Mama Built A Little Nest by Jennifer Ward

Mama Built A Little Nest by Jennifer Ward, illustrated by Steve Jenkins

Rating: 5 stars

If you've got a nature-loving kid somewhere near you, this book needs to be in his or her hands. We were all blown away by how many facts we learned from a book that appeared to be a simple rhyme with gorgeous illustrations.

Ward gives us a gift of a book jam-packed with great information about a bunch of different birds--from the more well-known emperor penguin and falcons to more unique birds such as the weaverbird (the yellow bird pictured on the cover), falcon, grebe, and shorebird.

This is a grow-with-me book, or a book for a household like ours--with one strong, curious reader; one emerging, interested reader; and one bird-loving, letter-finder. On each two-page spread is a succinct, one-stanza rhyme about the bird illustrated on the page. There are also several sentences about the bird written in a smaller, different font for readers like Lorelei to read on her own or for me to read to Ben (he can read most of the words in the actual poem himself).

Mama built a little nest / inside a sturdy trunk.
She used her beak to tap-tap-tap / the perfect place to bunk.

Each page not only shows the reader what the bird looks like, but what the nest is like. The diversity of each bird--from what it looks like to how it makes its nest--impressed me greatly and was fun to point out to my kids. The birds and their neat nests grabbed my kids' attention and set off their imaginations.

Here are some of my favorite facts about the birds and their nests in this book:

• A hummingbird makes the smallest cup-shaped nest out of spiderwebs so the nest will stretch as the chicks grow.
• The male cactus wren makes many dome-shaped nests to attract a female. If impressed, the female will choose one and then continue to add to its structure.
• Grebes create a floating nest on the water and anchor it to water plants.
• The swiftlet makes an edible nest (!!) using tube-shaped saliva, which hardens in the air. Swiftlet nests are used in bird's nest soup, a Chinese delicacy.

My kids love this type of bird feeder!

This is a wonderful, one-of-a-kind book that pairs nicely with the kind of bird feeder we have attached to our window...click HERE for link to purchase.

The Tree Lady by H. Joseph Hopkins

The Tree Lady: The True Story of How One Tree-Loving Woman Changed a City Forever by H. Joseph Hopkins, illustrated by Jill McElmurry

Rating: 5 stars

Katherine Olivia Sessions lived in Northern California in the 1860s.  In a time when girls were supposed to be prim and proper, clean and courteous, Kate roamed the redwoods, collected pine needles, and got dirty.

(Don't you like her already?)

She was one of few girls interested in science, and she left home to study plants and soil and water at the University of California.  In 1881, she and a handful of other women held a degree in science.

(Hooray for Kate!)

She moved to Southern California, to San Diego, for a job after graduation.  Unlike her childhood in the north, she was now surrounded by desert and a landscape without trees.  She was a teacher at a local school for a few years, but missed science.  She missed trees, too.  She became determined to find trees to grow in her new home. Few believed this was possible.

(Kate had determination and faith and smarts…enough to solve any problem.)

Her friends worried Kate wouldn't find trees to live in dry
soil with lots and lots of sunshine.
But she did.

It took years of tree hunting to find trees that would grow, but found trees, planted trees, and then opened a nursery to sell trees. All of the trees grew, enriched the landscape, and made city leaders believe that Balboa Park needed trees to become a better setting for a fair that would soon be held there. They turned to Kate, and Kate turned to the community for volunteers to help.  Together, they planted trees and created a lush backdrop for the fair.

I admit that I got this book and a few others like it at the start of Lorelei's nature science camp as further inspiration for her curiosity and interest in the camp.  I read a while back that around the age of seven, girls have a significant decline in their interest of science and math.  Something happens, and I'm not expert enough to understand the nuances of how girls act in school in these subjects in most schools, or what happens psychologically as girls develop and approach things that are Typically Boy and Typically Girl.

But.

I do know that I have a daughter who gasped at the cover of this book and said, "That could be me!" before even opening it.  She identified with Kate Sessions; both girls find solace and wonder among nature and trees.  Both are curious and capable, and care enough about things besides themselves to make a difference in others' lives.  So yes, I want this book lying around to quietly and beautifully remind Lorelei: Individuals matter.  And girls can do great things.

(I believe that Lorelei can.  And will!)

