Keeping It Wild

Every morning I take a walk around the yard, assessing the gardens and nearby small wooded section to see how they are faring from the lack of rain and heat.  Yesterday as I passed a large tree, I looked from a particular plant to the tree's bark and a squirrel and I were eye-to-eye.  We both watched the other as still as stone.  Normally I would have expected instant flight but this one looked at me as if ready to speak.

It's not uncommon to see squirrels, rabbits, birds, butterflies and a large variety of bugs in my yard but even in many walks taken in the woods of northern Michigan over decades, I've never encountered a bear, wolf or even a coyote with their reported increased numbers.  My thinking began, as it often does after a close wildlife meeting, to focus on all the places on our planet where seeing animals in their natural habitat will become less and less frequent.  The Great Leopard Rescue: Saving the Amur Leopards (Millbrook Press, August 2016) written by Sandra Markle addresses the very serious issue of the fight to save a rare animal from extinction. 

Danger!

In the fading light of an autumn day, a young male Amur leopard picks his way over a rocky ridge and sets off on his nighttime hunt.

In this first sentence in the first of seven chapters we follow this leopard as he attempts to locate food.  We learn vital information about his hunting practices, first two years of life and how he establishes his range.  Then he finds himself fleeing from a large fire.

Amur leopards make their home in the far eastern portion of Russia.  It's astounding to think that their numbers have dropped from 2,400 to about fifty since the 1950s.  Let's think about that number for a minute.  There are only about fifty of these animals left in the wild before they are gone forever.  (It was actually estimated to drop to thirty in 2007.)

The loss of habitat and food due to logging, farming and hunting greatly diminished the Amur leopard numbers.  They need the taiga with its specific flora and fauna to survive.  Of the three areas where they were living prior to the 1980s, the population completely vanished in two.  

Concern for their lives has prompted responses.  Zoos are no longer taking these leopards from the wild but are sharing leopards, carefully monitoring breeding, scientists are studying them through the use of radio collars and a team (Amur Leopard and Tiger Alliance) has been formed to deter poaching and work with farmers.  In 2012 a special area, Land of the Leopard National Park, was set aside for them.  

Since 2012 an even greater effort and fascinating plan are unfolding.  It will be 2020 before the results can be realized.  A carefully selected and designed space, a meticulously controlled and ongoing study (You won't believe how they use dogs.), a first-time collaboration between Russian and Chinese scientists, and a specialized breeding program are all key components. 

Remember the young male leopard trapped by fire in the first chapter?  You will discover his fate.  There are those working on a daily basis for the Amur leopards.

In the first chapter Sandra Markle creates a feeling of urgency; every single leopard's life is valuable.  From this defining moment, through painstaking research, she gives readers a clear picture of the reasons for the population decline and the determined efforts to resolve the problem.  There is an informed narrative paired with factual specifics, most very short but other lengthier paragraphs, which are apart from it.  Captioned photographs and maps supply further understanding.  

Within this narrative Markle includes dates, particular names and specific activities of high interest which intensifies the plight of the Amur leopards and the challenges of saving them.  Her writing style reads like a tightly-woven, white-knuckle adventure.  Here is a sample passage.

The Land of the Leopard National Park covers about 647,000 acres (261,832 hectares), about the size of the state of Rhode Island.  People can visit the park, but it's illegal to farm, hunt, mine, or harvest lumber on the parkland.

With the protected park established, the number of Amur leopards increased slightly in new surveys following the 2007 all-time low.  But scientists around the world remained worried.  A catastrophe such as a disease could still wipe them out.

Big paws help this cat to be sure-footed in the rugged taiga.  And its long tail is perfect for helping it stay balanced.

The Great Leopard Rescue: Saving the Amur Leopards written by Sandra Markle is a stellar work of nonfiction recommended for personal and professional shelves.  Her meticulous research and writing style make for engaged reading from beginning to end.  The layout and design of this book, rounded rectangles housing the text, attached from page turn to page turn with thick lines, placed among, over and under, to the left and right of exquisite photographs enhances the pace.  At the close of the book is an Author's Note, Did You Know?(short facts about Amur leopards), Timeline, Glossary, Source Notes, Find Out Here (books and websites), Index and Acknowledgments.  

To learn more about Sandra Markle, her other work and activities please visit her official blog by following the link attached to her name.  At the publisher's website you can view fourteen interior pages.

