Great Heights Week - A Giraffe Adventure

Eighty years before Columbus made his incredible journey, a giraffe sailed from his African home to China. It was there that he was named after a mythical Chinese creature that was thought to bring good luck. Chee-Lin: A Giraffe’s Journey is a jewel of a book with drop dead gorgeous illustrations. Children will find parts of it sad. Loosing one’s freedom is always sad. But they will delight in Chee-Lin’s special relationships and their imaginations will be sparked by far away cultures in a long ago time.

Ages 4-8
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Activity: Here is a pretty-nifty easy-to-access animal geography game. You know that giraffes come from Africa, but where do these other animals come from?

Gutenberg — The Inventor of Printing

How long does it take to print a book? For Johanne Gutenberg it took more than 30 years! What was the hold up? Well, since it had never been done before he had a lot of problems to work out. Many were related to the invention itself: finding the right metal formula for the type, making an ink that wasn’t too runny or too sticky, figuring out how to space the letters and get them consistently raised off the slug and the designing and building of the press itself. His other problems involved money. He dealt with lawsuits, partnerships gone awry, denied inheritances and fund raising opportunities lost (something to do with selling souvenirs to pilgrims traveling to see remnants of the clothes of Christ).

Fine Print takes you on a fascinating look at the man who was determined to invent mass–produced printing and persevered. It’s a wonderful lesson in persistence and a very interesting glimpse into 15th Century Germany.

Ages 9-12
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Activity: Cut a letter in a potato and then print it:

Okay, this involves a knife, so some parental involvement is probably necessary.  Cut a medium sized red potato in half, then cut away anything that you don’t want to print. Remember, you have to create your letter backwards on your stamp.

Now put some ink or paint on your stamp and press. Viola!

Leonardo da Vinci

This painting, Young Girl with Ermine, and the most famous painting ever, the Mona Lisa, are two of only ten paintings that Leonardo da Vinci was known to have finished. I took Art History in college but I don’t recall learning that, along with so much more I found in the 100 pages of Who Was Leonardo da Vinci? This book is an artist’s delight with it’s tales of making brushes, painting techniques, and determining subject matter.

Leonardo was born out of wedlock to a well-to-do young man and a peasant girl, neither of which cared to raise him. It’s hard to believe that someone from these awkward and lonely beginnings wound up immortalizing himself through his creative mind and outstanding abilities. To put the timing of his life into perspective, he was finishing his masterpiece The Last Supper the same year Christopher Columbus was making his third voyage to the New World. Besides having a gift for capturing a mood with a paintbrush he was also an adept inventor, musician, engineer and scientist. The book details many of his clever ideas, loosely replicating his work in a casual pen and ink style that made me long to see the real thing. I do feel this book is a great children’s introduction to this 15th century genius.

Also included are sidebars on the making of parchment and paper, art apprenticeships, the Renaissance, astronomy, Raphael, Michelangelo, and drawing techniques.

Ages 9-12
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Activity: Can you imagine if the Mona Lisa was painted today? What would she be wearing? What would be in the background? Print out this Mona Lisa template and with markers, create your own modern day masterpiece.

The Origins of Vampires

Inspiration is a miraculous thing. Where does it come from? What inspired the creation of Snow White, Star Wars or Count Dracula? I’m not sure, but according to Vlad the Impaler: The Real Count Dracula, the later was inspired by a Romanian prince with a very unpleasant personality. Although there had been tales of vampires for hundreds of years, it was an Irishman named Bram Stoker who borrowed Vlad Dracula’s name, his castle in the Carpathian Mountains and a bit of his bloody reputation to create the novel titled Dracula in 1897.

Born in 1431, Vlad was named after his father, Vlad Dracul. Dracul was the Romanian word for “dragon.” Vlad Sr. took that as his last name after joining the Order of Dragons. This was a group of 23 royal leaders who vowed to protect the Holy Roman Empire from the advancing Turks. Vlad’s young offspring became known as Vlad Dracula, meaning “little dragon.”

Unlike Count Dracula, Vlad Dracula was not known for sucking blood out of people. But he did seem to thrive on killing people. His preferred method, as you can surmise from the title of the book, was impalement. He held a grudge against the upper crust, so he impaled them. The Germans didn’t hand over his half brother so he impaled them. One woman didn’t sew her husband’s clothes to Vlad’s satisfaction so he impaled her. He displayed the impaled. He dined among the impaled. He reveled in the impaled. One monk reported that he dipped his bread in his impaled victim’s blood before eating it. Yuck! Just to mix things up a bit, he also burned live people to death, hacked people to death and worked people to death. It is estimated that Vlad killed 40,000 all told.

