All The Way to America

The Story of A Big Italian Family

and A Little Shovel

This post is part of Nonfiction Monday hosted today by Check It Out and joins It's Monday! What are you reading? at  Teacher Mentor Texts

Knopf Books for Young Readers (Random House)

(pub. 3.8.2011) 40 pages 

A True Tale with A Cherry On Top

A uthor and illustrator: Dan Yaccarino

    

C haracters: Dan Yaccarino's family

O verview from the jacket flap: 

      "Michele Iaccarino journeyed from his home in Italy all the way to America, searching for a better life. He brought big dreams, a small shovel, and his parents' good advice: 'Work hard, but remember to enjoy life, and never forget your family.'

     Now, many years later, Michele's great-grandson Dan Yaccarino tells how he succeeded. Dan shows us four generations of this proud Italian American family, and how the little shovel has been passed from father to son - along with the good advice.

     It's a story that captures the experience of so many American families: each generation doing a bit better than the last; each generation holding fast to the memories and traditions of their forebears.

    And it's a story meant for sharing. One that will have kids asking their grandparents: where did we come from? How did our family make the journey, all the way to America?"

        

T antalizing taste: 

   "My great-grandfather Michele Iaccarino grew up on a farm in Sorrento, Italy. When he was a boy, his father gave him a little shovel so he could help tend the zucchini, tomatoes, and strawberries that his family sold in the village...

     Michael [Michele's new name] polished his little shovel till it shined and used it to measure out flour and sugar...

     Now the little shovel belonged to Dan [Michael's son], and he used it to measure out beans, macaroni, and olives...

     Mike [Michael's son] opened a barbershop, and he used the little shovel to pour rock salt over the sidewalk whenever it snowed...

     'Work hard,' my father told me [Dan, the author/illustrator of this book] as he handed me the little shovel. 'But remember to enjoy life.'

     'And don't forget to call your family,' said my mother ...

     Now I watch Michael and his sister, Lucy, [the author's children] work on our small terrace with the very same shovel that their great-great-grandfather brought all the way to America..."

and something more:  Dan Yaccarino has explained that he solved the question of how to structure his family's story in All the Way to America when he realized that the connective tissue, the thread, of the story would be the shovel that connected the generations. It's fun to see the author photo on the back flap showing him holding this family shovel.

          I heard a wonderful talk, titled "Yes!", by Dan Yaccarino at the Asilomar writer's conference this past spring. He said that many moments of success during his career came from his willingness to say YES! even when the new opportunity seemed overwhelming or beyond his current capability.  The power of positive thinking! 

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Barnum's Bones

How Barnum Brown Discovered the Most Famous Dinosaur in the World

This post is part of Nonfiction Monday 

hosted today by Perogies & Gyoza

and joins It's Monday! What are you Reading? at Teacher Mentor Texts and July's Carnival of Children's Literature at Booktalking

Margaret Ferguson Books (Farrar Straus Giroux)

(pub. 5.22.2012)  40 pages 

A True Tale with A Cherry On Top

A uthor : Tracey Fern

     and illustrator: Boris Kulikov

C haracter: Barnum Brown

O verview from the jacket flap: 

      "Right from the start, Barnum Brown was an unusual boy. He had an unusual name, an unusual way of dressing, and a very unusual hobby - fossil hunting. Barnum collected hundreds of fossils on his family's Kansas farm, but he dreamed of finding something even more unusual: dinosaurs! 

       As a young man, Barnum worked for the American Museum of Natural History and quickly discovered the first dinosaur skeletons for the museum. Then one day in 1902, Barnum was hunting for dinosaurs in the badlands of Montana, when he spotted a milky-brown bone poking out of a hillside.  Barnum had never seen anything like it before. What could it be? It took Barnum months of digging and more months of fitting bones together before he knew what he had found: the world's first Tyrannosaurus rex! 

        Barnum went on to collect more dinosaur bones than anyone on earth and T. rex became the most famous dinosaur in the world - as important and unusual as Barnum himself."

        

T antalizing taste: 

    "Something exciting happened in Carbondale, Kansas, on February 12, 1873. The Brown family had a baby boy. It was even more exciting than the circus, and the Browns adored the circus! In fact, the Browns loved the circus so much they named their baby Barnum, after the most famous circus owner in America, P.T. Barnum. They hoped Barnum's important-sounding, unusual name would inspire him to do important, unusual things...

    Just as his family had wanted, Barnum did something important and unusual: he discovered a sleeping dinosaur and brought it back to life.

