My 10-ish Favorite STEM Books of 2019

Today I'm finishing up my posts for 2019 with my annual list of favorite STEM books.
This year’s list includes two titles from my #SibertSmackdown list:

Hedy Lamarr’s Double Life: Hollywood Legend and Brilliant Inventor by Laurie Wallwark, illustrated by Katy Wu

Wait, Rest, Pause: Dormancy in Nature by Marcie Flinchum Atkins

And ten additional titles:

All in a Drop: How Antony van Leeuwenhoek Discovered an Invisible World by Lori Alexander and Vivien Mildenberger

Beware of the Crocodile by Martin Jenkins

Did You Burp? How to Ask Questions . . .or Not! by April Pulley Sayre adn Leeza Hernandez

The First Dinosaur: How Science Solved the Greatest Mystery on Earth by Ian Llendler

Handimals: Animals in Art and Nature by Silvia Lopez, illustrated by Guideo Daniele

Karl’s New Beak: 3-D Printing Builds a Bird a Better Life by Lela Nargi

The Magnificent Migration: On Safari with Africa’s Last Great Herds by Sy Montgomery 

Nine Months: Before a Baby Is Born by Miranda Paul and Jason Chin

Trees: A Rooted History by Piotr Socha and Wojciech Grajkowski

The Woolly Monkey Mysteries: The Quest to Save a Rain Forest Species by Sandra Markle

Happy Reading and Happy Holidays! I'll be back with more posts in 2020.

Writing Expository Nonfiction that Sings, Part 11

Since the beginning of the school year, each Monday, I’ve been posting  about the importance of understanding the key elements of finely-crafted expository nonfiction and helping students identify those features as they read and include them as they write.

For the first few weeks, I focused on the pre-writing process. Then, I turned my attention to text characteristics and discussed text format, text scaffolding, and text density, text structure, voice, language devices. You can scroll down to read those posts.

Today, I’m going to conclude this series by talking about point of view.

Traditionally, nonfiction for children was written with third-person narration, but in recent years, people have begun experimenting. Today second-person narration is becoming increasingly popular in expository nonfiction.

As you read the following excerpt from Tiny Creatures: The World of Microbes by Nicola Davies, notice how addressing readers with “you” makes the information relevant to their lives and their world:

"Right now there are more microbes living on your skin than there are people on Earth, and there are ten or even a hundred times as many as that in your stomach."

Now take a look at a few lines from Bone by Bone: Comparing Animal Skeletons by Sara Levine:

"Can you imagine how you’d look if we added some bones to your spine?

What if your vertebrae didn’t stop at your rear end?

What if they kept going? YOU’D HAVE A TAIL!

Tails are made of vertebrae. Lots of animals have tails. They wag on happy dogs and sweep side to side to help alligators swim through the water."

According to Levine, as she crafted her manuscript, she looked for ways to “make learning interactive, relevant, and fun.” She thought about how “children enjoy being addressed directly and being active participants in responding to questions that make them think, especially about silly possibilities.”

When you think of nonfiction with a first-person point of view, personal narratives like Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson or Hey, Kiddo by Jarrett Krosoczka or The Scraps Book: Notes from a Colorful Life by Lois Ehlert probably come to mind. But authors are also trying some innovative ways of utilizing first person narration.

One of my favorite examples is Birds of a Feather: Bowerbirds and Me by Susan L. Roth. It’s an expository autobiographical meditation in which Roth explores her own creative process by comparing her artistic technique to the way a male bowerbird constructs a beautiful, extravagant nest to attract a mate. The book’s structure and format is absolutely brilliant, and the artwork is stunning.

