Down Down Down

Down Down Down

Written and Illustrated by Steve Jenkins

           

            Bibliography:

Jenkins, Steve. Down Down Down. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 2009. ISBN:  978061896636

Summary and Critical Analysis:

In Steve Jenkins informational book Down Down Down, the reader is given a view of the ocean and its inhabitants from the surface to the deepest part of the ocean.  Jenkins starts with the surface of the ocean using a depth guide along the right side of each double page spread to explore the creatures, environment, and life at each level of oceanic depth.  The book is not meant to be a comprehensive look at all ocean life, but a selective look at some of the most interesting animals and ocean conditions with the goal of educating young readers about the extremely numerous life-forms that exist in the least explored area of the earth.

The illustrations are accurate without being photo-realistic as a way to introduce young readers to the general form and size of these creatures, and the conditions in which they live.  Written as a journey taken by the writer and the reader from the surface to the ocean floor, the book explores each level on the way down, each time with a depth guide in feet and meters to illustrate the level to which the journey has progressed.

From the top to the bottom the text explores the conditions that exist at each level, the animals that live there, what they eat and why they are suited to live at a specific level.  From the Surface to the Sunlit Zone to the Twilight Zone, the Dark Zone and the Abyssal Plain and interesting animals are introduced to young readers with Jenkins’ colorful illustration and descriptive and straightforward text.  The main portion of the book ends with an exploration of The Marianas Trench, the deepest part of the ocean and the start of the journey back to the surface.

The book would be educational, informative, and fun with only the first, illustrated part of the book.  However, Jenkins adds even detail and information with a more extensive look at the animals mentioned, and perspective drawings to show the size of the creatures compared to a human hand, a human body or other sea animals.  The text in this section is much more complete and informative than the text on the illustrated pages and includes feeding habits, prey, and the aspects of life in which these creatures live.  Each section takes a page from the front of the book, labels the animals with numbers and then gives an in depth description.

The book contains a short bibliography and a final chart showing how deep humans and vehicles can travel from the pearl diver who can dive 100 feet below the surface to the “Trieste” an exploratory vessel which was the first to reach the deepest part of the ocean.  Since there are no quotations or dialogue in the book, there is no list of sources nor is there an index.

The book is great way to introduce younger children to the amazing variety of life that lives in the sea and the unexplored nature of the most of the ocean.  Children will find the illustrations interesting and, at times, scary, and will be intrigued by creatures that they may never have know existed before.  Older children, who may think themselves too big for a picture book, will enjoy the more in depth information in the latter part of the book, and will be encouraged to explore the subject of ocean life more extensively.

Review Excerpts:

Goodreads:  Caldecott Honor–winning Steve Jenkins provides a top-to-bottom look at the ocean, from birds and waves to thermal vents and ooze.

Half the earth’s surface is covered by water more than a mile deep, but most of this watery world is a mystery to us. In fact, more people have stood on the surface of the moon than have visited the deepest spot in the ocean.
Come along as we travel

down,

down,

down,

from the surface to the bottom of the sea.
Along the way you can see jellyfish that flash like a neon sign, creatures with teeth so big, they can’t close their mouths, and even a squid as long as a bus, which battles to the death with a sperm whale, the largest predator on earth.
It’ll be a journey you won’t soon forget!

Amazon.com Editorial Review:  Caldecott honoree Steve Jenkins offers young readers a quietly stunning story about the world below the watery surface in Down, Down, Down: A Journey to the Bottom of the Sea. With his incredible paper collage illustrations of sea

creatures and informative text, Jenkins manages to plumbs the unfathomable depths of our oceans for the age 5-9 set in this perfect read-aloud and look closely book. Down, Down, Down captures the vastness, complexity and mysteriousness of the deep without over-simplifying the new research and astonishing discoveries. This oceanography lesson unfolds as a story in which the reader descends from the blue surface down nearly 36,000 feet (that’s seven miles down!) to the Marianas Trench, while meeting Flying Squids and Loosejaw Stoplight Fish along the way. This is an enchanting and informative choice for kids who loved the classic illustrations of Eric Carle, Lois Ehlert and Leo Lionni as pre-schoolers, but are ready to bump up to a nonfiction read. Children’s book collectors will surely want to get their hands on Down Down Down, too. --Lauren Nemroff

Cybils Award Nominee for Nonfiction Picture Books (2009)

An ALA Notable Children's Book for Middle Readers (2010)

 

Connections:

Have children draw their own pictures of the sea life shown in the book.

