Tag: biography

Franki’s Weekly Text Set-Picture Book Biographies: Black Women Leaders

This week, we’ll look at some fabulous picture book biographies. I LOVE picture book biographies and think they invite deeper understanding and study. I love that I can read several picture book biographies about a person in the time it would take for me to read a short chapter book. With different picture books, you get more information and different perspectives. This week, we’ll look at some great picture books that teach us about Black Women Leaders.

We’ll start with Vice President Kamala Harris. I love biographies about people who are leading now. I think it is so important for young readers to learn about people from history AND people who they see now in the world. I LOVED the biography by Nikki Grimes and just recently discovered the My Little Golden Book biographies thanks to John Schu. They are all written by different fabulous authors and are really good! Loved this one by Rajani LaRocco.

Shirley Chisholm is a Verb! is such an incredible picture book. It really captures so much about Shirley Chisholm. I also loved She Was the First!. I have not read Speak Up, Speak Out! (and it is not a picture book) but when I saw that it is by Today Bolden, I had to add it to my stack and share it here. It looks like a perfect middle grade read.

There is so much to learn about the four women featured in Hidden Figures. I love that we can learn about them together and about each one’s separate contribution (Counting on Katherine). I also love that there is a lot of different media surrounding this story so children have so many sources of information to build understanding.

I learned so much reading Pies from Nowhere–such an important story in understanding the Montgomery Bus Boycott. I am happy to see that there are two newer books (Sweet Justice and Georgia Gilmore about Georgia Gilmore so readers can get to know her and her story.

I just discovered Fearless Heart last week thanks to Lynsey Burkins. What a powerful story–another story I am so glad to know. Surya Bonaly cowrote the book so it is part autobiographical. This is an important story for all of us and there are media clips, interviews, etc. online that build on what we learn in this picture book.

This week’s books were linked at Bookelicious and/or  Cover to Cover Children’s Bookstore. If you are looking for a fabulous local children’s bookstore to support, Cover to Cover is an amazing one. We are lucky to have them in Central Ohio! If you don’t have an independent children’s bookstore in your town, check out Bookelicious. They are an online independent bookstore for children with an incredible curated collection. 

Follow @TextSets on Instagram for daily books/weekly text sets!

#PoemPairs

The Leaf Detective: How Margaret Lowman Uncovered Secrets in the Rainforest
by Heather Lang
illustrated by Jana Christy
Boyds Mills & Kane/Calkins Creek, 2021
review copy provided by the publisher (thanks!)


FIRST THE PICTURE BOOK

The Leaf Detective is a picture book biography written in verse, lushly illustrated, and sprinkled throughout with quotes from Margaret Lowman and rainforest facts. Following the author’s note (she’s actually met and learned alongside Margaret Lowman in the Amazon rainforest in Peru), readers can learn more about the rainforest from a flip-the-book-vertically double-spread diagram of the levels of the rainforest, and explore further resources listed in the back matter. 


Lowman is a pioneer in the study of rainforests, and especially rainforest canopies. Not only did she invent new ways of studying the canopy by climbing into the tops of trees, but she broke through all kinds of challenges and barriers as a woman in the area of field biology in science. 

AND NOW THE POEMPAIR (replace he/his with she/her)

It Couldn’t Be Done
by Edgar Guest 

Somebody said that it couldn’t be done,
  But he with a chuckle replied
That “maybe it couldn’t,” but he would be one
  Who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried.
So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin
  On his face. If he worried he hid it.
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
  That couldn’t be done, and he did it.

Somebody scoffed: “Oh, you’ll never do that;
     At least no one ever has done it”;
But he took off his coat and he took off his hat,
     And the first thing we knew he’d begun it.
With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin,
     Without any doubting or quiddit,
He started to sing as he tackled the thing
     That couldn’t be done, and he did it.

There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,
     There are thousands to prophesy failure;
There are thousands to point out to you one by one,
     The dangers that wait to assail you.
But just buckle in with a bit of a grin,
     Just take off your coat and go to it;
Just start in to sing as you tackle the thing
     That “cannot be done,” and you’ll do it.

(this poem is in the public domain)

Inclusion and representation in science continue to be issues for women, and especially women of color. A video to share with students features Adania Flemming, a Black marine biologist/ichthyologist. Like Margaret Lowman, who has made education about women in science and about the rainforest important parts of all she does, Adania Flemming dreams of starting a research aquarium/museum in her home country of Trinidad and Tobago. 

NOTE: Thank you for your patience as we figure out WordPress. We will crosspost on A Year of Reading and A(nother) Year of Reading for a bit, but eventually, this will be where to find our current thinking. A Year of Reading will remain as a reference when we make the complete transition.