Have you ever tried to learn to do something new, such as riding a two-wheeler bike? You practice for weeks. Then one day the wheels start turning, the bike stays upright with you on it and off you go whizzing down the street. Two Brothers Four Hands tells the story of an artist named Alberto Giacometti (born 1901), and his younger brother Diego (1902) and their struggles to become artists. They grow up in a small Swiss village surrounded by mountains. Alberto likes to read or paint in his father's art studio; Diego spends his days roaming the mountains and observing the wildlife. But despite their differences, the brothers form a deep bond. When they grow up, Diego moves to Paris to help Alberto with his artwork. Alberto labors tirelessly for years trying to express in painting and sculpture the way he sees the world, the way he feels in his heart. He sits at his easel day after day painting a portrait of his younger brother Diego only to destroy it and start again. When he makes sculpture, using plaster to model his brother’s face, he eventually whittles the plaster down to nothing. Patient Diego believes in his brother’s talent but even he gets frustrated. During World War II, as most of Europe battles the German army, Alberto goes to Switzerland to be near their mother. Diego stays in Paris to guard Alberto’s studio. Diego learns to cast plaster molds into bronze and to paint the surfaces with colors of silver, green and gold. After the war, Alberto returns to Paris. Finally back in his familiar studio, he begins to make tall spindly sculptures that capture the spirit of the survivors of war-torn Europe. At the same time Diego begins to craft furniture adorned with the creatures he observed as a child - deer, foxes, turtles, and more. But he's so busy helping Alberto, who is now in great demand for exhibits in museums and galleries that he has to give up on his own work.. “Alberto is the artist. I am merely a craftsman,” Diego often says. After his brother dies, Diego starts handcrafting furniture and he, too, becomes a great success. His tables, chairs, and lamps are so magical that people forget their function and think of them as sculpture. Alberto’s friend the playwright Samuel Beckett once wrote, “Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” Like learning to ride a bike, after trying and failing again, one day you just might get it right.  Artist Hadley Hooper portrayed the differences between the two brothers in this illustration from the book. Alberto is on the left an Diego is on the right.
 The inspiring true story of the Giacometti brothers, one an artist, the other a daredevil, both devoted to their craft . . . but even more devoted to each other. You can read Vicki Cobb's review here.
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 A celebrity has just arrived in Mr. Madison’s classroom at El Verano Elementary School and the 3rd graders are beside themselves. “Here he is!” they exclaim as the visitor walks through the door. This special guest has not come to give a lesson or tell a story. He is neither a star athlete nor a movie star. He doesn’t play an instrument, sing, dance or do magic tricks. His tricks are mostly limited to sit, stay and shake. He is a dog. His name is Fenway Bark. An eight-year old chocolate-colored Labrador retriever, Fenway has been coming to El Verano for six years with his owner, Mara Kahn. He has helped hundreds of children become better readers. Fenway is a literacy dog. “Fenway’s job is to listen while you’re reading,” explains Mara to the class, which is gathered in a circle around her and Fenway. One of the best ways for children to improve their reading is to read aloud, but reading in front of an audience can be scary. What if Chelsea mispronounces a word? Or if Alex loses track of where he is on the page? Will everyone laugh? The fear can discourage some children from reading aloud at all. Solution: read to a totally non-judgmental audience that doesn’t care what you read or how you read it. Read to a dog! When reading to dogs, young readers don’t have to worry about saying “whoof” when they meant to say “which.” With less anxiety and more confidence, young readers increase their reading fluency. That’s why literacy dogs visit hundreds of schools and libraries as reading buddies for children. Vanessa sits cross-legged on the rug in Mr. Madison’s classroom. She gingerly opens Strega Nona by Tomie De Paola. Softly, slowly, she reads about Big Anthony who ignores Strega Nona’s instructions not to touch her magical pasta pot. Fenway sits up and looks at Vanessa. He gazes at the floor. Vanessa keeps reading. The pasta starts flowing. Fenway stretches out. Vanessa reads a little louder, a little faster. Pasta floods the town. Fenway licks Vanessa’s knee. She giggles and goes back to her book. Today, six children got to read to the canine visitor. “It’s so cool to read to a dog,” said one boy who will get his chance next week. He was already thinking about choosing a doggone good book
MLA 8 Citation Schwartz, David M. "Reading Has Gone to the Dogs." Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think Tank, 20 Dec. 2017, www.nonfictionminute.org/the-nonfiction-minute/Reading-Has-Gone-to-the-Dogs. Accessed 20 Dec. 2017. 