If your child is fascinated by the morbid, than this book is for him/her. And on the positive side they will gain a sense of what life was like in this tumultuous part of the world in the 15th Century. It includes sidebars on Black Death, Constantinople and three empires: Holy Roman, Byzantine and Ottoman, as well as a timeline and glossary. It is a “feels good in your hands” sized book and it's part of Scholastic’s Wicked History series. Other titles in this series include: Genghis Khan: 13th Century Mongolian Tyrant, Ivan the Terrible: Tsar of Death, Mary Tudor: Courageous Queen or Bloody Mary?, Henry VIII: Royal Beheader and Hannibal: Rome's Worst Nightmare.

Ages 12 and up
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Activity: Sink your teeth into a pastry that shares it’s geographic origins with Dracula (though this luscious snack is now associated with Hungary). Rest assured, good things have come out of Transylvania! Here is the recipe for Chimney Cakes. I found it at a National Geographic Travel blog.

FREE FRIDAY — Galleon Clip Art —

For a free high resolution version of this Spanish Galleon, click here.

FREE FRIDAY — Inca Warrior Clip Art —

Click here for the free Incan warrior clip art.

Think Inca

Reading Baktar: A Tale From The Andes was kind of like eating a banana split. At first it was sooo yummy, then half way through it turned slightly monotonous.

The story opens with a present day husband giving his new bride a tiny kitten with a mysterious pedigree, that comes in a mysterious box, with a mysterious note, and it does mysterious things with pencils in the middle of the night. I have never seen my children in such a lather at the onset of a book! They wanted more, more, more!

But their interest waned when we were introduced to the ancestor of this cat, Baktar, living with the granddaughter of the Inca king, Pachacuti, in Machu Picchu in the 15th Century. What began as a mystery story turns into a story of two people struggling emotionally: the princess with her upcoming marriage, the king with his changing belief in Inti, the sun god. Eventually Baktar sacrifices himself to save Pachacuti by eating his poisoned food. Then the author jumps back to the present day kitten who at this point is old and dies. But not before the contents of that mysterious note are revealed.

I will say this. You might feel regret after polishing off a banana split, but finishing Baktar satisfies due to the knowledge gained about Inca life.

Ages 9-12
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Activity: Here is a link to instructions on how to make your own llama.

Columbus Sailed the Ocean Blue

Replicas of Columbus' ships, the Nina and the Pinta, were in town recently. Shannon and I went aboard this floating museum that is currently traveling up the Atlantic coast. It really puts things in perspective to stand on a true to size version of a Spanish caravel. The question you keep asking yourself is “How did they stand it!!?” It's shockingly small, and when you factor in the amount of souls on board, their sleeping arrangements (on the deck because the livestock were in the hold), their lack of bathroom facilities, their exposure to the elements and the length of the voyage, it's hard to believe they made it at all.

Columbus' voyage is covered on the displays, but how the Nina was constructed in Brazil is heavily emphasized with plenty of pictures. In fact, this replica of the Nina was built completely by hand (no power tools!). Archaeology magazine called it “the most historically correct Columbus replica ever built.” This was the actual boat used in the film 1492: Conquest of Paradise starring Gerard Depardieu. If you have an opportunity to go aboard the Nina as it travels around the country, I recommend you do so.

Being on the Nina brought to mind a couple of great books we happen to have. One is titled Ship, by David Macaulay. In fact, when I looked at the acknowledgements in this book when I got home it mentions this same boat Shannon is pictured on and how the author was grateful for the chance to see it under construction. The book is organized in a really unique way. It starts with the search and discovery of a sunken caravel in the Bahamas. You really get a sense that you are looking over the shoulders of this team of underwater archaeologists. Then, midway through the book, a letter arrives from a fellow researcher in Spain who has uncovered a journal belonging to someone who commissioned a caravel in the sixteenth century. In a clever way the pages turn old-diary yellow and you follow the notes regarding the building of one of these ships. Amazing details! By books end you have gained a glimpse of the life cycle of a Spanish caravel from how they were built to how it's sunken remains were recovered. Well done and really interesting.

Ages 9 to 12
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The other title is for the younger set. It is called In 1492 by Jean Marzollo. A really cute, quick rhyme through Columbus' first voyage to America. Marzallo does a masterful job of introducing just a taste of the facts. It is illustrated with a light, whimsical hand compliments of Steve Bjorkman. I like it!!

Ages 6-8
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While I'm on the subject of explorers searching for gold and caravels crashing into reefs I'll share a stunt I pulled while on vacation in the Bahamas. I smuggled onto our boat a small treasure chest I had purchased at a tourist shop and stocked with junk jewelry, Bahamian coins and colored stones. When my son was the only one snorkeling I snuck in with the treasure chest and dropped it in about ten feet of water. I called out to Ryan while pointing at the chest, which I must say, seeing it sitting on the bottom among the corals made my heart pound a little. He dove for it and headed for the boat. This is where it gets interesting. I thought he would be exclaiming wildly to his sister and Dad about his discovery. To my surprise he quietly got on the boat and found a private corner where he could open the chest ALONE. Only after claiming what he most valued for himself did he share the news. Maybe this summer when you are on vacation at the beach or the lake you could try this with your children. It was fun.