Friday, April 29, 2016

Build, Beaver, Build ~ interview with illustrator

Build, Beaver, Build! Life at the Longest Beaver Dam
by Sandra Markle; illus by Deborah Hocking
Millbrook Press, 2016

themes: nature, growing up, animals

The moon is so bright on this June night that the pond water gleams. A beaver kit floats near his family's lodge.

This is the story of a beaver kit's first year of life, and there are lots of lessons to learn. Watch out for owls at night! Cattails are yummy. Play with your sisters. And help build the dam.

What I like about this book:  I like the way Sandra Markle tells a story of a young beaver's life - all the things a kit has to learn before setting off into the world on his own. And I like that the story is structured around a dam - not just any dam, but the longest dam in the world. It's so BIG you can see it from space.

I love the artwork. Deborah Hocking captures the essence of beaver family life as well as the details of the Canadian forest in which this beaver family lives. The combination of detail (tree bark, leaves) and color (so many watery blues and greens) keep me coming back to this book again and again.

I also love that there is back matter about the dam and beaver home life - and lots of resources for finding out more.

Beyond the book: Beavers are engineers; they change the landscape just like humans do. But they don't have chainsaws to cut trees and trucks to move logs. How do they do it? Watch this video from PBS.

Make a beaver puppet - all you need is a paper lunch bag, some buttons, paper, glue - and paw templates from here.

Build an edible beaver dam - or a lodge - using pretzels, peanut butter or sunflower butter, chocolate chips, and other things that look like sticks and mud. Then eat it!

Go exploring along a stream or wet area where beavers have been sighted. Look for tracks in the mud. Draw tracks you see - and jot down how they compare in size to your hand. How many toes are there? Are they webbed? Here's a helpful guide.

Listen to beaver kits mewing from inside a den - here

Illustrator Debora Hocking was kind enough to answer Three Questions:

Archimedes: What sort of research did you do for illustrating Build, Beaver, Build?

Deborah: I used a lot of information found online and in books. I did observe beavers at the zoo, but they were sleeping in their lodge... there was a little window into their sleeping area, so I got to see them all snuggled up together looking super cozy! I love to go hiking and it's always fun to find sign of beaver while I'm out and about. Once you start looking, you realize they're all around (though I do live in the Beaver State, so one would expect to find plenty of them around here!). Beavers tend to sleep during the day, and are more active at dawn and dusk - which is why it's not very common to see them in the wild.

Archimedes: Talk about the media you use in your artwork...

Deborah: I use a combination of watercolors, pencil, and colored pencil - generally working on watercolor paper. For Build, Beaver, Build, I used liquid watercolors, which I find give a bit more vibrant color than tube colors. After finishing a painting, I scan it into my computer and use Photoshop to make adjustments. Another way I use Photoshop is to add color to pencil drawings, because using paint would either cover up the drawing or cause the pencil to smear. I used that technique on a couple illustrations in my online portfolio: the illustration of two mice decorating their mushroom house, and the illustration of the hedgehog reading inside his hollow log.

Archimedes: What words of encouragement would you give young artists?

Deborah: Just keep on creating. It's easy to get discouraged when your work doesn't turn out how you hoped... easy to give up because you don't think you're talented enough. But drawing or painting is a skil that you can learn and develop - with hard work, of course!

Deborah is currently working on illustrations for a book written by Justin Roberts titled Henry Hopendower and Other Truly Impossible Things (GP Putnam's Sons/Penguin, due out 2017). You can find Deborah's website here.

Today's review is part of the STEM Friday roundup. Drop by STEM Friday blog for more science books and resources. We're also joining PPBF (perfect picture book Friday), an event in which bloggers share great picture books at Susanna Leonard Hill's site. She keeps an ever-growing list of Perfect Picture BooksReview copy from publisher.

Wednesday, April 27, 2016

Wild Outdoor Wednesday



Look for tree seedlings sprouting up in your lawn or in sidewalk cracks. Capture them in color and words. If you can, dig some up to plant somewhere safe.

