3, 2, 1, Blast Off!

Vaguely familiar. That's how I would have described my awareness of:
1. Graphic novels
2. Canine cosmonauts

Then I read Laika and discovered that graphic novels seem like a cross between a book and a movie and that a dog named Laika was the first living earthling to be launched into outer space. After reading about this 1957 Russian endeavor, I can't imagine being introduced to the story of Sputnik 2 in any other genre. Nick Abadzis accomplishes an amazing feat by combining impressive research, lively artwork and effective story-telling. This award-winning book gives insight into the Russian push to excel at space exploration, the bleak Communist lifestyle, and of course the people and the dog involved in this mission. Even though it is not a happy ending, it was a treat to read.

Ages 12 and up
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Reading about Laika brought to mind a movie my whole family thoroughly enjoyed and watched time and again. October Sky is the true story of some West Virginia school boys whose rocket project won the national science fair in the late 50's. In one scene, Homer, the main character is doing what he swore he would never do...going down into the coal mine to work (due to family circumstances). As he is lowered into the mine shaft he sees Sputnik 1 trekking across his last glimpse of sky. The cage begins it's dark descent and an old timer says to Homer regarding his headlamp, "turn your light on boy." We love this line!! My husband and I often tell our son as he is leaving the house for the bus stop on dark winter mornings, "turn your light on boy."

In real life Homer grew up to work for NASA. I highly recommend this feel good, family movie!

Ages 9 and up
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Activity: This is the rocket my son enjoyed building at school. It is only $6.58 and it has earned lots of positive customer feedback.

A Year in the Life of a Peasant

If you ever think to yourself, "I wonder what life was like for the Medieval peasant?" then I highly recommend that you pick up a copy of Till Year's Good End by W. Nikola-Lisa. Each spread is devoted to the work accomplished in a given month, starting with January. I adore this book. The illustrations are wonderful. Obviously their creator, Christopher Manson, was inspired by medieval woodcuts. As you turn the book's pages you realize that he has captured the essence of the changing seasons. The first person verses for each month are pleasing to read...

MARCH: I till the earth first sign of spring. And sow good seed while blackbirds sing.

Just enough additional explanations are included. Your child will gain insight into the tenant farmer arrangement and realize just how long the peasant chore list was: collect firewood, repair bridges, clear roads and ditches, maintain buildings, repair nets, make harnesses, sharpen knives and axes, fit handles on scythes and sickles, make reed mats and baskets, carve wooden spoons, platters and bowls, spin flax and wool into thread, make clothes, make candles, make ropes, mend fences, feed the livestock, plow, plant, prune, build wattle-and-daub buildings with thatched roofs, sheer the sheep, tend the beehives, mow and bundle the hay, weed, harvest the crops, mine the salt, grind the flour, bake the bread, clean the privy, slaughter the livestock, smoke the meat, pick the fruit and make the wine.

Sure makes a "clean your room" request seem easily surmountable.

Ages 6-9

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Activity: Use this 15th Century recipe to make some gingerbread.

FREE FRIDAY! —Knight clip art—

The Lincolns

I really enjoyed reading about Abraham Lincoln's wife and her dearest friend in An Unlikely Friendship: A Novel of Mary Todd Lincoln and Elizabeth Keckley, by the ever so talented Ann Rinaldi. This well written historical fiction will especially appeal to teenage girls as well as adults with an interest in history.

It is organized in a unique way:
1. The day Abraham Lincoln was shot (starting with breakfast)
2. Mary Todd's upbringing in Lexington, Kentucky
3. Elizabeth Keckley's upbringing as a slave
4. The friendship of these two women.

You could certainly say that Mary and Elizabeth (Lizzy) were opposites. Priviledged Mary Todd grew up waited-on by slaves while Lizzy endured the wretched life of a slave. Mary lost her mother early in life and was then subjected to a loathsome step-mother. Lizzy on the other hand was raised in the company of her mother, the plantation's seamstress. And thankfully, her mother taught her how to sew, a skill that eventually earned her freedom and an introduction to the upper-crust of the nation's capitol.

Readers will come away from this story with empathy for those trapped in slavery and a true sense of what Antebellum life was like. A great read.

Ages 12 and up
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Another Lincoln title caught my eye this week. The Lincolns: A Scrapbook Look at Abraham and Mary is a thick "scrapbook" containing 156 pages of newspaper clippings, photos, political cartoons and letters from the couples lives all arranged in chronological order. It's chock-full of information making for interesting browsing. Here is one of the many little gems it contains...an account of the first time Abraham met Mary:

Tall and gawky, wearing a swallowtail coat that was too short, shabbily patched trousers, and mismatched socks, Abraham made his way to Mary's side. "Miss Todd," he said, "I want to dance with you in the worst way." And, as Mary remembered it, "he certainly did."

Ages 9 and up
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Activity: How well do you know the 16th president? Try this Abraham Lincoln Crossword Puzzle.

Hungry Times

In the good old days there were some bad old years. The Irish Potato Famine and the American Dust Bowl are two such instances. Each of these "good farming gone bad" events caused immense physical and financial suffering, epic migrations and questions concerning government response.

My maiden name is O'Brien. My great-grandparents immigrated from Ireland to America during the famine but I had never actually read about it. Then I picked up Black Potatoes: The Story of the Great Irish Famine, 1845-1850. Wow. What a mess! The vast majority of the Irish population were tenant farmers working on land owned by British landlords, and they depended heavily on potatoes to feed their large families. Then along came a blight that turned their potatoes into a black, stinky mush...for five years! This book is loaded with stories of starvation, disease, evictions, work-houses, famine ships, death and misery. It also delves into the Irish/English relationship at that time. How Britain's frustrating Corn Laws, which placed a high tax on imported grains, elevated the local costs of all oats, wheat, barley and rye, exacerbating the famine problem. Also mentioned is the attempted uprising against the British government led by William Smith O'Brien.