    Sixty-six million years after extinction, T. Rex lives on in Barnum's bones."

and something more:  On Tracey Fern's author website, she includes a comprehensive Teachers Guide with interesting writing, science, technology, and art activities related to Barnum's Bones. The Guide discusses Latin and Greek roots and their meanings, including that Tyrannosaurus Rex means "tyrant lizard king." Children will enjoy using the list of roots to figure out the meanings of other dinosaur names.

        I always thought it would be great fun to dig for dinosaur bones, so years ago my son and I joined a "dig" at the The Mammoth Center in Hot Springs, South Dakota. The Center focuses not on dinosaurs, but the equally amazing remains of ice age mammoths. I was surprised that the tools we used were dental tools -- tiny picks and brushes. Paleontologists are patient people!
       My friend told me today that her son, Ben, is in central Montana right now on a real dig with a group led by his college geology professor and vertebrate paleontologist, Kristi Curry Rogers. Professor Rogers recently co-wrote an interesting article in Scientific America this past May titled Triumph of the Titans: How Sauropods Flourished. The focus of the current dig in Montana, along the Judith River, is at the Western shore of the former North American inland sea and apparently yields abundant land and marine fossils. Ben's group is working on a joint National Science Foundation and Smithsonian project describing, classifying, and analyzing the batches of fossils they find. And who knows what they might find?

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Bon Appetit!

The Delicious Life of Julia Child

This post is part of Nonfiction Monday 

hosted today by Practically Paradise

and joins It's Monday! What are you Reading? at Teacher Mentor Texts

Schwartz & Wade Books (Random House)

(pub. 5.22.2012)  48 pages 

A True Tale with A Cherry On Top

A uthor and illustrator: Jessie Hartland

C haracter: Julia Child

O verview from the jacket flap: 

      "She changed the way all of us - kids and grown-ups - eat in America.

        She starred in a pioneering TV cooking show.

        Growing up, she was a tomboy and a prankster.

        She had size 12 feet!

        She worked as a spy during World War !!.

        She wrote one of the greatest cookbooks of all time.

        Here's the delicious, true story - from soup to nuts - of the one and only Julia Child."

        

T antalizing taste: 

   "... Boston public TV station WGBH offers Julia her own cooking show.

    'I'd like to call it THE FRENCH CHEF. It's short and to-the-point.'

     Even people who don't like to cook watch the show and love it!

     [On The Chicken Show] Julia Child presents the chicken sisters. 'Miss Broiler! Miss Fryer! Miss Roaster! Miss Caponette! Miss Stewer! and old Madame Hen!'

     And Julia's advice should something fall on the floor? 'You can always pick it up. If you are alone in the kitchen, whoooooo is going to see?'

     The shows are not live, but - to save money - they are all shot in 'one take' (no editing) which is tricky.

     There are some very funny moments.

     Once Julia pulls a used bundle of herbs from a stockpot and says, 'It looks like a dead mouse.'

     Another time she simply TOSSES an inferior loaf of bread over her shoulder. 'No good! That bread!'

     ... On the suckling pig show she carefully cleans the pig's ears and teeth before cooking.  But when it comes out of the oven, she can't cut it into chops. 'You try to carve it - I certainly can't.'

     ... 'Oh, nuts! I burned the sauce.'  

     'Don't apologize for your cooking mistakes. It is what it is.'

                  'I'm Julia Child. Bon appetit!' *

                  * She ends each show saying this."

and something more: My sons attended the same high school as Julia Child, but in her day it was an all-girls boarding school. In Bon Appetit!, author Jessie Hartland writes "[Julia] really doesn't take school all that seriously. High school French class is a disaster. 'Je ne comprends pas.' "Tres mal!'  (She will make up for this later) ... Julia spends the first months [in Paris] studying French. She loves to talk and believes that nothing is more important than being able to communicate. She works hard. It will take her two years to speak well enough to get by; four years to be fluent."  

       Author-illustrator Jessie Hartland writes in her dedication, "... And lastly, thanks to my mom ... for fabricating for Xmas 1965 the brilliant French cafe dollhouse (complete with tiny food and menus in French!), which got me started on France, cooking, and Julia Child." Jessie's wonderful illustration of Julia cooking in her kitchen in Provence reminds me of a French dollhouse, with all the food, books and utensils labeled in French. How sweet is that?!  Tres bien!

