You know that presidential humans have lived in the White House since 1800, but so have MANY presidential pets, especially dogs. From those owned by John and Abigail Adams to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Scottie, Fala, to Bo and Sunny, the Portuguese Water Spaniels who live with President Obama’s family, there have been lots of presidential pooches. President Clinton’s daughter Chelsea had Socks, the cat, but really, there haven’t been so very many kitty cats in the White House. So how about other kinds of pets? Well, John F. Kennedy’s daughter Caroline had Macaroni, the pony. Willie and Tad Lincoln loved to hitch up their pet goats Nanny and Nanko to a cart or even kitchen chairs and go banging and bumping through the White House! Thomas Jefferson had pet mockingbirds. James and Dolley Madison kept a parrot. So did Andrew Jackson, but his cussed and swore horribly! President Taft’s pet cow Pauline and Old Ike, one of Woodrow Wilson’s sheep, used to graze on the White House lawn. Among Calvin Coolidge’s many pets were Rebecca, the raccoon, and a donkey named Enoch. When Theodore Roosevelt became president in 1901, things really got lively, inside and outside the White House. He and his wife had six children and boy oh boy, did they have pets! Besides plenty of horses, dogs, and a couple of cats, there was a lizard, a pig, a rabbit, a rat, one small bear, five guinea pigs, a macaw, an owl, a one-legged rooster, and Josiah, the badger. Beautiful bratty Alice, the oldest daughter, loved startling people by taking Emily Spinach out of her handbag. (Emily was a green snake, named after a skinny aunt.) One day, Archie Roosevelt, one of Alice’s little brothers, was sick upstairs. Two of her other brothers, Quentin and Kermit, got their Shetland pony Algonquin into the White House elevator and up they went to visit Archie. As his dad, President Roosevelt would say, Archie was “deee-lighted!” Visiting pets didn’t go over quite so well when little Quentin interrupted an Oval Office meeting and accidentally dropped the four snakes he brought to show his dad! Oh yes, it can be difficult being the president. Long, long ago, President Harry Truman said that, “If you want a friend in Washington, get a dog.” Remember that, if you ever get elected. And when you move to the White House, don’t forget to bring your pet!
 One of Cheryl Harness's best known picture books is her fantastical, factual Ghosts of the White House. "Do I really believe that dead presidents spook around the White House, talking about when they lived there? NO! But I'm not above using FANTASY to explain HISTORY! Each president represents a chapter in the story of our country!"  MLA 8 Citation Harness, Cheryl. "White House Friends with Fur and Feathers." Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think Tank, 18 Oct. 2017, www.nonfictionminute.org/the-nonfiction-minute/white-house-friends-with-fur-and-feathers.
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Have you ever wondered what it would be like to be a wolf? You’re born in a cozy, dark den under the ground, probably along with at least one brother or sister. Your eyes are closed shut, but you can smell and feel your way over to your mother to drink sweet, warm milk from her teats. Your father and older brothers and sisters bring food from their hunts to feed your mother. Your eyes open in about two weeks, but you can’t see much in the darkness of the den. You nap a lot, snuggled up to your siblings and your mom. Then, about a week later, your mother leads you all out of the den into the sunshine. How different it is up here! Now you explore the wild world, wandering among the trees, lapping water from a creek, wrestling and tumbling with your brothers and sisters. After you get bigger and stronger, you and your family leave the den and move to a safe outdoor area. It’s scary at first, being in a strange new place with no dark den for comfort. An older brother or sister watches over you and the other pups while the rest of the family, or pack, goes hunting. When the hunters return you rush up and lick their faces and they share the meat they got on the hunt. All the older wolves in the pack let you climb all over them and nip their ears and tails while they take care of you, protecting you from danger. All that good meat helps you grow into a big, strong wolf, with thick, shiny fur. In the fall, you go along on the hunt and learn how to find game and how best to catch it. Hunting is exciting but dangerous. You or other family members might get kicked by a deer or stomped on by a moose. But if you get injured, the other wolves take care of you until you recover. You are family, and family is what matters.  Grey wolf. © Dorothy Hinshaw Patent, 2014
Dorothy Hinshaw Patent is a member of iNK's Authors on Call and is available for classroom programs through Field Trip Zoom, a terrific technology that requires only a computer, wifi, and a webcam. Click here to find out more.  MLA 8 Citation Patent, Dorothy Hinshaw. "What's It Like Being a Wolf?" Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think Tank, 27 Sept. 2017, www.nonfictionminute.org/the-nonfiction-minute/whats-it-like-being-a-wolf.
