Review: The Ultimate Collection of Pro Football Records

The Ultimate Collection of Pro Football Records by Shane Frederick

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



This is an excellent example of a complex text format that is not about reading a lot of paragraphs. The overall point of the book is to present a catalog tables of records set in the NFL. The reading consists in knowing how to read and interpret the significance of each table. As such, a lot of context is missing and would have to be filled in with background knowledge about the game--the book would be best read with a long-time football fan. And I fear that these simple record tables pale in comparison to the kind of table/chart analysis people do to play fantasy football. And I hear more and more kids talking about that game.

And still, there is always that background conversation about 'who was the greatest x'. So i think for sparking football conversation and getting a group of kids huddled around a book looking at the stats, this is a good pick. I'm an occasional football fan, and found it interesting enough to spend time with.

One of my wishes for a book like this is that it would provide the most direct information possible to get me to video clips of some of the more amazing records. Only four people have kicked a 63-yard field goal in the history of the NFL (one happened in 2012, after the book went to press). I had to search around quite a bit to find all of them in video on NFL.com or youtube. I imagine these clips are out there, and that's some of the media research I'd like to see Eric Gohr doing over at Capstone!



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Review: What-the-Dickens: The Story of a Rogue Tooth Fairy

What-the-Dickens: The Story of a Rogue Tooth Fairy by Gregory Maguire

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



Maguire's writerly style was the strength of this book, and his interweaving of two stories, and the meta-awareness of narrative throughout the book.

My favorite theme is how he dealt with the perennial question of whether a story is true. I often have kids ask me if a story I'm telling is 'true' and I always answer, "All stories are true." Because whatever I am telling IS the story. Yes, I know that's not what they really mean. But the broader human desire to know whether a story is based on 'real events' is more complicated than we allow. And in a way, we learn more about children's relationship to 'reality' in informational text through the questions they ask about fantasy. What difference does it make to a child to know whether a story happened in history or whether it happened in imagination? This is a question of hope and fear: they want to know whether what the story evokes or provokes is likely to happen to them outside the narrative. The question isn't "is it real" or "is it true" it's really "Could that be me?" And what does the answer to this question do for the imagination?

His early development of the fantastic main character reminded me of William Mayne's [b:Hob and the Goblins|805577|Hob and the Goblins|William Mayne|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1178556401s/805577.jpg|2319960], where I really got to try to enter the mind of someone who didn't think or act like a human. But apparently this wasn't sustainable. While he maintained a few elements to make the fairies non-human, too much of it felt like he had drifted over into a simple mirror-world populated by small humans. That was disappointing. Ultimately, What-the-Dickens and Pepper end up seeming heroic because they act as modern Americans would value them acting. I wanted them to stay weird, in the old sense of the word.



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Review: This or That Animal Debate: A Rip-Roaring Game of Either/Or Questions

This or That Animal Debate: A Rip-Roaring Game of Either/Or Questions by Joan Axelrod-Contrada

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This series is all about engagement. It drew me in, got me thinking and reacting to the paired choice, and then moved me on to the next pair.

From the same Edge series as [b:This or That Survival Debate|14352894|This or That Survival Debate A Rip-Roaring Game of Either/Or Questions|Erik Heinrich|http://d202m5krfqbpi5.cloudfront.net/books/1355892043s/14352894.jpg|19994823], Axelrod-Contrada provided an engaging 'would you rather' game. Again, this kind of arbitrary choice is just in good fun, and intended to provide an excuse for detailing specific facts about animals. It made the following facts memorable: Over 100 people are killed each year by box jellyfish, but only about 5-6 in shark attacks; A wolf can run 22 miles in a stretch, but a cheetah can only go for less than a minute; recent stories of feral children have them living with wild dogs and wild monkeys!

