I'm a historian of science who specializes in modern China. My professional life revolves around teaching history at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and writing for academic audiences. But my not-so-secret dream has always been to write for children. I've been a regular visitor to the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, where I've gorged on illustrated books for children. Encouraged by a chance meeting with a publisher’s representative attending an event at the Carle, I decided to distill my academic book, Red Revolution, Green Revolution: Scientific Farming in Socialist China, into a children’s story. I’m proud that my fans now include elementary-school students. (And at least one professional historian admitted he read the kids’ version first!)
I wrote
Moth and Wasp, Soil and Ocean: Remembering Chinese Scientist Pu Zhelong's Work for Sustainable Farming
This Caldecott winner tells the story of Wilson Alwyn Bentley, whose stunningly beautiful and accurate photographs of snowflakes and other water formations fostered much scientific research, not to mention a popular fascination with this exquisite aspect of natural history. The book’s elegant prose and colorful woodcut prints bring to life Bentley’s nineteenth-century Vermont farming community, from his childhood explorations of nature to the state-of-the-art microscope camera that cost his parents as much as their herd of cows, to the slide shows he presented to friends and neighbors featuring his marvelous photographs.
In reading Snowflake Bentley, I was struck by how strongly the ideal of a farmer-turned-scientist, familiar to me from Mao-era Chinese history, resonated in US history as well.
From the time he was a small boy, Wilson Bentley saw snowflakes as small miracles. And he determined that one day his camera would capture for others the wonder of the tiny crystal. Bentley's enthusiasm for photographing snowflakes was often misunderstood in his time, but his patience and determination revealed two important truths: no two snowflakes are alike; and each one is startlingly beautiful. His story is gracefully told and brought to life in lovely woodcuts, giving children insight into a soul who had not only a scientist's vision and perseverance but a clear passion for the wonders of nature.…
The first chapter book I checked out from the school library when I was in third grade (in 1980) was a biography of George Washington Carver. I have always remembered how inspiring I found his story. This new picture-book biography is a beautiful addition to what is now a very large number of children’s book tributes to Carver’s legacy. Morrison’s use of light and color results in stunning images to illustrate Carver’s motto and the book’s central theme, “Regard nature. Revere Nature. Respect nature.”
The story follows Carver from childhood, when he first learned to experiment by gardening in a secret plot tucked in the woods of the farm where he grew up, to his days as a young scientist in the laboratories of Iowa Agricultural College and the Tuskegee Institute, the time he spent traveling through the southern countryside bringing new agricultural knowledge to poor farmers, and finally his elder years when he had become a nationally respected and internationally renowned figure who remained “always ready to serve humanity.”
The inspirational story of George Washington Carver and his childhood secret garden is brought to life in this picture book biography by the author-illustrator team behind Muhammad Ali: A Champion Is Born.
When George Washington Carver was just a young child, he had a secret: a garden of his own.
Here, he rolled dirt between his fingers to check if plants needed more rain or sun. He protected roots through harsh winters, so plants could be reborn in the spring. He trimmed flowers, spread soil, studied life cycles. And it was in this very place that George’s love of nature…
In more recent years, Jeannine Atkins has given us the beautifully written “novels-in-verse” Finding Wonders: Three Girls Who Changed Science and Grasping Mysteries: Girls Who Loved Math. The richly illustrated picture book Mary Anning and the Sea Dragonis one of Atkins’s earlier efforts to showcase the contributions women and girls have made to science. The story of Mary Anning is also important for what it tells us about the role of working-class people in the history of science. Mary’s father had been a carpenter until his untimely death, and the family supplemented their meager income by selling “curiosities” (i.e., fossils) they unearthed on the seashore near their home in Lyme Regis, England.
Mary’s careful reconstructions of fossils (including the world-famous ichthyosaur that she and her brother uncovered) helped transform the field of paleontology, earning her as much respect as a working-class woman could get in the world of nineteenth-century British science.
Over two hundred years ago, a young girl discovers a fossil, and begins a lifelong vocation that earns her a place in history. "The patience and dogged determination of the unconventional Mary shines through, making her story one not only for dinosaur-lovers, but for those appreciate stories of strong girls as well." -- Publishers Weekly.
