Lift Your Head And Look

When you step outside, depending on your reason for doing this, your senses are usually directed to something in particular.  Whether you remain in your own yard, city block or roam on country roads, you tend to look down, or to the left or right.  Unless a noisy flock of birds, curious cloud formation or startling sunrise or sunset grabs your attention, you usually tend to not look up.

The creative collaborative team giving readers, The Street Beneath My Feet, has returned in another brilliant endeavor.  The Skies Above My Eyes (Quarto Knows, August 28, 2018) written by Charlotte Guillain with illustrations by Yuval Zommer asks us to lift our eyes to the sky, note what we see and informs us of what lies beyond our natural sight.  We travel from the ground to beyond our solar system and back down.

As you go about your daily
life, there is so much going
on around you.  It's easy to
stop and stare at the sights in
the busy city street.  But how
often do you look upward?
So much more is going on in
the sky above you!

Let's take a look . . . 

First we are directed to notice all the street signs and signals giving us as drivers and pedestrians important information.  We can see small pieces of others' lives and workplaces by glancing in windows.  We appreciate the bravery of window washers scaling the side of towering buildings.  Next we take a trip to those able to fly.

Helicopters, airplanes, weather balloons and rockets soar; each having a purpose.  Did you know there's a line called the Karman line which marks the start of space?  Look!  There is the Soyuz capsule journeying toward the International Space Station.  We are now 250 miles above the Earth.  Astronauts and cosmonauts repair the space station by being tethered to the station.  If we go another 234,750 miles where will we be? 

Neil Armstrong was the first human to walk on its surface.

Each of the other seven planets in our solar system orbits the sun.  They are all millions of miles from planet Earth.  Which planet has at least 62 moons?  Which planet has a single day as long as 243 Earth days?  If we travel higher than our solar system there are galaxies numbering beyond our imagination loaded with stars and planets. 

Moving back to Earth we pass through the familiar Milky Way galaxy as comets and asteroids traverse through space.  Different cloud formations produce varying kinds of weather.  Birds with special physical characteristics glide at astounding heights.  Have you ever heard of the Ruppell's griffon vulture?  Yikes!  What are those spiders doing three miles above the ground?

I wonder how close skydivers and hang gliders can get to bighorn sheep and bald eagles. As we drift back to terra firma our eyes still look higher than normal.  We see birds and butterflies who might originally escape our attention.  If we stay outside until dusk we might even see bats leaving trees to hunt for food.  Let's remember to look toward the skies and know and dream about what lies farther than we can fathom.


As our guide author Charlotte Guillain not only leads us upward (and back again) layer by layer but informs us with fascinating facts.  She encourages us to be aware, make observations and expand our thinking.  Using a conversational approach she includes requests and questions in the narrative.  It's as if we are together with her in a special vehicle experiencing everything she explains with her words.  Here are several passages about comets.

Look out!
Here comes a comet!

A comet is a massive
ball of frozen rock, ice, dust,
and gases, hurtling through
space.  When a comet gets close to
a star, it warms up and develops
its own atmosphere,
called a coma.

Dust and gases trail far behind the comet to form
a long tail that shines in the night sky.

Halley's Comet takes 76 years to orbit our Sun---
we should be able to see it from Earth again in 2061.


The first thing readers might do with The Skies Above My Eyes is run their hands over the opened book case.  They will discover on the right, front, embossed and raised portions.  Many of these are glazed or varnished, sparkling in the light.  The scene we see on the front crosses over the spine to the left, back.  We move from the city to snow-capped mountain peaks.  Swirling leaves, paper airplanes, bats, dandelions, and umbrellas, inside out, are replaced with high-flying birds, spacecraft, airplanes, more planets and wait . . . are those aliens?  The wide-eyed girl on the cover explores with us from the beginning to the end.

On the inside of the book case, on the left, is publication information, creator information and an introductory paragraph about the right side.  This right side depicts the planet Earth, troposphere, ozone layer, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere and the Karman line.  On the left these layers are labeled in miles.  This diagram is framed in elements of art by Yuval seen throughout the book.  The background for most of this is black. 

Upon opening the cover we realize the design asks us to turn the book to view the pages, attached like an accordion, vertically.  Extending more than eight feet beyond the book case on both sides of sturdy, matte-finished paper, these images in full color are a stunning display of creative layout.    Illustrator Yuval Zommer continues his intricate, playful and enlightening artwork viewed on the case with every interior double-page illustration.

Each one demands we pause, captivated by the numerous details.  Cutaways welcome further inspection.  Every time this book is read new discoveries will be seen.  Is the cat on the roof ledge going to leap at the pigeons?  Is that a flying saucer? What does the owl see?  Yuval Zommer's visuals heighten this text but also urge us to dream of places beyond our own.

One of my many, many favorite illustrations is when we are descending back to the ground.  The text discusses a variety of clouds and birds.  The many shades of sky blue in the background provide an excellent canvas for the clouds and birds.  At the top, five miles above the Earth, darker clouds gather as whooper swans fly in v-formation through cirrus clouds.  Beneath these altocumulus and altostratus clouds dot the sky. Tiny snowflakes fall from these. Delicate spiders cascade near another flock of birds, white storks.  It's now raining in earnest and snowing.  We are at one mile.  This is a breathtaking portrait.


All readers will happily open The Skies Above My Eyes written by Charlotte Guillain with illustrations by Yuval Zommer repeatedly.  It increases our respect for the manner in which nature and the universe works.  Further research is embraced willingly with a title like The Skies Above My Eyes.  I highly recommended this book for your personal and professional book collections.

