April 2010: Environmental and Nature Books (Master List and General Discussion)

[Manybooks, Fiction Club host]

Leslie wrote: "When we pick a theme for the month It is so broad, I wonder if we should narror our think a bit. So for the nature theme, I wonder if we should focus on learning about how things grow, or how we c..."

Personally, I would rather have the broader themes, as that allows us to explore different types of picture books, even within a given theme. I am really enjoying the selection for the Black History Month precisely because the theme is so broad and we are able to explore different types of picture books.

[Lisa]

I like the broad themes too, mostly because there are so many possible themes, and if we narrowed it down further as to what qualifies, the number of possible themes to choose from would be even harder. A general theme gives us so many books from which to choose. I wouldn't mind an occasional narrower theme month either; it depends on the theme, I guess.

[Cheryl, Host of Miscellaneous and Newbery Clubs]

I assumed our goal was to explore all the ideas presented by the theme. We're not in a teacher-training class, after all. However, I do see your point Leslie that sometimes it would be fun to see how many books we could find that addressed a more narrow topic and compare just them. For example 'how things grow' probably would present a half-doz. titles itself.

The other thing though, of course, is that the books that are available to each of us vary, and to encourage discussion our host tries to find widely available books, which needs must broaden the theme.

[Kathryn, The Princess of Picture-Books]

Thanks, Leslie, for your comments--and to Gundula, Lisa and Cheryl for the responses. As Cheryl noted, the broader themes allow us for more opportunity to get books that most of us can locate whereas narrower themes ofetn mean fewer books to choose from and less likely that we could all get them (depending upon the theme of course). Also, it allows us to explore the breadth of the theme (if not the depth) such as with Black History Month we didn't focus only on slavery or only on the Civil Rights Movement but incorporated various timelines and even a book about a contemporary African-American family enjoying a cozy, happy life.

However, if there is a more specific theme (such as "How Things Grow") that you are excited about feel welcome to nominate it on the THEME NOMINATIONS thread and I will be glad to add it to a future poll. Everyone's ideas are welcome for the themes and then I put it to the group to see what wins in the votes. Maybe others would like a narrower theme one month, too. Thanks!

[Manybooks, Fiction Club host]

Here is another suggestion, The Man Who Made Parks: The Story of Parkbuilder Frederick Law Olmstead, about Frederick Law Olmstead, who is popularly considered America's first landscape designer; he designed Central Park as well as many other urban parks (most cities were devoid of greenery, but Olmstead changed that and also changed people's attitudes, imagine living in a city with no green spaces, with no trees and/or parks).

[Kathryn, The Princess of Picture-Books]

Gundula wrote: "Here is another suggestion, The Man Who Made Parks: The Story of Parkbuilder Frederick Law Olmstead, about Frederick Law Olmstead, who is popularly considered America's first landsca..."

Sounds very cool!

[Cheryl, Host of Miscellaneous and Newbery Clubs]

For the founding of the Audubon Society, I can highly recommend She's Wearing a Dead Bird on Her Head!. Clear text, funny pictures of people and lovely pictures of real birds make it accessible even for preschoolers, and important for everyone. Harriet Hemmenway and her cousin Minna Hall were Outstanding Women and I'm going to list the book in that month's Master List thread, too.

[Manybooks, Fiction Club host]

I love everything about If You Go Down to the Woods Today (both textually and illustratively), with the Nature Walk suggestions and online resources (nature and poetry) being the icing on the cake (five stars from me, even though my inner child likes the rhyming poetry more than I do as an adult, since my adult reading self actually does prefer free form non rhyming poetry).

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Manybooks, Fiction Club host]

The Ocean is a very huge and global ecosystem and the 2022 picture book The Global Ocean provides a wonderful and factual description of not only the global ocean but also the many environmental issues (like climate change etc.) troubling it, what is being done to mitigate the damage and suggestions for what children can do themselves to help.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Manybooks, Fiction Club host]

I forgot to add a big shout out of YAY to Rochelle Strauss' Tree of Life: The Incredible Biodiversity of Life on Earth, which I think is pretty much a perfect STEM picture book for older children (but also for adults and young adults, for anyone over the age of eight or so). And even with my three star rating,
Tree of Life: The Incredible Biodiversity of Life on Earth is highly recommended, as there are no actual errors and just some personal preferences.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Manybooks, Fiction Club host]

One Well: The Story of Water on Earth does a pretty good job showing what water means for the earth and how water is necessary for every part of life on earth (and also shows that water conservation is important) and with both Rochelle Strauss' text and Rosemary Woods' artwork working very well together. But I do find the absence of bibliographic information annoying and I also think that what Strauss writes about evolution is confusing and she stating that the earth is the only planet with liquid water should be qualified with "known to date" as most scientists in fact believe that there are many planets (or moons) with liquid water in the universe but that we just have not found them yet.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Manybooks, Fiction Club host]

