Senor Parrot's Perch

The Snake Scientist (Scientists in the Field)
By Sy Montgomery
Photos by Nic Bishop

Bob Mason is a snake scientist. Every year he travels to Manitoba, Canada to study the red-sided garter snakes that mass in amazing numbers about 100 miles north of Winnipeg. By the time the book was written, he had spent 15 years studying these snakes. Along the way he’s made some pretty amazing discoveries about snakes, including how they use their super-sniffing tongues – they smell with their tongues, to follow pheromone trails that lead them where they are going.

The book is a very enjoyable read, aimed at kids at about 5th grade and up. Author Sy Montgomery does a good job of describing the entire milieu of the research in a way that is easy to understand. He also poses questions like a scientist, which is the first step in designing experiments that give reliable results.

Nic Bishop photographed the book. He’s well known for his nature photography and he’s written or collaborated in a number of good books. In The Snake Scientist he found more folks happy to hold snakes than I thought possible. If you’re creeped out by the slithering serpents, then the photographs may spoil the pleasure of reading this book. But if you’re the type who is ready for anything, especially if its a photograph of someone else with a snake, and not yourself, you’ll enjoy this informative venture into science.

Pelican’s Catch (Smithsonian Oceanic Collection)

By Janet Halfmann,

Illustrated by Bob Dacey and Debra Bandelin

Pelican’s Catch (Smithsonian Oceanic Collection) traces a single day in the life of a young brown pelican. Having just learned to fly, the 11-week old pelican awakens and joins a group of pelicans that are flying overhead on their way to catch their breakfast. Brown Pelican still has a lot to learn, diving over and over into the clear blue ocean that surrounds the mangrove tree island where it lives before it gains its first catch.

Along the way, Halfmann depicts the life of a brown pelican very well. She has written this nonfiction book in a story format which allows her to show the bird’s habitat, social life, physical characteristics and behavior withinin the interesting narrative arc of a single day. The facts about the bird aren’t presented as scientific data, but rather as the features and elements of this bird and its environment.

The illustrations by Bob Dacey and Debra Bandelin are superb. The birds soar and dive with so much life and drama. And the final page is enough to make you quit your job and move to Puerto Rico. Say- I do have a friend from Puerto Rico. I’ve met some of his family that live there. Maybe, just maybe, I could do a bit of couch surfing until I can find a job on a boat down there.

I first learned about this book through a review on someone’s blog. I really don’t recall whose it was, but it may have been this review over at The Well Read Child. It does look familiar. I checked out some of the other spots that review science and nonfiction regularly and found this excellent interview with author Janet Halfmann over at Lori Calabrese’s blog Lori Calabrese Writes! I was unfamiliar with Janet Halfmann before reading this book. But now, after reading Lori’s interview with her, I’m looking for more of Janet Halfmann’s books.

The Warlord’s Puzzle

The Warlord’s Beads

The Warlord’s Fish

The Warlord’s Messengers (Warlords)

The Warlord’s Alarm, A Mathematical Adventure

Children’s Books by Virginia Walton Pilegard
Illustrated by Nicolas Debon

Also in the series, The Warlord’s Puppeteers and The Warlord’s Kites, which I haven’t read.

Powerful, rich and proud, the Warlord always seems to find himself in a bind. Young Chuan somehow always gets him out with one sort of invention or another, and always with good, old fashioned clever thinking. Always using his brain, Chuan, and sometimes with the help of his friend Jing Jing, solves every problem using mathematical or scientific principals learned illustrated in another context.

These books are very fun to read. Despite the “Warlord” in every book, there is no violence, except in one, where the young boy, Chuan, and the artist to whom he is apprenticed are kidnapped. Each book emphasizes problem solving, which makes them ideal for stimulating younger students eager to learn. They would also make a great supplement for learning about ancient Chinese culture since they are set in feudal China. At the end of each book, author Virginia Walton Pilegard shows how the Chinese really did use solutions similar to Chuan’s and she includes a fun craft or other activity for kids that applies the same science. The publisher also has study guides available at their website.

Study Guides:
The Warlord’s Beads
The Warlord’s Fish
The Warlord’s Kites
The Warlord’s Puppeteers
The Warlord’s Puzzle

I had some hum-drum work to do so I fired up iTunes to listen to some podcasts while I hum-drummed along. From Just One More Book podcasts about kids books, I saw that they too had just reviewed You Never Heard of Sandy Koufax?!
These guys sound Canadian, ay!

They really liked it, too. Even more than me, by the enthusiastic sounds in their voices. And they really loved artist Andre Carrilho’s illustrations.

My review from this morning is over here.

You Never Heard of Sandy Koufax?!

Author: Jonah Winter

Illustrated by Andre Carrilho

When I was a kid, Sandy Koufax was greatest pitcher in the game. He threw harder, faster and better than anyone else playing at the time, or since, or before. It was still the good old days of sports, when we talked about great athletes instead of doping scandals. So I was excited to find You Never Heard of Sandy Koufax?!, a great children’s book about that great baseball player.

