MARCHING ALONG WITH PENGUINS

Adélie Penguins look like they're wearing tuxedo tails!

How much do you know about penguins? According to Anita Silvey's CHILDREN'S BOOK-A-DAY ALMANAC, yesterday - January 20th - was "Penguin Appreciation/Awareness Day".  I took that information to heart and tried to recall some penguin books we've enjoyed reading, and did some research in order to help you better appreciate these flightless birds (be sure to check out Anita Silvey's book recommendation, 365 Penguins, if you're interested in a fun story that also teaches math concepts).

CHAPTER AND PICTURE BOOKS:
MR. POPPER'S PENGUINS by Richard and Florence Atwater (I've show the edition with illustrations by Robert Lawson).  Mr. Popper is a house painter in the 1930s in Stillwater, USA.  He only works from the spring through fall seasons.  During the winter, he reads National Geographic and listens to radio shows about world explorers, such as Admiral Drake and his Antarctic Adventures.  The Admiral surprisingly responds to a fan letter from Mr. Popper by sending him a live penguin (who they name "Captain Cook"). The adventures start with one, but soon the Popper family grows to include 12 penguins - all of whom must be fed!  So Mr. Popper, his wife, and their two kids take the penguins on the road.  They're billed as "Popper's Performing Penguins, First Time on Any Stage, Direct from the South Pole". The act eventually gets old and they have a run-in with the law - only to be bailed out by the Admiral.  Mr. Popper is then faced with a moral dilemma about the penguins' future. The adventures while on tour are hilarious, as the penguins disrupt other acts and invade hotels.  This classic read-aloud is perfect as a bedtime "chapter-a-night" book for ages 7 and up.

LITTLE PIP...you'll love these cute picture books (for ages 4-8), illustrated by Jane Chapman, and written by talented author Karma Wilson, about a little Adélie Penguin named "Pip". These reassuring stories about Pip and her family were introduced to me by my sweet pre-school aged god-daughter, Emma:
WHERE IS HOME, LITTLE PIP?

DON'T BE AFRAID, LITTLE PIP

WHAT'S IN THE EGG, LITTLE PIP?


FILM:
Hopefully, many of you have seen MARCH OF THE PENGUINS - an incredibly enjoyable and beautifully filmed 2005 documentary, narrated by Morgan Freeman (if you haven't, try to see it soon!)  It's about a colony of hundreds of Emperor Penguins as they return, in a single-file march of 70 miles or more, to their frozen breeding ground, far inland from the cold oceans where they thrive. Most of the other creatures leave, and the Emperor Penguins, are the only animals to spend the long winters on Antarctica's open ice (unlike the Adélie Penguins, who spend their winters in the cold seas surrounding the offshore Arctic ice pack).  Click here to read more (and watch video) about both of these types of penguins on the National Geographic KIDS website.  


CRAFTS AND MORE...
Family Fun Magazine Online is a great resource for party and craft ideas.  Want to have a penguin party?  Click here to see lots of fun penguin craft ideas and recipes from FAMILY FUN.


WANT TO GO SEE PENGUINS?
These social animals are not only superb swimmers, but world-class divers - and fun to watch!
The website Nothing But Penguins has information about penguin exhibits and webcams from arount the world.  You'll find additional exhibit sites here.  

EDUCATION THROUGH ADVENTURE!

PADDLE-TO-THE-SEA is also a film.

Kids love books full of adventure. The genius of Holling C. Holling was that he knew how to teach through adventure, by filling his entertaining tales with well-researched historical, geographical, and scientific data that might otherwise be boring to children had it not been presented in an exciting work of fiction.

This author/artist/naturalist was born in Jackson County, Michigan, in 1900.   His father was superintendent of schools, so as a boy, Holling had access to all the books he could want at home (but his mother would also make trips to the library to find books that he especially liked about animals and Indians.)

He not only loved reading, he loved being in the outdoors - roaming the woods, camping and exploring. “At three, he was an avid artist, drawing very advanced pictures of horses, cows, and other animals. In his youth, his father once brought him a dead owl. The investigative boy became fascinated with it, making an Indian headdress from the feathers and a belt with the claws. His love of Indian customs and ways was a constant throughout his life.” (as noted in Major Authors and Illustrators for Children and Young Adults, 2nd ed., Gale Group, 2002)


Holling Clancy Holling graduated from the Art Institute of Chicago in 1923. He then worked in a taxidermy department of the Field Museum of Natural History in Chicago and spent time working in anthropology.  He married Lucille Webster and within a year of their marriage they had both accepted positions as art instructors for a year (1926-1927) on the first University World Cruise, sponsored by New York University.

For many years of his life, Holling C. Holling dedicated much of his time and interest to creating books for children.  I'd like to focus on a set of large format books he started in the 1940's.  Much of the material he wrote about was known to him firsthand through field and library research. His wife worked with him on many of the illustrations.  Each story is rooted in the natural world: set on the sea, rivers, the coast, and inland trails. Each story involves a journey.

