Enlightened

Copies disappeared with regularity.  Others were ragged and torn and patched until they had to be replaced . . . repeatedly.  These books located in the nonfiction section, Dewey number 793.73, were rarely on the shelves except at the beginning and end of the school year.  Their popularity never ceased.

Series like the classic I Spy books, Can You See What I See volumes and the stand alone title, A Drop of Water: A Book of Science and Wonder (546.22) have entertained and informed readers for decades.  A Ray Of Light: A Book Of Science And Wonder (Scholastic Press, February 26, 2019) written and illustrated by Walter Wick is a breathtaking depiction through photography and text of various aspects of light.  It's one of those titles where there's much you aren't aware you don't know but are grateful you do now.

WHAT IS LIGHT?

Everything from the earth beneath our feet, the water we drink, and the air we breathe is made of atoms.  Atoms are the tiny, invisible building blocks of matter.  

From an introductory paragraph on atoms and matter, we move into a grand discussion of light and its purpose and place in the world.  In fifteen sections, each beginning with a page turn, we are privy to wondrous revelations.  In the first one, light is shown to be energy through its presence in a flame.

Light generated through heat is incandescence.  Did you know depending on the heat source, the color of this kind of light changes?  According to the length of light's waves we see different colors; red is longer than blue.  Guess what happens when red, green and blue light overlap?

Light refraction is presented as an obstacle course.  The colors in a color spectrum cannot be refracted again through a prism. (Did you know that?)  You will be amazed at the difference in two, three-color combinations when they are spun like tops.  The explanation for iridescence is equally engaging.

We are presented with a comparison of pigments and dyes and how they are formed.  The use of a lens can be powerful in creating energy or in projecting an image on another surface, like our eyes and in cameras.  Extending the discussion on the use of lens we understand how they work in microscopes and telescopes.  As the title comes to a close we find ourselves leaving our planet, comparing it to the moon and traveling to the sun.  Light is life.


Every explanation offered by Walter Wick in his text is concise but conversational.  He starts with the simple moving to the more complex but never loses the reader in too much detail.  Each topic moves to the next in a flawless flow.  Specific words are italicized, reinforcing our understanding of their clarification.  Readers feel as though they are being given a personal tutorial.  Here is a passage.

Unless obstructed or reflected, light travels in perfectly straight lines.  Above, a ray of sunlight comes in straight from the left.  Encountering a clear, water-filled box head on, the light remains perfectly straight as it passes through.  Arriving at the next box at an angle, the light bends down slightly, then bends up again continuing on a straight path.  The bending of light rays by plastic, glass, water, or any other clear substance is called refraction.


One can only speculate on the time-consuming task of taking each and every photograph displayed in this book.  On the open and matching dust jacket and book case we first encounter, on the front, a prism presenting the color spectrum.  Note the pin in the picture.  Walter Wick uses this object frequently to make comparisons.  To the left, on the back, a square outlined in a thin line of white is broken equally into four other squares outlined in white.  These hold portions of images shown in the interior of the book representing light as energy, incandescence, refraction and tricks of light.

A soft, steely blue covers the opening and closing endpapers.  On the title page the text uses the color spectrum on white; the opposite of what we see on the front of the jacket and case.  For the subjects covered in the body of the book, photographs range in size from double-page pictures to full-page illustrations to a series of smaller visuals demonstrating a scientific point.  For example, when showing us how light is energy, three small images show a match about to be drawn across a rock, then as it moves, it burst into a flame and finally, the burning match is held above the rock.

The text and these photographs work wonderfully together.  The photographs elevate the text splendidly appealing to more visual learners but benefiting verbal (written) learners at the same time.  It's as if we are holding experiments in our hands which we can refer back to again and again which is exactly what Walter Wick desires for us.

One of my many favorite photographs is a series of six images.  The top three show a ball connected to a rod.  These depending on the speed visualize the wavelengths of light.  Beneath these are corresponding colors of light; red, green and blue.


A Ray Of Light: A Book Of Science And Wonder written and illustrated by Walter Wick fully explains the science behind every aspect of light but it still seems magical.  It is guaranteed readers will find this book captivating from beginning to end.  At the close of the book two pages are dedicated to further information about each topic along with Spectrum of Electromagnetic Radiation.  Walter Wick closes with a chat about the process behind this book.  I highly recommend this title for your personal and professional collections.

To learn more about Walter Wick and his other work, please follow the link attached to his name to access his website.  He includes two page spreads from the interior of the book.  Walter Wick has accounts on Instagram, Pinterest and Twitter.  At the publisher's website you can view more interior pages.  You must go to Scholastic's blog to read and see the process behind the making of this book.  It's fabulous!  At The Horn Book Roger Sutton talks with Walter Wick about this book.  Here is a link to a video on Facebook about this title.  Please take a few moments to watch this video with Walter Wick talking about this new title.




Be sure to visit Kid Lit Frenzy hosted by educator Alyson Beecher to enjoy the other selections this week by those participating in the 2019 Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge.

It's A Bear-y Good Thing

This year I have been spending time (less lately than I should) participating in a Caldecott Challenge hosted by LibLaura5, librarian and blogger along with her friend and fellow librarian, Anna, found at A to Z Library.  In the course of participating in the challenge I have had the benefit of revisiting many old favorites.  One such title, a Caldecott Honor winner for 1949, is Blueberries for Sal (The Viking Press) written and illustrated by Robert McCloskey.

