- Dec 12, 2022
How Kids, Teachers, and Butterfly Fans Helped
Fred and Norah Urquhart
Track the Great Monarch Migration
A TRUE TALE WITH
A CHERRY ON TOP
Alfred A. Knopf
(pub.5.31.2022) 40 pages
Author: Barb Rosenstock
Illustrator: Erika Meza
Characters: Fred and Norah Urquhart
Overview:
" Young Fred Urquhart was fascinated by insects, especially his favorite, the monarch butterfly. He wondered where monarchs spent the winter. No one knew. After he became an entomologist (bug scientist), Fred and his wife, Norah, tagged hundreds of butterflies, hoping to solve the mystery of the monarchs. But they soon discovered that they needed help. They started a 'butterfly family,' a community of children, teachers, and nature enthusiasts from three countries––Canada, the United States, and Mexico––to answer the question: Where do the monarchs go?"
Tantalizing taste:
" Local people told of rugged forests filled with monarchs, which arrived late in fall and left in early springtime. Ken and Catalina [part of Fred and Norah's butterfly family] hiked the mountains west of Mexico City. On January 2, 1975, 10,000 feet up in the cool forest on Cerro Pelon, they found ...
Monarches, millions of them. Blanketing the bark of oyamel firs. Packed wing to wing on branches like orange leaves."
And something more: Barb Rosenstock, in the Author's Note writes: "In central Mexico, communities of indigenous and non–indigenous–identified people knew all about the monarchs in their forests. They celebrated the arrival of the butterflies around the end of the harvest and the Day of the Dead in early November. But they had a different question: Where did the monarchs come from? Finding the answers to the monarch migration took more than 4,000 amateur scientists, 300,000 tagged monarchs, 3,800 news articles in multiple languages, and forty years of scientific research. The Uruharts shared the sites where monarchs spend the winter (overwintering) in their Insect Migration Studies newsletter of 1975. Articles in scientific journals and National Geographic followed."
Barb Rosenstock has written a fascinating book -- a biography, a multi-country citizen scientist story, and a detective tale. I've had the good fortune of witnessing monarchs overwintering in California (not ones that are the focus of this book) at Monarch Grove Butterfly Sanctuary in Monterey County. Stunning, truly stunning -- beautiful just like Erika Meza's lovely illustrations.
- Nov 25, 2022
My Grandfather's American Journey
A TRUE TALE WITH
A CHERRY ON TOP
Norton Young Readers
(pub.10.18.2022) 56 pages
Author and Illustrator: Katie Yamasaki
Character: Minoru Yamasaki
Overview:
"Minoru Yamasaki described the feeling he sought to create in his buildings as “serenity, surprise, and delight.” Here, Katie Yamasaki charts his life and work: his childhood in Seattle’s Japanese immigrant community, paying his way through college working in Alaska’s notorious salmon canneries, his success in architectural school, and the transformative structures he imagined and built. A Japanese American man who faced brutal anti-Asian racism in post–World War II America and an outsider to the architectural establishment, he nonetheless left his mark on the world, from the American Midwest to New York City, Asia, and the Middle East."
Tantalizing taste:
" His work grew, his name grew. The pressure upon him, that grew too.
He made mistakes and had regrets that would take time to fully understand.
People he worked with didn't always agree or share his vision.
Things didn't always work out the way he planned.
But so often, Yama found his way.
Bringing the outside work in.
Letting the sun shine through ceiling, illuminating shapes.
The reflecting water of a still pool quieting a busy mind.
So one might sit, in peace."
And something more: Katie Yamasaki, in the Author's Note, explains that "Prior to the year of his graduation, the [University of Washington] had always awarded the top students a scholarship to study at the Society of Beaux Arts in Paris, but that yer it canceled the scholarship so as not to grant it to Minoru. Greatly upset by this act, Tsuenjiro took the family on a trip to Japan that they could barely afford. The architecture and aesthetic of Japan impacted Minoru greatly. The exchange between the natural world and human-made structure remained with him and became a foundational principle in his own work."
- Nov 10, 2022
The True Story of A Remarkable Friendship
A TRUE TALE WITH
A CHERRY ON TOP
Scholastic Press
Published June 2022 40 pages
Author: Andrea Davis Pinkney
Illustrator: Keith Henry Brown
Characters: Tybre Faw and John Lewis
Overview:
"When young Tybre Faw discovers John Lewis and his heroic march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in the fight for voting rights, Tybre is determined to meet him. Tybre’s two grandmothers take him on the seven-hour drive to Selma, Alabama, where Lewis invites Tybre to join him in the annual memorial walk across the Bridge. And so begins a most amazing friendship!"
Tantalizing taste:
" When you're a kid from
Johnson City, Tennessee,
home to the Tweetsie Trail
and a lake called Boone,
when you're a kid
growing up
in the days of Black Lives Matter,
you know the power of hope
that glistens at sunrise.
Tybre's grandmothers know it, too.
They pour all their hopes
into that child's future.
In their eyes, he is the light
that shines on tomorrow,
while his brilliance flickers today."
And something more: At the back of the book, the Two Journeys, One Dream essay explains: "After a moving and magical meeting with the congressman, and joining him for the walk across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on that day in 2018, Tybre stayed friends with John. Tybre quickly dove into activism. He marched for school safety, human rights, immigrant equality, and any other cause he believed was worth fighting for ...
Congressman John Lewis died on July 17, 2020 ... Tybre, now twelve years old, was invited to recite the congressman's favorite poem, 'Invictus,' by William Ernest Henley.
Tybre finished by saying, 'John Lewis was my hero, my friend. Let's honor him by getting in good trouble.'"