Humongous Fungus is excellent, shows what fungi are and how they are essential for healthy ecosystems (but also showing of course that fungi both help and harm and that some mushrooms can be lethally toxic to and for humans). Excellent information, wonderful artwork but like generally the case with DK publishing a not too user friendly acknowledgement page that I also do not really think works as a bibliography (four stars though even with that and highly recommended)

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Manybooks, Fiction Club host]

The Mushroom Hunt has really gorgeous illustrations celebrating both mushrooms and the environment (and giving some good information as well and also showing a family that has fun together). But I do not agree with Simon Frazer showing gathering and collecting mushrooms in such a positive light (and that frankly, children should not be encouraged to go mushroom collecting, too many poisonous mushrooms out there and also in my opinion not all that environmentally responsible).

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Manybooks, Fiction Club host]

Five stars (and about a professor I have actually met and who is personable, approachable and with no academic snobbery), I highly recommend Girl Who Loved Giraffes: And Became the World's First Giraffologist both as picture book biography of an outstanding woman and also as a STEM picture book about giraffes.

(view spoiler)[With the 2021 picture book biography The Girl Who Loved Giraffes: And Became the World's First Giraffologist Kathy Stinson (text) and François Thisdale (illustrations) chronicle the life and also the ambition of Canadian professor Dr. Anne Innis Dagg to obtain a PhD in zoology, and in particular, to study the giraffes that had captured her imagination as a child at the zoo. And yes, Anne Innis, born in Toronto, Ontario, Canada in 1933 to a father who was a University of Toronto professor and a mother who was a published author (and who became Anne Innis Dag when she married University of Waterloo physics professor and academic colleague Ian Ralph Dag in 1957), she of course entered her adult years and academia in the 1950s and therefore at a time when she had to very much and daringly defy ridiculous and painfully misogynist societal and cultural conventions and pressures that did not (or at best only extremely grudgingly) accept women as university trained scientists, expecting and often even requiring them to instead become mostly homemakers, mostly stay at home mothers and housewives (and naturally, there was even less support and acceptance for women, for someone like Anne Innis, to travel solo to Africa to study giraffes in the wild and also sadly but not surprisingly for women to obtain PhDs and to then become actual and tenured professors, oh my gosh, the horror, the horror of this all, sigh).

So indeed, Kathy Stinson's presented narrative for The Girl Who Loved Giraffes: And Became the World's First Giraffologist (and which has according to Stinson's acknowledgment section also been read and verified by Professor Innis Dag herself) both wonderfully (simply but extensively, enlighteningly penned and as such perfect for younger readers, for the so-called picture book crowd of five to eight or nine year olds) and also often with a necessarily strong but equally never overly strident or nasty feeling sense of feminism (as well as some totally justifiable textual outrage) describes how Anne Innis is able to overcame the mostly societal and gender bias based obstacles being cast at her to obtain her biology degrees (including her PhD), to make her solo way to Africa to conduct first-hand observations of giraffes, to in fact become the first scientist, the first biologist to study these animals in the wild and indeed also the world's leading expert on giraffes (and with The Girl Who Loved Giraffes: And Became the World's First Giraffologist also presenting a plethora of scientific, of solid biological information on giraffes, as well as Kathy Stinson pointing out that giraffes are currently endangered in Africa and in need of increased and seriously all-encompassing conservation and protection) and for Anne Innis Dag to later have to fight very very hard to become a full time, a tenured professor at various Canadian universities and to have her accomplishments be officially recognised by academia (and that I sure am glad Kathy Stinson does not shy away from showing in The Girl Who Loved Giraffes: And Became the World's First Giraffologist the gender bias Anne Innis Dag has had to experience and deal with throughout her life and her academic career). But yes, I (both academically and even more so emotionally) also do think that Stinson should in The Girl Who Loved Giraffes: And Became the World's First Giraffologist be specifically naming the main two Southern Ontario universities that due to their general misogyny openly and nastily questioned Anne's academic qualifications (University of Guelph) and later refused to hire Anne Innis Dag as a full time tenure track professor because she was married (University of Waterloo), that while Stinson not identifying these universities by name might of course be in order to avoid possible litigation and legal issues, sorry, but I still do and very strongly so believe that both the University of Guelph and the University of Waterloo should be specifically mentioned by Stinson in The Girl Who Loved Giraffes: And Became the World's First Giraffologist. For really, since in the and personally highly recommended Wikipedia entry on Anne Innis Dag, specific names etc. are provided, so should this in my not so humble opinion also be the case in and for The Girl Who Loved Giraffes: And Became the World's First Giraffologist, and that furthermore, while I do appreciate Kathy Stinson listing in The Girl Who Loved Giraffes: And Became the World's First Giraffologist four books about giraffes that have been penned by Anne Innis Dag and also some documentaries about her, as an academic who has experienced a bit of gender bias at the college/university level, I also believe that Stinson should not only be listing books on giraffes written by Innis Dag but also and specifically some of her articles and essays on gender bias in academia.