For a group project, have children work together to make an exhibit illustrating the levels of the ocean and the sea creatures that live in each section.

Have older children write a report on one chosen sea creature explaining its environment, its feeding habits, its prey, and its predators.

If located near an aquarium or university, have an expert in sea life visit the class to discuss the ocean and its impact on the rest of the planet, including the effects of Global Climate Change.

 

 

 

 

The Extraordinary Mark Twain

The Extraordinary Mark Twain

(According to Susy)

By Barbara Kerley; Illustrated by Edwin Fotheringham

 

 

          Bibliography:  Kerley, Barbara, and illustrated by Edwin Fotheringham. The Extraordinary Mark Twain (According to Susy). New York: Scholastic Press, 2010.  ISBN:  9780545125086

Summary and Critical Analysis:

“It troubles me that so few people know Papa, I mean really know him” wrote Susy Clemens about her father Samuel, better known by his pen name Mark Twain.  These words were written in a biography of her father that Susy Clemens wrote when she was 13 years old.  In Barbara Kerley’s “The Extraordinary Mark Twain (According to Susy), the author, along with the illustrator Edwin Fotheringham allow the reader to see inside the life of the Clemens family through the eyes of the young Susy.  The award winning author and illustrator combine their efforts to create a visually appealing, humorous, and personal look at the very public figure of Mark Twain.

Written in story form, the book, using text, images, and fold-out Journal entries with Susy’s writing tells the story of a young girl’s view of her very famous father and her frustration that so many knew the real man that she knew and loved.  Kerley is very effective at using Susy’s words along with Fotheringham’s illustrations to show what life was like for the young daughter and her family. 

Clearly organized in a chronological fashion, and using Susy’s own words to tell the story, Kerley allows the reader to see Mark Twain the father, husband, and friend.  Fotheringham’s illustrations are beautiful and perfectly tied to the text.  A great example of the way the illustrations help to tell the story occurs early on in a two page illustration of the Twain home with the façade stripped away so that we, the reader, can see directly into the house and see the subject of Susy’s writing in many different situations from bathing, pontificating, resting and conversing with the cat as a haughty looking couple passes by.  Along with Kerley’s descriptive prose, this page is one of the finest in the book and gives the reader an idea of what it must have been like to live with such an energetic, intelligent and creative man. 

Wanting to show a full picture of her father, Susy wrote not only about his abundant humorous side, but also of his serious and morose sides, with Kerley noting “But sometimes Pap had to suffer when, as he put it, some ‘mentally dead people brought their corpses with them for a long visit.”   Though indicative of an aversion to unwanted intrusion, is still, in its way, humorous.  Susy also wrote of her father’s love for Quarry Farm where her mother’s sister lived and where her father could have peace and quiet.

Throughout the outstanding illustrations runs a theme of the physical impact of words.  Curly lines emit from mouths, pens, pages, and other places indicting the importance of language and ideas and their impact on, and importance to, the Clemens family.

The story ends noting that “Susy’s observations were so ‘clear and nicely shaded’ that twenty years later when he published his autobiography, he included his favorite passages from Susy’s notebook.”

Kerley includes an “Author’s Note” after the main story, divided into sections titled “Papa” and “Susy” which tell us more about the father Samuel Clemens, the writer Mark Twain and the life and tragic death of Susy at age 24.  Also included is a page titled “Writing an Extraordinary Biography (According to Barbara Kerley) which lays out the way to write an excellent biography using Susy’s work and habits as its basis.   It includes tips including “Whenever possible, use primary sources – things written by people who actually know or knew your subject.  Think of primary sources as eyewitness accounts.

The final page of the book is a short selected time line of Mark Twin’s life and the inside back cover contains the Sources list which documents each line of dialogue and each quotation. 

Review Excerpts:

Booklist - Two texts run though this unusual book. The first is Kerley’s account of Samuel Clemens’ 13-year-old daughter, Susy, who decides to write her father’s biography in her journal. The second is a series of excerpts from that actual biography, neatly printed in script like font with Susy’s misspellings intact. These entries appear on smaller, folded pages, each marked “JOURNAL,” that are tipped into the gutters of this large-format picture book’s double-page spreads. Though a story about someone writing a book sounds a bit static—and it sometimes is—Kerley manages to bring Susy and her famous father to life using plenty of household anecdotes. With a restrained palette and a fine sense of line, Fotheringham’s stylized, digital illustrations are wonderfully freewheeling, sometimes comical, and as eccentric as Susy’s subject.