Many stories I will have a hard time shaking off. The baker who was obsessed with cleaning his clothes before going into the street for fear any remnants of flour dust would create a frenzied mob. The family that knew the farmer next door shot and buried two diseased pigs and waited until nightfall to dig them up and eat them. The men who cut off the tails of cattle or drained a few pints of blood from them, thereby not destroying someone else's property, and yet providing some protein to their families.

In fact, what makes this book so interesting are all the first hand accounts along with the many etchings as they appeared in London newspapers. If nothing else, Susan Campbell Bartoletti's book will make you ever so thankful the next time you are at the table and say, "please, pass the potatoes."

Ages YA

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Dust to Eat: Drought and Depression in the 1930s describes how life on the plains bottomed out as topsoil blew away.

On May 9, 1934, a dust storm carried an estimated 350 million tons of dirt two thousand miles eastward. Weathermen calculated that four million tons of prairie dirt fell on Chicago—four pounds for each city resident. The following day, the dust darkened the sky over Buffalo, New York, and Atlanta, Georgia. Three hundred miles out into the Atlantic Ocean, brown prairie dirt fell like snow on the decks of ships.

During World War I the federal government guaranteed farmers $2.00 per bushel of wheat. When the war ended, European demand for wheat encouraged what historians call "the Great Plow Up." In Oklahoma in 1915, only a few thousand tractors tilled the soil, but ten years later 50,000 tractors were working the fields. Then the disk harrow, with it's long row of circular blades, replaced the single-blade iron plow. Millions of acres of native grasses that held the earth in place were plowed under. Some farmers planted crops right up to their front doors. Then rain became scarce and winds began to blow.

Michael L. Cooper's straightforward book goes on to describe the policies of newly elected Franklin D. Roosevelt, the all encompassing Great Depression and the migration of millions to mostly California. The book includes many first hand accounts and heart-wrenching photographs.

Ages 9-12

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Activity: Can you correctly identify the most affected states on the Dust Bowl Map?

FREE FRIDAY! —gladiator clip art—

For the free Gladiator clip art, click here.

Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Huddled Masses...

...yearning to breathe free,

the wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me:

I lift my lamp beside the golden door!

—Emma Lazarus, 1883

The story of the Statue of Liberty is the story of a patriotic dreamer, a capable artist, an ingenious engineer, a talented poet and hundreds and thousands of French and American contributors. You will meet them all in Lady Liberty: A Biography.

The author, Doreen Rappaport, begins by telling of her own grandfather's (a Latvian immigrant) shipboard arrival into New York Harbor:

"The Lady! the Lady!" awakened him. He raced up to the deck. The ship was pulling into New York, and there was Lady Liberty greeting them all. Arms reached out as if to caress her. People lifted babies so they could see her. Tears ran down my grandfather's face. People around him were crying, too. And then a wave of cheering and hugging swept over the ship.

But how did she come to be? The answer is learned with introductions to the cast of characters responsible for creating this symbolic statue. Right down to young Florence of New Jersey who donated her two pet roosters to help pay for the pedestal! This is a well researched, organized, attractive book.

Ages 8-12

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Activity: Build and paint a Statue of Liberty Kit or give this Statue of Liberty word search a try.

Fruit of the Earth

They are of different genders, different continents and different centuries. So what do Johnny Chapman and Wangari Maathai have in common? Trees.

Johnny Chapman was popularly known as Johnny Appleseed and dozens of books have been written about him. Of those my favorite is Johnny Appleseed: The Story of a Legend, mostly because I love the illustrations! They are the folksy and friendly creations of Will Moses who obviously inherited his talent from his famous great grandmother, Grandma Moses.

Johnny Appleseed spent his youth in Pennsylvania then migrated to the wild frontiers of Ohio and Indiana. At the time "a written law said every new homestead must plant fifty apple trees. An orchard showed a settler's intention to stay put and work the land. So Johnny figured, apple trees were just what the frontier needed and he'd supply them." Apples provided many uses: "dried apples, apple butter, applesauce, apple pie, apple cider, apple brandy, applejack, apple vinegar and best of all, apples, just tasted so good"

Johnny was commonly the first person a new settler met. If a family was too poor to buy his trees he gave them apple seedlings anyway. He also gave the shirt off his back and the shoes off his feet to those in need. Johnny Appleseed gained a reputation for being kind to all—people and animals. He was not only enterprising and generous but also quirky, lanky, spiritual, an avid reader and a mesmerizing storyteller. In his lifetime he planted thousands of apple trees. Will Moses' book is a great introduction to this good soul.

Ages 9-12

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Nearly a hundred years after Johnny Appleseed died, Wangari Maathai was born to a peasant farmer in the lush central highlands of Kenya. She eventually attended college in America, studying biology. When she returned to Kenya five years later she was aghast to find a nearly treeless landscape. By reading Planting the Trees of Kenya: The Story of Wangari Maathai children will learn how an ordinary person can make an extraordinary difference. Wangari inspired women, school children, prisoners and soldiers to plant seedlings. In thirty years thirty million trees were planted in Kenya and the planting continues to this day. The author, Claire A. Nivola, is also the creator of the charming illustrations of this very inspiring book.

Ages 9-12

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Activity: Grow and plant your own tree.