Interestingly, the photos for this book seem less drawn from stock photo collections. Specific individuals are noted in 15 or so instances with no connection to a stock photo company. To me this suggests the research was all internet, and the 'just right' photos found through google searches belonged to individuals rather than a company. Eric Gohl is credited as the media researcher, so I assume this was his work. I think I'll call Capstone to see if I can ask him a few questions about process.



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Review: How Robots Work

How Robots Work by Jenny Moss

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



This "Edge" series from Capstone pairs basic bare bones writing with large photos or hyper-realistic artwork to cover a topic. The topic is divided into chapters, and within each chapter subheaders deal with subtopics. Text boxes provide additional relevant facts on the subtopic.

The rationale for this book is that it takes a topic like Robots and spans a wide breadth of subtopics. I was expecting I could find this information on the internet, but not all gathered into one place. In this case, nearly EVERYTHING in the book was already gathered and organized on the Wikipedia page. The added photos don't really justify this kind of duplication. If I were doing or assigning a report on this subject, I would want the researcher to be the one finding and adding the photos to each subtopic for an active, visual learning experience--not just finding stock photos in a book.



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Review: Awesome Space Robots

Awesome Space Robots by Michael O'Hearn

My rating: 3 of 5 stars



This "Edge" series from Capstone pairs basic bare bones writing with large photos or hyper-realistic artwork to cover a topic. The topic is divided into chapters, and within each chapter subheaders deal with subtopics. Text boxes provide additional relevant facts on the subtopic.

The rationale for this book is that it takes a topic like Robots and spans a wide breadth of subtopics. I was expecting I could find this information on the internet, but not all gathered into one place. In this case, it was true. Because this book covers only the robots used in the space programs, there isn't a page dedicated to it. The Wikipedia article on Robotic Spacecraft doesn't cover all the subtopics this book does. So the book gets its rationale for existing by gathering information in one place and providing a corresponding visual experience. What I'm wondering is if this is the kind of specialized topic that would even be helpful for the series' purpose, which would be the school research report.



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Review: Valentine Be Mine

Valentine Be Mine by Jacqueline Farmer

My rating: 2 of 5 stars



Farmer's book was the basic set of historical facts on where Valentine's Day originated. Farmer debunks the old idea that this Catholic holiday was connected to an earlier Roman festival. She cites 'recent research', but the book has no source notes or bibliography to credit her sources. Unfortunately, the text of this book offers very little beyond the Wikipedia entry. The writing doesn't do much to create an overarching narrative or questions to be answered, so I am left wondering why this mirror of the internet gets to be printed on paper, hard-cover, and full color.

Halsey & Addy's collaged illustrations on canvas background gave the impression of beautiful valentines hand-made from ephemera. This was a fun style to look at and would make for a fun project to mimic. Farmer did add a couple of how-to instructions in the book to encourage this kind of project.



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Review: Welcome to Your Awesome Robot

Welcome to Your Awesome Robot by Viviane Schwarz

My rating: 4 of 5 stars



This is a fun visual reboot of the simple how-to book. Schwarz uses the graphic design elements familiar from instruction manuals to augment her children's graphic novel format. I love how the main text of the book is entirely in graphic novel format, allowing dialog to rule the text. She used the dialog to set up gags with a straight-man/funny-man structure. Her simple graphic coloring techniques are consistent with her drawing style--somehow a charming combination of tightness and looseness to the lines. To me it said 'homemade doesn't have to mean shoddy'. When I got to the end and saw a robot party with kids all making their own costumes, I was willing to bet Schwarz actually had this party!

I did think it was misleading not to note explicitly on the title page that this is actually a book about making robot costumes, not robots. But there's a pretend play thing going on that Schwarz brings up in the earliest dialog, so it doesn't feel like a lie.

The interesting backstory here is Flying Eye Books. An imprint of independent art-house graphic design group Nowbrow, the list of titles is short but impressive. The Hilda series has seen some notoriety, but there is a nice stable of talent here! It made me wonder how this UK company got their books into a Colorado library collection? Lu, who bought this and how did they know?



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