Have you ever noticed how photographs of underwater scenes have a bluish tint? Sunlight is made up of a rainbow of colors, but when it enters the water the reds and yellows in the light are quickly filtered out. The blues and greens penetrate deeper into the water and give those watery scenes their peculiar cast. Because there is very little red light in the deep sea, most of the animals that live there have never evolved the ability to see the color red. This is why many deep-sea animals are red. In the depths of the ocean, a creature that can’t be seen is safe from many predators. There is an unusual fish that takes advantage of its fellow sea creatures’ colorblindness. The stoplight loosejaw, a member of the dragonfish family, can see the color red. Not only that, but it has a patch on its face that glows red. It also has a glowing green spot on its face, which is probably used to communicate with other dragonfish. These red and green patches explain the “stoplight” part of this fish’s name. The “loosejaw” comes from this fish’s ability to open its mouth extra wide and swallow large prey. Scientists think that the open structure of the lower jaw allows the fish to close its mouth quickly, making it difficult for prey to escape. Relative to its size, the stoplight loosejaw has one of the widest gapes of any fish, with a lower jaw measuring one-quarter of the fish’s length. It’s not easy for animals that live in the dark waters of the deep sea to find prey. Many of them, including the stoplight loosejaw, have large mouths and sharp fangs that help ensure that their prey cannot escape. Below about 650 feet (200 meters), very little sunlight penetrates the ocean. Below 3,300 feet (1,000 meters), the only light is that produced by living creatures. Almost all deep-sea creatures can bioluminescence, or make their own light. But the light they produce is usually blue or green. When the stoplight loosejaw switches on its red spotlight, other creatures in the water are illuminated. Being blind to the color red, they don’t realize that they’ve been spotted. Dragonfish are not known as picky eaters. If one of the lit-up animals is a fish, shrimp, or other suitable prey, the stoplight loosejaw quickly grabs it and swallows it.  The stoplight loosejaw's attributes include a red spot, hinged jaws, and needle-like teeth. Illustration by Steve Jenkins  There are two kinds of stoplight loosejaws. The Northern (Malacosteus niger) shown here and the Southern. Together they are found everywhere in the world except the North and South Poles. Wikimedia Commons  Steve Jenkins has written and illustrated more than forty nonfiction picture books, including the Caldecott Honor– winning What Do You Do with a Tail Like This? and the Boston Globe Horn Book honor–winning The Animal Book. His most recent books are Apex Predators: Top Killers Past and Present and Who Am I?, an animal guessing game written with Robin Page. MLA 8 Citation Jenkins, Steve. "The Fish That Sees Red." Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think Tank, 6 June 2018, www.nonfictionminute.org/the-nonfiction-minute/ The-Fish-that-Sees-Red.  
The question “how smart are animals?” has puzzled many people for generations. Scientist Irene Pepperberg became intrigued with this problem after viewing NOVA TV programs about communication studies in apes and dolphins. Trained as a chemist, Irene decided then and there that her true passion was actually animal intelligence, not chemistry. Irene plunged into learning what was already known and the revolutionary ideas of scientists who were changing how people thought about animals. At that time, in the early 1970s, people thought that animals didn’t think and make decisions but merely responded moment by moment to their environments. But researchers working with apes and dolphins were overturning that concept and showing that indeed, animals could think, solve problems, and act intelligently about what they had learned. What about birds, Irene wondered? She had kept pet parakeets and knew they were smart and could learn to speak at least a few words. . She decided to study an African Grey parrot, a popular pet that can learn to pronounce words especially well. She bought a young parrot, named him Alex, and got to work. To probe Alex’s mind, Irene needed to teach him to use words to describe his world. This took long, patient training. After a few years Alex could name objects and foods, such as a key, a piece of wood, or a banana. He also learned several colors, and soon could label an object by both its label and color, such as identifying “green key” or “yellow corn.” He learned to distinguish whether an object was made of wood, paper, or rawhide, and could distinguish shapes such as “three-cornered” or “four-corner.” Alex also used his vocabulary to express his own desires. In the middle of an experimental session he might say “Want nut,” or “Wanna go shoulder.” As the years passed, Alex kept learning. If Irene presented him with a tray of items of different numbers and colors—say 2 green keys, 4 blue keys, and 6 red keys—he could correctly answer the question “What color four?” By the time he died suddenly and unexpectedly in 2007, Alex had learned more than 100 labels and showed understanding of many concepts. When people asked Irene why Alex was special, she’d reply, “Because a bird with a brain the size of a shelled walnut could do the kinds of things that young children do. And that changed our perception of what we mean by ‘bird brain.’ It changed the way we think about animal thinking.”