UPDATE:  Sandra Markle has created a post about her research for this title March 19, 2017   

Please take a few moments to visit Kid Lit Frenzy maintained by educator Alyson Beecher to enjoy the other titles selected by bloggers participating in the 2016 Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge.

More Precious Than Gold

Wednesdays have become a significant day of the week.  On this day nonfiction is showcased.  It began in 2012 when an educator decided she needed to fill a gap in her reading life.  Alyson Beecher started the Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge on her blog Kid Lit Frenzy.  Today (01/06/2016) she talks about the new challenge, the YMA Pajama Party and includes her Mock Siebert predictions.

This will be my third year participating.  For my first several posts I still have some 2015 books I want to discuss.  As I was reading my choice for this post, I was moved to tears more than once.  Alyson Beecher listed it as one of her Mock Siebert predicted winners and she talks about it on her blog here.  I completely concur.

Year by year our planet and the life of its inhabitants are becoming more fragile.  The Great Monkey Rescue: Saving the Golden Lion Tamarins (Millbrook Press, October 1, 2015) written by Sandra Markle is a story of heroes and their successes.  Within ten chapters and forty pages it documents decades of work and vigilance with an engaging and enlightening narrative.

TRAPPED!
In a small patch of tropical forest, a squirrel-sized golden lion tamarin stops on a high branch and listens.

She hears a sound, the call of another tamarin. Perhaps this family will be the one she can join.  She needs to find a mate.  Four families later and none will have her.  Not one of them needs a breeding female.  She continues her search the next day until she comes to the edge of the forest.  She has nowhere else to go.

Brazil's Atlantic Forest in South America is the only place on earth, outside of zoos, the golden lion tamarin calls home.  Of the original forest only ten percent remains today.  The habitat of these creatures is shrinking at an alarming rate.  These monkeys make essential contributions in the life of this land.

As early as the 1960s it was noted their population was diminishing to the point of extinction.  Over the next twenty years an important discovery was made about the way golden lion tamarins live and reproduce together.  They have a set family rather than a large group.  Zoos (first the National Zoo in Washington, D. C.) did seek to change the way they housed the golden lion tamarins.  During these years the zoo population around the world increased from 122 to 500.

The next hurdle was to increase the population in Brazil.  Animal scientists and zoo keepers trained their monkeys to live in the wild.  Great pains were taken to safely introduce them into their natural habitat by creating safe havens.  Would it work?  Knowing predators and seeking safe food proved to be overwhelming for the newest members of the forest family.

Around 1990 an exciting discovery was made which momentarily turned the tide.  This coupled with the ever-growing support of the people in Brazil was a huge boost for the monkey population numbers.  It was too good though.  Once again they were running out of enough room to live.

Two men from an organization called SavingSpecies conceived an innovative idea.  Conservationists and volunteers worked for years (more than five) to make this idea a reality.  Did our original female golden lion tamarin ever leave the edge of that forest and find a new family?

With the first chapter Sandra Markle has our attention.  This young female is fenced-in by lack of space.  Our attachment to her plight is immediate and firmly in place.  Markle continues with a history of saving these monkeys spanning more than four decades.  The concise chapters elevate our involvement, inviting us to consume the pages as if we are reading a thrilling survival story.  What makes these even more intriguing is that it is the truth.  In addition to the narrative, informative extras describe the special habitat of the golden lion tamarin and the specifics of their family dynamics.  Here is a sample passage.

To train the tamarins, zoo caretakers began hiding food in the trees.  The monkeys had to poke under bark and look in tree holes to find their meals.  Fruit was no longer peeled or cut up.  The tamarins had to figure out how to eat what they found.  As they would in the real forest, the tamarins also now drank from bowls attached high-up on the tree trunks.  Zoo workers hoped this training would give the monkeys a better chance of surviving in the wild.

If you want to recommend a captivating true life story brimming with named and unnamed heroes, The Great Monkey Rescue: Saving the Golden Lion Tamarins written by Sandra Markle is an excellent choice.  As a nonfiction picture book read aloud selection it would be a fantastic.  At the close of the book is a conversational author's note, a Did You Know? section, a timeline spanning from the 1960s to 2014, a glossary, a Find Out More list of resources, an index and a list of photo acknowledgments.  Every single page has an outstanding photograph or map from a variety of perspectives.  All of them are captioned.

