Picture Book/Juvenile Nonfiction Resources
And Then It’s Spring by Julie Fogliano, ill. by Erin E. Stead
A little boy and his dog plant a garden as winter ends and wait, and wait, and wait for signs of spring.
The poem-form of this book is sweet, but what really makes the book are Stead's illustrations. They sum up the feelings of the words and of waiting for winter to end so very well. They also have a certain charm that just begs you to look at them longer and smile a little.
Activity Tie-ins:
- Poetry: April is poetry month. This book is a kind of free verse poem with unique punctuation (started on the cover with the title not capitalized). You could read this and then read some e.e. cummings and have students compare the two poets’ styles.
- Patience: Waiting is never fun, but it is a frequent part of life. Talk about ways to pass time while you wait. This book is also a good reminder of the rewards for having patience and persevering through that waiting.
- Plants/Gardening: If you’re talking about plants or gardening, this book provides a good reminder that it takes time for plants to grow. What are the essential ingredients for plant growth? Does the little boy provide them for his plants?
- Spring: This is a sweet and simple spring read.
Up in the Garden and Down in the Dirt by Kate Messner, ill. by Christopher Silas Neal
Follow a little girl and her Nana as they work in the garden from early spring through to late autumn. The book explores what's going on above and below ground by helpers to the garden and those who are a threat to the plants.
Messner does a great job in pointing out the ways some typically repulsive bugs and critters are actually very important to plant growth and survival. The illustrations are eye-catching with lots of vibrant colors, and I love the way it gives readers peeks into what's happening below ground too.
Activity Tie-ins:
- Plants: A fantastic book to read when studying plants. It looks at numerous factors that affect plant growth.
- Symbiosis: Messner highlights the ways various organisms both help and hurt each other. Have students identify different types of symbiosis shown in the book.
- Ecosystems: By giving readers a look down under the soil, Messner & Neal remind us of some frequently forgotten parts of the ecosystem. You can use this book to practice identifying organic and inorganic parts of the ecosystem. You can also use it to create a food web. Or you can even do an extension activity, plot out a little patch of dirt, dig a small hole, and record all the different organisms spotted and then create a web for that area.
Wolfsnail: a Backyard Predator by Sarah C. Campbell, photos by Sarah C. Campbell and Richard P. Campbell
A simple introduction to a predator in many backyards that often goes unseen. Easy but informative text is accompanied by brilliant photographs, and there's further info in the back of the book on these unusual snails. Kids will likely be sucked in by the pictures. The text is simple enough for lower grades to read on their own.
Activity Tie-ins:
- Predators/High Interest Nonfiction: Let's face it. Kids are fascinated by predators. Sharks. Wolves. Bears. So this unsung beasty should be one of those critters that gathers fascination while at the same time being called gross. Use this one when studying predator/prey relationships or if you’re looking for a nonfiction read that students won’t be able to put down.
- Mollusks/Gastropods: If you’re studying Phylum Mollusca or more specifically Class Gastropoda, this can help liven up the study by highlighting a fascinating example.
- Good vs Bad Garden Beasties: Have students research some animals which are helpful in the garden and some which are harmful. You can extend this and have them research how to attract the helpers and how to get rid of the bad in an ecologically sound way.
- Geisel Honor: This book won a Theodore Seuss Geisel Honor in 2009. Explore with students what qualities of this book allowed it to win a Geisel Honor.
Water Is Water: a Book about the Water Cycle by Miranda Paul, ill. by Jason Chin
Follow some children as they observe water changing forms throughout the seasons, and even being used by plants and their own bodies. The author's notes in the back of the book provide more scientific terms and explanations for the stages of water in the water cycle.
With colorful and captivating illustrations and brief rhyming text, Paul & Chin effectively introduce the water cycle in ways even young children can understand. The author's notes provide further sciency information making this a useful book for elementary classes studying the water cycle. The book is also unique in that it includes plants and humans in the water cycle, something most books don't do when covering this topic. A fantastic resource.
Activity Tie-ins:
- Water Cycle: This is a fantastic way to teach the water cycle without students even realizing they are learning.
- States of Matter: The book highlights water in solid, liquid and gas forms, making this book also useful when talking about states of matter in science classes.
- Poetry: If studying poetry, read this one for the poetic, rhyming text it employs to convey a nonfiction topic. Poetry doesn’t just have to talk about pretend things.
- Plants: Water is obviously pretty important to plants, and this book shows the basics of plants using water. A great companion book to the plant topic since water is one of the essential ingredients for plant growth and health.
