It’s Nonfiction Picture Book Wednesday!
While I am still in the middle of many nonfiction books, I am sharing a few recent reads here. These titles are heading into my classroom and I can’t wait for the right opportunity to share each of these engaging reads! I think each one of them needs to be part of the classroom or school library collection. So many rich learning opportunities . . .
The Same Moment Around the World by Clotilde Perrin (published 2014)
Simply – this book depicts a day in the life of the world. More complexly, it is a day in the world – all over the world – one page for each hour, beginning at 6 a.m. in Dakar, Senegal. Hour by hour, we see children in various places doing regular everyday things. But the settings are exotic and mysterious because so many may not be known to us. Children learn about time zones and gather a more complete understanding of what it means when we say that on the other side of the world people are going to sleep just as we are waking up. I am partial to books with interesting shapes – love that this title is tall and rectangular. Fantastic fold out map in the back to explore all of the places mentioned in the book.
How Big Were Dinosaurs? by Lita Judge (published 2013)
Lita Judge’s illustrations are so rich. They inform. They amuse. And they delight. Each dinosaur featured here is drawn next to something that children already know to allow them to imagine the exact size of the dinosaur. For example, the velociraptor was only the size of a modern day dog. A leaellynasaura? Two feet tall and wintered near the South Pole. Not all dinosaurs were towering huge “monsters”! But some sure were gigantic!
Feathers Not Just for Flying written by Melissa Stewart and illustrated by Sarah S. Brannen (published 2014)
I am very excited to share this as a read aloud. So excited that I just read it to my family over dinner – it needed an audience! More specifically, I needed some people to help me guess: what else could feathers be used for besides flight? We had a great time listing what we knew around the table and then reading to find out how many we got and how many we missed! Gorgeous illustrations – feels like you could pluck some of these feathers right off of the page. My daughter made a comment part way through about Stewart’s writing style.
“Each time, she gives an example to explain it more. I completely understand all of the different ways the feathers are used!”
Thanks to Alyson from Kid Lit Frenzy for the inspiration to read and share more nonfiction picture books in 2014! Follow the link to Alyson’s blog to read about more nonfiction titles.
My goal is to read 65 nonfiction picture books for 2014. Progress: 50/65 complete!
There's a Book for That 
That’s funny – 4 of us did bird books today! I just loved this one about feathers! I paired a few bird books with Aviary Wonders!
I bought The Same Moment book about a month ago. Just need to read it now!
Have a great week 🙂
Birds of a feather . . . 🙂
I enjoy recommending At the Same Moment… At work, I recently blogged about the different bird books out there- both fiction and non-fiction: http://www.greenbeanbookspdx.com/1/post/2014/04/something-in-the-air.html
Thanks for this link! I didn’t know you did this blog for your store! I will check it out in more detail!
Sorry I missed today, just didn’t have any book to share! Your books, especially that first one, At The Same Moment, Carrie. It reminds me of the photo books, A Day In The Life, done a long while ago. I’ve seen others talk about the feather book, but must get it. Melissa Stewart does great work, doesn’t she? Thanks!
I am a huge fan of Melissa Stewart. At the Same Moment would be lots of fun to share with your grandchildren as they get a little older.
Thanks for sharing, Carrie. I love the idea of thinking about others things feathers are for, I’m going to have to check this book out.
It is a wonderful title just to spend time on visually and then going through and reading the text in details makes it all the more rich.
I think the first time I heard of “The Same Moment Around the World by Clotilde Perrin” was through Erik from This Kid Reviews Books and I fell in love right away with the entire concept. What a brilliant idea. I really hope I find it here soon. The Melissa Stewart book sounds like a sure winner as well – the book cover is gorgeous! 🙂
Melissa Stewart became one of my favourite NF writers with No Monkeys, No Chocolate. Agreed – the concept of The Same Moment is so wonderful. And still the shape – wow!
All the bird books today are making me itch to do a few click clicks and suddenly have a new box of wonderful titles at my doorstep! I really want to read this Lita Judge title too.
I must admit that #nfpb2014 posts have proven to be the most dangerous of all for me! There are so many I want my students to have on hand!
I agree, Carrie. These are titles my students don’t read but need to read because they’re so important to have in classrooms and share with little ones. And these also seem to be the books that my libraries don’t purchase–the nonfiction sections of my two main public libraries are woefully inadequate–filled with dated books from the 1980s (and earlier!). I almost always end up placing a book order on Wednesdays!