Tap the Magic Tree by Christie Matheson

Tap the Magic Tree by Christie Matheson

Rating: 4 stars

This week Lorelei and Ben are at camp.  A camp that requires a bus.  A bus that will need to be ridden every day, starting in the fall.  As a rising second grader, Lorelei has been riding this bus for two years.  She's a book-wielding, bus-riding pro.  Ben, as a rising kindergartener, is a newbie. A rookie. And Ben was nervous for his first bus ride on this first day of camp.  As he matures, the hump he needs to get over before he's comfortable and confident decreases in size, but…it's still there.

On Monday morning he came down in his pajama bottoms, a bare chest, and a very wobbly chin.

"I'm scared, Mommy," he confessed, his eyes full of tears.  I gave him a hug, told him it was normal to feel scared on the first day of anything.  I had opened the door to the deck, letting in the sounds of a spring morning fill the space in which I was sitting and writing.  "Can I go outside?" he asked.  I nodded.

We are lucky to live in the woods, surrounded by tall trees that house loudly chirping birds.  I don't know what Ben did out there with only pajama bottoms and without shoes, but he came back in ten minutes later with a smile on.

We must have some magic trees that sprinkled some of their calming magic down on my nervous Ben.  It makes me smile now, just a few days later, to remember how quick was the transformation, how trees really did help get him to a better mood. I'm grateful that somehow this book now houses this memory inside its pages.

Tap the Magic Tree is a beautiful book, about a subject we love: trees.  I snatched it right up when I saw it in the library, eager to find out more about it. Flipping through it, I saw it was most likely inspired by Press Here, the wildly successful and truly wonderful book that's been on the New York Times best seller list for--get this--144 weeks.  And that made me skeptical of Tap the Magic Tree.

But I needn't have been.  The morning after Ben's nervous bus debut (which was wildly successful!), my trio and I sat outside for breakfast, surrounded by acres of tall, tall trees, and read this book together.    I wasn't sure it would work--Press Here is a lap book for one, really, not a circle-time book for a crowd--but it did work, and really well!

Matheson instructs us to tap the bare brown tree, then tap it thrice, then tap it many times, and as I turned the pages, the bare brown tree has more and more leaves on it.  When the kids "rubbed the tree to make it warm," buds appeared.  Instructions helped us help the tree to mature the buds to blossoms and then apples, then watch the apples fall, the leaves turn autumnal colors, then fall, then make snow…  You get the idea.

It worked, and worked well.  Especially for the three younger book lovers at the table who didn't start out skeptical at all.  We watched together the magical transformation of a single tree through the seasons, including pajama-clad Ben whose own magical transformation happened just the morning before!

The Red Lemon by Bob Staake

The Red Lemon by Bob Staake

Rating: 4.5 stars

Farmer McPhee is a lemon farmer; he grows beautiful yellow, tangy, tasty lemons in an orchard that goes on for miles.  Staake's words are almost like a chant, and McPhee is clearly the cheerleader for his own lemons.    

Lemons for sherbert and lemons for pie!
Lemons for drinks on the Fourth of July!
Lemons for cookies and sweet birthday cakes!
Lemons for muffins and fresh fruity shakes!

Then...GASP!...a red lemon grows on a tree.  Farmer McPhee freaks out, plucks the offending fruit from his otherwise yellow lemon tree, and hurls it across the ocean to an island.  The book fades out (well, not really, but...you get the picture) and two hundred years pass.  Turns out, in the future, there are no yellow lemon trees on the isle where Farmer McPhee once farmed.  Instead, on the new island, are red lemon trees that are even tangier and sweeter and tastier.  Who knew?

"That lemon's not yellow. / My goodness it's red!"

I love it!  I love ANY book that allows me to say: "Why don't you try it?  Might be better than what you know."  My kids are good eaters, but there are always new tastes to be had.  Usually, I whip out a taste test--it's my main tool to get them to try new things.  Which do you like better: Red or green apples?  Pasta in marinara or pesto?  Kale chips or beet chips (yup, another crazy beet recipe)?  Or, like last week, red or yellow raspberries?  Try something new--you might like it.

Staake says this book is one of his favorites.  When asked what he wanted to teach through the book, he states:  "Don't be afraid of the unusual, embrace the uncommon, evolve or die.  It's Farmer McPhee's intolerance, fearful assumptions and lack of seeing the bigger picture that literally dooms his future...  After all, when life serves you red lemons, the smart thing to do is make red lemonade."

I'm pretty sure I'll wait a few years to tell my kids that they need to "evolve or die," but I like the rest of what Staake has to say about his book, and in his book.