To help students gain a better understand of how authors use point of view, read aloud and discuss portions of Bone by Bone: Comparing Animal Skeletons, Birds of a Feather: Bowerbirds and Me, and Frog Song by Brenda Z. Guiberson. Then organize students into small groups and give each team a packet of sticky notes and three to five expository nonfiction books with various points of view. Possibilities include:

Birds of Every Color by Sneed B. Collard III

Earth by the Numbers by Steve Jenkins

A Hundred Billion Trillion Stars by Seth Fishman

If You Hopped Like a Frog by David Schwartz

If You Find a Rock by Peggy Christian

Pink Is for Blobfish: Discovering the World’s Perfectly Pink Animals by Jess Keating

Planting the Wild Garden by Kathryn O. Galbraith

This Is How We Do It: One Day in the Lives of Seven Kids from Around the World by Matt LaMothe

Trees: A Rooted History by Piotr Socha and Wojciech Grajkowski

We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga by Traci Sorell

Then invite students to classify the books by point of view and label each one with a sticky note.

When the teams complete this task, encourage each group to rotate to a different table, leaving their books behind. Students should review the books at their new table and discuss how the previous group classified the books. If they disagree with the previous group, they should add a second sticky note explaining their rationale.

Repeat this process until each group has reviewed all the books. Then have a brief class discussion about books that have multiple sticky notes on them.

No More All About Books!

Since 2019 marks the 10^th Anniversary of this blog, on Fridays this year, I’m updating some past posts that sparked conversation or that I think still have a lot to offer people teaching or writing nonfiction. Today’s post originally appeared on May 18, 2018.

For many years, all-about books have been the go-to informational writing project in elementary classrooms across the U.S. But I think it’s time to re-consider that assignment. Before I explain why, here’s a little bit of background.

In December 2017, I introduced the 5 Kinds of Nonfiction, a system for classifying the wide and wonderful world of nonfiction books for children. It received such a great response that Nerdy Book Club co-founder Colby Sharp (@colbysharp) invited me to create this video for his blog and SLJ invited me to write this article for their May 2018 issue. I’m currently writing a book about it with literacy educator Marlene Correia. It’s due out in Fall 2020.

For today’s discussion, I’m going to focus on two categories—Traditional Nonfiction and Expository Literature. Traditional nonfiction provides a general introduction to a broad topic. These survey (all about) books, which are often published in large series, feature clear, concise, straightforward language and usually have a description text structure.

Traditional nonfiction books can be a great place to start the research process because they provide an overview of a topic, but they aren’t the best mentor texts for producing engaging, finely-crafted informational writing. For that, expository literature, which emphasizes depth rather than breadth of coverage, is a better choice.

This has nothing to do with how talented the writers are and everything to do with the inherent differences of writing about a broad topic versus a focused one. Simply put, broad topics limit a nonfiction writer’s ability to craft rich, engaging text.

When writers take an in-depth look at a specific idea or concept, they can be more playful and innovative. They can select a format and text structure that reflects their unique approach to the content. They can experiment with voice and language devices. Because writers of traditional nonfiction must cover a huge amount of information in a limited number of words, they don’t have the same kind of opportunities to delight as well as inform.

When we ask children to write all about books, we’re giving them a handicap right off the bat. Students will be most successful when they choose a topic they’re passionate about and zoom in on a specific question or unique perspective that allows them to use the nonfiction craft moves they’ve learned to the best of their ability. Let’s give our young writers a chance to shine.

The Dangers of “Personal Knowledge”

When I do school visits, I often ask students where they get reliable information when they’re writing nonfiction. What kinds of sources do they use?

Of course, they mention books and using the Internet cautiously. Some mention encyclopedic databases, such as PebbleGo.

With a little bit of prodding, they’ll often realize that firsthand observations can be a good source if they’re writing about a local animal, and interviews with experts can enrich a nonfiction report or project about just about any topic.

But at some schools, students include “personal knowledge” on their list. And that worries me. A lot.

Personal knowledge is NOT a reliable resource. All of us carry misinformation and misconceptions with us. And some of the things we learned in the past may no longer be considered true. Our collective understanding of the world is changing all the time. Simply put, we don’t know what we don’t know.

That’s why nonfiction writers need to question everything.

