My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A beautiful verse novel about a young girl’s move from war-torn Saigon to Alabama in 1975.

I read this right after Dogtag Summer. They are nice companion books, both providing a glimpse into what it was like for children during the Vietnam War. Our biggest minority at the school where I work is Hmong. Their relocation to Wisconsin was directly related to what happened during the Vietnam War. Both these books, and the ones below, would be valuable reads to all my older students.
                  . (Not all are about Vietnam, but the themes are similar, and HOME OF THE BRAVE is also written in verse.)

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p.s. I definitely felt a twinge of oldness when I stuck the historical fiction genre labels on both DOGTAG SUMMER nd INSIDE OUT AND BACK AGAIN. Sigh.

Image from BarelyFitz's Flickr Creative Commons

So, it was Father’s Day last Sunday. Per usual, I’m approximately 4 days behind the rest of the world’s calendar. That’s not to say I didn’t give my dad a hug on Sunday (we had him over for a cookout), but I didn’t exactly get his gift to him that day. I delivered it last night.

What do you give a dad who has everything? Who is retired and financially comfortable enough that he has the time and money to get and do whatever he’d like, when he’d like it*? Well, I’ve been giving him booklists. A few years ago, desperate for a gift, I gave him a bookmark with a list of books that sounded “like him.” He carried it around for a year and when he’d come in to volunteer at my school library (yes, he’s that great of a dad), he’d often have one of the books on the list under his arm. He wondered out loud to me once how I had compiled a list of so many great books that tickled his interest.

Ha! Finding books for readers is kinda what I do for a living, Dad. Probably my favorite part.

So, this year, it was time for a new list. And here it is: The Super-Long Father’s Day List of Books. It IS long, in no particular order, a strange mix of nonfiction, mystery, and science fiction/fantasy, and it includes some series halfway through because that’s where my dad is in them. I don’t know why I’m posting it here, except it’s books and it’s a list and I’m a librarian, so pass it on I must in the hopes that someone else somewhere might find their “just right” book.

Enjoy! (And please, I’m always looking for suggestions for next year’s list. Send them my way!)

* Not that he necessarily does. He’s pretty frugal, my dad. Which only makes gift-giving harder because if you give something too extravagant, it might be construed as, well…extravagant.

* I’ve already waxed on about my dad and reading here.

So you’d think these would be my favorites of 2009, right? Um, kind of. While I do still really like all of these books, when I consider my favorite-favorites, I always think about how much the book stuck with me. How much I remember it later. How much I’ve thought about it since I finished it. To me, those are the Truly Best Stories. And those are here:

And just in case you can’t read the covers, that’d be…

All the World

The Mistress of the Art of Death

One World, One Day

The Frog Scientist

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

When the Whistle Blows

Beka Cooper

The Dunderheads

Heart of a Shepherd

Ain’t Nothing But a Man

Ways to Live Forever

Home of the Brave

I’m not the only one excited about The Frog Scientist–it’s garnered starred reviews in The Horn Book, Booklist, The Bulletin for the Center for Children’s Books, and School Library Journal. Whew!

But enough about all that; here’s what Pamela says about her book, her writing and herself:

Tell us about your book.

In THE FROG SCIENTIST, biologist Tyrone Hayes is researching the links between declining frog populations and pesticide use. He loved catching frogs when he was younger, and he tells kids, “Whatever you want to do, stick with it!” He’s an amazing guy. I wrote about Tyrone’s life, about the dangers frogs are facing, and I describe one of Tyrone’s experiments all the way from start to finish.

How did you get the idea for The Frog Scientist?

I saw an article about Tyrone in the San Francisco Chronicle. He’d just published a scientific paper showing that if you raised tadpoles in water contaminated with the most widely-used pesticide in the U.S., atrazine, many of the male frogs grew eggs instead of sperm in their testes. And he found this effect at levels of atrazine contamination ONE-THIRTIETH (1/30) of the levels allowed in our drinking water by the EPA. The article in the Chronicle also noted that Tyrone nurtured a very diverse group of young people in his laboratory. My editor at Houghton Mifflin loved the idea of writing about Tryone and his work, and so I went to Berkeley to meet him. Tyrone is such a warm, funny, smart guy with such a great personal story that I knew he would be a wonderful subject for a “Scientist in the Field” book.

If you were a scientist, what kind would you like to be? Why?

I really love scuba diving, so I think I would want to be a marine biologist.

How long does it take you to write a book? Where do you like to write? What time of day? (Or anything else you want to add about your process.)

That’s always a difficult question to answer because I work on more than one project at a time, and often the writing part is less time-consuming than the research and putting all the photos together. For a book like THE FROG SCIENTIST, I worked on it over the course of two years. I write at home, usually at a computer set up in our family room, and usually during the day when my husband is at work and our youngest is off at school. I like to compose at the computer but I like to do final edits on a hardcopy. Go figure.

What were you like as a kid?

I was a big animal lover (still am) and I loved to read (still do).

Did you like school?

Yes–I was a good student. I read well above grade level and I was fond of math. I will admit that when I took Calculus in college I was appalled–”This stuff is HARD! I feel stupid!”

So…readers want to know….what’s the grossest or most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to you as a kid?

One time I was outside running toward a school building (we were playing some game) and I fell just before I got to the wall and scraped my scalp down the stucco. So I ended up with a big, gross, bloody stripe on the top of my head, sort of a reverse Mohawk, which took forever to heal. Ick!

If you weren’t an author/illustrator, what would you be? Why?