A Seed Is Sleepy by Diane Hutts Aston, ill. by Sylvia Long
Aston takes readers on a quick tour of the basics of seeds. Their purpose and how they disperse themselves.
The eloquent text is accompanied by amazing illustrations of a wide variety of seeds. What I really appreciated about the book was the way the illustrator showed the seeds along with the leaves and/or flowers of the plant they come from. It definitely helps to see the big picture of where the seeds come from.
Activity Tie-ins:
- Plants: Seeds come in a huge variety of shapes and sizes. This book provides the basics for talking about seed dispersal methods and the way their structure helps that function.
- Poetry: Diane Hutts Aston’s main text throughout this book is quite lyrical and poetic.
- Art: Sylvia Long’s illustrations are stunning. Kids should be enthralled. Yes, enthralled by illustrations of seeds.
National Wildlife Federation’s World of Birds: a Beginner’s Guide by Kim Kurki
A survey of some of the most common birds of the world, presented in a highly engaging illustrated format with little snippits of interesting info on each bird. The birds are arranged by habitat.
I really liked the way this book was put together. If you get right down to it, it's really an encyclopedia of birds, which has the potential to be boring. But Kim Kurki knows kids. This book was born out of years of experience doing little parts of a kids' magazine (Your Big Backyard) and the editor worked with another kids' magazine (Ranger Rick), and all that experience knowing how to engage kids with nature facts shows. This book is a feast for the eyes. The illustrations are incredible, and readers can choose how much or how little they want to learn about each bird. I can see kids growing with this book, at first just looking at the birds and as they get older absorbing more of the facts. I personally loved that the book highlighted birds from around the world that are common so the book doesn't feel nailed down to readers from one certain continent. A fantastic nonfiction book for lower and middle grades.
Activity Tie-ins:
- Birds & Plants: Many birds rely on plants and vice versa. Have students research what each organism gets out of the relationship.
- Birds: For those studying birds, here’s a resource that is engaging and includes a wide variety of birds most kids are likely to see in their own community. Have students identify which birds they’ve seen in their community. How do the birds contribute to the ecosystem of the community?
- High Interest Nonfiction: An engaging nonfiction read for lower and middle grades.
Flowers Are Calling by Rita Gray, ill. by Kenard Pak
An introduction for kids to flowers, animals, and the ways flowers attract pollinators. Each spread introduces an animal the flowers are not calling to, and then an insect, bird or other critter the flowers are attracting. After every three spreads, there's a spread introducing the last three flowers that have appeared. The end of the book has further information on pollinators and how flowers attract them.
That's really a moot point, the strengths of the book are in the content conveyed. The repetitive phrases of the book will be good for beginning readers to be able to "read" along.
Activity Tie-ins:
- Plants: If you’re talking about pollination and pollinators, you need to include this book. It is so beautifully illustrated, and covers the basics of pollinator attraction methods quite well. I’d use this in conjunction with the a book I’m about to mention, Seeing Flowers, that provides photographs of the attraction methods discussed in this book like lines on flowers that direct pollinators to pollen.
- Symbiosis/Pollination: Another fantastic book to use when talking about various symbiotic relationships. This one makes it even easier for students to identify which relationships are mutually beneficial and which are not. It also helps identify numerous pollinators, not just the insects we usually think about.
- Poetry Debate: The rhymes in this book follow an interesting pattern, to the extent it actually took me several pages to figure out there was even rhyming going on. I am still not sure whether to be impressed with the subtlety of the rhyming or unimpressed because it was so hard to notice. Have your students debate what they think. Is it great poetry, or would they like to improve it?
The Hive Detectives: Chronicle of a Honey Bee Catastrophe (Scientists in the Field) by Loree Griffin Burns, photos by Ellen Harasimowicz
When thousands of honeybees just suddenly start disappearing, a team of scientists is called in to figure out what is going on. The book follows scientists examining potential parasite, viral, or environmental factors that could be causing this phenomenon that is threatening bees and thereby produce all over the United States. What the team finds may not satisfy all readers, but gives a good picture of how not all real mysteries can be solved 100%.
Activity Tie-ins:
- Scientific Investigation Methods: Definitely a book I’d recommend if you’re studying methods used to solve scientific mysteries.
- Limits of Science: The conclusion of this book may not satisfy all readers, but it is very realistic and helps emphasize some of the limits of science. What are other real life mysteries that science just can’t entirely answer?
- Bees/Insects: An eye-opening look at the importance of these insects we take for granted. Use this when kids ask, “Why are we studying insects?”