This book is sadly out of print, but readers looking for a lavishly detailed and colorfully illustrated account of technology in the service of ecological restoration should hit the used book market and add this to their home libraries. It tells the story of John Todd, a scientist from Massachusetts who created “Living Machines” that use biological processes to transform sewage into clean water. Meanwhile, down in Tennessee, factory pollution has turned Chattanooga Creek into a stream of sludge that poisons the land and sickens the residents. The city council invites Todd to visit, and Todd adapts his Living Machines to handle not just ordinary sewage, but toxic waste.
Bang’s illustrations bring the reader to the microscopic level and back again to show just how the ecological principles of the Living Machine work. We learn that success doesn’t come easily, and science alone will not fix every problem, but an understanding of nature combined with a commitment to healing the earth can do wonders.
The true story of John Todd's ingenious plan to clean toxic waste from a Tennessee creek describes the 150 years of pollution buildup that prompted his decision and his construction of the Living Machine. Children's BOMC Feat.
The story of environmental activist Wangari Maathai has been told many times, including in several children’s books. I chose this book not only for its spectacular scratchboard illustrations of the Kenyan countryside but also because of its thoughtful attention to Maathai’s passion for science and her path-breaking journey as an African woman scientist. Having overcome gender barriers in the pursuit of her education, Maathai went on to become the kind of scientist who stands up against injustice and for the land and its people.
Her mobilization of village women to plant trees all across Kenya, along with her bold political activism for freedom and democracy, won her the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004. This book’s depiction of a scientist who moves between villages and university laboratories, valuing the work of rural people as much as that of city elites, reminded me of the ideal I tried to convey inMoth and Wasp.
As a young girl in Kenya, Wangari was taught to respect nature. She grew up loving the land, plants, and animals that surrounded her -from the giant mugumo trees her people, the Kikuyu, revered to the tiny tadpoles that swam in the river. Although most Kenyan girls were not educated, Wangari, curious and hardworking, was allowed to go to school. There, her mind sprouted like a seed. She excelled at science and went on to study in the United States. After returning home, Wangari blazed a trail across Kenya, using her knowledge and compassion to promote the rights of her…
Moth and Wasp tells the story of a real Chinese scientist, Pu Zhelong, through the eyes of a fictional village boy—a composite character I created from people I interviewed who grew up in China during the Mao era (1949-1976). Melanie Chan’s illustrations bring the narrator’s memories to life while incorporating traditional Chinese folk art and elements of the Chinese written language.
Pu Zhelong was an insect scientist committed to serving the people by finding environmentally friendly and affordable ways to control agricultural pests. He personified the best of Maoist science, combining Chinese knowledge rooted in the countryside and Western scientific learning from overseas. The villagers are initially skeptical of Professor Pu’s proposal to breed and release parasitic wasps, but the city-born scientist wins them over with his willingness to get his hands and feet dirty. The narrator admires Pu and even makes a contribution to the research. He discovers that a university scientist can be at home in the villages… and a village kid can go to the university and become a scientist himself.
I have been to, and loved, North, Central, and especially East Africa for over fifty years. Only six times have I been to Africa on holiday; more often, perhaps twenty or more times, as a television producer. Working in Africa gains a perspective of reality that the glories of vacation do not. Each has its place, each its pitfalls like stalled plane rides with emergency landings in the bush or attacks by wildlife. But, in the end, the magic of the “otherness,” what an old friend called “primitava” captures one’s soul and changes your life.
Keen to rekindle their love of East African wildlife adventures after years of filming, extreme dangers, and rescues, producer Pero Baltazar, safari guide Mbuno Waliangulu, and Nancy Breiton, camerawoman, undertake a filming walking adventure north of Lake Rudolf, crossing from Kenya into Ethiopia along the Omo River, following a herd of elephant making their annual migration.
Stumbling onto an elephant poaching, the team become embroiled in true financing of terrorism for al Shabaab –ivory sales–and are determined to stop the slaughter at any cost. Ivory trade financing terrorism involves UN refugee camps with two hundred thousand displaced Somali persons, powerful…
A documentary team hiking through East Africa collides with a gang of deadly poachers, in this gripping adventure by the author of Kidnapped on Safari.
Years of filming, extreme dangers, and daring rescues have taken their toll on documentary producer Pero Baltazar and his team. To relax and reconnect with the East African wildlife they love, Pero organizes a walking safari for him, his camerawoman Nancy Breiton, and their elite guide Mbuno Waliangulu. Still, Pero has trouble truly disconnecting from work. When the team comes across a herd of elephants making their annual migration north of Lake Rudolf, Pero decides…
