Tuesday, December 10, 2013

Nonfiction Wednesday

Thanks to Kid Lit Frenzy, I made a goal to read more children's nonfiction this year which I will be featuring on my blog every Wednesday. 


I'm continuing to read the Nerdy finalists so I know how to vote this weekend!  Here are the nonfiction books I read this week:

Look Up!: Bird-Watching in Your Own Backyard


2013-book, art, birds, comics, humor, mock-caldecott-2014, nature, nonfiction, nonfiction-challenge-2013, science

I LOVED this book! I am a bird geek, and I spent many hours as a child drawing birds (why did I stop?) and raising chickens and ducks. I still love watching birds come to the feeders, especially on a snowy day like today. This book reminded me about why I love them so much! It's a very "busy" book - lots of information, drawing tips, even comics and humor. It wouldn't necessarily make a good read aloud (at least not the WHOLE thing - maybe a little at a time projected on a screen), but I can see my students pouring over it again and again. I'm definitely purchasing it for my classroom, and maybe it will inspire me to get my colored pencils out again.

No Monkeys, No Chocolate

No Monkeys, No Chocolate by Melissa Stewart, Allen Young, illustrated by Nicole Wong

2013-book, environmental, humor, mock-caldecott-2014, model-for-writing, nature, nonfiction, nonfiction-challenge-2013, picture-book

I like how Melissa Stewart and Allen Young show us the interconnections of nature. Do you like chocolate? Then you need to appreciate everything from monkeys to cocoa beans and the intricate process it takes to get to that delicious dessert. It's also an intricate process to make a book - loved Stewart's note at the end telling us how she got her ideas for this book - the research it took, its structural evolution, and how the funny little bookworms were born. These are great things to share with students!

What nonfiction have YOU read this week?

3 comments:

  1. I am in the middle of reading for the Nerdies too. Right now I am in the middle of The Animal Book by Steve Jenkins and it is fantastic! I just finished the memoir The Boy on the Box which is a very moving story of a holocaust survivor. Lincoln's Grave Robbers is another one that I just finished last night. Steve Sheinkin does a great job of bringing history to life in a narrative that is always full of excitement and detail. I also read ChitChat: Celebrating the World's Languages. It was an entertaining book about the history and use of languages.

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  2. If you liked the author's not at the end of No Monkeys, No Chocolate, you'll probably Love the Interactive Timeline I made to explain the long and winding journey behind the book. http://www.melissa-stewart.com/timeline/10yr_timeline.html It's a great way to share the research, writing, and revision process with students and it supports many of the goals of Common Core.

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  3. Holly, have you ever seen a cardinal in the snow by your feeder? That gorgeous red on white :D

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