19/31 Non-fiction Picture Books Are Better and Better

   Great to be writing for the Slice of Life Challenge at the blog, Two Writing Teachers.   And today I'm also posting at Alyson Beecher's blog, Kid-Lit Frenzy for Non-Fiction Picture Book Wednesday.

        Here's a shout out for my colleagues who are slicing for the first time this year:

    Teaching From Behind - Max (bringing along his students)

     Under Construction - Susan

     Me & My Soliloquy - Suparna

                  I'm glad they're here with me, and proud for sticking to the challenge! It's not easy for anyone with so much going on at school!

           It's amazing what wonderful non-fiction picture books are available for us as teachers and for students today. I used to love reading the encyclopedia (yes, I did!) and loved even more when the topics had good pictures. I'm not old enough to have had this textbook on the left, but someone did! Here are two good books that tell different and interesting stories that kids will love. 

Peter Kent’s City Across Time – written and illustrated by Peter Kent 

                With help, even younger readers will have a wonderful learning experience with this book. With amazingly detailed illustrations, Peter Kent takes the reader on an archaeologist's dream trip, from digging down through town after town, then city after city. The work of an archaeologist is explained in detail, and highlights of the time since the Stone Age are shown, as cities change, grow, decline, disappear, and re-build. It's a fascinating book even for adults. It shows the changes of tools from stone, when metal was discovered and worked, when people began settling into groups and planting crops. I enjoyed the ending too which offered some future predictions. Kent has added an illustrated glossary, which will aid in understanding some terms further.

Miss Dorothy and Her Bookmobile – written by Gloria Houston and illustrated by Susan Condie Lamb

         These two wonderfully creative artists have also collaborated on My Great Aunt Arizona.

          This biography is of a Miss Dorothy grew up in a Massachusetts town, and always thought she would love to be the librarian in a library just like the one in the center of her hometown. She went to Radcliffe to acquire the degree, but ended up moving to rural North Carolina with her new husband. When her friends, avid readers, realized that the area was just too small to support a library, they donated enough money to purchase a bookmobile, and Dorothy began traveling and bringing books to the people, including schools, of three counties, and she did it all her life. She kept her additional books in the basement of her house, climbed up and down stairs carrying stacks and stacks of books that would please her customers. There are some poignant tributes at the end of the book that readers will love.

           I lived in a small town until junior high, and the bookmobile was the highlight of my life, every two weeks I waited for this wonderful woman who brought books by authors I loved because she knew me well, and also chose books she thought would please. She was wonderful, just as I imagine Miss Dorothy must have been.

photo credit: kencf0618 via photopin cc