Remember to take your sketchbook or journal with unlined pages, something to draw and write with, and something to add color ~ watercolors, colored pencils, crayons, or markers.

Friday, April 22, 2016

Happy Earth Day!

April is a month full of celebration: poetry, square-root day (4/4/16), and Earth Day!

photo from NASA
So here we are, stuck to the ground by gravity, spinning our way through space, and everything we need - air, food, water - is on this planet with us. From space, the earth looks like a blue marble. Self-contained. Self-reliant.

What can You do to take care of your corner of the earth?

What about recycling? Perhaps you will turn ripped jeans into book covers, bags, rugs...(or something else).

Maybe you'll figure out a way to collect and conserve water to use for watering a garden (make a rain barrel) - or if you have too much rain,  you might want to plant a rain garden to help slow storm water run-off.

Plant a garden for the pollinators. Sow seeds for asters, purple coneflowers, and sunflowers. Let goldenrod, milkweed, and Joe-pye weed grow. Mow less, and watch as bees and butterflies visit wildflowers in the tall grass.

Go on a scavenger hunt to learn more about the plants and animals that share your part of the world. Instead of collecting items draw pictures, write poems, take photos. Here's a list to get you started:

Look for: two different kinds of leaves, moss, a vine, a dead tree, flowers
Listen for: the sound of the wind, bird songs, buzzing of insects, moving water, frogs
Touch: tree bark, wet mud, rocks with different textures, rotten wood
Smell: pine tree, flower, damp earth, fresh grass





Wednesday, April 20, 2016

Wild Outdoor Wednesday



Tonight is a good night for sky-watching. There should be meteors. What else do you see? Hear? Smell?

Remember to take your sketchbook or journal with unlined pages, something to draw and write with, and something to add color ~ watercolors, colored pencils, crayons, or markers.

Friday, April 15, 2016

Welcoming Spring with Little One

Little One
by Jo Weaver
32 pages; ages 3 - 7
Peachtree Publishers, 2016 

theme: togetherness; nature

Big Bear stepped out of her winter den. By her side, half asleep and blinking in the spring sunshine, wobbled a tiny cub.

So begins little cub's journey of discovery - and there is SO MUCH to learn! How to be friends. What to eat in the woods.The best swimming holes. With Big Bear's help, the cub grows in confidence until it's time to head home.

What I like about this book: It is grounded in nature and seasonal change. I like the black-and-white illustrations ~ the contrast of soft charcoal on textured paper. They leave room for the imagination to add color and sound. And I like the aesthetics of the 11-inch square that, once opened, provide lots of room for expansive spreads.

Beyond the book: This book opens with spring, a season that has been pushing its way north somewhat earlier and earlier each year.

Look for signs of spring around your neighborhood. Imagine you are Little One as you head outside. What do you notice? What does the air feel like, and smell like? What do you hear? Spend a few minutes and write down what spring is like.

Explore. Little One explores "far and wide". Winnie-the-Pooh went on a "grand expotition" to find the North Pole. Tuck some provisions in your pocket and go exploring. It might be your back yard or the school playground or a park.

Make a Map. This is a great way to share your exploration with other people. Think about the information you might want to include on your map: the landscape, route of exploration, location of woods or swimming holes, notes about where you saw birds and animals... 

Today's review is part of the STEM Friday roundup. Drop by STEM Friday blog for more science books and resources. We're also joining PPBF (perfect picture book Friday), an event in which bloggers share great picture books at Susanna Leonard Hill's site. She keeps an ever-growing list of Perfect Picture BooksReview copy from publisher.

Wednesday, April 13, 2016

Wild Outdoor Wednesday



Go on a Rain field trip. Smell the damp earth. Feel the rain on your skin. Capture the colors of the wet landscape.

