A Restoration

For those of us living in the state of Michigan we are familiar with the power found in the things for which we have no control.  Many, if not most, of our inland lakes and the five Great Lakes were formed during the last glacial period.  Also as a part of the solar system our planet is subject to the effects of the sun and the forces of nature each and every day.

For any number of reasons changes to our landscapes happen, too, due to human interference.  Creekfinding: A True Story (University of Minnesota Press, March 7, 2017) written by Jacqueline Briggs Martin with illustrations by Claudia McGehee follows the efforts of one man to unearth a cherished treasure.  Nature is resilient if we honor our stewardship.

THE CREEKFINDING MACHINE
An excavator is a machine
that chomps dirt.
Excavators dig holes for basements,
trenches for water pipes, paths for roads.

Sometimes excavators help find lost creeks.
How do they do that?

The word lost is generally not applied to a creek.  A creek is there or it isn't but man has powerful tools at his disposal.  With them he can take away what nature has formed.  A creek is more than water running down a path.  It's an entire small world composed of a variety of flora and fauna.

The creek in question did not get up and leave, it was covered over with dirt so a farmer could plant fields of corn.  The spring which fed the creek was buried under layers and layers of soil.  Years went by and the land was sold to a man named Mike.  Mike had a dream of turning the land into a natural prairie.

To Mike's surprise when he was working on his property one day, another man came by to say he had caught a brook trout in the exact spot where they were standing.  Now Mike had a new dream.  He was going to locate that creek regardless of what others said.  One person did not feel Mike was following a task doomed to failure.  He was given an old picture; a picture of the creek.  This was all Mike needed.

Friends with big machines came.  Friends with a willingness to plant came.  A spring bubbled back to life and brought other life with it.  Brook Creek was born.


As you read through the conversational paragraphs penned by Jacqueline Briggs Martin you feel the same marvel she must have felt doing the research for the writing of this book.  In her author's note she states:

I have always been drawn to stories of finding and fixing, stories of patching what has been broken.

Jacqueline Briggs Martin begins by connecting us to the creek.  We feel the loss when it and the plants, birds, insects, and frogs disappear under the dirt from the farmer's bulldozer.  This sadness makes the knowledge of Mike's chance meeting and new dream even better.  Page by page she builds on this excitement.  As the months and years pass she uses specific examples to build our hope for the revived creek, Brook Creek.  In addition to the main narrative, we are privy to further facts about a creek, the plant life around a creek and the animal inhabitants.  This text is italicized and written in a smaller font.  Here are some passages.

Mike and his friends tucked cordgrass
and other green shoots into the creekbanks.
Three summers grasses grew.
When the creek bed needed more rocks
Mike had a problem.

Heavy trucks crossing
to the creek would press
deep ruts into the ground,
kill new prairie plants.
How could he get more
rocks to the creek?

Small rocks protect the soil under the streambed and are home to many tiny plants and creatures.


When you open the matching dust jacket and book case, you have to wonder at the intricate detail achieved using the scratchboard and watercolor artistic technique.  All the elements on the front and the back are telling their own story.  The first picture is issuing an invitation as it promotes questions.  To the left on the back, a close-up of a red-winged blackbird brings us directly to the creek.  Can you hear the birdsong?  Can you feel the soft prairie breeze against your skin or see it blow through the grass?  Can you hear the hum of insects?

The opening and closing endpapers are a gorgeous display of the creek edge; flowers, grasses, and cattails in motion.  The first is as night closes and the sky begins to lighten.  The second is filled with the orange shades of a setting sun.  On the inside of the opening and closing first pages is a diagonal pattern in gray and white of swimming trout.

With each page turn readers are treated to either a single page picture or marvelous two page vistas or a series of explanatory smaller visuals.  They flow flawlessly to supply a soothing but expectant pace.  Claudia McGehee alters her perspectives, sometimes within the same image.

One of my many favorite illustrations spans two pages.  It is a full moon night in winter.  Claudia uses a pleasing blend of white, black, gray, purple, spots of brown and yellow to fashion a breathtaking expanse of the creek winding through the prairie.  The creek and the land near it are in the foreground.  Above this is a line of trees and shrubs.  A night sky with a few stars fills the top of the picture.  On the right the moon shines down.  On the left an owl glides over the snow-covered grasses.


Although published more than one year ago this title is new to me and new to my local public library.  I am very thankful to have found Creekfinding: A True Story written by Jacqueline Briggs Martin with illustrations by Claudia McGehee on their shelves.  It is a story sure to inspire readers to never lose sight of their dreams.  It is a story reminding us to care for our planet.  I highly recommend this title for your personal and professional collections.  Included with the author's note is an illustrator's note and more about Mike.

To learn more about author Jacqueline Briggs Martin and illustrator Claudia McGehee, please visit their respective websites by following the links attached to their names.  Both Jacqueline and Claudia have blogs.  Claudia maintains an account on Instagram.  This title is the recipient of the 2018 Green Book Award, Picture Book category.  It is also one of several books honored with a John Burroughs Association 2018 Riverby Award.  You might enjoy listening to Creekfinding: A True Story About a Creek that was Lost, Found, and Restored on Iowa Public Radio.  Both the author and illustrator are interviewed.  Bookology has an interview of Jacqueline Briggs Martin about this title.  Enjoy the video showcasing the artistic process of Claudia McGehee.

Scratching a magpie from Claudia McGehee on Vimeo.


Please 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 2018 Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge.

The Right Taste

No thoughts of Thanksgiving are complete without thinking of my Dad.  He and his three younger brothers were extraordinary cooks.  Their gift began in being highly skilled in gardening, working with the soil and tending every single seed and plant until it was a thing of beauty.  They believed a good meal began with those items it contained.

