Miss Lady Bird's Wildflowers

Miss Lady Bird's Wildflowers
by Kathy Appelt; illustrated by Joy Fisher Hein
40 pages; ages 4 and up
Harper Collins, 2005

One year I got a packet of seeds in the mail - seeds of native wildflowers that came from the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center. I remember Lady Bird as a First Lady who loved bluebonnets, who encouraged people to plant poppies and black-eyed Susans along roadsides, who thought every child should know the beauty of our native wildflowers.

What I didn't know about Lady Bird is enough to fill a book - which, it turns out, Katthy Appelt wrote and Joy Fisher Hein filled with color. Miss Lady Bird's Wildflowers is a biography of Claudia Alta Taylor - who was just as purty as a lady bird ... a colorful beetle. So that's how she was known, from the time she was knee-high to a grasshopper and through all her time as First Lady living in the White House. I never knew Lady Bird sang spring songs to daffodils and paddled a canoe through the cypress swamps. While I knew she was educated, I never gave much thought about how, back in 1930, it was unusual for a young southern woman to pack up her car and head to college.

Appelt writes a heartwarming story about a down-to-earth First Lady. At the back she includes information about the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center - where you can find a list of native flowers for your region and more information about planting than you can shake a trowel at. She also includes a key to common wildflowers along with a challenge to find them in the book.

This is a perfect book for spring because now's the time to head to the garden center and buy a packet or two of wildflower seeds for your region. Surely there's room somewhere around your home or neighborhood to plant some beauty.

This is part of the Nonfiction Monday round-up. You can find more reviews of kid's nonfiction over at a wrung sponge. Review copy provided by Blue Slip Media.

Are the Dinosaurs Dead, Dad?

Are the Dinosaurs Dead, Dad?
by Julie Middleton; illustrated by Russell Ayto
32 pages; ages 4-8
Peachtree Publishers, 2013

When Dad takes Dave to the museum, Dave wants to know absolutely and for-surely whether the dinosaurs are dead. Because the armor-plated Ankylosaurus is winking at him, and the Deinocheirus is trying to tickle him with its long, long arms. And there's an Allosaurus with very sharp teeth.... "It's just your imagination," Dad says. These dinosaurs are dead. Really dead. So why is that one following them?

Theme: father and son; visiting a museum; dinosaur diversity

Why I love this book: because, really, when I was a kid visiting the museum, I always wondered what would happen if those huge dinosaur skeletons weren't really dead. And what they would look like with skin on. And whether I could run fast enough if one wanted my PB&J sandwich...

Things to do: Imagine dinosaurs! Draw, paint - oh the ways they could look if we use our imagination.

Head to the  Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History where you can take a virtual tour of their dino exhibit, go on a dig, or find out just about anything you'd want to know about dinosaurs.

See how scientists view their work:


This review is part of PPBF (perfect picture book Friday), an event in which bloggers share great picture books at Susanna Leonard Hill's site. She keeps an ever-growing list of Perfect Picture Books. Review copy provided by the publisher.

Lenny Cyrus, School Virus

Lenny Cyrus, School Virus

By Joe Schreiber; illus. by Matt Smith

288 pages, ages 9 – 12

Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 2013

Lenny Cyrus is 13. He’s also a genius. So when he decides that the way to a girl’s heart is to know what she’s thinking, he takes action. Nano-tech action. It may not be ethical, safe, or sane, but Lenny’s chosen course is to shrink himself to the size of an amoeba and get inside Zooey. His goal: her brain.

Turns out, girls are just as hard to understand from the inside as they are from the outside. Not only that, there are so many obstacles – like the semitransparent jelly-bean-looking thing with a flagella whipping back and forth who challenges Lenny for his digestive system pass.

Lenny hooks up with an astrovirus who serves as a guide, figures out how to cross the blood-brain barrier, and basically wreaks havoc and near destruction on his one true love all in the name of science…. or at least middle-school romance.

This book is funny – and I love the way Schreiber (he’s the author) tosses in caffeine molecular chemistry, osmoreceptors, limbic systems and Planck’s Constant.  A perfect April Fool’s read but for one thing: it isn’t released until tomorrow. No fooling.

 This is part of the Marvelous Middle-Grade Monday round-up. Check out more great reading here. Review copy from publisher.