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Category Archives: picture books for the older set
Can We Save the Tiger?
Can We Save the Tiger? by Martin Jenkins, illustrated by Vicky White.
This is a beautiful book. But a sad book too.
It introduces the reader to the concept of extinction. That some animals are in danger of going away and never coming back, that some animals already have. But also that there’s still hope.
“There are so many endangered species all over the world that it’s hard to pick out some special ones.
Still, I’m sure you’ll agree that tigers are
pretty special.”
I like how the text gets into the complexities of why tigers and other animals are disappearing. Though told with clarity, this is not a simple book. It introduces the concept of invasive species. Of connectivity. It gives page time to Partula snails too. And introduces the Kakapo birds of Australia.
“…if we stop trying, the chances are that pretty soon we’ll end up with a world where there are no tigers or elephants, or sawfishes or whooping cranes, or albatrosses or ground iguanas.
And I think that would be a shame, don’t you?”
I also appreciate the way the artwork plays with scale as well as going back and forth between line drawings and painted ones. It brings the animals up close, then far away, from a sketchbook to right in front of you.
A perfect book for any budding animal-lover/conservationist.
And check out WWF’s list of endangered species and learn more about each one.
shackleton’s journey
Shackleton’s Journey by William Grill.
Calling all adventurers, seafarers, boys and girls who love to draw! Climb aboard the Endurance. It won’t be an easy journey, but a rich one.
Cold, blue, but full of fortitude, comradery, and icy beauty.
Ernest Shackleton wanted to be the first to cross Antarctica. But did you know he also read poetry to his crews to lift their spirits?
This is an account of Shackleton’s Trans-Antarctic Journey in 1914, 100 years ago, filled with colored pencil illustrations that capture maps and details, white icy space, and fierce blue treacherous conditions equally well.
69 dogs and 28 crew members were aboard the ship. There was also a stowaway!
My favorites?
Crew member Frank Wild, second in command. (Because: Wild.)
Crew member John Vincent, boatswain and able seaman. (Because: title.)
Dog named Bummer. (Because: name.)
Winter arctic ice proved impossible to break. While the Endurance survived, things were pretty good. The men hunted penguins and remodeled their living quarters. They waited and waited but the next October, their vessel’s fate was grim. Now the crew were camped on ice without the shelter of a ship.
Trips in lifeboats, frostbite, blizzards, one perilous journey by six men to sail to Elephant Island to find help. A trip that in total took two grueling years.
A perfect picture book for any would be historian or adventurer.
Images via William Grill’s website.
I received a review copy of this book from Flying Eye Books; opinions are my own.
jane, the fox, & me
I want to give Jane, the Fox, and Me by Fanny Britt and Isabelle Arsenault to all the preteen and teen girls. Especially the bookish ones.
To break down the characters in the title:
We have Jane, as in Jane Eyre.
We have the fox, the animal the main character encounters at her school’s nature camp.
And we have Me, Helene, our protagonist.
The art! (Remember Isabelle Arsenault‘s illustrations from Virginia Wolf?)
The story!
The interweaving of the two! This book is original, sensitive, and a deeply relevant stunner.
Helene feels all alone, and bullied. Her world is black and white and cold. The other girls invent insults that make her heart hammer and open up holes in her rib cage.
But Helene has a “creeping vine of an imagination.” In the book she reads, Jane Eyre, in her mind when she thinks of it, there’s color. Sweeping, lush color so unlike her world.
The way Helene holds her head—down, ashamed—is heartbreaking. As are the little hints of how she sees herself in the mirror. How she relates to sweets and candy. How she feels when trying on a bathing suit for nature camp. But I love the way her tired, but loving mother is a bright spot. As well as the true to life specific details Britt includes in every spread.
Helene is in despair. But she’s able to compare herself to plain Jane Eyre and, I think, see hope.
Then, the fox.
“With the fox out front,
the outcasts’ tent is transformed
into a tent of miracles.”
Then, the friend. Geraldine.
“We spend an hour together looking for strawberries,
finding strawberries,
eating strawberries.
I tell the story of the fox.
I tell jokes.
I haven’t had a conversation this long in months.”
Then, the facts. That Helene is not as she’s feared: unlovable, disgusting, or a sausage. She’s a growing girl. The kind of girl a fox in the woods might approach. The kind of girl who can have a friend. The kind of girl who, like Jane Eyre, might be capable of giving and receiving love.
Please read this book and pass it along.
Thanks to Groundwood Books for the images!
And see my first installment in PICTURE BOOKS FOR THE OLDER SET HERE.
the wall by peter sis
There have been a couple of picture books lately I wasn’t sure what to do with in terms of This Picture Book Life. I’m enamored of them but they’re also not the usual little kid-friendly fare.
Not to worry, I’ve figured it out! I’m starting a series called “PICTURE BOOKS FOR THE OLDER SET.” And by older set I mean books that would appeal to junior high and high school students (and full-fledged grownups, as always).
First up, The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain by Peter Sis.
I can think of a number of middle schoolers I taught (when I taught) who would’ve loved this book. Precocious students. History-obsessed ones. Artists. Rebels. And I think outright teens would get a lot out of it too, a way to explore history through art and one person’s experience growing up in history. An incredible supplement to a textbook or novel on the period.
Formatted as a graphic diary, Peter Sis tells of communist Czechoslovakia, the Iron Curtain, and the Cold War. Simultaneously, he tells the story of himself as a child. As an artist.
If you were just to read the story words printed at the bottom of each page, a fairly small child could understand and follow along (though it is difficult, sometimes disturbing subject matter and images). But above those lines, in the drawings, in the captions, a deeper, more detailed chronicle emerges.
“As long as he could remember, he had loved to draw.
At first he drew shapes.
Then he drew people.
After drawing whatever he wanted to at home, he drew what he was told to at school.
He drew tanks.
He drew wars.
He didn’t question what he was being told.”
(Typing that gave me goosebumps.)
And the corresponding text:
“1948.
The Soviets take control of Czechoslovakia and close the borders.
The People’s Militia enforces the new order.
Communist symbols and monuments appear everywhere.
The Czech government takes its orders from Moscow.
The display of red flags on state holidays—COMPULSORY.
People who don’t comply are punished.”
(That did too.)
The only colors on these pages are white and black and red. Except for Sis’s drawings within the drawings. Dabs and jots of bright color. Then, one whole page filled with vividness, art, poetry, and The Beatles. Freedom. Self-expression. Color. Music. Joy.
Stay tuned for more older-set picture books. I’ve got two in the works already!