You need to write a biography, a story of someone’s life. What do you do to discover the person’s silly quirks or darkest secrets? Probably you go online. That’s a good start, but that’s all it is—a start. Real authors—and students completing assignments—dig deeper. Only by checking a variety of resources can you find the juiciest facts to make your biographies come alive. For example, when I write about someone, I start by reading an overview of their life. I might check a general resource, such as Wikipedia, But not all information is accurate in this or other websites, so I play detective to locate resources that confirm what I’m reading. One way to find good resources is to look at the bottom of the Wikipedia article and see which articles and books that author used as resources. If these sources seem credible to you, click to find the original articles the author used. Another source of information is your librarian. Librarians love to delve into the craziest topics. Need to locate a long-lost relative of your biography subject or trail where that person lived over the years, ask your librarian. Librarians locate books, specialized online resources, and newspapers and magazines that can help you. When I researched Dolores Huerta Stands Strong: The Woman Who Demanded Justice, I wanted more personal resources. So I looked for people to interview who knew her at different times of her life. I called up volunteers who marched with Dolores to protest unfair treatment of farm workers. I found others who helped the public learn not to eat table grapes until farm owners agreed to pay farm workers fair wages and provide clean housing, breaks in the fields, and places to go to the bathroom. When I wanted to learn how Dolores Huerta worked to improve lives of women, I contacted Gloria Steinem, a leader of the 1970s women’s movement. I talked with Huerta’s children. I prepared before each interview. I learned about connections between the interviewees and my biography subject. I wrote questions ahead of time, so I wasn’t wasting interviewee time. At the end of each interview, I asked: “Is there something else you remember?’ That’s when I got some of the best stories. Between interviews, books, magazine and newspaper articles, I found enough material to tell Huerta’s life. You can with your biography, too.  Once you've researched and written your biography, you will probably want to add a picture of your subject. You've probably seen many pictures during your research, but you must be careful about permission to use photographs or drawings. You can find some good guidelines at How to Find Free Images With Google's Advanced Image Search. This photo of Delores Huerta is from her Wikipedia article. Most photos from Wikipedia may be used for non business purposes. By clicking on a picture, you are taken to Wikimedia, the place where photos reside. You will be able to download a photo and decide how you want to caption it. Here's what it says about this photo in Wikimedia: Description English: Dolores speaking at an event in Phoenix, Arizona. Date: 20 March 2016 Author: Gage Skidmore This information will allow you to tell your reader about the photo in the form of a caption and also credit your source: Delores Huerta speaking at an event in Phoenix Arizona on March 20, 1916. Photo by Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia  Marlene Targ Brill's Dolores Huerta Stands Strong follows Huerta’s life from the mining communities of the Southwest where her father toiled, to the vineyards and fields of California, and across the country to the present day. As she worked for fair treatment for others, Dolores earned the nation’s highest honors. More important, she found her voice. 
I really like vultures. Sure, they’re ugly and they eat nasty dead things. But those are not necessarily bad characteristics. First let’s deal with “ugly.” Vultures’ bald heads are what make them seem ugly to most people. But think about why they’re bald. Imagine thrusting your head inside the carcass of a white-tailed deer to reach the meat. A feathered head might capture bits of flesh, blood and gore and you end up with a face full bacteria and flies. Scientists believe that one reason vultures have evolved featherless heads is to aid in hygiene. A bald head stays clean and any remaining germs or bacteria are baked off by the sun. Vultures have also found that a bald head can help with temperature regulation. When it gets cold they can tuck their heads down to keep their neck covered with feathers. When it’s hot, vultures can extend their neck to expose bare skin. Their bald heads work so well that I wrote a poem about them. Naked Head It’s best to have no feathers, When you stick your head in guts, That way you don’t go walkin’ round, Your noggin dripping schmutz. Moving on to “eating nasty dead things,” the next time you see vultures eating a dead animal on the side of the road, be thankful! That carcass might be dead from rabies or contaminated with other harmful diseases. Vultures have the amazing ability to consume rotting and diseased flesh and stay healthy. It’s all in the stomach. Vultures possess very powerful stomach acids that destroy most bacteria and deadly viruses. In fact, vulture stomach acid is so strong it can dissolve metal! Except if that metal is lead shot -- many turkey vultures are killed every year by consuming shot that they encounter in dead deer. Vultures are the world’s natural “sanitation workers,” helping to stop the spread of disease. I’m so appreciative of the work they do, I even wrote a poem about eating dead things: Dead Meat I like my meat dead, It’s best if it’s not moving. Don’t want to see one final twitch, I prefer it oozing So, the next time you see a vulture circling in the noonday sky, think about the valuable and important clean up service this bird provides to us and to the environment. Maybe I’ll write a poem about that….
 My friends the black vultures didn't kill this deer. They are just going to be cleaning up the carcass. Wikipedia commons. Photo by Nathaniel Paluga.  Steve Swinburne is a science writer, but as you can see from this Minute, he likes to write poetry too. In his book Ocean Soup, he offers verses in the voices of tide-pool animals, including the barnacle, sea urchin, sculpin, mussel, starfish, hermit crab, anemone, and lobster. For more about Steve's poetry, click here. Steve Swinburne is a member of iNK's Authors on Call and is available for classroom programs through FieldTripZoom, a terrific technology that requires only a computer, wifi, and a webcam. Click here to find out more. MLA 8 Citation Swinburne, Stephen R. "In Praise of Vultures." Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think Tank, 8 Dec. 2017, www.nonfictionminute.org/ In-Praise-Of-Vultures.  |
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The NCSS-CBC Notable Social Studies Committee is pleased to inform you that 30 People Who Changed the World has been selected for Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People 2018, a cooperative project of the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) & the Children’s Book Council Categories
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