Nonfiction Monday: Off Like the Wind!

Dewey:  383

Off Like the Wind!: The First Ride of the Pony Express by Michael P. Spradlin, paintings by Layne Johnson, Walker, 2010

Today, every thought, observation or news event can be instantly communicated from anywhere in the world through cell phones, blogs, Twitter, and Facebook.  The idea that it would take weeks to receive news and mail is almost unfathomable.

...which is exactly why books that share stories like this are important.

Michael Spradlin and Layne Johnson re-enact the first ride of the Pony Express as a composite of the many challenges that riders had  to contend with as they carried the mail between St. Joseph, Missouri and Sacramento, California.  The sheer distance took a toll on horses and riders as did weather and encounters with wildlife and native tribes.  Spradlin narrates the story as a timeline, following the riders through the geography of the route during the eleven day trip.

Layne Johnson's riders, gallop, from left to right across two page spreads. The action often moves towards the reader as if it would burst out of the book. Stampeding buffalo thunder straight on.  Johnson's landscape and charging horses bring the artwork of Charles Russell, Frederic Remington and John Ford movie westerns to mind.  The endpapers of the book are a map showing the route of the service across half the continent as well as a time-line. This is worth noting as pleas for examples of time-lines are regularly requested on school library listservs.

The book concludes with an outstanding compilation of facts, insights and resources.  There are suggestions for further reading and a bibliography (which is important to point out to students--you have to cite your sources!) A list of Pony Express websites, associations and museums round out the resources.

Spradlin is an author I am drawn to because he writes about things that are interesting to me.  The Texas Rangers, the Knights Templar, Daniel Boone.

I am a huge fan of picture book storytelling of history.  Candace Fleming, Louise Borden, Spradlin, and others share stories, in this format, which would go untold otherwise.  In a too-busy school day, the drama of these important moments in  history would never be told. These books are perfect launching points for research or lesson extensions.

When stories like this are brought to life, with a strong narratives and engrossing pictures, then readers' and listeners' imaginations are engaged and connections with history are made.

Gilbert and Sullivan Set Me Free

Gilbert & Sullivan Set Me Free by Kathleen Karr; narrated by Carmen Viviano-Crafts and the Full Cast Audio Family, c2003, p2004.

Why is Libby Dodge in prison?

She is apparently educated, smart and only 16 years old. What could she have done to land in the Sherborn Women's Prison in Boston. Some of the other women there have committed heinous crimes while others are victims of the brutality and poverty of the early 1900s. With names like Second-Story Sal and Kid Glove Rosie, the women's stories are interwoven in the plot. An older woman, Ma McCreary, is part mother figure and part best friend to Libby.

The conditions in the prison are harsh but the arrival of Mrs. Wilkinson, the new chaplain, transforms their lives. Now a widow. her husband was a member of the D'Oyle Carte Opera Company and she is determined to bring music into the lives of the women of Sherborn. Ma and Libby are the first to join the new choir and the Easter performance of Handel's "Messiah" is so uplifting that the whole prison community is eager to support their next project, Gilbert & Sullivan's “Pirates of Penzance.”

This is Libby's story though and as she confronts her past, she learns to look toward the future and the places her beautiful singing voice might take her. I was pleased with Libby's happy ending.

The whole story has a feel of the fantastic but it is a true story. This NY Times article from 1914 must have been part of Katherine Karr's inspiration for this book.

The Full Cast Audio performance is very well acted and rich with Gilbert and Sullivan's music which made this G&S fan very happy.

Ballots for Belva

Dewey: 305.42092 or B Lockwood








Ballots for Belva: The true story of a Woman's Race for the Presidency by Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen, illustrated by Courtney A. Martin, Abrams Books, 2008

I always thought that Geraldine Ferraro was the first female vice presidential candidate in our nation's history.

She was not.

I knew about the presidential candidacies of Margaret Chase Smith, Shirley Chisholm and Bella Abzug but I had never heard of Belva Lockwood.

This colorful picture book biography will be a timely addition for U.S. election units as this election year has seen the presidential candidacies of Hillary Clinton and the vice presidential run of Sarah Palin.

Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen tells the fascinating story of Belva Lockwood who earned one of the first law diplomas ever awarded to a woman. Even though she had completed all the course work at the National University Law School, it refused to give her a diploma until she wrote to President U.S. Grant to demand her due.

She was the first woman to practice law in the federal court and the first to argue a case before the U. S. Supreme Court. She was nominated for President by the Equal Right Pary of the United States in 1884, while women still did not have the right to vote. Interestingly, some of the strongest opposition to her run for president came from women of the National Woman Suffrage Association. Ballot fraud probably denied Lockwood a substantial number of votes. She is officially credited with over 4,000 votes. Grover Cleveland's slim, winning vote margin in New York state was probably due to votes for Belva being counted for him.

A short glossary of election terms follows an informative author's note on Lockwood's remarkable achievements. A time line of women's suffrage in the United States is also included.

This is an interesting and engaging read about a little known corner of presidential election history.

The American Story

The American Story: 100 true tales from American History by Jennifer Armstrong, illustrations by Roger Roth, Random House, 2006

Conversation with the 5th grade ent-nephew this past summer:

Me: Do you like history?
Ent-nephew: Nooooo.... It is borrrrring.
Me: How can it be boring? Story is part of the word Hi-story! Don't your teachers ever tell you the stories from history?
Ent-nephew: Stories?
Me: How do they teach history and social studies at your school?
Ent-nephew: --shrugs--
Me: Do you do a lot of worksheets and vocabulary lists?
Ent-nephew: How did you know? Did my mom tell you?