Before I started writing for children, I worked in international public health. So I would probably be doing that, with a focus on women’s and children’s health.

What’s one thing you’d love to learn to do?

A few years ago I started studying kendo (Japanese swordfighting). I’d like to be better, but I’m slow and uncoordinated. I love it, though. And it’s OK to do something you love even if you’re never going to be great at it.

And the coolest place you’ve ever been?

Above water: the Serengeti in Tanzania. It’s a vision of what the world looked like before we plowed it and paved it. Below water: Palau, in the western Pacific. Beautiful reefs still teeming with sharks and manta rays, a vision of what the sea looked like before we overfished it.

THE SNAKE SCIENTIST or THE TARANTULA SCIENTIST by Sy Montgomery.

What’s next?

Just out: PROWLING THE SEAS: EXPLORING THE WORLD OF OCEAN PREDATORS, which tells the story of a leatherback sea turtle, white shark, bluefin tuna, and a pair of seabirds given high-tech tags by scientists who are following their travels. And PROJECT SEAHORSE, coming in August 2010. I went to the Philippines with the world’s expert on seahorses and wrote about what she is doing to save seahorses and the coral reefs where they live.

What do you wish we’d asked, but didn’t?

“How did writing THE FROG SCIENTIST change you?”

#1: I bought a White’s tree frog and named her Dumpy. There’s a photo of a White’s tree frog on THE FROG SCIENTIST’s title page, and I think it’s the cutest frog picture I’ve ever seen. So now I have my own adorable frog, which my kids think is a very strange pet. #2: I bought a Brita water filter and now I filter all our drinking water to keep the pesticides out. #3: When I bought a green Prius car I noticed it looked vaguely like a hunched-over frog, so I got a personalized license plate that says “Riibiit”. Yet another way of embarrassing my children.

Fast Facts about Pamela Turner

Age: 52

Family: Husband Rob (a lawyer), son Travis, 22, just out of college and looking for a job; daughter Kelsey, 20, a junior at Wesleyan University; and Connor, 17, a high school junior.

Home: Oakland, California

Other Books:
HACHIKO: THE TRUE STORY OF A LOYAL DOG
GORILLA DOCTORS: SAVING ENDANGERED GREAT APES
LIFE ON EARTH–AND BEYOND: AN ASTROBIOLOGIST’S QUEST
A LIFE IN THE WILD: GEORGE SCHALLER’S STRUGGLE TO SAVE THE LAST GREAT BEASTS
PROWLING THE SEAS: EXPLORING THE HIDDEN WORLD OF OCEAN PREDATORS

Favorite Superhero: I have to go with Wolverine. Maybe that has something to do with Hugh Jackman.

Favorite Book: THE VOYAGE OF THE DAWN TREADER by C.S. Lewis. 

Favorite Sports Team: I guess I have to say Oakland Raiders! 

Pamela’s Website: http://www.pamelasturner.com. And see frog scientist Tyrone Hayes hard at work in the book trailer for The Frog Scientist!

Describe your book:

Dinotrux is about an ancient race of primitive trucks that apparently existed millions of years ago. It turns out that they had not yet evolved into the kind, helpful trucks we have today.

How did you get the idea for the Dinotrux?

Dinotrux was inspired by a day stuck in traffic. As I was passing through an area of road construction on the highway outside of town, I watched a great line of heavy earth-movers lumbering in the median, making groaning sounds, and carving out a new road in the dirt. They seemed eerily reminiscent of dinosaurs—and my imagination took over. What if these same earth-moving trucks had ancestors? What if all trucks had primitive ancestors that existed millions of years ago and then somehow evolved into the kind, helpful trucks we have today? What would they have looked like? What would their personalities have been like? And what in the world happened to them?

Did you like dinosaurs or trucks better when you were a kid?

I think I liked trucks better because I knew that some day I might actually own one.  That’s rarely true with dinosaurs.

Which is harder for you, writing or drawing?

Always the writing. Because if the story isn’t just right, all the illustrations in the world aren’t going to help it.

What do you use to make your illustrations?

I have used everything an artist can use—pencils, paint, pastel, watercolor, wood block engraving, and my new favorite tool—my computer.

How do you work?

I work form 7am until 6pm almost every day. Every day is different because it all depends on what phase of a book I am working on at the time. I have a nice studio in my house so I don’t have to go anywhere. That way I can work in my jammies if I want.

What were you like as a kid?

I was usually described as “lacking self-control” on my report card. I was a day-dreamer and a class clown. I was always taking apart electronic devices and sometimes getting them back together again. I was interested in something new every day.   And that hasn’t really changed.

Did you like school? What was your favorite subject? Why?

I loved school and I doubt if I ever missed a day. My favorite subject was science, and later on, art.

What’s the grossest or most embarrassing thing that’s ever happened to you as a kid?

I was once beaten up by football players for using the word “melancholy” at just the wrong moment.

If you weren’t an author/illustrator, what would you be? Why?

Hmmmm, tough question. Perhaps a mad scientist.  They seem to have lots of adventures. A Pirate is out of the question because I get sea-sick.

What’s one thing you’d love to learn to do?

Play the piano.  I’ve had one in my living room for 10 years and its not going to learn to play itself!

What’s the coolest place you’ve ever been?

A town in Switzerland called Kleine Scheidegg.  It sits high in the alps in the shadow of three great mountains—the Eiger, the Monch, and the Jungfrau.

We loved your book! Is there a similar book from a different author that’d you’d recommend for kids who liked yours?

I always liked Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel.

What’s next?

I am currently working on my next book, Substitute Creacher, due out in spring 2011.