Tell Me, Tree: All About Trees for Kids by Gail Gibbons

Tell Me, Tree: All About Trees for Kids by Gail Gibbons

Rating: 4 stars

If you've got a pint-sized fact-lover around you, you should know about Gail Gibbons.  She is a leading author of nonfiction children's books, which are like home-drawn DK books.  There is a ton of information between the covers, usually not too much story or plot for kids needing or wanting that, but totally fascinating for budding researchers.  Check out the impressive list of books she's written here.

I've got a fact-lover in Lorelei.  She LOVES to get to the bottom of things, to know random facts about little things like butterflies or zebras or flowers.  Since she started reading she's been on her own a bit in the fact-finding mission, sometimes reading things I don't realize she's reading either at home or at school.  I know that some of it comes from National Geographic publications, of which we have many, including magazines but also children's books.  But a lot of it comes from just being curious and aware and from having an astoundingly good memory!

So Gail Gibbons is becoming increasingly popular in our house.  She's not for the youngest--Ben doesn't want anything to do with this book, especially after I read a few pages of it.  No story?  Nothing to laugh at?  He's not ready for a book of facts.  That's okay.  There will be enough of Gibbons' books lying around for him when he's ready.

So about this book.

We love trees because we live among them--we are lucky to live on about five acres of land that is mostly wooded.  So this book was really cool with its diagrams and drawings and definitions.  It is a great book to check out to compliment stories on trees, or other less serious (but still important!) books to encourage your kids to think more about nature.  I actually just paused and read about five pages now, hours after the kids' bedtime.  These books are like mini-encyclopedias (remember those?) for kids, on all their favorite subjects.

Funny thing: We set out on today's hike with a mission to collect leaves and then compare them to the leaves in our own backyard.  Would they be the same, or different?  We collected nothing!  The kids were so happy just running along and finding remnants of old houses and moss and stuff that I couldn't force them into a teachable moment.  Or maybe this--enjoying nature on a gorgeous day with each other--was their teachable moment.

A Tree Is Nice by Janice May Udry, illustrated by Marc Simont

A Tree Is Nice by Janice May Udry, illustrated by Marc Simont

Rating: 3.5 stars

I rarely push a book in my kids.  I'm rarely in this position.  If they see a book, they are almost always curious about it.  I put it in the book basket between the big kids in the car, I put it up for display during a meal, I put it in their rooms during quiet time.  They'll grab it eventually.

Not this book.  I finally said, "I'm going to read this!"  I was glad that they didn't groan or roll their eyes, but...  Man, hard audience today!

The pictures are gorgeous, worthy of the Caldecott award that sits on the cover.  My kids' favorite picture is one of a huge, climb-able tree with nearly a dozen kids playing on its broad limbs.  The words alongside the pictures are fine, just a simple tale of the importance of trees.  They are delivered more staccato and less rolling than I prefer, but...I love these words:

Trees make the woods.  They make everything beautiful.
Even if you have just one tree, it is nice too.
A tree is nice because it has leaves.
The leaves whisper in the breeze all summer long.

Lorelei and Ben on our hike today, among
some beautiful trees.

We're lucky to live in the woods.  There's nothing better than to open the windows and listen to the breeze in the trees.  You can ask my kids--they know it's one of my favorite sounds on Earth.  I'll make them pause and be quiet (if only for 4.5 seconds!) so I can hear it well.

But speaking of pushing things on kids, I definitely try to push a sense of stewardship of the land.  Doesn't that sound so big and grand?  And I'm talking about preschoolers here!  I have never had a problem thinking big.  Years ago I would have plans to create some group to take charge of environmental lessons in classrooms across the county.  After my Peace Corps years, where I learned how to scale back and focus instead on a few important people, my thoughts are different.

I do what I can.  With my kids.  And, slowly, their friends.  And their friends' parents.  And you know what?  I think it's working.  I think it's slow-going, but all the good stuff is.  I think it's going to run deep.  I'm optimistic and curious about how the seeds I've been planting will grow.  Time will tell.

Was I talking about a book?  Right!  It's fine.  Good for the classroom, I think, but not exactly a bedtime page-turner.

When Sophie Gets Angry--Really, Really Angry by Molly Bang

When Sophie Gets Angry--Really, Really Angry by Molly Bang

Rating: 4.5 stars

I wasn't sure about a book where the cover shows a little girl who looks ready to yell at me.  But an old friend--we're talking horseback-riding-through-the-pineapple-fields old friend--suggested it to us.  So of course we had to check it out.