This book provides a glimpse into Sandy Koufax’s life during his brief athletic career. A natural athlete, Koufax started attracting attention for his pitching when �he was still a teen. His amazing pitching speed won him a birth with the Brooklyn Dodgers, later the Los Angeles Dodgers, after they moved.

Koufax was not an immediate success. His pitched erratically and he lacked the control to consistently pitch in the strike zone. It was some time before he displayed the greatness that he would later achieve. What happened? How did Koufax develop into one of the greatest pitchers who ever played the game of baseball? No one knows for sure, but one day, after walking four batters in a row to fill the bases, he transformed in an instant, and struck out all the remaining batters and from that minute on he became perhaps the greates pitcher of all time.

Koufax is also famous for his integrity and character. A Jew, he refused to play a game in the world series because it fell on a Jewish holy day. This honorable act showed he truly held the convictions of his faith, putting it before everything else. Nowadays, that level of commitment to one’s beliefs is so rare and almost strange to see. Personally, I find it extremely noteworthy and admirable and it reminds me of�Eric Henry Liddell, the amazing athlete from Scotland who ran for England in the 1924 Olympics, who also put his faith and convictions before personal ambitions (see the great movie Chariots of Fire for a glimpse of Eric Liddel).

This book is also noteworthy for some great illustration. It’s really a picture book as much as a biography. Some of the illustrations remind me of renaissance religious paintings. The illustrations frequently emphasize oversized stylized heads, but also offer some great perspectives and convey the strength, motion and grace of baseball. You Never Heard of Sandy Koufax?! is a must read for your young baseball fans. Adults will enjoy it as well. And if they are around my age or older, they can enjoy recalling the glory days of the sport when character still counted for more than winning, and athletes won without drugs.

Here’s another bio of Koufax. I haven’t read this one yet, but I recall that it was very well received. Sandy Koufax, by Jane Leavy is aimed at the Young Adult and older crowd.

“Before Anyone had heard of Black Beard, Long John Silver, or Calico Jack, there was a pirate named ROGER.”

So begins Roger, the Jolly Pirate, a children’s book written and illustrated by Brett Helquist. Roger was not your scariest pirate, not by a long shot. Instead of a parrot screeching “pieces of eight!”, a chicken perched on his shoulder. He was too happy, too. Never a cause for alarm, his shipmates disparagingly named him “Jolly Roger”.

But one day, as his shipmates battle for their lives, Roger is confined below decks. To win the crews approval he bakes a cake using anything and everything he could find. His plan works, though the way he had planned.

Helquist does a good job here. His story is as silly as his illustrations. This is a good book to read aloud to your young pirates or for your older crew in the early grades to read to themselve – but only if they like to laugh aloud.

Bubble Homes and Fish Farts by Fiona Bayrock
Illustrated by Carolyn Conahan
ISBN 9781570916694

On the strength of several reviews a couple months ago, I went out and got Bubble Homes and Fish Farts by Fiona Bayrock and Illustrated by Carolyn Conahan. I read it through quickly and found it quite good. I thought it would be over the head of my 6-year old, but I also thought that this book may help turn her into a junior naturalist. We learn a lot looking at the world around us and books like Bubble Homes and Fish Farts help us know what to look for and how to look. In particular, this book helps explain how animals use bubbles to survive and thrive in their environment.

My family spends a lot of time exploring a local lake in kayaks or sailboats and we enjoy looking for cool stuff. My 6-year old has an old root beer bottle with a cap that she uses to collect her lake specimens, usually weeds and other floating stuff. She’s already beginning to look closely at nature. As we read through the book last night I spent time talking about what we might find in the lake that’s making those bubbles we see from time to time. Now, we have even more things to look for now. I then reminded her of the spittlebugs inside the foamy bubbles on many of the plants in the neighborhood that we look at while walking the dog. All this was fun for her and made a connection in her mind.

Along the way in this book, I did learn about fish FaRTs, that is, Fast Repetitive Ticks. Herring, at night, swallow air and pass it out the other end, possibly using this to communicate amongst themselves in the dark ocean waters. There’s an experiment for you – how do you test the communication theory? I remember when I was young, and way up north in the frigid taconite country of Hibbing, Minnesota. In winter we’d all be outside shivering and talking excitedly but never hear a word that another was saying. Our words froze up in our breath and fell onto the snow covered playground with hushed clunks. We’d pick a few of our frozen conversations up and take them inside, where they’d thaw out and produce a random, nonsense conversation as our words escaped their frosty prisons. Maybe herring farts will be like that. We just need to pop the bubbles to hear what they’re saying. I can see a research grant proposal here! Stranger ones have been funded.

New cover image for the retitled book and series: Sluggers #1: Magic in the Outfield

Original cover and title for book: Barnstormers: Game 1

Magic in the Outfield (Sluggers) is the exciting and mysterious first book in the Sluggers: Three Kids, A Mystery, and a Magic Baseball series for kids. You may find this titled Game 1 (Barnstormers), which is the original name for the series. The authors, both baseball lovers, are series originator Loren Long, also very well known for his outstanding work� illustrating books, and Phil Bildner, author of Shoeless Joe & Black Betsy, as well as several other books on baseball that kids will love.

