In honor of our National Parks
Rosenstock, Barb. The Camping Trip that Changed America: Theodore Roosevelt, John Muir, and Our National Parks. Illustrated by Mordicai Gerstein. New York: Dial Books for Young Readers, 2012.
John Muir was well ahead of his time. It was 1903. Muir, an avid hiker and outdoorsman, already recognized the threat that growing land development was to the extraordinary landscapes he explored in the American west. He also recognized that President Theodore Roosevelt was something of an outdoors man as well, so he invited the President to join him on a camping trip to one of his favorite places. Just as Muir had hoped, Roosevelt was overwhelmed by the beauty and majesty of the towering sequoias, majestic mountains, and massive glaciers he observed. Traveling on horseback and camping in the wilderness, the two men bonded over their love of the natural world and their recognition of the need to preserve the most spectacular parts of the nation's geographic heritage. Roosevelt's creation of the National Park system was the result.
Illustrator Gerstein, who also illustrated The Man Who Walked Between the Towers, portrays the two very different characters - the rambunctious Roosevelt and the studious and steadfast Muir - amid the cathedral-like splendor of the land that would become Yosemite National Park.
In Remembrance of Courage and Hope
Gerstein, Mordicai. The Man Who Walked Between the Towers. New York: Roaring Brook Press, 2003.
On the morning of August 7, 1974, before the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City actually opened, New Yorkers walking on the streets below the towers witnessed an amazing sight. With his balancing pole in hand, French high-wire artist Philippe Petit stepped on to a tightrope that he and a few friends had stretched between the towers the night before. A quarter mile above the busy streets of a New York morning, Philippe walked, danced, and even lay down on the wire, as a gathering crowd of astonished New Yorkers looked up. After almost an hour, he stepped off the wire into the waiting hands of the New York City police who arrested him and brought him into court. The judge, after scolding him for endangering himself and others, ordered him to perform his feats for children in the city parks. He was happy to comply.
Gerstein's Caldecott Medal-winning illustrations convey the courage as well as the playfulness and sheer beauty of this amazing act of human artistry and skill. They, too, are part of the legacy of those once imposing towers.
A poetic description of a life in two languages.
Engle, Margarita. Enchanted Air: Two Cultures, Two Wings: A Memoir. New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2015.
Margarita Engle is the daughter of a Cuban mother and an American father. Born before the Cuban revolution, she grew up mostly in California, but spent her summers with her grandparents in Cuba. There, she learned to love the land, the language, and its people. In free verse that is both detailed and evocative, she speaks of the "otherness" she recognizes in each place. She calls the first half of her book "Magical Travels." Then the Cuban revolution changes everything. She can no longer travel to Cuba; even letters back and forth between the families become difficult. Her Cuban-American family is caught in a web of suspicion, especially after the Cuban Missile Crisis.
For young readers, it is both a history lesson and an evocation of a life bifurcated by immigration, lost contact with family, and dual languages. It is also an example of the power of language to enable readers to feel as well as understand the experiences of others, and a timely reminder of how world events intrude upon the everyday lives of ordinary people.
Engle notes at the end of the book that as she was writing it, she was hoping for normalization of relations between the two countries. "That prayer has been answered," she writes. Well, maybe.
Sis, Peter. Starry Messenger: Galileo Galilei. New York: Farrar, Straus Giroux, 1996.
Sis's many children's books range from the whimsical to the profound. The Starry Messenger is the story of a young boy fascinated by the world around him, spending hours watching the sun, the moon, and the stars. It is also the story of a man who stands up to the authorities who are threatened by his findings, even at the cost of his freedom. Though many people believed his revelation that the earth travels around the sun and not the other way around, others were threatened by this new idea, especially the leaders of the Catholic Church, a powerful force in 16th century Italy. But Galileo remained faithful to the truth as he saw it, and spent the last years of his life under house arrest for his "heretical" beliefs.
Sis brings his own vivid imagination and delight in the natural world to the illustrations in this book, which at first glance appear almost childlike, even as they convey a profound sense of wonder and a wealth of information.
I had the pleasure of meeting him at an ALA conference years ago, and he signed my copy of his book in his own inimitable way.
It's Still Baseball Season
Curlee, Lynn. Ballpark: The Story of America's Baseball Fields. New York: Atheneum, 2005.
As Curlee's exquisite drawings illustrate many of the baseball parks that live in the legends of the game, he also discusses how changes in the location and design of these parks reflect changes in the social structure of the country. Early parks such as Ebbets Field in Brooklyn and Wrigley Field on the north side of Chicago were wedged into city neighborhoods and became part of that neighborhood's identity. They were accessible by subway, bus, and foot. As populations moved out of the cities and into the suburbs, so did ballparks like the Astrodome in Houston, surrounded by vast parking lots and accessible only by car. Then in the 1990s came a new trend, a reversal back to the city and back to the style of the older parks,with the addition of modern facilities. Baltimore's Camden Yards is a prime example. Viewing the game through the physical structures in which it is played offers a different perspective on the ways in which baseball both reflects and influences our cultural experience.
Living History
Freedman, Russell. In Defense of Liberty: the Story of America's Bill of Rights. New York: Holiday House, 2003.
Freedman opens his discussion of the Bill of Rights by listing a few questions that spark heated debates in 21st century America. Can school children be required to recite the Pledge of Allegiance? Can a rap group be prosecuted for using "obscene" lyrics. He then goes back in time to discuss the reasons that the framers of the Constitution believed they needed to add amendments that specifically stated the rights of citizens. In each succeeding chapter, he examines one of the amendments, discussing the various interpretations of that amendment over time, and describing a few of the cases that have been brought before the courts and decided on the basis of that amendment. His clear and compelling discussions remind us that these ten amendments to our Constitution, written more than 200 years ago, remain vital to our democracy today. This book offers the best civics lesson I've ever had.
A Tale of Two Cultures
Fitzpatrick, Marie-Louise. The Long March: The Choctaw's Gift to Irish Famine Relief. Illustrated by the author. Choctaw editing and foreword by Gary WhiteDeer. Hillsboro, Oregon: Beyond Words Publishing, Inc., 1998.
This book tells two intertwining stories. Tom, an elder member of the Choctaw nation, recalls a time in 1847, when he was a 14-year old youth and all the members of his tribe were called together to hear the latest news of their people. Among the stories told at that gathering was the story of a great famine in a far-away land called Ireland. The young Tom, who was called Choona in his youth, was perplexed. What did a famine in an unknown land have to do with the Choctaw nation?
Then his great-grandmother rose within the meeting to retell the story of "The Long March," when the Choctaw peoples were forcibly removed from their homelands in the southeastern United States and made to march to "Indian Territory," now part of the state of Oklahoma. For many, it was a death march. Choona had been only vaguely aware of that story from his tribe's distant and misty past. His great-grandmother thought it necessary for each generation to know that story and to see its connection to the stories of other displaced persons. As she saw it, "their story is our story."
The Choctaw nation collected $170, more than $6,000 in today's currency, and sent it to an Irish famine relief agency.
Marie-Louise Fitzgerald, the writer and illustrator of this book, traveled from her native Ireland to Oklahoma to work with Gary WhiteDeer, a Choctaw, to research the story for this book. According to information on the book's jacket, the project was supported by CAIT, Celts and American Indians Together, a bi-national organization that raises money for World Famine Relief. CAIT is headquartered at Iona College in New Rochelle New York.
Note: I tried to research CAIT on the Internet, but was unable to find any current information.
http://www.worldcat.org/title/long-march-the-choctaws-gift-to-irish-famine-relief/oclc/812206335&referer=brief_results