To learn more about Charlotte Guillain and Yuval Zommer and their other work, please follow the links attached to their names to visit the appropriate sites. Both Charlotte and Yuval maintain accounts on Twitter. Yuval is on Instagram.

Be sure to visit Kit Lit Frenzy hosted by educator Alyson Beecher to enjoy the titles selected by others participating in the 2018 Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge.

Deep Down Underground

Twice this winter we've had a good five-inch layer of snow covering our ground.  Despite the depth my canine companion leaps and dives, nose first, attempting to smell what is buried beneath all those snowflakes.  If a particular scent captures her interest her paws become eager diggers, like a four-footed, furry archeologist intent on a goal.  She is not alone in her endeavors to discover what can be found underground.

Shortly before our ground was frozen a series of raised loops and zig-zags covered my front yard.  It looks like a group of moles engaged in merry mayhem.  There are whole worlds waiting to be explored.  The Street Beneath My Feet (Quarto Knows, March 1, 2017) written by Charlotte Guillain with illustrations by Yuval Zommer is a unique, fascinating approach to earth science.

When you're walking along the city streets
there's always so much to see and hear.

Most of the time we are either so focused on our own destination or captivated by the buzz of activity around us, we fail to think about what is below the ground. (Also, if your mom was like mine, she was always saying, "Stand up straight with your shoulders back and hold your head high as you walk.") We don't have to go very deep to find an entire network of pipes, wires and cables.  Water is carried through a system of gutters and drains.

In each layer of dirt there is living breathing beings.  If we go farther we might find the community sewer.  As we keep traveling down there will be more signs of life, most of it from the past.  Underground tunnels with tracks provide transportation.  We go through bedrock into sedimentary rock.  Seemingly magical wonders await us here in caves.

The farther we go the rocks reveal more gifts, peat, coal and granite.  As we get to the crust the earth's plates shift.  If they clash, we may have an earthquake.  As we travel deeper and deeper toward the core, it gets hotter and hotter; it's like liquid fire.  In the very center it is solid with temperatures near 11,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Now it's time to go back up.

Each step of the journey, each section, presents new surprises; precious and semi-precious rock, minerals and gems.  We learn about metamorphic rock.  Fossils appear.  As we get closer to the surface roots branch into the dirt.  Animal burrows, setts and dens and insect nests come into view.  As we finish, standing on the ground again, a forested meadow replete with flora and fauna spreads before us.


From page to page Charlotte Guillain takes us on marvelous voyage through our earth with her words.  She enhances our knowledge about those things in which we might be familiar but shares details with us about those things we never thought about before but are glad we now know.  In the conversational tone of a learned tour guide, she invites us to looks closer, to notice the smallest items, and asks questions of us about those things we encounter.  Here are four passages which follow her description of sedimentary rock.

If you're lucky,
you might find
an underground
cave.  This 
one formed
when water 
wore away
the rock
and made
holes 
in it.

Watch you head!
There are stalactites
hanging down from
the roof of this
limestone 
cave.

Psst!  Limestone 
is a type of
sedimentary rock
that formed 
in the
sea.

Spiky stalactites form when water moves
down through sedimentary rock.


I think it's safe to say this book has been designed in a remarkable manner completely in keeping with the subject matter.  When you open the book case on the right is what you might encounter beneath a city.  On the left the image depicts what you might find beneath a forested meadow.  Yuval Zommer cleverly takes the tree on the front extending it over the spine to the back.  You will be compelled to stop and look closely at every single element.  On the front many of the details are raised and varnished heightening the tactile experience.

When you open the front cover, the book needs to be turned to read the text and enjoy all the artwork.  This is a vertical accordion book with eleven pages fully illustrated on both sides on durable, heavier matte finished paper.  It is brilliant!

Yuval Zommer's images are spectacular in their intricate and delicate details done in full color.  It's as if he literally went beneath the surface to add as much as he could in each layer.  When he shows us the storm drain, not only is water running down but leaves are swirling in it.  His inclusion of a human skeleton is as if we have unearthed a grave.  Mementos of the person's life are included with the bones. In another illustration from right to left he shows the progression of the development of coal and how it is mined.  On the final page, on the inside of the back cover, a circular slice of our planet shows the Earth's layers.

One of my many favorite illustrations is when we are climbing back up to the surface. In two separate images which appear as one, Yuval Zommer shows us a fox family in their den, individual badgers in setts and rabbits running in tunnels and nestled in their burrows.  He includes possible flora used in their abodes.  Careful readers will see a tiny mouse curled in its own home.  Worms squirm in the dirt.


This book, whether you place it in your professional collections in your libraries or classrooms or in your personal collections at home, will be a huge hit with readers.  The Street Beneath My Feet written by Charlotte Guillain with illustrations by Yuval Zommer has been created to inform in a singular, outstanding style.  This title has been selected by the National Science Teachers Association as one of the Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students K-12: 2018.

To learn more about Charlotte Guillain and Yuval Zommer and their other work, please follow the links attached to their names to access their websites.


I hope you will take a few moments to visit Kid Lit Frenzy hosted by educator Alyson Beecher to view the titles selected this week by others participating in the 2017 Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge.  This completes my fourth year participating in Alyson's challenge.  My life is far richer for being a participant, expanding my respect for this beautiful planet and those who have or are inhabiting it.  I thank you Alyson and other participants.