I enjoyed reading it again so much I knew I needed a copy for my personal shelves. Even now, gazing at the pages, the warmth of the story and illustrations is there as much as it was all those years ago.  Anita Silvey, author, blogger and lifelong lover of books for children of all ages, best describes it in a post on her blog, Anita Silvey's Children's Book-A-Day Almanac. 

Then on March 11, 2012 and on August 2, 2012 Julie Danielson, blogger at the informative and downright gorgeous, Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast highlighted the new title of author/illustrator Ashley Wolff, Baby Bear Sees Blue (Beach Lane Books, February 7, 2012), along with an interview and a selection of some of her other books.  It seems Wolff was drawn to the relationship of the mother bear and her cub in Blueberries for Sal.  After spending a day with Baby Bear and his Mama readers will sense the same warmth (and more) found in McCloskey's book, in this title by Ashley Wolff.



Deep down in the den,
Baby Bear wakes up.
He yawns and blinks
and stretches his stubby legs.

As a glow fills the cave's opening, the curious little bear asks his mother who is warming him.  Her reply is the sun.  What he sees is yellow.

As he ventures out into the day, once again, his curiosity is piqued.  In noticing the leaves he wonders who is waving at him.  She names it as the oak.  Green is what Baby Bear sees.

With each "who" question Baby Bear asks, his ever present Mama answers with an exact answer.  He in turn visualizes the object as a color.  In this manner readers follow the two on their day's journey, crossing a stream, wandering through a meadow, back to the safety of their den when a storm threatens and into the comfort of sleep.

Ashley Wolff's narrative, her word selection, has a natural, pleasing and inviting rhythm to it.  When Baby Bear perceives with his senses, at times in the form of personification, an object, his Mama's response is to instruct and introduce him to his world.  When he follows with the name of a color, the trio readers have come to expect is complete. 

Wolff's artwork is breathtaking; illustrations have been rendered by printing linoleum blocks in black on Arches Cover paper followed by, what can only be described as meticulous, hand coloring with watercolor.  Every single two-page spread entices and rewards the reader's eyes.  Color choices radiate, even in the rain

At repeated readings, once will not be enough, all the extra details can be savored; facial expressions on the bear pair, the squawking jays, or the splashing trout.  Smaller woodland and meadow creatures, plant life too,  make their way into the illustrations giving depth to the bears's world.  There is joy, an exuberance, that reaches out from the pictures and wraps around you.

Be sure to follow the links to both of the interviews at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast to feast your eyes on pictures from the book in various stages of completion.  Ashley Wolff's text and illustrations most certainly offer readers a path to the learning of colors and the names of things in Baby Bear's little corner of the forest and field.  But Baby Bear Sees Blue is so much more, a charming, delightful story that will stand the test of time, a thing of beauty.  I am adding it to my Mock Caldecott list for 2013.

The Life of Color

I think it's genetic, on my father's side; all his cars, his clothing and his chair.  No room in my house is without it, even my KitchenAid mixer and dog's beds.  During the course of spring and summer I coax it from the gardens' ground, it becomes my bed on a sunny afternoon and I walk through its woodsy coolness.

I truly wanted to turn the pages of Green ( A Neal Porter Book, Roaring Brook Press, March 27, 2012) written and illustrated by Laura Vaccaro Seeger slowly, drinking in the visual displays.  But I found myself quickly moving from one two-page illustration to another marveling at the beauty of each, softly exclaiming aloud.  When I read through it again, I plucked out the words, stringing them together as a completed poem seen on a single page.

Two word verses titling each of the hues, forest green, sea green, lime green, pea green, awaken other senses, observations associated with the words.  So, too, do the other lines offering up states of green, slow green.  Pair the text with Seeger's paintings and words like rich, renew, remember and reverent come to mind.

Whether seeing a small white rabbit peering around a trunk in a forest thick with leafy trees, a sea turtle gliding through the pristine waters, a freshly sliced lime resting on a surface or weathered boards as backdrop for equally scarred signs with diminishing words, the acrylics are bold, thick, inviting readers to reach out and touch them.  So lavish are they, one can almost smell the earth, hear the birdsong, feel the water caress one's skin, taste the sharp, tangy fruit or touch the roughness of old wood.  Illustrations resonating, breathing, life with astounding color remind readers of a continual rebirth.  As one moves from one cover to the other a serenity descends; the world fades away as you enter Seeger's tribute to and respect of green.

Noted in previous titles for her use of die-cuts, Laura Vaccaro Seeger depicts her keen sense and meticulous care with regard to design in Green. Two leaves in the forest become small fish in the sea, triangles of camouflage become golden moths and grass chewed by a zebra become the petals on Black-eyed Susans in her masterful hands.  No matter how many times I have read this I am continually astounded by her placement of the die-cuts; downright magical.

From the embossed, raised Green of the book jacket to the final two small die-cut leaves on the large tree truck, replicating the original two die-cut leaves, Laura Vaccaro Seeger has wrought an impressive work of art glowing from within, far-reaching in its effect. 

Here is the link to an outstanding interview at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast on April 17, 2012.  Another interview conducted at Reading Rockets this past summer is linked here.