Sunday, March 13, 2011

Oh the Things You Can Think After Reading a Good Book

                In an age where children are watching TV on their iPhones in utero and most toys seem geared at overstimulation and excess (for instance “the exersaucer”:  http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3420756), a major challenge will be raising a generation that values nature.  One of the great hooks to pull kids into the natural world is a good book—parents almost universally value the importance of getting kids to read for their intellectual and emotional development.  This week for our “writing for the public” seminar, five children’s books were selected relating to nature and each had some good points that might get a kid interested in looking up from the screen.
                My favorite book by far was Chicken Aren’t the Only Ones By Far by Ruth Heller (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Chickens-Arent-the-Only-Ones/Ruth-Heller/e/9780698117785), a book with rhyme and reason.  She covers a range of taxonomic groups that lay eggs and even manages a rhyme with oviparous.  Woo hoo!  The pictures are fun and the language is memorable.  Although there’s no particular story to follow, I think the creative, metered language makes up for that.  This is one I’m adding to my list for the kids of my science friends and will look forward to reading Ruth Heller’s other books.
                We also read Old Shell, New Shell: A Coral Reef Tale by Helen Ward (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Old-Shell-New-Shell/Helen-Ward/e/9780761316350/?itm=1&USRI=old+shell+new+shell) and Pumpkin Jack by Will Hubbell (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Pumpkin-Jack/Will-Hubbell/e/9780807566664/?itm=2&USRI=pumpkin+jack).  The strength of these two books is that they tell a story that you can follow.  In Old Shell, New Shell, you follow a hermit crab looking for a new shell who meets different animal life during the journey.  In Pumpkin Jack, you follow the life, death, and resurrection of a Halloween pumpkin that is sent to the garden to compost after it begins to rot—ah, the circle of life.  Both had an interesting narrative and taught you something about a scientific concept (if you wanted to put it in a way to make it sound dull). 
                Round the Garden by Omri Glaser, Byron Glaser, and Sandra Higashi (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Round-the-Garden/Omri-Glaser/e/9780810941373/?itm=5&USRI=round+the+garden ) takes you from a tear drop to a pond to all of nature and then back to reaping the harvest from a garden.  This book follows water in all its various forms and shows how life is connected by this simple (yet elegant) molecule.   This will be one I put on the list for my household.  I also liked the simple graphics in this book, which would attract the really young reader/listener. 
                The book that I thought missed the mark was The Sea, the Storm, and the Mangrove Tangle by Lynne Cherry (http://search.barnesandnoble.com/The-Sea-The-Storm-and-The-Mangrove-Tangle/Cherry/e/9780374364823/?itm=1&USRI=the+sea%2c+the+storm%2c+and+the+mangrove+tangle), even though it probably had the most science.  There was no drama or story line and seemed a little too didactic to ever be a book that a kid would want to read over and over again.  The illustrations look really lovely and it’s nicely done, but I do not like to feel like a book I’m reading for pleasure is supposed to be this educational!  This seems like the type of book we scientists would be more likely to write; to which I say, go read some Dr. Seuss.   However, maybe this type of book will appeal to the children who grow up to be lovers of non-fiction.
                The makings of a good book (that one reads voluntarily), I suspect, will be the same whether for children or adults.  First, it should be a pleasure to read and should entertain.  For a children’s book, I think that means fun use of language and/or an interesting story, as well as engaging illustrations.  A children’s science book will not be overtly didactic, rather the science should seem simply an integral part of the plot.  (Did you ever read Barbara Kingsolver’s Prodigal Summer?  I love her book Poisonwood Bible, but Prodigal Summer seemed to have a goal to make us all become environmentalists, which even though I believe in “the cause” I found excruciatingly irritating in the reading—she was overtly didactic!)  Think of The Lorax, a book with a simple message and story line that is a pleasure to read and that has lasted on our bookshelves for 40 years; we learned a lot about the way large industries can benefit from local resources and when left unchecked will leave an area desolate.  Depressing yes, but it rhymed and had some magic.  I’m not sure the children’s book we read for seminar would be a child’s favorite, but they might be a good read that gets the kid thinking about the outside world and gives her/him the language to discover more of it.  I hope so.    

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