Now with regard to François Thisdale's accompanying illustrations for The Girl Who Loved Giraffes: And Became the World's First Giraffologist, while I find that Thisdale's pictures do a pretty much wonderful aesthetic job realistically and with lush colouring successfully not only mirroring and complementing Kathy Stinson's printed words but also visually expanding on them, personally speaking, I would kind of want a combination of both artwork and photographs, and that I thus do think that the two photographs of Anne Innis Dag in the Author's Note for The Girl Who Loved Giraffes: And Became the World's First Giraffologist are not really sufficient (well at least for me). But yes, even with me wanting some photographs alongside of François Thisdale's artwork and that I am a little bit peeved that Kathy Stinson has kept the Ontario universities who most obviously and vocally discriminated against Anne Innis Dag due to obvious gender bias anonymous, The Girl Who Loved Giraffes: And Became the World's First Giraffologist is still a most highly recommended and for me also five star picture book biography of a wonderful and inspiring Canadian academic pioneer and heroine (and one whom I have actually personally met and have found delightfully approachable and with no hint at all of academic snobbery either). (hide spoiler)]

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Manybooks, Fiction Club host]

Biomimicry: Inventions Inspired by Nature

Not a bad picture book introduction to biomimicry, but lacking intensity and it is annoying that there are no lists for further study and reading provided (and the lacking intensity actually would make those lists kind of essential in my opinion). Decent illustrations, but I also wanted photographs and on the whole, I do find Biomimicry: Inventions Inspired by Nature a bit disappointing.

(view spoiler)[Yes, Vancouver based author Dora Lee textually packs her 2011 picture book Biomimicry: Inventions Inspired by Nature with extensive examples of how human inventions often follow the innovations of nature, using the latter to provide solutions for problems, to make life easier, more productive, safer etc. (such as Swiss inventor George de Mestral basing his velcro invention on cockleburs, engineers in Zimbabwe using termite mounds as a blueprint to create cost efficient air conditioning, robotic experts using rats' whiskers for navigational designs, wild prairie grasses acting as a model for more effective and less environmentally destructive farming and indeed so on and so on, as these examples are only a few of many being presented by Lee in Biomimicry: Inventions Inspired by Nature).

Now Biomimicry: Inventions Inspired by Nature is divided into seventeen separate categories (as well as an introduction, glossary and index) and these sections feature several short entries that have Dora Lee engagingly, educationally and also thankfully without scientific jargon discussing different ways nature has inspired science and technology and with each of these being no more than a paragraph in length. But unfortunately, for both my inner child and also for my older adult reading self, the very short and not in any way even remotely sufficiently intensive bits and pieces of information Lee provides in Biomimicry: Inventions Inspired by Nature, they leave a rather annoying feeling of frustrating textual incompleteness, of wanting more, of needing more but more not really ever getting enough facts, figures and analysis. And while of course, one might then claim that Biomimicry: Inventions Inspired by Nature could serve as a decent starting off point for further study and research, well, considering that there are no bibliographical materials AT ALL included and provided by Dora Lee in Biomimicry: Inventions Inspired by Nature, this rather major academic/intellectual shortcoming alongside of the rather too on the surface, too extensive without enough intensity main textual body of Biomimicry: Inventions Inspired by Nature, it certainly has both bothered me and also negatively affected potential reading pleasure (and yes, with no lists of books and/or websites for further study being given, this certainly does make supplemental research on the topics etc. provided and introduced in Biomimicry: Inventions Inspired by Nature much more difficult and much more time consuming and potentially frustrating).

And thus, only a three star rating for what Dora Lee is textually providing with Biomimicry: Inventions Inspired by Nature (and as such equally only recommended with some necessary caveats and reservations on my part), and in fact lowered to two stars. For indeed, while I do think that Toronto illustrator Margot Thompson's accompanying artwork for Biomimicry: Inventions Inspired by Nature is aesthetically pleasant, is visually appealing enough and as such does a pretty nice job successfully mirroring Lee's printed words, for me personally (and indeed very strongly), I really do both want and actually even need not just drawn pictures but also photographs, and that no photographs at all being present in Biomimicry: Inventions Inspired by Nature, this just does not work at all well for me and leaves me pretty hugely peeved. (hide spoiler)]

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Kathryn, The Princess of Picture-Books]