I was still worried during the first few pages (of course I didn't preview it, I just plunged right ahead during breakfast one morning) when Sophie grabs a gorilla from her sister and resists sharing the toy.  She "roars a red, red roar" (yikes!) and looks like a volcano about to erupt (double yikes!).  What does Sophie do when she's really, really angry?

She runs. 

She runs to the woods, to her favorite birch tree, which she climbs and sits on its sturdy branches, and lets the breeze lift her hair and her mood.  She stares at the sea and finds solace in nature.  She listens to the birds, chipmunks, owls, and squirrels and lets them calm her.  Then she goes home, where everything is back together again.

My reading of Last Child of the Woods by Rirchard Louv resulted in a relocation to a house on several acres with creeks and trees and deer and butterflies.  In case you've not heard of it or read it yourself, Richard Louv

cites multiple causes for why children spend less time outdoors and why they have less access to nature: our growing addiction to electronic media, the relinquishment of green spaces to development, parents’ exaggerated fears of natural and human predators, and the threat of lawsuits and vandalism that has prompted community officials to forbid access to their land. Drawing on personal experience and the perspectives of urban planners, educators, naturalists and psychologists, Louv links children’s alienation from nature to attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, stress, depression and anxiety disorders, not to mention childhood obesity.

I know that was a long quote, but I had to put a small plug in for this book. 

Anyway, When Sophie Gets Angry--Really, Really Angry is a good introduction to this concept that nature is important, that in nature one can find solace.  Just an hour ago, Lorelei and Ben and I sat on our front porch and had lunch.  It was one of the first meals at home during which we've not read a book, but we did listen to cicadas and helicopters and watch our neighbor get a delivery, then wondered out loud what new thing they purchased.  Then we pretended there were owls swooping through the trees.  My fingers are crossed that they always have the ability to, like Sophie, turn to nature for comfort.

This book also encourages conversation about what to do when the inevitable happens: when you get angry, what do you do?  My dad, an actual philosopher (among other things), always said that you might not be able to control the circumstances, but you can control your reaction to them.  Of course I'd like to pass that wisdom on to my kids!  But we're at the stage now where I'm simply trying to stop Ben from biting poor Lorelei when he's angry!  Baby steps, baby steps.  But at least I know what my goal is.

One less-positive note: I don't love the illustrations.  This is a Caldecott winner, so I guess that the committee, along with swarms of other grown ups and kids, including my old pal Heather and her kids, liked it.  Lorelei and Ben respond well to the strong, vibrant pictures, so...there's a reason for them.  And there are many reasons to read this book.  Enjoy!

We Planted a Tree by Diane Muldrow

We Planted a Tree by Diane Muldrow, illustrated by Mike Lynch

Rating: 3.5 stars

I'd love to flip through this book as I review it--that's what I normally do--but it's in Ben's room, and he's fast asleep.  Library books usually stay in our playroom, but this book has been in Ben's room for the past week.  We read him two books before naptime and bedtime; he gets to choose, and he has been choosing this one.  Twice.  Twice a day.  So...I think it's okay that the book is not next to me, because the images are pretty clear in my mind!

I really want to love this book.  If you took away the illustrations, I might give it a higher rating.  It's not that the illustrations are bad; I like them.  But they just don't seem to complement the text really well.  And the text is rolling, but...odd.  I don't know.  I love the cover, how two families--one western and one African--stare at the same tree.  And the book often brings us back to those two families, but it also bounces around all over the globe.  Shouldn't I like that the "we" is wholly inclusive?  Normally I'd like that, but I think that because the book ends with "We planted a tree and it grew up...and so did we" I think I'd like to see the same one or two families shown throughout the book.

I think I'm splitting hairs a bit, so I'll stop now.

Having gotten out the un-good parts of the book, let me tell you why I do like this book and why it's a really good one to remember come Earth Day or Arbor Day (also in April).  The book teaches kids the many wonderful things that trees provide for us: fruit, shade, and even more complicated things (in an uncomplicated way) like enriching the soil to improve a harvest.  It is a terrific educational tool for those of you formal educators out there and those of you like me, "just" parents.

