique modern events that are part of the falls as it developed into a burgeoning tourist attraction. There is the story about tightrope walker Charles Blondin, the Great Farini, and Annie Edson Taylor, the poor, sixty-three-year-old teacher who went over the falls in a white oak barrel and lived to sell postcards about it. In fact, there's so much Niagara Falls trivia it's impossible to include it all in a small picture book like this! This is a well-written, colourful and engaging picture book on one of the worlds most amazing natural sites.

Book Details:

Yours 'Til Niagara Falls by Brenda Z. Guiberson
New York: Godwin Books

Tales of the Prehistoric World: Adventures From the Land of the Dinosaurs by Kallie Moore

For dinosaur aficionados, Tales of the Prehistoric World is book filled with some of the most interesting fossil discoveries over the last two hundred years or so.

Tales of the Prehistoric World opens with information on the Geologic Time Scale which geologists have devised to organize the previous four and half million years of Earth history and brief descriptions of the the five major extinctions that occurred during this time.

Chapter One The Beginning presents a description of two billion years of the PreCambrian when life was just getting started. Moore then quickly moves into the Paleozoic Era in Chapter Two when all of the major animal groups appeared in the Cambrian, around 500 million years ago. Life moved onto land from the ocean and a supercontinent named Pangea also formed. Moore includes the discoveries in the Burgess Shale, a story about the largest trilobite, the age of armored fish, and the appearance of the giant arthropods (insects) of the Carboniferous and Permian.

 

Chapter Three is all about the Age of Reptiles which includes the reign of the dinosaurs during the Jurassic. After explaining the formation of Pangea, Moore highlights the first giant dinosaurs, the sauropods (think Diplodocus and Brachiosaurus) and goes on to describe many interesting and unusual fossil finds, each one increasing our knowledge about dinosaurs. Of course no discussion of dinosaurs would be complete without an entry on Tyrannosaurus Rex. Several famous fossil hunters are also featured including Mary Anning considered  and the rivalry between Othniel Charles Marsh and Edward Drinker Cope. This chapter ends with the currently accepted theory of the cause of the demise of the dinosaurs.

In Chapter Four, Moore explores the post-dinosaur world.The Cenozoic began 66 million years ago and is the Era we currently live in. After the demise of the dinosaurs, with the exception of those who would evolve into birds, the age of mammals. Many other animals grew to enormous sizes such at Titanoboa. Primates evolved and from them our ancestors developed. There were a series of ice ages that changed the way the continents looked.

Discussion

Tales of the Prehistoric World focuses on describing some of the more interesting dinosaur fossil discoveries in the last one hundred and fifty years and how those discoveries have helped scientists piece together the reign of the dinosaurs.

To help younger readers understand where dinosaurs fit into the history of our planet, Kallie Moore, a paleontologist, begins with what geologists and paleontologists believe they know about the beginning of life on Earth. The development of life, from single celled organisms to increasingly more complex ones is presented until the Age of Reptiles in which many different types of dinosaurs and how we came to learn about them are featured. The stories after the demise of the dinosaurs are short and sweet, ending abruptly with the Last Mammoth.

Many unusual dinosaur fossils are featured including a frozen reptile fossil found in Antarctica, unique dinosaurs from prehistoric China, the gemstone dinosaurs of Lightning Ridge in New South Wales, Australia, the remarkable story of the lost and then found again fossils of Spinosaurus, the Egg Mountain site in Montana, the unsolved questions about triceratops, and of course the infamous Tyrannosaurs Rex.

The one drawback to this book is the sometimes uninspiring artwork that accompanies each story. Digitally created, the illustrations at times can be confusing as to what they are attempting to portray. With so many fascinating stories that use many correct terms for various dinosaurs, the illustrations simply aren't up to the same level. For example, one story, The Seafaring Ankylosaur is about the  discovery of an almost complete anklyosaur from the Millenium Mine, a huge oil sand quarry in northern Alberta in March, 2011. Shawn Funk, a heavy-equipment operator was digging in the quarry when he noticed a change in coloration and texture of the rocks. His excavator had already chewed off the tail and back end of the fossil. Funk contacted his supervisor who then reached out to the Royal Tyrrell Museum. When geologists arrived they realized that Funk had discovered the fossil remains of a dinosaur. This fossil specimen was particularly special because it had fossilized features like skin that are normally not preserved. For some reason, Moore doesn't mention the location of this remarkable discovery ( oil sands outside of Fort McMurray) that received much press and the accompanying small map showing the location of the fossil discovery in Northern Alberta is meaningless without any labels. (During the time the ankylosaurus lived, North America was split by a large, inland sea.) Was this just a general oversight or was the location of the discovery in the environmentally contentious oil sands to blame?Because the recovered fossil is so unique, a photograph accompanying this story would have been so much more engaging.

