Indie Crushes - October 24, 2018
This week I thought I'd intentionally focus on nonfiction titles. I found three biographies featuring individuals I have never heard of but whose stories moved and inspired me. I found three books about nature that each caused me to see our world a little differently.
Here's what I've been crushing on this week from small, independent publishers, often responsible for delivering to us unique and often unconventional stories.
Check out previous Indie Crushes HERE.
INDIE CRUSHES - October 24th, 2018
CRUSHING ON AN ODE TO A POEM AND TO THE JOY THAT IS THERE, EVEN AMID THE SADNESS
Ode to an Onio: Pablo Neruda and his Muse by Alexandria Giardino and Felicita Sala (CAMERON)
A poetic, beautifully illustrated picture book inspired by Ode to the Onion by Chilean poet Pablo Neruda (1904–1973). Pablo has a lunch date with his friend Matilde, who shows the moody poet her garden. Where Pablo sees conflict and sadness, Matilde sees love and hope. The story is less a biography of Neruda and his muse, Matilde Urrutia (1912–1985), and more a simple ode to a vegetable that is humble and luminous, dark and light, gloomy and glad, full of grief and full of joy—just like life.
CRUSHING ON THE INTERSECTION OF BOOKS, POETIC WORDS, AND MOMENTS SPENT IN GOOD COMPANY
Memphis, Martin, and the Mountaintop: The Sanitation Strike of 1968 by Alice Faye Duncan and R. Gregory Christie (CALKINS CREEK)
This historical fiction picture book presents the story of nine-year-old Lorraine Jackson, who in 1968 witnessed the Memphis sanitation strike--Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s final stand for justice before his assassination--when her father, a sanitation worker, participated in the protest.
In February 1968, two African American sanitation workers were killed by unsafe equipment in Memphis, Tennessee. Outraged at the city's refusal to recognize a labor union that would fight for higher pay and safer working conditions, sanitation workers went on strike. The strike lasted two months, during which Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was called to help with the protests. While his presence was greatly inspiring to the community, this unfortunately would be his last stand for justice. He was assassinated in his Memphis hotel the day after delivering his "I've Been to the Mountaintop" sermon in Mason Temple Church. Inspired by the memories of a teacher who participated in the strike as a child, author Alice Faye Duncan reveals the story of the Memphis sanitation strike from the perspective of a young girl with a riveting combination of poetry and prose.
CRUSHING ON A DETERMINATION TO KEEP A FAMILY UNBROKEN AMID OUR NATION'S DARKEST HISTORY
Hammering for Freedom: The William Lewis Story by Rita Lorraine Hubbard and John Holyfield (LEE & LOW BOOKS)
Born into slavery in Chattanooga, Tennessee, William "Bill" Lewis learned the blacksmith trade as soon as he was old enough to grip a hammer. He proved to be an exceptional blacksmith and earned so much money fixing old tools and creating new ones that he was allowed to keep a little money for himself. With just a few coins in his pocket, Bill set a daring plan in motion: he was determined to free his family.
Winner of Lee & Low's New Voices Award, Hammering for Freedom tells the true story of one man's skill, hard work, and resolve to keep his family together.
CRUSHING ON THE STORY BEHING THE LONGEST-RUNING CITIZEN SCIENCE PROJECT AND WILDLIFE CENSUS IN THE WORLD
Counting Birds: The Idea That Helped Save Our Feathered Friends by Heidi E.Y. Stemple and Clover Robin (SEAGRASS PRESS)
Everyday kids learn how they can help protect bird species, near and far, with Counting Birds—the real-life story of bird counting and watching.
What can you do to help endangered animals and make a positive change in our environment? Get counting! Counting Birds is a beautifully illustrated book that introduces kids to the idea of bird counts and bird watches. Along the way, they will learn about Frank Chapman, who used his bird knowledge and magazine Bird-Lore to found the first annual bird count.
Bird counting helps professional researchers collect data, share expertise, and spread valuable information to help all kinds of birds around the world, from condors to hawks to kestrels and more.
Counting Birds introduces kids to a whole feathered world that will fascinate and inspire them to get involved in conservation and become citizen scientists.
CRUSHING ON WORDLESS OBSERVATIONS OF ANIMALS FEEDING, HUNTING, RAISING YOUNG, AND SURVIVING IN THE WILD
Storyworlds: Nature by Thomas Hegbrook (360 DEGREES)
Explore the beauty and wonder of nature in this wordless picture book-and let your imagination bring everything to life! Stunning artwork captures the lives of a variety of animals and bugs in their natural surroundings and the changes that occur as they endure the passage of time, from birth to adulthood, winter to autumn, and more.
CRUSHING ON AN EXPLORATION OF WHAT'S GOING ON ON THE OPPOSITE SIDE OF THE EARTH
Animal Antipodes: Global Opposites by Carly Allen-Fletcher (CRESTON BOOKS)
A book that invites the reader to literally turn the pages upside-down to see what's on the other side of the globe. Geography, ecology, biology, astronomy all combine in this book to give readers a sense of opposite places on earth and the animals that live there.
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