I found on the cartoonist Mike Lynch's blog a cool sketch of one of the pages, actually my favorite page (but not Ben's--Ben likes the one of the baseball game that looks like it's being played in Atlanta).  It's a before, his first rendition of the illustration, and the after, as it appears in the book.  Pretty neat!  I find the processes of most things pretty fascinating.

Finally, here's a YouTube trailer about the book.  I think it's worth checking out (it's only 15 seconds long) if you're interested in the book.

Have You Seen Trees? by Joanne Oppenheim

Have You Seen Trees? by Joanne Oppenheim, illustrated by Jean and Mou-Sien Tseng

Rating: 5 beautiful stars

This is a must-read book for any teacher or parent.  I know that the picture on the left is unusually and perhaps obnoxiously large, but a) I couldn't find the right book on my Amazon.com link-thingy on Blogspot and b) the poem is beautiful but the pictures are even more beautiful.  So just breathe in the beautiful spring blossoms on that tree and enjoy...and be annoyed with me that I couldn't find more images for you to check out.  I might have to break out the camera to add some images myself.

The watercolors in this book are breathtaking, truly frame-worthy.  They even make chatterbox Lorelei quiet--especially the page with the weeping willow (her favorite tree since she read Dandelion), where the bright green weeping willow covers 80% of the two huge pages. 

And the text, save for the slightly un-enticing title, is great, too.  There are rhymes within the lines--I'm sure that my English teachers would be sad I didn't remember the word for this--that make this one of the best read-aloud books I've ever read.  Joanne Oppenheim describes different trees in different seasons, starting each season with a question: "Have you seen Winter trees?" or "Have you seen Spring trees?"  She thus provides the opportunity for chatting on about which season we're in now, and what sorts of things we see in our trees.  On the winter page, Lorelei always makes me tell her about the snowstorm she probably doesn't remember but did, in fact, live through--when our very own trees somehow balanced a foot of snow on their branches; some were successful, others not.

And the best part is, both Lorelei and Ben love it.  Whenever I read the title to them, they look out of our big windows and Lorelei says, "Yes!" and Ben points and says, "EH!"  (That's Ben-speak for "yes!")  Ben especially chooses it again and again and again.  He'd probably sleep with it if I let him, but we try and keep library books downstairs, especially one this fragile.

I think the best part of this book is that it's nonfiction and doesn't "just" tell a story.  It teaches kids about the importance of trees, and to appreciate the variations among the trees and between the seasons.  We've read a few books about trees lately, and they all helped Lorelei answer well my question today: "What do trees give us?"  She said that they gave us fruit like apples and mangoes and shade from the sun and wood for clubhouses and a home for birds.  I was really proud of her.  And I realized that all these books that I sometimes feel like I'm shoving in her face actually impact her in more ways that I realize.  She's listening, and I'm so thankful that I have a book like this to share with her during these sponge-like early years.

This is a great, great book.  It seems like it's available through multiple sellers, but also through your local library.  I found it through Childsake, an organization dedicated to nature and the environment.  They have a hefty list of children's environmental books.  Check it out, especially if you have older kids.  It's a great resource.

Our Tree Named Steve by Alan Zweibel

Our Tree Named Steve by Alan Zweibel, illustrated by David Catrow

Rating: 4 stars

The bean bag chairs at the library were available this week, so we were hanging out at the end of the alphabet and came across this book.  I recognized the illustrator as David Catrow, who also illustrated the fun I Ain't Gonna Paint No More (review here) and Stand Tall Molly Lou Melon (review coming one day). 

This is a nice little book about a family who moves in and plans to cut down all the trees to build their new house, but all of them fall in love with one tree, which the littlest kid (who can't say tree) names "Steve."  Steve quickly becomes part of their family--he helps them jump rope, holds the underwear proudly when the dryer breaks down, is the background for family pictures, and is the center of all outdoor activity. 

Then, sadly, a storm puts an end to Steve.

But the family uses the wood from Steve to build a treehouse in a different tree in the yard, so Steve lives on, and keeps on giving.

This is a cute little book, and one that I really appreciate because our house is surrounded by huge trees.  I also am a huge letter writer, and this book is the first children's book that I've come across that is written as a letter.  The parents are writing their three children about Steve, and reminiscing about how Steve came into their lives, before telling them of his tragic ending.  The kids are staying at their grandparents' house, and their parents want to forewarn them before they arrive home to Steve the Stump.

This is a cute little book, one worth checking out and reading a few times, maybe before planting a Steve of your own!