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Martin de Porres

The Rose in the Desert

This post is part of Nonfiction Monday 

hosted today by a curious thing
and joins It's Monday! What are you Reading? at Teacher Mentor Texts

Clarion Books

(pub. 6.26.2012) 32 pages 

A True Tale with A Cherry On Top

A uthor: Gary D. Schmidt

     and Illustrator:  David Diaz

C haracter: Martin de Porres -- patron saint of brotherhood, interracial relations, social justice, those of mixed race, public education, and animal shelters

O verview from the jacket flap: 

      "The illegitimate child of a Spanish nobleman and a former slave, Martin de Porres was born into extreme poverty. Barred from the priesthood, he joined the Dominican Order as a servant instead. Soon he was performing miracles and healing nobles and beggars alike. As a celebration of his selflessness, he was canonized into the sainthood.

      Journey with this gentle friar as he calmly confronts racial and economic prejudice in seventeenth-century Peru..."

        

T antalizing taste: 

   "Anna Velazquez hurried out of the barrios of Lima and onto the plaza. She carried a quiet baby, wrapped closely so that no one could see him - but no one was looking.

     The slave boys sweeping the plaza saw only the dusty cobblestones.

     The Spanish royals sipping lemon ices saw only their ruby rings.

     And the priests standing on the cathedral steps saw only another beggar, and turned away." 

          

and something more: What a lovely dedication written by David Diaz: "For Lin Oliver and Stephen Mooser, the lamp, lifeboat, and ladder to so many." I echo that sentiment. In 1971, Lin and Stephen co-founded SCBWI, the organization for children's book writers and illustrators. SCBWI now has over 18,000 members! I've heard both of them speak several times at various conferences, including the national conference in Los Angeles the past two summers, and they are wonderful -- inspiring, encouraging, entertaining.  Not only are Lin and Stephen the Executive Director and President of SCBWI, respectively, they are also prolific authors. I can't wait to hear them speak again at this year's SCBWI conference. A heartfelt thank you to Lin Oliver and Stephen Mooser and everyone who works and volunteers for SCBWI! You've made such a difference in so many lives and careers, including mine.

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Jean Laffite

The Pirate Who Saved America

This post is part of Nonfiction Monday 

hosted today by Booktalking

Abrams Books for Young Readers

(pub. 4.1.2012) 48 pages 

A True Tale with A Cherry On Top

A uthor: Susan Goldman Rubin

     and Illustrator:  Jeff Himmelman

C haracter: Jean Lafitte - the pirate

O verview from the jacket flap: 

      "Jean Lafitte's life was an action-packed adventure, and he even helped to change the course of American history! As a young boy, raised in a Jewish household, Jean longed to be a pirate. With the help of his pirating brothers and uncle, he became a privateer at a young age. Soon, the only life he knew was one of the high seas - full of glory, riches, disaster and revenge... His most remarkable role came when he helped General Andrew Jackson fight the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812. With Jean's help, and that of his fellow privateers, Jackson beat back the British - effectively making Laffite the pirate who saved America!"

        

T antalizing taste: 

   "Even though pirating was a common business in those days, their Grandma Zora strongly disapproved. She raised Jean and his older brothers and sisters after the death of their mother. Grandma Zora told stories, too. Hers were about the family's suffering in Spain and how they had to practice their Jewish faith in secret. Like many others, they had fled to the New World and had settled in Port-au-Prince in Saint-Domingue (later named Haiti)...
    Grandma Zora, however, wanted the boys to be well educated and use writing to help others. She sent them to good schools.  So Alexander [Jean's older brother] had to secretly teach the boys about pirating." 

          

and something more: As I've often mentioned, I love learning about the origins of a story or what inspired an author to write that particular book. The idea for the book, Jean Laffite - The Pirate Who Saved America, was kindly given to Susan Goldman Rubin by another children's book author, June Sobel. (Just another reason I feel so lucky to be involved in the kidlit world -- I'm so often impressed by the generosity, kindness and encouragement kidlit writers, illustrators and bloggers give to each other.)  Susan explains in a recent article on Nonfiction Book Blast that she and June Sobel "were both signing books at a book fair once, but to put it more accurately, she was signing hundreds of copies of Shiver Me Letters: A Pirate ABC, and I signed only two copies of my holocaust themed book. June kindly stopped by to say hello and gave me a gift: did I know that there was a Jewish pirate named Jean Laffite? No, I said. June told me that she had not included him in her book but I was free to take the subject and run with it."  And run she did -- straight home to research him, and a book was born.  Thanks June, for sharing your idea!  

         Of course, I had to check out June's pirate book also, and here's the beginning of Shiver Me Letters: "'R' roared the captain. 'R's not enough. We need other letters to make us tough. Let's sail far away to find ABC's. Bring me back D's, E's, F's, and some G's.'"  Arrrr!  Swashbuckling fun!

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