There is also no information about the author, Kallie Moore, except in the introduction to the book where she identifies herself as a paleontologist, nor about the illustrator, Becky Thorns. An online search reveals that Moore is the Fossil Librarian, at the University of Montana. 

Still, readers interested in dinosaurs will find Tales of the Prehistoric a great overview of just how much we've learned about dinosaurs over the past one hundred years.

Book Details:

Tales of the Prehistoric World: Adventures From the Land of the Dinosaurs by Kallie Moore
New York: St. Martin's Press
159 pp.

A Book, Too, Can Be A Star by Charlotte Jones Voiklis and Jennifer Adams

How author Madeleine L'Engle came to write her most famous book, A Wrinkle In Time is told is this picture book written by her granddaughter, Charlotte Jones Voiklis.

The story begins with the background of why stars were so important to Madeleine. One starry, brilliant night when she was a baby, Madeleine's "parents woke her and took her outside to see the splendor of the starry night sky." To Madeleine the stars seemed to be singing and "she realized that there was more to her world than daylight".

Madeleine's father was a writer and her mother was a pianist. Watching her father work she realized that writing offered a way to ask questions. Madeleine noticed that the piano often calmed her mother.

Madeleine was an only child and she was often alone as her parents attended fancy parties. They lived in New York City, not far from the Metropolitan Museum of Art where Madeleine enjoyed looking at paintings. Madeleine thought music and art were also another way of asking and answering questions. This led Madeleine to begin writing her own stories that would also ask and answer questions. She felt that " a book can be a star - a new and fiery creation that can shine light into a dark universe" if someone had a difficult question or felt unsure.

Madeleine continued to write all through her difficult school years when she was sent to a boarding school and later on when she went to a less strict school where she made friends more easily. After college, during the Second World War, Madeleine moved to Greenwich Village in New York City and often visited the planetarium. She also began acting and was able to publish her first novel, The Small Rain. During this time Madeleine met another actor, Hugh Franklin and they fell in love, married and moved to a farmhouse in Connecticut. While Madeleine continued to write, Hugh ran the general store. They now had a family of three children.

Hugh decided he too wanted to tell stories and return to acting so they first took a camping trip across the country before making the move back to New York City. It was in a place called the Painted Desert that Madeleine was inspired by the glittering star filled skies, to write a very different story. The book was finished by the time the family arrived in New York City and at first was rejected by publishers. But when A Wrinkle In Time was published, adults and children loved the book. Madeleine continued to write and to encourage her fans to write too.

Discussion

Madeleine L'Engle's granddaughter, Charlotte felt inspired to write a book about her famous writer-grandmother. Initially, she wrong a first draft of a picture book, but the publisher wanted something very different. So that book was Becoming Madeleine, a middle-grade biography. Charlotte and another author, Jennifer Adams eventually connected to create A Book, Too, Can Be A Star. For Charlotte, the importance of stars was to be the underlying theme of the book - the idea that the world is connected and filled with beauty. The book would begin with the very early and impressionable memory Madeleine had of the starry night sky.

In the note, Why Stars? at the back of the picture book, the authors write, "...the night sky was an important part of how Madeleine nurtured a sense of connection to other beings and to the universe." It's like the sky gave Madeleine a sense of the inter-connectedness of everything, not just among the stars, but here on Earth too.

The title comes out of Madeleine's Newbery Medal acceptance speech in which she talked about how books can enlarge our view of the world, the universe, opening us to new ideas and experiences.

Helping tell Madeleine's story is the vibrant illustrations of artist Adelina Lirius who created them digitally using Procreate. Some aspects of the illustrations were done in a traditional manner using gouache.

A Book, Too, Can Be A Star highlights Madeleine's fortitude and perseverance, as she overcame some difficult years as a shy student in a very rigid boarding school. Madeleine found her own way through writing and acting, using stories to ask questions and seek answers. Inspired by the beauty a the star-filled sky, Madeleine's book, A Wrinkle In Time became a classic for all ages.

