Of Books and Boys and Other Stuff » follow that food chain

News: Hey, We Won an Award!

W.H. Beck — Wed, 07 Apr 2010 02:53:33 +0000

It’s not a major award (like, you know, a Newbery or a leg lamp), but check it out: The Society of School Librarians International has named our Savannah Food Chain book a Science Grades K-6 Honor Book!

You can see their full list of 2009 winners here: http://societyofschoollibrarians.webs.com/2009bookawards.htm.

Osprey Encounters

W.H. Beck — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 14:32:49 +0000

Do you know what an osprey is? They’re birds of prey, like eagles, only a little smaller. (Ospreys hunt in our Follow That Food Chain: A Temperate Forest book.) When the pesticide DDT almost wiped out the bald eagles, it also devasted the osprey population. They’ve been endangered in Wisconsin–but no more! Their numbers have grown so that yesterday they were taken off the state endangered species list.

I’m lucky; I’ve grown up watching ospreys (and bald eagles) diving for fish on our lake up north. But my favorite osprey moments have to be at our town’s local ballpark. For the last few years, a pair of ospreys have built a nest in the lights–and the roar of the crowds, the brat smoke, the lights, even that goofy announcer and his keyboard don’t seem to bother them one bit. Can you see them in this picture Mr. E took last summer?

Nudibranchs and Blog Reviews

W.H. Beck — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 01:44:28 +0000

First, the blog reviews: we’ve gotten some nice ones about our Follow That Food Chain series lately, and I realized I’ve neglected to compile them here.

SimplyScience blogged about our temperate forest book, saying, “Interactive and entertaining, A Temperate Food Chain provides a fun-filled trek though the forest habitat as it shows specific examples of energy flow.”

A Patchwork of Books read our savanna book and says, “The really cool thing about these books is how the reader gets to control the story, much like those “Choose Your Own Adventure” books we all love so much. You can choose what a particular animal eats next, leading to a new page filled with cool facts and brilliant photographs.”

Practically Paradise writes, “With 64 pages and ample end material, these are useful to my middle schoolers but are written at a fourth grade level intended for grades 3-5. These unusual titles demand reader interaction as you pick which tertiary consumer you will follow through the pages. (Think Choose Your Own Adventure for the food chain).”

And most recently, SimplyScience profiled our coral reef book, “This particular book is especially good because it includes so many invertebrates and other varied species that are not well-known to children within the complex ecosystem of a coral reef. Animals such as fan worms, corals, sawfish, parrotfish, moray eels, nudibranchs, and sea urchins are among the consumers, with the producers and well-explained phytoplankton included in the chain information.” She also includes two fun activities to do with our books:

“Activity 1

Create your own food chain by following one of your choosing from the book. Make a diagram to show the energy flow.

Activity 2

Look through the book and find the invertebrates. Choose one invertebrate and look it up. Find out in which group it is classified according to the phylum, class, or order. Then find other animals in each group.”

And finally, the nudibranchs. I’ll admit it, seeing the mention of the nudibranchs made me smile. We’ve had many an immature, silly joke around our house about nudibranchs since writing that book. (For the record, it’s pronounced “noo-di-braank” and they’re also known as “sea slugs”…which is kinda funny in its own right.) Just don’t get us started on African wild asses…

(picture from laszlo-photo on Flickr’s Creative Commons)

Black Bears in the News (and in Aisle 5)

W.H. Beck — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:00:39 +0000

The very first animal I wrote about in the Follow That Food Chain series was a black bear. She and her cubs were in the proposal that ended up selling and becoming our habitat series. So I have a special fondness for them. And living in northern Wisconsin, you see black bears. Sometimes in the woods, maybe in your yard, but…in the grocery store?

That’s right, last week a black bear wandered into the Marketplace in Hayward–a place we’ve shopped many a time while at the cabin. He lingered in the liquor section. Here’s the clip.

Of course, the joke around here is that this was the Hamm’s beer bear. Does anyone remember this guy? Or was this just a local commercial?

And now I’ve got that song stuck in my head…

Heading to ALA

W.H. Beck — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 10:07:22 +0000

Yes, I am! In fact, I’m presenting there. And signing books (Lerner booth, Sunday 12:15). Come see me! Here’s the scoop on the presentation:

Nonfiction Book Blast!

Sunday, July 12, 2009
Convention Center Room W181
10:30 am to 12:00 pm
ALA Annual Conference, Chicago

wiki at http://nfbookblast.pbworks.com/

Track: Children & Young Adults; Literature & Collection Development

Despite the emphasis on fiction for leisure reading in schools, many reluctant readers are often more drawn to reading nonfiction. Expand your nonfiction repertoire as 17 authors booktalk their latest work.

Panelists include award-winning and acclaimed authors April Pulley Sayre (Vulture View), Kelly Halls (Albino Animals), and Carla McClafferty (Something Out of Nothing: Marie Curie and Radium), as well as many additional prolific or brand new authors. Their booktalks, plus new ones crafted by audience members, will be yours to take back home to excite your students about reading nonfiction.