To learn more about Sandra Markle please follow the link attached to her name to access her blog.  At the publisher's website you have several options to view interior pages.  You can click on the tiny magnifying glass under the dust jacket picture to see the front and back of the jacket and two pages.  If you select the gray Look Inside tab you can see the first eleven pages.

Remember to go to Kid Lit Frenzy to see the other selections by bloggers this week.

Hip Hop Hooray

If a wild creature frequents my yard or garden I have the habit of naming them.  As each winter draws to a close, I eagerly await their return.  For several years there was a large toad about the size of my closed fist who comfortably resided beneath the big bush next to my front porch.  I called him Fred.  A tree toad made his home in the corner of my front porch or sometimes I would find him on my back deck.  When Theo would appear in the spring I felt like all was right with the world.  He was a part of my life for three years.

 More than any date on a calendar or weather update I rely on those inhabitants in our natural world to send me signals.  They feel the heartbeat of Mother Earth far better than we ever will.  I could hardly wait for my copy of Toad Weather (Peachtree Publishers, March 2015) written by Sandra Markle with illustrations by Thomas Gonzalez to arrive.  It is well worth the wait.

In the gloomy-gray 
of a March day
the spring rain keeps falling.

Ally and her grandmother are feeling the effects of a day without sunshine; their usual outdoor activities put on hold.  When Mama eagerly opens the door moments later, she urges them to come with her right away.  She has discovered something special in the city.  Ally is ready for an adventure; her grandmother reluctantly agrees to come too.

In the dim light as dusk falls, the trio makes their way down the sidewalks ready to see what there is to see.  As Ally and her grandmother move quickly, ready to get out of the rain, her mother asks them to slow down and carefully look.  Ally does noticing details.  Her grandmother grumbles.

Each time Ally thinks she has discovered the surprise her mother requests them to keep walking.  Each time Mama says no Grandma wants to turn around and go home.  They finally get to a spot where Mama wants them to stop and listen.

Listen for something unusual.

Ally does hear something out of the ordinary.  It's getting clearer as they move closer.  They see a large group of people, police, a road block and toads...lots and lots of toads.  Grandmother's grumbling turns to grinning.  The trio assists in the amphibian march.


Well-known nonfiction author Sandra Markle evokes a keen sense of time and place, specifically the descriptions of weather and time of day, in the telling of this natural phenomenon.  In her Author's Note she speaks about the actual event taking place in a neighborhood located in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania each year.  By experiencing it through the voice of Ally and the dialogue between her, her mother and her grandmother, it becomes more personal for us.  Here are a couple sample passages.

Out in the rainy nearly-nighttime,
streetlights are glowing.
So are shop windows.
But the world is soggy dreary.


"Slow down, you two!" Mama says.
"There are lots of interesting things
to see along the way."
"Like what?" Grandma asks.

"For one thing," Mama says,
"look at all the colorful umbrellas."

"It's like being inside a rainbow," I say.


Even though the artwork on the dusk jacket and book case appear to be identical, your guys and gals will notice the subtle difference on the jacket immediately.  Their fingers love to move over raised text or images.  The toad looks and feels as if it's ready to hop at any second.

When you open the jacket and case you can see Thomas Gonzalez has extended the illustration to the left with swirls of rain on the pavement, portions of three other toads moving from the left edge toward the boots and first toad on the front.  The opening and closing endpapers feature water on pavement in an array of color due to other liquids like gas or oil dropping on the rain.  There is a difference in the closing endpapers but I will let you discover the addition yourselves.  On the initial title page Ally, carrying her umbrella and a flashlight, and wearing her spotted boots is looking right at us, a smile on her face.  A clever verso and formal title page combination highlights the apartment window spattered with rain and an image similar to the front jacket and book case.

All the pictures rendered in pastel, colored pencil, and airbrush on 100% rag watercolor paper span across two pages; the text woven into each.  So exquisite are the details it's like looking at softened photographs.  Gonzalez takes us from a conversation exchanged in the apartment to the city streets effortlessly, showing us a more panoramic view or only boots walking down the rainy sidewalks.  The facial features on the characters are absolutely lovely.  I wonder how long he studied toads to get them looking exactly as they are.

One of my favorite pictures is a close-up of Ally.  She is down at ground level looking at worms crossing the grass and sidewalk.  We see her face peering closely at several in particular, flashlight beam illuminating a portion of her face and a worm.  Curiosity and appreciation are evident in her expression.


