Look Up, Look Down, Look All Around

While it's important when developing collections to center our focus on those readers we primarily serve, it's also worth remembering they have members of their immediate or extended families who need to read.  For this reason, there was never any hesitation to place picture books in a middle or high school library (or board books in an elementary school library).  Picture books are powerful whether the narrative comes from someone's imagination or gathered information.

On the release date of picture books, sometimes the same titles are available in board book format.  Nerdy Babies: Ocean and Nerdy Babies: Space (Roaring Brook Press, May 7, 2019) written and illustrated by Emmy Kastner are two such books.  With cheerful, informative and humorous text and images our youngest readers (and those who read to them) are invited to travel the oceans and into outer space.  Let's first see what the watery realms reveal.

Off the coasts, 
swirling between
each continent
on our planet . . .
you'll find the ocean.

 Although most of our planet is covered by ocean water, we can't drink it.  It's salt water.  Animals live on shore and hunt for food in the ocean like birds.  Some ocean dwellers show themselves on the surface of the ocean when they need to breathe or sleep.

The sun not only warms the ocean but helps plants and animals who live there.  Ocean life, like blue marlins and leatherback sea turtles, migrate just as birds do.  Animals in and around the ocean stay warm because of their blood, fur, feathers or blubber.  Do you know how many miles deep the ocean is?  Do you know which ocean animal is kin to elephants?  You can be as curious as a marine biologist no matter your age.


We need to look up, farther than our eyes can see, to explore outer space.  As big as the oceans are outer space stretches on and on and on.  What can we find there?

Hello, Nerdy Babies!
Do you ever wonder about
SPACE?
You probably do.
You're curious.

It's home to countless stars.  The temperature is cold.  You'll float up there because of the absence of gravity.  It's quieter than quiet; there is no sound.

In our solar system planets spin in orbit around the hot, hot, hot sun.  It takes Earth 365 days to go around the sun.  Our moon spins along the orbit too.  Did you know footprints made on the moon will always stay there?

Each of the eight planets has unique characteristics.  One of them is the smallest.  Another one spins backward.  And still another is home to the tallest mountain in the solar system.  Neptune is so far from the sun; it can't complete one orbit in any recorded human's lifespan.  Astronauts are as eager to learn about outer space as anyone else of any age; especially a nerdy baby.


The spare narrative of Emmy Kastner peaks readers' interest.  It provides answers to questions they might have about oceans or outer space.  They will be fascinated by all the topics she covers in the limited pages.  Her additional text in speech bubbles and captions supplies facts and humor. Here are two more passages.

Most of the ocean is cold.

AREN'T YOU COLD?

Since fish are cold-blooded, their bodies
adjust to match warm and cold water.

Do you love the moon?
Earth sure does!

They travel around together.

LIKE PEAS
AND CARROTS!


Sturdy case covers with expandable binding, durable pages and vibrant colors give immediate appeal for the intended audience.  Four babies wearing eyeglasses and appropriate attire appear throughout the books.  Two different ones introduce the topics on the front but all of them are shown on the back of the book cases.

When the case cover is opened the narrative and illustrations begin.  They continue until the final page.  Definitive lines, delicate details and easily identified shapes permeate the images.  Readers will enjoy identifying all the elements in each picture; a tiny hermit crab coming out of a shell, baby turtles heading to the water, a teddy bear wearing a pair of water goggles, or a beverage bottle drifting inside a space capsule.

The pictures are either double-page, full-page or several small illustrations are loosely framed on a single page. The backgrounds vary according to the location.  The text, speech bubbles and captions are placed in a manner to promote participatory reading.  All the creatures and space objects are animated

Two of my many favorite illustrations are on a double page and a full page.  On the first a white canvas is used to highlight an array of colorful ocean creatures.  Some of the animals are put in an ocean setting which frames them.  In the lower right-hand corner, the child seen on the front of the book case has changed his gear.  His teddy bear is diving with him.  He asks DO YOU HAVE A FAVORITE?
The second picture is placed on a white background which acts as a wide border.  One of the children is running across our moon, wearing a white space suit.  The footprints remain.  The moon is smiling with closed eyes.  A few stars can be seen in the darkened background.


Whoever reads Nerdy Babies: Ocean and Nerdy Babies: Space written and illustrated by Emmy Kastner will find themselves smiling at the author's use of imagination, information and art.  Trust me.  I've been smiling for hours.  I recommend these for both your professional and personal collections.  They will work wonderfully for one-on-one reading or with small groups.  They are certain to prompt further research, discussions and learning.

To learn more about Emmy Kastner and her other work, please follow the link attached to her name to access her website.  Emmy Kastner has accounts on Instagram and Twitter.  There is a separate website for Nerdy Babies.  At the publisher's website you can view interior images for Nerdy Babies: Ocean and Nerdy Babies: Space.  The cover reveal for the books is at the Nerdy Book Club.  Emmy Kastner is featured at author Jarrett Lerner's website and at teacher librarian Travis Jonker's School Library Journal 100 Scope Notes.

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.