School Library Journal - Starred Review. Grade 3–6—Kerley and Fotheringham again craft a masterfully perceptive and largely visual biography, this time about the iconic 19th-century American writer. In pursuit of truth, Susy Clemens, age 13, vows to set the record straight about her beloved (and misunderstood) father and becomes his secret biographer. Kerley uses Susy's manuscript and snippets of wisdom and mirth from Twain's copious oeuvre as fodder for her story. The child's journal entries, reproduced in flowing handwritten, smaller folio inserts, add a dynamic and lovely pacing to the narrative, which includes little-known facts about Twain's work. The text flawlessly segues into Susy's carefully recorded, sometimes misspelled, details of his character, intimate life, and work routine during his most prolific years. Digitally enhanced illustrations, colored with a Victorian palette and including dynamic, inventive perspectives, tell volumes about the subject by way of Fotheringham's technique of drawing lines that represent Twain's impatience, mirth, smoking habit, love for family and cats, storytelling, pool-playing, and truth-pondering.

Awards:

Awards for Mark Twain:

2010 CYBILS Nonfiction Picture Book Award

Best Children’s Books 2010 -- Publishers Weekly

Best Books 2010 -- School Library Journal

Best Books for Children and Teens 2010 -- Kirkus Reviews

Best of 2010: Books for Young Readers -- Washington Post

A Junior Library Guild selection

100 Titles for Reading and Sharing -- New York Public Library

Eureka! Nonfiction Children’s Books Gold Award, California Reading Association

Winner of the Oregon Spirit Book Award for Nonfiction -- OCTE

Oregon Book Award Finalist

NCTE Orbis Pictus Recommended Book

Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People

Notable Children’s Book in the English Language Arts

CCBC Choices 2011

Best Children’s Books of the Year -- Bank Street College of Education

Texas Bluebonnet Award nominee

Utah Beehive Book Award nominee

Keystone to Reading Book Award nominee

Children’s Crown Award nominee

 

Connections:

Have students write their own biography of someone they know using firsthand accounts.

Read excerpts from some of Twains works such as Huckleberry Finn, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, and The Prince and the Pauper, discuss parallels between Twain’s life and his books.

Discuss the basics of excellent biographical writing skills such as using first hand sources, double checking facts, etc.

Discuss the life and early death of Susy Clemens and the effect of her death on Twain.

Discuss the significance of the illustrations and how they enhance and reinforce the writing.

Hitler Youth: Growing up in Hitler's Shadow

Hitler Youth

Growing Up In Hitler’s Shadow

By Susan Campbell Bartoletti

 

Bibliography: 

Campbell Bartoletti, Susan. Hitler Youth: Growing up in Hitler's Shadow. New York, New York: Scholastic Nonfiction, 2005.  ISBN:  0439862736

Summary and Critical Analysis:

Written for an audience of those 12 years and older, this book will be an excellent and chilling introduction to the ways that “Hitler Youth” or “Hitlerjugend” helped to lay the foundation for the horrors that were to follow in Nazi controlled Germany.  Hitlerjugend began as a patriotic group of idealistic young people who wanted to serve their nation and the new leader they saw as the salvation of a Germany still suffering the after effects of World War I and the Treaty of Versailles.  High unemployment, poverty, and a nation defeated and humiliated by their loss in World War I all led to the rise of both Hitler, and through him, to the foundation and rise of the Hitler Youth.

Told through oral histories, first-hand accounts, photographs, newspaper articles, and other archival material, and anchoring her story in the real life stories of both Hitler Youth members, dissidents and victims, Campbell Bartoletti tells the true story of the way that the youth of Germany impacted the Nazi movement, the toll that membership took on its members, and the dawning realization on both members and dissidents alike of the nature of the true horror of Hitler’s reign of terror.

“THIS IS NOT A BOOK ABOUT ADOLPH HITLER.  This book is about the children and teenagers who followed Hitler and the National Socialist (Nazi) Party during the years 1933 to 1945.”  These sentences, in the Foreword of the book, lay out the focus and purpose of the book and the author sticks to this focus in a very meticulous way.  This story is about the youth of Germany.  The years covered are the years of Hitler’s reign and the clear concise prose and carefully selected photographs present the reader with a complete yet very clear picture of the realities of German life, the reasons for the rise of Hitler Youth, and the stories of the individuals who were driven to join by patriotism or nationalism, those who were adverse to joining and those who were the eventual victims of the both the Third Reich and the Hitler Youth.