- Plants: This book definitively highlights the importance of pollinators to the survival of plants and those who consume plant products.
- Careers: You never know what reader may be inspired to become a full-time bee keeper, which turns out to be a very important but often overlooked job.
Adult Nonfiction Resources
Seeing Flowers: Discover the Hidden Life of Flowers by Teri Dunn Chace, photos by Robert Llewellyn
Teri Dunn Chace and Robert Llewellyn take readers on a tour of the various flowering plants and the characteristics of the most common families with lively informative text and incredible photographs.
Growing up, my mom used to let us kids help plan the gardens around our house and yard each year. So I have fond memories of pouring over flower catalogs in early spring, trying to figure out what flowers would look best and what would actually grow in our corner of the world. Of course, the best things about those catalogs and the coming growing season were the beautiful flowers. This book took me back to my childhood days of garden planning because many were flowers that ended up in our back yard. I'm not much of a gardener any more, but I still love looking at flowers. And the biology teacher in me loves the detailed look at the sciency parts of the plants (if I were still teach Bio, I'd so be using this for the botany unit). I can totally see my former Bio students rolling their eyes at me if I told them I devoured a 300 p. book on flowers Sunday afternoon. They'd probably chalk it up to my being a science nerd. And yes, maybe my science nerd is showing a little, BUT I would then show them some of the pictures and see if they too didn't get sucked into the book. Llewellyn's photographs let you look at flowers like few other books out there. He uses this complex process of photography that digitally combines multiple images into one. The photographs are stunning and gorgeous, and reveal little details hard to see in real life or the average photograph. The accompanying text was surprisingly interesting and informative as well. I bought this book for the school's library, but I think I'm going to have to go get myself a copy too because I could sit and look at the photos for quite a while, and it brings out the urge to dust off the sketch book too. If you're a gardener looking for flower ideas, a biologist or botanist who likes a close up, an artist, or just an appreciator of beauty who needs a new coffee table book, this is a great option.
Activity Tie-ins:
- Plants/Botany: Thanks to Llewellyn’s unique photography methods, this provides a close-up look at flowers few others can provide. You can use this to help students really see the parts of actual flowers instead of just in a science diagram, from pollen to sepals, to pollinator director lines. The flowers are divided by families, so upper level science classes can also point out distinctions between monocots, dicots or even finer differences that make each family distinct.
- Gardening: If you’re planning a garden with your class or family and you’re looking for inspiration, get lost in the pages of this book for a while.
- Photography: Photography students take a gander at Llewellyn’s incredible method’s results and be sure to read about how he does it in the book.
- Art: Art students could definitely use this for inspiration in creating their own sketches or paintings.
Seeing Seeds by Teri Dunn Chace, photos by Robert Llewellyn
Robert Llewellyn's fantastic photography introduces you to all sorts of seeds. Teri Chace provides some text along the way to explain the hows and wherefores and the whats to go with the photos. The book starts off with an introduction to all things seed (seriously, most in-depth book on seeds you'll probably ever find), and then goes into a survey of garden flower seeds, weeds and wildflowers, herbs, fruits and vegetables, shrubs and trees. The survey section features full-page photographs with 1-3 paragraphs on how the seed works, where the plant is commonly found, and various random other little tidbits.
I know I'm a nerd, and reading this entire book just proves that. Feel free to use it more as a resource. Honestly, though, I find the little science facts fascinating (although sometimes I roll my eyes at Ms Chace when she anthropomorphizes plants and gives them the ability to make conscious choices in the way she words things) and the photographs are incredible. That's the real reason I plowed through this entire book. Llewellyn's photographs help you see aspects of plants you'd be hard pressed to notice in the wild or with the naked eye. So think of this as a picture book aimed at adult plant nerds, or those studying plants. If I were still teaching science I'd totally be using this book as a resource for plant sections of Biology or AP Biology. I liked that this sampled a broader range of plants found anywhere on Earth than the previous flower or tree books done by these two. Which makes since, it is easier to get seed samples from far away than fresh flowers or entire trees. Recommended for photography lovers, backyard gardeners (there are many hints at successfully getting various specimens to sprout from seed included), or science teachers.
Activity Tie-ins:
- Plants: Like I mentioned above, this is one of the most comprehensive books on seeds out there. Use this to augment lessons on seeds with the photographs that show the various parts or types of seeds.
- Photography: Like in Seeing Flowers, the photography of Llewellyn is stunning. Photography students take note.
- Art: If you’re looking for less-flowery inspiration for art classes, seeds can be some very interesting studies.
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