Wild Places: The Life of Naturalist David Attenborough So excited this book came out in time for Attenborough's 98th birthday this year--I've been a fan of his work for ages. My shortened review of the book: This book is beautiful. The illustrations are so well done. They really help show not only key moments in David's life but the changes that have happened to our world, the wild places, the technology, etc., over the last nearly 100 years. That one individual has been such a witness to these changes, as well as a spokesperson for the wild creatures and places that don't have a voice, is remarkable.
It was not the biography I anticipated when I checked it out, but maybe that's okay. I wanted more about Attenborough personal life, details about his career... there's enough that we get a sense of his personality and accomplishments but the story proper quickly transitions to his visions for conservation and the bulk of his "biography" is in the Author's Note (which is a very enjoyable author's note and pairs with a selected blbliography, which I was happy to see). Frankly, I am not sure this is a criticism of the book and I think it is probably what Attenborough would want -- his message rather than himself to be front and center. There's an urgency and an optimism to the story that fits well with what I understand his mission to be--that we must change our ways, but that we still have the opportunity to do so.

[Kathryn, The Princess of Picture-Books]

Cactus Queen: Minerva Hoyt Establishes Joshua Tree National Park Interesting and engaging biography of Minerva Hoyt, who loved the desert and eventually convinced President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the National Park Service that the Mohave was worth saving. I love the emphasis on finding beauty in unexpected places, strength were you might least expect it. Minerva escaped from the bustling cities in Southern California by driving out to the Mojave Desert and she spent more time there after her husband passed away when she was in her early 50s.
Minerva wanted to make people see the special beauty of the desert, so often passed over for the more popular beauty of mountains, lakes and oceans -- she realized that if she wanted people to defend the desert, they wold have to care about it. So, she set out across the country with desert panoramas and gave speeches about the desert for people back East.
Minerva finally got an audience with President Franklin D. Roosevelt. She said, "We must see to it that parks are created in which the unique desert atmosphere and its matchless growth and its silence and mystery are preserved for the education and delight of the people." FDR was convinced and sent a member of his team to perform a land inspection to decide if the Mojave was worthy of national park status. The man sent, the superintendent of Yellowstone National Park, was not moved by the desert that greeted him--he didn't think it was worthy of national park status.
But Minerva didn't give up. She wrote many, many letters and persuaded others to do the same. Scientists, teachers, politicians, and friends, she urged them to write the National Park Service and convince them that the desert deserved protection, too. Several months later, another representative from the NPS arrived, and this one lived in California and knew about desert plants and animals. He agreed, the Mojave was worth saving!
It's an inspiring story and the back matter is very good, too. There's a More About Minerva section, including a photograph of young Minerva; a section about Wildlife in Joshua Tree National Park and brief blurbs about other National Parks; an Author's Note (with another photography of Minerva, this time in 1928 arranging one of her desert displays for the International Flower Show in NYC); Tips for Environmental Activists; Selected Bibliography and Acknowledgements.

[Manybooks, Fiction Club host]

It Bears Repeating

Basically a dual language counting book, using numbers and polar bears to showcase the digits one to ten in the North Qikiqtaaluk direct of Inuktitut, OwnVoices (author is Inuk and illustrator Inuit), and with text and images working really nicely together to not only practice counting in North Qikiqtaaluk but to also show a typical polar bear day and typical polar bear behaviour. Recommended.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Manybooks, Fiction Club host]

The Weedflower


The combination of text and images is lovely, a total celebration of weedflowers (of specifically dandelions) and the pro weed message is lovely as well. Liked the ethnically diverse illustrations (but do wish that there were two main protagonists, the blond-haired light skinned little girl Sam but perhaps also a darker skinned little boy). Too bad that all of the adults (all of the teachers) want to yank out the weedflower, but the ending is triumphant with the weedflower, although ripped out by the adults blowing its fluffy seeds all around to germinate and to sprout more.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Manybooks, Fiction Club host]

Log Life


This is kind of similar to Wendy Pfeffer's A Log's life, but a bit too anthropomorphic for my adult reading self and even for my inner child (drives me batty that in a science and ecology picture book, animals and fungi are shown a acting like humans and talking), a decent introduction to the ecological life cycle of a fallen log spanning centuries with a simple text and nice artwork (although I would prefer a combination of drawn illustrations and photography) and a good basic bibliography. Three stars!

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Manybooks, Fiction Club host]

A Year Around the Great Oak


Lots of interesting information about European flora and fauna (and I do think it should be mentioned that this is a European themed book, and yes, there should definitely be secondary sources included). Love the illustrations, like the story (although there is in my opinion a bit of casual sexism, as the girl in the story often seems to get left out).

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

[Manybooks, Fiction Club host]

Little Seed


In the 2025 board and book combination Little Seed (first published in France under the title of Petite graine in 2022) Hector Dexet's lively illustrations accompanied by an anonymously translated, nicely flowing first person narration focuses on the journey (and as such also on the life story) of a very small, of a very tiny anthropomorphic seed and which (or who) by the end of Little Seed emerges as a beautiful sunflower.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...