Perhaps the biggest contrasts in the effects of the Hitler Youth are the experiences of Sophie Scholl and her family and the experiences of Alfons Heck.  Scholl and her family, originally Hitler Youth members quickly became disenchanted with the rigors and strictly enforced conformity of the group.  Alfons Heck, other the other end of the spectrum, was a loyal and active member of the group from the time he was old enough to join and was in complete agreement with the goals and structure of both Hitler and his youth.

The choices that these two young people made led them to very different ends.  Sophie, who became an anti-Hitler dissident and was beheaded in 1943 for disseminating anti-Hitler information and Alfons who remained loyal to Hitler and the Hitler Youth until the very end of the war, was sent for De-Nazification where he learned, fully, the extent of the horror he had helped to bring upon millions of people.  The story of these two young people serve as an excellent example of the fact that the choices one makes as a child or youth can adversely affect the rest of the lives and the lives of others.

The book is extensively researched and meticulously documented.  Each line of dialogue and each quotation used are credited at the end of the book in a section named “Quote Sources.”  In addition, there is an extensive bibliography, organized by the name of the person covered in the book which documents each and every fact.  The comprehensive index is extremely useful for finding specific instances of names and events contained in the text and the black and white photographs in the book are credited and sourced in captions on the page alongside each photograph. 

Campbell Bartoletti has created a masterwork of non-fiction writing.  She tells her story in a very straightforward, non-judgmental way that will allow young to readers to understand, and even empathize with the beginnings of the Hitler youth, and then, in a very straightforward manner follows the organization through its evolution from patriotic youth group to a group dedicated to preparing for war and finally to a group that was all encompassing, unforgiving, and complicit in the horrors of the Third Reich.

There is sentiment here, but never sentimentality.  The author uses facts to tell this story understanding that the facts themselves will evoke the emotions experienced by the real human beings discussed in the text and in the reader.  This is as fine of an example of youth informational writing or non-fiction as I have ever encountered. 

Review Excerpts:

Kirkus Reviews editorial review:  Formed in 1926, the Hitler Youth involved seven million boys and girls by 1939 and was instrumental in Hitler's rise to power. Bartoletti makes it clear what appealed to youth: "Excitement, adventure, and new heroes to worship," hope, power, and the "opportunity to rebel against parents, teachers, clergy, and other authority figures." She covers Hitler Youth, the resistance movement among young people and the de-Nazification process after the war in this study of Hitler's horrifying 12 years and the courageous moral stance of those who resisted. Case studies of actual participants root the work in specifics, and clear prose, thorough documentation and an attractive format with well-chosen archival photographs make this nonfiction writing at its best. Essential for WWII collections as well as teaching units on conformity, peer pressure and resistance. Superb. 

goodreads:  This book explores the riveting and chilling story of Nazi Germany’s powerful Hitler Youth groups. By the time Hitler became Chancellor of Germany in 1933, 3.5 million children belonged to the Hitler Youth. It would become the largest youth group in history. Susan Campbell Bartoletti explores how Hitler gained the loyalty, trust, and passion of so many of Germany's young people. I liked this book so much because it was incredibly detailed, but not text heavy. I have always been interested in Nazi Germany in WWII, but have only ever explored the Jews in the concentration camps. This was interesting because it is about the children in Nazi Germany. I had no idea they were such a powerful group. This book would be great to use in my classroom, because when the students read it they will be better able to relate, because it is about kids just like them. This book gave me chills and I couldn't put it down when I was reading it. The black and white pictures add to the text and make it very real.

Newbery Honor Book – 2006

Orbis Pictus Award Honor Book – 2006

Parents Choice Award Winner – 2006

Carolyn W. Field Award, awarded annually by the Youth Services Division of the Pennsylvania Library Association Winner – 2006

Connections:

Discuss conformity, peer-pressure, and the natural desire to fit in as it relates to this book.

Have students do a further study of one of the people in the book such as Sophie Scholl.

Discuss whether a situation like the one explored could happen again.  Could it happen in the US?

Have students discuss The Treaty of Versailles and its consequences.