"The story lines of these books are well-complemented by their art. Of special interest are the sidebars that make a reader linger. They may be a detailed, hand-lettered pen and ink of a ship’s rigging in Seabird or the Great Lakes displayed “like bowls on a hillside” in Paddle-to-the-Sea. Learning new information was never more inviting and entertaining. Holling was a writer/illustrator who tapped into children’s secret consciousness and curiosity.  Such richness in storytelling and illustration still makes for classical favorites, which says much about this master of children’s literature." -Walter Giersbach, (Grinnell College Book Review).

These stories are especially loved by homeschooling families.  Click here to see Beautiful Feet Books wonderful "Geography Through Literature Pack" that uses these books.

PADDLE-TO-THE-SEA the four year journey of a miniature wood carving of an Indian boy in a canoe from its starting point in Lake Nipigon, Canada, through the Great Lakes and the St. Lawrence River to its final destination in the Atlantic Ocean.  Paddle receives help staying on course from people who read the message carved on his canoe: "Put me back in the water. I am Paddle-to-the-Sea".  Middle readers will learn about the history, industry, geography, seasons, tides, currents, locks, inhabitants, animals of the region.


TREE IN THE TRAIL the story of the passing of history as seen by a stationary cottonwood tree, located on what eventually becomes the Santa Fe Trail. (The wood from the tree is eventually made into an ox yoke and ultimately makes a journey to the end of the trail.)


SEABIRD - Through the travels of Seabird - an ivory gull carved by a cabin boy from a walrus tusk - the history of America at sea is traced. Your child will delight in this story of sailing, whaling, ships and ship building, while they learn world geography and much more!


MINN OF THE MISSISSIPPI Minn (a snapping turtle) travels over many seasons and years from Lake Superior to the Gulf of Mexico.  Children will learn about the history of the Mississippi River Valley and its fascinating world of bayou's, steamboats, river pirates, flatboats and keelboats, French and Spanish explorers, plantations, floods, and even Mark Twain.


PAGOO studies life in a tidal pool through the story of a hermit crab named Pagoo.  Every detail of tide pool life is presented. Holling's wonderful illustrations bring to light the many microscopic forms of life found in the sea, and the habits and methods of survival are clearly explained.

THE ART AND SCIENCE OF SNOWFLAKES AND THE DETERMINATION OF A YOUNG BOY FROM VERMONT

Snowflake Bentley, written by Jacqueline Briggs Martin, illustrated by Mary Azarian. (ages 4-8) This beautiful picture book (1999 Caldecott Medal winner) is the biographical story of W.A. Bentley. Young Wilson Bentley was fascinated by the six-sided frozen miracles that are snowflakes, and once he acquired a microscope with a camera, his childhood preoccupation became a scientific life study. His countless exquisite photographs examining the tiny crystals and their delicate, mathematical structures are still used in nature photography today.

 

The wonderful woodcuts by Mary Azarian perfectly highlight the author's tender storytelling and help communicate the homey-ness of the life of this determined and often misunderstood boy, who lived in Vermont with his very supportive parents (they spent their own savings to buy him the special camera when he was only 17 years old!)  When Bentley first begins to use the camera, he makes mistake after mistake, but he doesn't give up!  After much perserverance, he finally figures out how to photograph snowflakes, all the while enduring criticism and scoffing from his neighbors and the local farmers.

Bentley later wrote:  The average dairy farmer gets up at dawn because he has to go to work in the cow yard.  I get up at dawn, too.  But it is because I want to find some leaf, hung with dew; or a spider web which the dew has made into the most delicate ropes of pearls...I take my camera with me, get down on my knees in the wet grass, and photograph these exquisite bits of nature. Because I do this I can show these lovely things to people who never would have seen them without my help.  They will get their daily quart of milk, all right.  Other farmers will attend to that.  But I think I am giving them something which is just as important. 

His hard work paid off and his gift to the world - a book about snowflakes - was finally published.  It's still available today, and if you child is interested, I would encourage you to find it at your local library, or buy it:

SNOW CRYSTALS - by W.A. Bentley and W.J. Humphreys, contains over 2,000 photomicrographs of snowflakes, plus slides of frost, rime, glaze, dew and hail. The introduction by meteorologist W. J. Humphreys discusses techniques of photographing snow crystals, the science of crystallography, classification and markings. Your child will enjoy thumbing through page after page of the beautiful snow crystal photographs!

IT LOOKED LIKE SPILT MILK

"Sometimes it looked like spilt milk.  But it wasn't spilt milk".  So begins a book that will spark your child's imagination and might make you want to get out the paint and glue to start an art project!  My kids enjoyed making paint blot clouds and cotton clouds after we read this book.  We also spread a big blanket on the grass in the backyard and watched clouds drift by...

This story has a predictible text pattern, with rhymes and repetition.  Great for toddlers, preschoolers or kindergartners!

IT LOOKED LIKE SPILT MILK by Charles G. Shaw.  









Your little meteorologist might also like:


LITTLE CLOUD by Eric Carle

THE CLOUD BOOK by Tomie dePaola

CLOUDS by Anne Rockwell