How did I know?
Because worksheets and vocabulary definitions are what passes for social studies education in many classrooms today. The emphasis on test scores in reading, math and now science, seems to have blown, what should be one of the most interesting subjects in school, right out of the water.

It does NOT have to be this way... reading, writing, math and science skills should be/could be part of the social studies curriculum. Sadly, too often, it is tagged on at the end of the day or slotted in like an airline standby passenger.

"Any hope for getting on this flight?"
"Ummm...we have to wait...it looks pretty full today."

Sometimes I despair.

This is why I have such a tender spot in my heart for books that share stories from our past. In this splendid volume, Jennifer Armstrong tells some well known (although now-a-days that is not a given) and not so well know tales from our country's past.

I consider myself a student of American history but I did not know that long before the 1938 Orson Welles War of the Worlds broadcast, The New York Journal "reported" their own sequel to that book, in 1897, in daily installments called "Edison's Conquest of Mars."

I did not know the story of Thaddeus Lowe and his contributions to aerial surveillance for the Union during the Civil War. In one of the many, many author notes following the story, Armstrong explains that Lowe Observatory near Pasadena California is named for him.

The scope of stories is diverse. Spindletop, Typhoid Mary, Mount Saint Helens, the Rumble in the Jungle, Custer, ENIAC, Carrie Nation, the Chicago fire, Popé and the Pueblo revolt, and Asser Levy are names and events that we should know.

The stories are related chronologically, in three page bites, perfect for reading aloud and Roth's illustrations complement the stories. At the back, there is an extensive bibliography and index. The chapters are also grouped by "story arc" categories, such as, "Steel," "Cuba," "Government and Law," "the Moon and Stars" and whimsically, "Bananas." I do wish the page numbers had been included here. It takes an extra step to find the story in the table-of-contents or index.

As a librarian, I found myself matching these chapters with more books on the subject.

1927 The Spirit of St. Louis = Flight by Robert Burleigh
1954 Brown v. Board of Education = Through My Eyes by Ruby Bridges
1884 Hold Your Horses, Here Come the Elephants = Twenty-One Elephants by Phil Bildner
1938 War of the Worlds = Meghan McCarthy's wonderful and entertaining Aliens Are Coming!: The True Account Of The 1938 War Of The Worlds Radio Broadcast
1925 Mush = Togo by Robert J. Blake
1846 I'm Not Leaving this Jail = Henry Builds a Cabin and the other Henry books by D.B. Johnson

There are so many more.

That is one of the great things about being the school librarian, YOU can be the storyteller and share the tales that shaped our nation.

The Trailblazing Life of Daniel Boone

The Trailblazing Life of Daniel Boone: and how early Americans took to the road, painstakinglyl written and illustrated by Cheryl Harness, National Geographic Society, 2007

For folks a certain age, there is a fair amount of confusion between Daniel Boone and another American iconn, Davy Crockett, due to the late 1960s television program about Boone which starred Fess Parker (a.k.a. Davy Crockett. ) The TV folks clapped a coonskin cap on Daniel (no doubt trying to tie-in to the success of Parker's earlier series) and forever melded the two men in the mind of a generation.

Harness takes-on that issue early in the book by describing Boone's headgear.

...some frontier folks like the look of a jaunty striped tail, dangling from the back of a "coonskin" cap, but not Daniel. He generally wore a wide-brimmed felt hat.

She includes a full page illustration of Daniel with his gear, powder horn, tomahawk, buckskins britches, leggins etc. all clearly labeled. Life on the Kentucky and Missouri frontier is richly described with its need for self-reliance, the brutal Indian wars, hunting and trapping, pelt theft, and land disputes . Daniel and his family scratched out a living on the outposts of civilization and held on to that life tenaciously. At one point the Shawnee kidnapped Boone and held him so long that his wife Rebecca thought he was dead.

The fragility of human life in the wilderness is underscored by a poignant story of Daniel's brother in law, John Stewart who disappeared while hunting. His body was found years later only identifiable by his powder horn carved with the initials J.S.

I enjoy the style of Cheryl Harness's books. She provides a very high rate of information per square inch through her use of engaging artwork and text. A timeline of world events runs across the bottom of each page. I loved knowing that while Daniel was trapping for pelts in the wild, Handel was composing "Music for the Royal Fireworks." There is also an excellent list of resources, other reading, "places well worth visiting" and an index. Harness also describes the process she uses to create the pen and ink pictures through out the book.

Daniel Boone's life is the stuff of legends and this book tells his story in the context of the times with depth and detail.

Twenty-One Elephants

Twenty-One Elephants by Phil Bildner, illustrated by LeUyen Pham, 2004

The building of the Brooklyn Bridge was an engineering wonder.

Hannah watches the bridge being built and dreams of crossing it when it is finished. Despite President Chester A. Arthur and other dignitaries celebrating the bridge's opening and the chief engineer of the bridge, Emily Roebling, taking the first ride across the bridge, Hannah's family refuses to set foot on the "eighth wonder of the world. Hannah counters their concerns with facts about the safety of the bridge but they are unswayed.

When Barnum's circus comes to town, Hannah is inspired with a way to prove the bridge's safety. Could P.T. Barnum march his elephants across the bridge?

The book is based on a real event that occured on May 18, 1884. The author's note at the end describes the event and some details about the fears residents of Broolyn had about the bridge. Bildner lives in Broolyn so he is writing about his "hometown." He loves his subject. As a teacher, he used to take his classes to the bridge to write.

LeUyen Pham's illustrations are a blend of caricature and realism. Her sepia tone endpapers are detailed drawings the bridge as it appeared under construction in 1875, and the finished bridge of 1883. Be sure to count the elephants on the covers.