Likewise, this is a beautiful and engaging picture book for all ages.

Book Details:

A Book, Too, Can Be A Star: The Story of Madeleine L'Engle and the Making of the Wrinkle in Time by Charlotte Jones Voiklis and Jennifer Adams
New York: Farrar, Straus Giroux   2022

The Elephant Girl by James Patterson and Ellen Banda-Aaku

Twelve-year-old Jama Anyango lives with her mother in their manyatta that contains only four enkajijik which her mother built by hand. Surrounding the four huts is a boma, a thick fence of vines to keep out the wild animals. Jama's Baba died four years earlier from an infected cut on his hand.To make ends meet, Jama's mother makes sandals that are much prized and are sold in the city.

Jama and her mother are Maasai and they are preparing to attend the Eunoto ceremony, a traditional Maasai coming of age for the boys in their village. In the past, Maasai boys would live together for ten years in the manyatta, learning how to survive in the bush. Today the tradition is different, as the Maasai no longer move their people and cattle from place to place.

Jama goes to meet her father's great-aunt, Kokoo Naserian who is believed to be around one hundred years old. She was born about ten seasons after the British forced the Maasai from their lands in 1911. Together they walk to the village center to enjoy the celebrations.

 

At the Eunoto ceremony, Jama meets up with her best friend, Nadira and some other girls. While Nadira and the others are interested in boys and getting married, Jama finds herself interested in having the same freedom and power as the boys: attending university and learning how to help the animals. At the celebration, all the girls are  focused on the new boy, Keku who arrived a few months ago with his father Solo Mungu. Keku's father, who works for the Kenya Wildlife Service, is the new head ranger responsible for stopping the poaching in the Naibunga Conservatory. The conservatory lands border Jama's village.

At the ceremony and celebrations, Jama realizes that Nadira and the other girls have been invited to Fatima's family's small safari lodge. So she decides to leave the party early but on her way home overhears Solo Mungu mistreating his wife and Keku.

Jama decides to visit the elephants at the watering hole a few days later to shake her dark mood. She discovered them one day four years earlier after wandering past the boundaries her mother had set for her to be safe. Jama didn't return to the water hole again for some time but she soon found it to be a place of escape and peace. She came to name some of the elephants: the leader was Shaba and there was Lulu, Tabia, Bawa, Modoc and Loasa. This time Jama sees Shaba with her baby elephant whose birth she witnessed weeks earlier and who Jama has named Mbegu.

 

Then on another visit to the watering hole, Jama sees the elephants react with fear. Hiding behind a tree she witnesses a strange man with a raised scar on his left cheek, carrying a gun, and dressed in black. When the elephants and the man move off, Jama begins to walk home but encounters Leku. At the gate to the reserve they see Leku's father in a Kenya Wildlife Service Land Rover and Jama wonders why he hasn't caught the strange man. 

 

Then Jama learns that a poacher has killed one of the elephants in the middle of the night. The village laibon, or spiritual leader warns the villagers about the poachers and that this may make the elephants stampede recklessly. At a village meeting, Kokoo Naserian confronts Solo Mungu over his inability to stop the poachers. Later on that night, Jama sneaks out of the manyatta and sees Mungu taking money from a prospective poacher. When she is discovered hiding, Jama flees with the help of Leku.

However, when Jama and her mother go to the river to do their washing the next day, they are surprised to see the elephants, Lulu, Shaba and Mbegu. Jama decides to confess to her mother that she has been going to the reserve to visit the elephants. Although her mother is disappointed, she is more concerned about Jama's safety. Then the unexpected happens. The elephants move closer to the people at the river and without much warning, Shaba charges. Terrified, Jama begins to run. In the aftermath, life is changed forever for Jama and for Mbegu.

Discussion

The Elephant Girl highlights the issue of illegal poaching and wildlife conservation in Africa, using the story of a fictional young Maasai girl, Jama Anyango who stumbles upon poachers threatening a group of elephants she has been observing. Jama courageously protects a young baby elephant from her villagers who want to kill it in revenge for stampeding and killing her mother. Ultimately her determination and courage set her upon a path that leads to working with rescued elephants at the David Sheldrick Wildlife Trust, a real life organization involved in the conservation, preservation and protection of wildlife including the African elephant and black and white rhinos. The Shelfrick Trust was established forty-five years ago and is the most successful elephant orphan rescue and rehabilitation program in the world. It is based in Nairobi, Kenya but also has a field station in Tsavo East National Park. They work along Kenya Wildlife Service, the Kenya Forest Service and local communities bordering Kenya's National Parks.