Of the four my father, with no prejudice intended, was the best gardener and culinary wizard.  His favorite herb to use was sage, growing his own plants, picking the best leaves, washing them, drying them and grinding them up to give as gifts to family and friends in carefully labeled jars.  When I first read Alice Waters and the Trip To Delicious (Readers to Eaters, Bellevue, Washington, August 26, 2014) written by Jacqueline Briggs Martin with illustrations by Hayelin Choi I rejoiced in knowing about one woman who devoted her life to what was a significant aspect of my childhood.

Some people want new red shoes.

Some people want to sing on stage

or play basketball.

Chef Alice Waters wants every kid in the country

to come with her on the trip to Delicious.

She believes every child should enjoy lunch, a lunch full of flavor and unforgettable taste.  This desire did not come to her in adulthood, during college, her teen years or even her first years in school.  It's safe to say this kinship with food began when she was three years old.  It had something to do with winning a costume contest.

Her affection for food led her to France where she studied, worked and talked with like-minded people.  

Sharing good food

could start a party, make memories.

Upon her return home to America, Alice wanted this connection between food and friends to continue.  Searching for the best fruits, vegetables, meats, herbs and spices, cooking and serving the meals gave her an idea.  There never seemed to be enough room in her home so she decided to open a restaurant, a restaurant which felt like her home.  Chez Panisse became a reality.

Alice was relentless in her pursuit of the very finest, freshest ingredients.  Her restaurant's popularity soon brought farmers to her with their produce. No meal was served unless Alice tasted it first.  Everyone needed to reach the same destination, Delicious.

Alice's restaurant served people from all walks of life which earned her an award given to a woman for the first time.  She made sure even children would feel comfortable at Chez Panisse.  This care given to meals for the youngest eaters made her notice something else.  Another idea was about to be born.

A school without a kitchen was on her route to the restaurant each day.  What if there was a garden at the school?  What if the students learned to cook meals?  What if the students traveled down the path to Delicious?  The Edible Schoolyard became a reality there and is still expanding today to other places around the world.  One person, Alice Waters, changed the way we think about food.

Jacqueline Briggs Martin forms the narrative for her biographies with an initial premise, building upon this event by event making her readers more acquainted with an individual on a personal level.  Her inclusion of specific slices of Alice's life, the first place prize for the costume, her studies in France, the meeting with the boy in Turkey, the results of the first night Chez Panisse was open, Alice searching for natural foods, the famous individuals who visited her restaurant, and her attention given to the school she walked past every day, help to make readers appreciate the difference Alice has made in the food community, in the lives of thousands of people, especially children.  By adding the small circles containing precise facts to the larger conversation text it's as if Martin has pulled up a chair next to us, telling us everything she knows about Alice Waters.  She tells us those things which will have us honoring this woman as much as she does.  Here is a sample excerpt.

And that was a problem---

finding enough fresh, tasty food.

Frozen food was handy.

Food that had been on the shelves for days

was cheap.

But those were not right for the trip to Delicious.

Alice worked day and night finding just the right food.

She drove to the fish and poultry markets

in Chinatown---so often that her car began to smell

like a fish wagon and no one wanted to ride with her.

Debut picture book illustrator Hayelin Choi has rendered all the illustrations using brush and black ink, scanning them digitally and then coloring them.  Each element is blended together using Adobe Photoshop. Beginning with the front and back of the book case the color choices, lines and design evoke cheerfulness while introducing readers to the lengths Alice Waters goes to acquire fresh foods.  A lighter and darker shade of the predominant green on the cover is used in a design on the opening and closing endpapers; a swirling array of fruits, vegetables and fish.

The heavier matte-finished paper is the ideal canvas for Choi's work, serving to illuminate her style which looks almost like block printing.  Her pictures altered in size and perspective elevate the text as do the different background colors.  Many of her images are pure genius in their depiction of time, drawing your eyes from one point to another with lines or by following a pictorial border around text.

One of my favorite illustrations spans across two pages.  On the left Alice is shown cooking in her kitchen with pots, utensils and a light above her head.  She is crushing food with a mortar and pestle in her right hand.  With her left hand she is reaching for an onion being carried in the back of a small truck; about toy size.  What Choi has done is create a series of farms on the left connected by a roadway which runs into Alice's kitchen.  The farmland blends into her preparation counter.  I love this picture!

Alice Waters is a true inspiration; a living hero for children (and adults).  In reading Alice Waters and the Trip To Delicious written by Jacqueline Briggs Martin with illustrations by Hayelin Choi we understand how following a dream can impact the world in more ways than initially imagined.  I believe those who read this book will be excited to pursue some, if not all, of Alice Waters' ideas.  At the book's end is an afterward written by Alice Waters, an author's note, a bibliography, and a list of resource (Grow Your Own and Cook Your Own).

To learn more about Jacqueline Briggs Martin and Hayelin Choi please follow the links embedded in their names to access their personal websites.  At Hayelin Choi's website she has shown more images from the interior of the book.  Here is the link to The Edible Schoolyard Project website.  Follow this link to an interview of Jacqueline Briggs Martin by educator Mary Ann Scheuer for Parents' Press.  I would recommend using this title with Jacqueline Briggs Martin's other title, Farmer Will Allen and the Growing Table, and It's Our Garden:  From Seeds to Harvest in a School Garden by George Ancona.

I am thankful to be participating in the 2014 Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge each week hosted by Alyson Beecher at Kid Lit Frenzy.  Be sure to visit her site to see the titles recommended by other bloggers.