We need to “read around” our topics, gathering a wide range of background information.  We’ll probably never use some of it, but it’s critical to have a broad base of general knowledge before diving into specifics. If we don’t, mistakes can happen.

And after the piece is written, we need to double check everything. And I mean everything. Because we can’t rely on what we think we know. We have to be sure.

Writing Expository Nonfiction that Sings, Part 10

Since the beginning of the school year, each Monday, I’ve been posting  about the importance of understanding the key elements of finely-crafted expository nonfiction and helping students identify those features as they read and include them as they write.

For the first few weeks, I focused on the pre-writing process. Then, I turned my attention to text characteristics and discussed text format, text scaffolding, and text density, text structure, and voice. You can scroll down to read those posts.

Today, I’m sharing some ideas about the power of rich language and it’s close connection to last week’s topic—voice.

Authors carefully select each and every word to craft text bursting with rich, powerful language that engages their young audience. In some cases, figurative language infuses prose with combinations of sounds and syllables that result in a lyrical voice. Consider this passage from We Are Grateful: Otsaliheliga by Traci Sorell:

When cool breezes blow and leaves fall,
we say otsaliheliga . . .
. . . as shell shakers dance all night around the fire,
burnt cedar’s scent drifts upward during the
Great New Moon Ceremony.

Notice how the author employs alliteration, sensory details, and imagery to transport young readers to the Cherokee Nation’s autumn Great New Moon Ceremony and show them how special it is.

In on the other hand, combining language devices like puns, rhyme, alliteration, and surprising phrasing can make writing more humorous and playful, resulting in a more lively voice. Consider these amusing headings from Poison: Deadly Deeds, Perilous Professions, and Murderous Medicines by Sarah Albee:

Toxic Plots, Poison Pots, and Shipboard Shots

I Came, I Saw, I Poisoned

Heir Today, Gone Tomorrow

You Say Potato, I Say Be Careful

Albee includes this kind of language to help middle-grade readers see just how “amazing and exciting and interesting history actually is.”

Albee notes that while her early drafts often include some lively writing, enriching her prose with “humor and energy is something I usually do at a late stage of revision. I carefully examine each sentence and think: How can I make this funnier, or more vivid, for my reader?”

The best way for students to get a feel for the flow of rich, engaging expository language is to analyze finely-crafted books. Invite students to choose one of the following titles and type out a few pages.

Frog Song by Brenda Z. Guiberson

Giant Squid by Candace Fleming

If You Find a Rock by Peggy Christian

If You Hopped Like a Frog by David M. Schwartz

Planting the Wild Garden by Kathryn O. Galbraith

Squirrels Leap, Squirrels Sleep by April Pulley Sayre

After organizing the class into small groups based on the books they selected, encourage the teams to identify key language features and highlight them with different colors. Students may color the text in the computer file, or they can print out the text and mark it up with colored pencils or highlighting markers. The following color code works well for the titles listed above: red = vivid verbs
blue = similes, metaphors, and other comparisons
green = alliteration
purple = repetition
orange = onomatopoeia

After students complete this task, invite them to highlight these same language features in one of their rough drafts. Can they find spots where replacing a verb or adding a comparison or language device could strengthen their writing?

My Heart Is So Full!

NCTE is always a wonderful conference, but this year was extra special. Editors Carol Hinz and Shaina Olmanson of Lerner along with editor Melissa Manlove of Chronicle organized an informal Nonfiction Salon on Saturday morning. And look who showed up . . . 

But that's not all. Thanks to Jen Swanson's prodding, this photo was taken at the end of the event, but quite a few additional people--authors, editors, teachers, librarians--had to leave a little bit early because they were presenting or had a scheduled book signing.

There was also a bunch dedicated Nerdy Book Club educators who decided to bow out of the photo and act as photographers, (Luckily, author Louise Borden snapped a quick photo of them.) We depend on their support every single day, and they never let us down. 