Remember to take your sketchbook or journal with unlined pages, something to draw and write with, and something to add color ~ watercolors, colored pencils, crayons, or markers.

Friday, April 8, 2016

The SLOWEST Book EVER ~ Blog Tour

 Welcome to a Very Slow Blog Tour to celebrate the birthday of a book born last week:

The SLOWEST Book EVER
by April Pulley Sayre; illus. by Kelly Murphy
176 pages; ages 8-12
Boyds Mills Press, 2016

"Warning!" says the front page, "This is a S-L-O-W book. Do not read it while surfing, water-skiing,  or running to escape giant weasels." It's a book so slow that the table of contents lists: two pages "on which to rest your face"... and notes the "excruciatingly slow acknowledgments" at the end. And just to make it longer - and slower - there's a not-exactly-the-end-notes section with even more stuff to think slowly about.

So what kind of stuff goes into a SLOW book? The sorts of things you'd expect: details about metamorphosis (a slow process), turtles, slow food (yes, that's a thing), and true "snail mail" - in which messages were transmitted by actual snails.

There are slow activities: watching paint dry, creating slow-motion stories, growing bonsai trees, tai chi.

The structure of the book contributes to the philosophy of SLOW - it's just the sort of book you don't read straight through. Instead, you dip into a page or two and read. Then you sit back and drink tea and think a bit. Later, when you get around to it, you read some more.

This is just a plain fun approach to interesting facts about the world around us. Read slowly, you're bound to learn a few, like how long it takes for a saguaro cactus to grow an inch*. Or the length of time it takes to turn a grape into a raisin**. Fortunately, there's an index for the less patient of us.

Today's review is part of the STEM Friday roundup. Drop by STEM Friday blog for more science books and resources. Review copy provided by publisher.

* fifteen years
** three weeks

Wednesday, April 6, 2016

Wild Outdoor Wednesday



Make a map of your neighborhood and note natural things in it. 

Remember to take your sketchbook or journal with unlined pages, something to draw and write with, and something to add color ~ watercolors, colored pencils, crayons, or markers.

Friday, April 1, 2016

Now You See Them ... Now You Don't

Now You See Them, Now You Don't
by David L. Harrison; illus. by Giles Laroche
32 pages; ages 5-9
Charlesbridge, 2016

topic: nature, camouflage, poetry

opening: 
List of words
ghost crabs know: 
danger, freeze,
blend, slow,
look, run,
stop, go.

This is not just a book about creatures that hide; it's a book of poetry. And that makes it perfect for this month, because April is National Poetry Month.

Flip through the pages and you meet ghost crabs, mice, walking sticks, crab spiders, birds, and more. Some hide by blending in with their background, others find hiding places.

What I like about this book: the cut-paper illustrations that are intricately detailed. Suckers on the octopus's tentacles, flower and leaf details on plants, scale texture on the snake... and the layers that can be achieved with papers. I also like the back matter: five pages of more info about the animals featured in the poems.

Beyond the book: Do you have hidden creatures in your neighborhood? If so, you'd have to look very closely to see them.

Hidden Animal Field Trip: Take a hike through your neighborhood or a park. Look at tree trunks, inside flowers, on twigs and stems. Do you see insects and spiders that blend in with their environment? You might find moths that look like dead leaves, or spiders the color of the flowers in which they're hiding. You might find gray squirrels clinging to a tree trunk, motionless. What do you see?

Write a poem about hiding. Learn something about an animal that hides from predators. Then write a poem about what it's like to be that animal in hiding.

How good are you at hiding? Head out with some friends and play a hiding game. Can you blend into the bark and greenery of plants? Can you hide just by remaining motionless?   

Today's review is part of the STEM Friday roundup. Drop by STEM Friday blog for more science books and resources. We're also joining PPBF (perfect picture book Friday), an event in which bloggers share great picture books at Susanna Leonard Hill's site. She keeps an ever-growing list of Perfect Picture BooksReview copy from publisher.