The Nonfiction Book Blast speakers (click on name for author website and title for book description) who will join moderator Sharon Mitchell, include:

Lisa Rondinelli Albert, Stephenie Meyer: Author of the Twilight Saga (Enslow Publishers, May 2009), So You Want to Be a Film or TV Actor (Enslow Publishers, 2008)

Mary Bowman-Kruhm, The Leakeys: A Biography (Prometheus Books, 2009)

Laura Crawford, In Arctic Waters (Sylvan Dell Publishing), The Pilgrims’ Thanksgiving From A to Z (Pelican Publishing), Postcards From Chicago (Raven Tree Press)

Jeri Chase Ferris, With Open Hands: The Story of Biddy Mason (Lerner), Arctic Explorer: Matthew Henson (Lerner)

Kelly Milner Halls, Dinosaur Parade (Lark/Sterling Publishers, 2008), Saving the Baghdad Zoo (HarperCollins/Greenwillow, 2009), Tales of the Cryptids (Darby Creek Publishing, 2006)

Amy S. Hansen, Bugs and Bugsicles: Insects in the Winter (Boyds Mills Press, 2010), Touch the Earth (NASA and NFB, 2009)

Gwendolyn Hooks, Makers and Takers (Rourke Publishing, 2008)

Katherine L. House, Lighthouses for Kids: History, Science, and Lore with 21 Activities (Chicago Review Press, 2008)

Patricia K. Kummer, The Great Barrier Reef (Marshall Cavendish Benchmark, 2009), The Great Lakes (Marshall Cavendish Benchmark, 2009), North Korea and South Korea (two books) (Scholastic/Children’s Press, 2008)

Suzanne Lieurance, The Triangle Shirtwaist Fire and Sweatshop Reform in American History (Enslow Publishers, Inc.)

JoAnn Early Macken, Flip, Float, Fly: Seeds on the Move (Holiday House, 2008)

Carla Killough McClafferty, In Defiance of Hitler: The Secret Mission of Varian Fry (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008)

Wendie Old, The Halloween Book of Facts and Fun (Albert Whitman), The Groundhog Day Book of Facts and Fun (Albert Whitman)

April Pulley Sayre, Honk, Honk, Goose: Canada Geese Start a Family (Henry Holt, 2009)

Anastasia Suen, Wired (Charlesbridge, 2007), The U.S. Supreme Court (Picture Window Books)

Christine Taylor-Butler, SACRED MOUNTAIN: Everest (Lee and Low Books, 2009)

Rebecca Hogue Wojahn and Donald Wojahn, Follow That Food Chain (Lerner, 2009)

WARNING: Cute Baby Animal Video

W.H. Beck — Mon, 06 Jul 2009 13:48:48 +0000

In our Follow That Food Chain: a Mangove Forest book, we wrote about clouded leopards. They are so secretive that not much is known about them. They are also very much in danger of going extinct before we can even learn about them. But now two clouded leopard babies have been born at the Smithsonian’s National Zoo. (And two more at the Nashville Zoo.) While these leopards won’t get to grow up in the wild tangles of the mangrove forest of Souteast Asia, they may help us understand their species better.

(I dare you to watch and not go, “Awwww…”)

Out and About

W.H. Beck — Sun, 26 Apr 2009 22:35:03 +0000

Working full time in a school means it’s hard to visit other schools and events as an author. At least during the school year. But I’ve squeezed in a couple this spring.

Here I am at the WEMTA Authors Fair in Madison, Wisconsin. (That’s Kashmira Sheth next to me.) I attended as a media specialist, but moonlighted as an author Sunday night. It was a great event (and conference), with over 40 Wisconsin authors and illustrators. And we got to watch the ice go out on Lake Monona from the huge windows of the Monona Terrace Convention Center!

In April, I was part of a local reading celebration for university students and their elementary-age reading partners and the middle school Literacy Leaders group, hosted by Reading Partners Coordinator, Lucianne Boardman. We talked writing with students, signed books, and even put on a readers theater of Where the Wild Things Are. (Photos thanks to Julie Bowe.)

Katie McKy, Julie Bowe, Marybeth Lorbiecki, me

(from left) Marsha Qualey, Pat Schmatz, me

I think I scared off more would-be writers than encouraged them when I shared the amount of research we did for our Follow That Food Chain series!

Look, our act made it in the Publishers Weekly’s Children’s Bookshelf newsletter!

Next up, a presentation and signing at the American Library Association conference in Chicago!

Write by Night

W.H. Beck — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 22:24:56 +0000

Eek! There’s an interview with Don and me about our Last Night for Dinner series in our local arts/entertainment newspaper, Volume One. It’s out now so you can pick it up when you’re out and about. Or go read it here. (But only if you promise to promptly erase any memory of what I look like in that first photo.)

Also, if you click on the pink “Related in Print” link to the right of the article online, you can see a couple pages from the Temperate Forest book.

Follow That Bookmark

W.H. Beck — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 09:02:34 +0000

So, our Follow that Food Chain books arrived a few weeks ago! And after two and a half years, we were thrilled to see our manuscripts in book form. We did a family happy dance and our kids even asked us to sign their copies.

But then we get a mystery box today. Inside it: bookmarks! 600 Follow That Food Chain bookmarks. All glossy and pretty and with our books on them. I don’t know why, but this unexpected package was even more exciting. It’s like, wow, Lerner is actually going to sell these books!

Series Sells to Lerner

W.H. Beck — Sat, 08 Jul 2006 03:35:16 +0000

My husband and I just accepted an offer from Lerner for our nonfiction LAST NIGHT FOR DINNER series–12 books!

The series is an interactive, nonlinear look at food chains in different habitats. Remember those CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE books? (Ooo–and now I see they’re being updated and reissued!) Well, in our series, readers pick an animal, learn a little bit about it, then get to choose what it eats. Then they flip to that page and read about the next creature and its choices, and so on, on through the food chain. Of course, there are all sorts of routes through the books and lots of dead ends.

We’re extra thrilled because the story idea came from our own kids’ endless questions (“And what do they eat, Mommy?”). Of course, now we have to actually sit down and find out the answers to all these questions.

Hmmm…20-24 animals per book, times 12 books…YIKES, that’s quite an ark-ful!