- Jun 25, 2024
Updated: Jun 26, 2024
Bias, Truth, and a Mighty Moose!
A TRUE TALE WITH
A CHERRY ON TOP
Calkins Creek
(Astra Books for Young Readers)
(pub. 5.14.2024)
48 pages
Ages 7 -10
Author: Beth Anderson
Illustrator: Jeremy Holmes
Character: Thomas Jefferson's
Overview:
" Young Thomas Jefferson loved to measure the natural world: plants and animals, mountains and streams, crops and weather. With a notepad in his pocket, he constantly examined, experimented, and explored. He dreamed of making great discoveries like the well-known scientific author, Count Georges-Louis Leclerc de Buffon.
But when Buffon published an encyclopedia of the natural world, Jefferson was furious! According to the French count, America was cold and swampy, and filled with small and boring animals, nothing like the majestic creatures of the OId World. Jefferson knew Buffon had never even been to America. Where had Buffon gotten his information? Had he cherry-picked the facts to suit his arguments? Was he biased in favor of Europe?
How could Jefferson prove Buffon wrong? By using scientific inquiry, of course! This first picture book to emphasize Jefferson’s use of scientific methods is an accessible and entertaining approach to a lesser-known side of Jefferson."
Tantalizing taste:
"EGADS!
A stench as mighty as the MOOSE!
A FEW DAYS LATER, a colossal box arrived - with a monstrous stench.
Thomas peered at the moose. Not magnificent, but BIG. He sent it off, with apologies for the moose's hair and mismatched antlers."
And something more: Beth Anderson explains in the Author's Note: "As an amateur scientist, Jefferson understood how a limited amount of information and unreliable sources created mistruths. He understood how easily people were fooled when these ideas came from someone with power and authority. He also understood how hard it was to get rid of misinformation once it spread. Buffon's ideas took more than a century to completely fade away."
- Jun 18, 2024
Updated: Jun 25, 2024
The Cinderella Story
of Caroline Herschel -
The First Professional Woman Astronomer
A TRUE TALE WITH
A CHERRY ON TOP
Chronicle Books
(pub. 3.5.2024)
60 pages
Ages 5 - 8
Author: Pamela Turner
Illustrator: Vivien Mildenberger
Character: Caroline Herschel
Overview:
" In a day when girls were barely educated at all, Caroline Herschel's father taught her math and music . . . until, suddenly, he died. Her mother saw her as little more than a household servant. Caroline might have been doomed to a life of drudgery and dimness if not for her brother, who took her from Germany to England. There they started looking for comets, and building telescopes in their free time, gradually making them larger and larger. Their many discoveries brought the great astronomers of the day to their doorstep, where they found that the Herschels had made the best telescopes of their time.
From household drudge to belle of the scientific ball, Caroline Herschel won international prizes never before awarded to a woman and earned a professional wage from the king. She and her discoveries remain as stunning today as they were then. In this delightfully imaginative retelling of Caroline's career, her fairy godmother is none other than her own bright intelligence, hard work, and passion for science."
Tantalizing taste:
"The next day, it rained. Caroline worried.
Would it be too cloudy to see her object again?
Light faded into darkness. The clouds drifted
away, and the sky unfolded its wonders. Caroline
found the glowing light again and measured its
position. It had moved since the night before.
It must be a comet!
Too excited to sleep, Caroline
wrote to other astronomers asking
them to confirm her discovery."
And something more: The back matter explains that "if William and Caroline lived in our times, any scientific papers based on their joint efforts would carry both their names. But in the eighteenth century, it was taken for granted that William was the scientist and Caroline was merely his assistant, despite her expert mathematical and astronomical skills...
Even in old age, Caroline continued to advance the science of astronomy. She created several catalogs showing the positions of thousands of stars, star clusters, and nebulae. Caroline's work was so precise that some of her catalogs are still in use today."
Updated: Dec 26, 2024
Thrilled 🎉 to be celebrating World Ocean Day (Saturday 6/8/24) at one of my favorite places -- The Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, CA -- with a noon reading and launch of our NEW picture book biography, Else B. in the Sea - The Woman who Painted the Wonders of the Deep! (Abrams/Cameron Kids). Gorgeous ocean illustrations by Melodie Stacey.
If you're in the area, I hope you'll stop by and say hello AND see the pups that have been rescued and are being rehabilitated for their release back to the ocean.
Admission to the Center is free - just reserve a spot online at The Marine Mammal Center.
Book reading PLUS a free drawing of a signed book AND handouts of fun craft activities to take home!
The children's book features the pioneering artist, Else Bostelmann, who painted never – before – seen bioluminescent creatures described by scientist, William Beebe, on his 1930s bathysphere expeditions off the coast of Bermuda for the department of tropical research (now the The Wildlife Conservation Society.
Else even painted underwater to understand the effect of different depths of ocean water on the appearance of color.
I was inspired to write the true stories of ASTRO THE STELLER SEA LION and HONEY GIRL THE HAWAIIAN MONK SEAL by the amazing work done at The Marine Mammal Center.