As nonfiction authors, we sometimes feel like the underdogs of the children's literature community. But this event gave us a chance to come together and discuss some issues we've all been thinking about--how nonfiction is growing and changing, the importance of expository nonfiction as well as narrative nonfiction, ways to classify nonfiction, the importance of distinguishing between informational fiction and nonfiction, the lack of diversity in nonfiction, and how we can all continue to support one another as a community and spread our love of true books.

It was an epic event, and I admit that there was a moment when I felt so overwhelmed with joy that I shed a few tears. We are in the midst of a golden age of nonfiction, and it's exciting to see a new crop of books that pushes the limits each year. Hooray for nonfiction!

NCTE Handout: 12 Ways Expository Nonfiction Can Inspire Reading, Writing, and Inquiry

Description: You may not love expository nonfiction, but many of your students do. It motivates fact-loving kids to read, and it can help ALL students develop informational writing skills. In this session, six highly-regarded educators share creative ideas for using finely-crafted expository nonfiction children’s books in the classroom.

Here is a list of the books we discussed:

Birds of a Feather: Bowerbirds and Me by Susan L. Roth

Handimals: Animals in Art and Nature by Silvia Lopez and Guido Daniele

Actual Size by Steve Jenkins

If Elephants Disappeared by Lily Williams

Gross as a Snot Otter: Discovering the World’s Most Disgusting Animals by Jess Keating and David DeGrand

Beware of the Crocodile by Martin Jenkins

A Colony of Bees by Lucia Raatma

The Forest in the Trees by Connie McLennan

North America by Sarah Albee and Willian Exley

Eye Spy: Wild Ways Animals See the World by Guillaume Deprat

Wait, Rest, Pause: Dormancy in Nature by Marcie Flinchum Atkins

Migration: Incredible Animal Journeys by Mike Unwin

Alyson Beecher is an educator and school administrator. She works with Glendale Unified School District in the Early Education and Extended Learning Programs. She has worked as a Special Education Inclusion Teacher, Special Education Administrator, Elementary Principal, and District Curriculum Specialist. She loves reading and getting books into the hands of children and hosts the Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge on her blog, Kid Lit Frenzy. She serves on the American Library Association's Schneider Family Book Award Committee. Twitter: @alysonbeecher

Shanetia P. Clark is an associate professor of literacy at Salisbury University. She teaches courses in children’s literature, creative arts, and literacy methods. She is the co-editor of an upcoming series about African-American authors of young adult literature.  Dr. Clark has served on book award committees and boards that celebrate literature for young people. Twitter: @uvagradu8

Terrell Young is professor of children's literature at Brigham Young University. He has published numerous articles and has co-authored or co-edited several books including Deepening Students' Mathematical Understanding with Children's Literature. Terry currently serves as the president of the United States Board on Books for Young People. He has served on numerous book award selection committees, including the Newbery Medal.

Ruth McKoy Lowery is professor of children’s literature and interim chair of the Department of Teaching and Learning at the Ohio State University. Her research focuses on immigrant and multicultural literature, the adaptation of immigrant students in schools, and preparing teachers for a diverse student population. Recent co-edited publications include Immigrant Experiences (2019) and Exploring Nonfiction Literacies (2018). Her motto “Just read” encapsulates her love of reading and belief in sharing great books with readers of all ages.

Mary Ann Cappiello is a professor at Lesley University.  Along with Erika Dawes, she is the co-author of Teaching with Text Sets, Teaching to Complexity, and a forthcoming book with Stenhouse Publishers. She blogs at "The Classroom Bookshelf," a School Library Journal blog and served on NCTE's Orbis Pictus Committee from 2015-2018. Twitter: @MA_Cappiello

Erika Thulin Dawes is a professor of language and literacy at Lesley University, where she strives to equip teachers with a passion for children's literature and a wealth of creative strategies for using books in the classroom. Having worked as a classroom teacher, a reading specialist, and a literacy supervisor, she knows that great teachers and great librarians inspire lifelong readers. Erika is co-author of Teaching with Text Sets and Teaching to Complexity: A Framework for Evaluating Literary and Content-Area Texts. Twitter: @erikadawes