The story begins with Griffith, his sister Ruby, and young brother Graham, and a strange baseball with an odd hole nearly all the way through it. Unlike any other baseball they’d seen, it was something their dead father had carried with him during the war.� Now the ball was a reminder that they were still a family, a symbol of togetherness. They’re traveling with their mother, and eight men, a traveling baseball team, that earns its living by playing teams from the different cities they visit.

They stop first in Cincinnati, where bizarre things happen during the game, things they and their team can see, but no one else can. Is their father’s old baseball some connected to all these strange events?

I first heard about this book over at Boys Read Boys Rule! where Carl and the others have been raving about it. And now its my turn to rave. Magic in the Outfield (Sluggers) is nearly impossible to put down as the mystery mounts with every page. This book is exceptionally well written. The illustrations are amazing. The action is fast and the mystery runs high. You’ll love the characters, the team members, the mother, the children’s uncle, and especially Griffith, Ruby and Graham. You’ll want them all, too. I’m heading out this weekend for the next one in the series.

Both baseball buffs, Bildner and Long have reached back into history to describe the game as it was played in the late 1800′s. Their love of the game comes through in the great descriptions and drawings of the big game between The Travelin’ Nine and the local Cincinnati team and they incorporate the jargon that was current for the time, adding a nice sense of the times that helps you experience the game as it was played back then.

George’s Secret Key to the Universe

by Lucy Hawking and Stephen Hawking with Christophe Galfard

Illustrated by Garry Parsons

Novelist Lucy Hawking has teamed up with her famous father, astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, to write a terrific science fiction book for kids and middle grade readers. They get further assistance from Christophe Galfard and the book is illustrated by Garry Parsons. Their first effort is George’s Secret Key to the Universe. Within the framework of this novel the Hawkings have managed to create a very fun story that includes the latest fantastic facts about the universe and theories of its origin. Together they present an amazing amount of knowledge at a level that anyone can understand. Unlike much science fiction, which is really fantasy with a few smatterings of highly speculative and dubious science, with this book we have real science.

Next door to George’s home stands an old abandoned house, its yard and structure long neglected after the old man who had lived there disappeared. One night George pursues his pet pig, which had broken through a hole in the fence, into the overgrown yard. He sees lights are on and his pig has just dashed into the house through an open door. As he catches his pig, he is discovered by a girl, a bit younger, but close to his own age, who is not the least bothered by the pig.� She is Annie. George soon meets the girl’s father, Eric, also not bothered by the presence of the pig.

George discovers that his new neighbors have a secret. Not an evil secret, but a fantastic secret of great power. They possess the most powerful (more…)

Did Fleming Rescue Churchill?: A Research Puzzle by James Cross Giblin, and illustrated by Erik Brooks.

Reading level: Ages 9-12
Publisher: Henry Holt and Co. (BYR); 1st edition (April 1, 2008)
ISBN-13: 978-0805081831

Did Fleming Rescue Churchill?: A Research Puzzle illustrates the problems of historical research and the work that goes into establishing what is true and how to make facts into an interesting story. It’s also a cautionary tale of the pitfalls of internet research. While researching a well known scientist, fifth grader Jason finds three conflicting stories and must sort out the truth.

Jason had missed class so he could see the dentist because of a toothache. Too bad, because he missed getting his choice for a scientist to research and report on. The only one left was Alexander Fleming, and who was he? His teacher, Ms. O’Mara, insisted he was a great choice because he discovered penicillin, the antibiotic that has saved millions of lives.

When Jason agrees, he mentions to his teacher that he’ll start on the internet and go from there. Jason’s teacher warns him that the internet is a poor place to start, not everything is true. He accepts her advice, but he’s turned off by the biographies he finds, and settles for the encyclopedia. Here he learns the details of Fleming’s career and that he won the Nobel Prize for Medicine. Then, his teacher gives him useful pointers for organizing and writing his report, and most importantly, he learns how to make his report interesting for others.

Jason’s report grows more interesting to him, also, as he proceeds. Inspired to find the truth about a link between Fleming and Winston Churchill that he has learned about on the internet, Jason spends every free moment looking for some source that will settle the questions that have arisen during his research. How will he resolve the conflict stories about Fleming?

All in all, this book was fun to read. More importantly, it taught important lessons about research and writing at a middle school level. I really do think that this book is worth reading. It -Yeah, right Dad! – would even make a good jumping off point for keeping a kid or two busy for a while during the upcoming summer. Have him or her read the book, then assign someone who has won a Nobel Prize as a subject for a three page paper, using the lessons from this book as a guide.

Well, Senor Parrot, you’ve laid a big goose egg, I hear you say, Not over summer break!� But a trip to a water park would make a good reward, if you need help kicking up the enthusiasm.