The Elephant Girl also portrays the journey of a young Maasai girl, Jama, who while initially insecure, has big dreams for herself.  Jama wants the same freedom and power as the boys in her own village have; to get an education and to be involved in something that deeply matters to her, in this case, elephants. The authors have crafted a likeable heroine, a girl willing to take risks, demonstrated for example in her returning to the watering hole, in protecting Mbegu the baby elephant in danger, and writing to her great-aunt to tell her about the corrupt practices of Solo Mungu who should be protecting the elephants. Readers will learn a something about Maasai history and culture with the authors having incorporated a few Maasai words into the story.

This well-paced story also highlights the issues of physical abuse through the character of Leku and also trauma and loss with Jama who has already lost her father and then loses her mother in the traumatic accident of the elephant stampede. The novel doesn't get bogged down with either of these issues but the authors have the characters experience them in a way that seems realistic: Leku runs away and attempts to live in the forest, while Jama experiences years of sadness and loneliness over the loss of her family.

What this novel could have incorporated is a map showing the location of Kenya in Africa and also of the Sheldrick Trust and a detailed note about the Maasai. Overall, the colourful cover and engaging story make The Elephant Girl an engaging read for juvenile readers who love animals.

Book Details:

The Elephant Girl by James Patterson and Ellen Banda-Aaku
New York: Jimmy Patterson Books/Little, Brown and  Company      2022
261 pp.

The Whale Who Swam Through Time by Alex Boersma and Nick Pyenson

In The Whale Who Swam Through Time, the life cycle of the bowhead whale, the longest living mammal is explored.

The bowhead whale can live a long time, so this story begins two hundred years earlier, with a young bowhead whale who rests with her mother in the cold, Arctic water. They encounter boats, some are small, others are large, wooden boats with sails. The young whale is just a calf, but within the year she will set out on her own. First she must learn how to break through the thick Arctic ice using her curved snout and eat using her baleen, thick long bristles that filter tiny sea animals including copepods out of the water.

With the passing years, the bowhead whale grows larger and larger until at twenty-five years she is fully grown.

One hundred and fifty years ago, the young whale migrates to a bay with her calf, the fifth she has given birth to. The waters are calm and clear, so sound travels easily. However, the bowhead must deal with whalers who have come to hunt her for her blubber which is used for oil and food. These whaling ships are noisy. The whale and her calf narrowly miss being harpooned, as they dive deep into the oceean.

Fifty years ago even more changes have come about. The whale is now over one hundred years old. Whaling ships have been replaced by large oil platforms. The ocean is no longer quiet. There is the clang of the oil rig's machinery, the roar of a cargo ship's propeller and the pink of a submarine's sonar. These sounds travel very far underwater and make it hard for the bowhead whale to hear the calls of her grandchildren.

Today, the grand bowhead whale is noticing less sea ice, more ships and the danger from their propellers, more oil spills, more fishing lines and plastic garbage in the oceans.But the warmer oceans also mean more food and more whales.What will the next two hundred years hold for her grandchildren?

Discussion

The Whale Who Swam Through Time is an exquisite picture book about the life of the bowhead whale. Boersma and Pyenson focus on telling the story of one whale's life span and the changes she would have experienced over the last two hundred years. This is done using short paragraphs accompanied by the beautiful artwork of author/illustrator Alex Boersma. Although the text is filled with interesting facts about bowhead whales, it is the rich illustrations in a blue, grey and white palette that truly captivate the reader. The illustrations were rendered in" watercolor, gouache, and colored inks on hot press watercolor paper, and finished in Adobe Photoshop."

The authors have included a detailed section at the back of the book that offers much more information on bowhead whales and other Arctic creatures, as well as whaling and on the Inuit peoples in the Arctic. In their Author's Note, Boersma and Pyenson mention that they wondered when you live for over two hundred years, "...what is it like to see the word change around you? That question was the starting point for this book." Writing this picture book required the authors to use their imaginations. "We'll never understand how bowheads experience time, or how they perceive or feel about the changes in their environment, but we hope that this book helps you to both imagine how other creatures exist in this world and consider how our actions impact them." What a great goal to aspire to!

Book Details:

The Whale Who Swam Through Time by Alex Boersma and Nick Pyenson
New York: Roaring Book Press   2022