As I look out my windows at mounds of snow, knowing it will be months before we have our own days fit for our amphibian friends, Toad Weather written by Sandra Markle with illustrations by Thomas Gonzalez is a reminder of the wonder which awaits.  It's an invitation for us to think about the familiar rhythms of the seasons and the life cycles of those sharing the planet with us.  Make sure you save a spot on your shelves for this work of nonfiction.

To explore more about Sandra Markle and Thomas Gonzalez please visit their websites by following the links attached to their names.  This link takes you to a Teacher's Guide devised by the publisher.


Please take the time to stop by educator Alyson Beecher's website Kid Lit Frenzy to see the titles other bloggers have included in their posts for this week's 2015 Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge.

Double Trouble For Bees

During this past spring and summer plants never having flowered before were covered in blossoms. Swarms of honeybees busily flew back and forth gathering nectar and pollen.  Sounds of their humming drifted on the air like the best kind of symphony.

Each year concern for the well-being of honeybees worldwide is ever increasing.  The front cover of Time magazine on August 19, 2013 featured an article titled A World Without Bees.  Our survival is closely entwined with their survival.  For a truly fascinating look at the plight of honeybees Sandra Markles's newest title, The Case of the Vanishing Honeybees:  A Scientific Mystery (Millbrook Press, August 1, 2013), is a must read.  Like the best kind of detective, Sandra Markle gathers clues, presenting readers with pertinent facts.

On a warm day in October 2006, Dave Hackenberg went to check on his workers.
Hackenberg is a beekeeper, and his workers are millions of honeybees.

What Hackenberg discovered was shocking.  Thousands of his bees were missing.  They had disappeared without a trace.

Honeybees are necessary for pollination.  Pollination is crucial for the growth of many of our food products.  Worker bees are not only vital to this task but are an essential part of the family unit of the hive, performing a variety of specific tasks.  Certain worker bees gather the nectar, others place it into the cells of the honey comb, still more use their wings to fan the mixture eliminating some of the water while others carry pollen to mix with honey to make beebread.  At every stage of their lives worker bees are expected to perform certain duties in this highly organized community.

This massive death of worker bees has been given the name of Colony Collapse Disorder, CCD.  Scientists, researchers and bee keepers have put forth contributing factors, theories, as to the cause of CCD.  It's possible over time their natural habitat has changed more rapidly than they can adjust. Plants depending on pollination by bees have been replaced with those dependent on wind.  Fields full of flowers are now cities full of homes, parking lots and business districts.

It's mind-boggling to learn how many miles hives of bees are transported by beekeepers each year to pollinate crops, to make honey.  It's been suggested bees are not able to rest as much as needed or get proper nutrition, thus lowering their resistance to disease. Can you believe one million beehives are needed for a four week period for a crucial crop?

Undeniable evidence is accumulating regarding blood-sucking mites, a symptom-free fungus and neonicotinoid pesticides as explanations for the honeybee deaths.  What is important is scientists are continuing to uncover the truth.  Beekeepers and their allies are striving to provide better lives for the honeybees.  This is a mystery needing a solution for the sake of the planet, for all of us.


As you read this captivating work of nonfiction by Sandra Markle your appreciation for the place honeybees have in the chain of life will grow.  Pollination is explained better than any science textbook, informing readers factually but with progressive sentences, more like a face to face conversation than a dry lecture.  Readers will be intrigued by the individual jobs assigned to each of the honeybees at a beehive especially the description of worker bees.

Page by page as your understanding of honeybees grows, the subsequent discussions, supported by research, on what may be causing CCD, while interesting and informative, are also unsettling.  Markle does supply readers with possible solutions, steps being taken to increase bees chances of survival.  The concluding five pages contain an author's note, additional facts about honeybees, how readers can help on a local level, efforts being made on a global scale, a glossary, books and websites for further information and an index.

Adding to the more informal but still intriguing aspect of this title is the color of the opening and closing endpapers, a warm golden tone which serves as a background for all the pages.  Text and photographic images are framed in shades of gold and brown honeycombs.  Photographs and drawings in varying sizes and perspectives further enhance the facts.


You will never look at honeybees the same way after reading The Case of the Vanishing Honeybees: A Scientific Mystery written by Sandra Markle.  In fact, you will probably be compelled to do some research on your own, research on how to set up beehives in your own backyard.  I highly recommend this excellent piece of nonfiction.  Share it with someone today.  It needs to be read.