 Alex wasn’t only Irene’s experimental subject.; they were also good friends. Photo by William Muñoz.  Alex isn't the only bird Dorothy has written about. This book explores a University of Montana research project using blood samples from osprey chicks to investigate the effects of heavy metal refuse from mining on the ecology of the Clark Fork River. To learn more about The Call of the Osprey, go here. Dorothy Hinshaw Patent is a member of iNK's Authors on Call and is available for classroom programs through Field Trip Zoom, a terrific technology that requires only a computer, wifi, and a webcam. Click here to find out more. MLA 8 Citation Patent, Dorothy Hinshaw. "Alex the Parrot, a Real Bird Brain." Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think Tank, 15 May 2018, www.nonfictionminute.org/ the-nonfiction-minute/Alex-the-Parrot-a-Real-Bird-Brain. 
Dogs depend on us for friendship, food, and shelter. But wild animals run from people. They don’t turn to humans for help in getting out of trouble. Or do they? Until recently, most scientists thought animals could not think through multiple steps to solve problems. They believed only people could do that. But research into animal behavior shows this is not true. At least some animals think through their problems and come up with possible solutions. Take a young, wild raven, in Elmsdale, Nova Scotia, for example. In 2013, Gertie Cleary spied the bird perched on a fence—with porcupine quills stuck in its wing and face. Porcupine quills are barbed, like a fish hook. And they really hurt. So Cleary slipped on a pair of gloves before approaching the bird. Now you might think the raven would get scared and fly away. But not this bird. This bird wanted help. It screeched in pain each time Cleary plucked out a quill. But it sat still and let her do it. “When I pulled the one out of his wing,” Cleary says, “he fell off the fence I pulled it so hard.” Once quill-free, the raven flew away. A real-life mother goose went a step further. When one of her goslings got tangled up in a balloon string, she “called” the cops by pecking on the door of a police cruiser parked nearby. When the curious cops got out of their vehicle, she led them straight to her helpless baby. My family and I also encountered a bird in trouble. We were walking on a nature trail when the bushes suddenly erupted with chirping. We stopped, and the chirping increased. Looking closely, we found a sparrow stuck on a thistle bush! It was hanging upside down. We felt like heroes when we freed the little creature and watched it fly away. Birds aren’t the only animals that ask for help. In Fairfax, California, a deer approached a police car and stared at the officer inside until he noticed her broken leg. On a scorching hot day, in Adelaide, Australia, a thirsty koala begged a group of cyclists for a drink of water. And on a nature reserve, in South Africa, a desperate mother giraffe led a wildlife guide to her injured calf. In every case, kind humans helped. Maybe someday you will rescue an animal and save a life. Wouldn’t that be great?  A baby bird in trouble— has another bird gone for help? Photo by Aline Alexander Newman  A desperate koala approaches humans, letting them know he needs liquid.  A giraffe mother was willing to ask for human help in order to save her baby.  For more stories of remarkable kitties, check out Aline Alexander Newman’s new book, CAT TALES. In it, you’ll meet Millie, the adventurous cat who rock climbs with her owner; Pudditat, who acts as a “seeing eye” cat for the family dog; Leo, a lion who changed the life of one family forever; and 20 other charming cats that will pounce into your heart. Personalized copies of CAT TALES and Aline’s other books are available at www.alinealexandernewman.com. Aline is also a member of Authors on Call. Bring her into your classroom via interactive video conferencing. Here’s where you can learn more about her and her programs. MLA 8 Citation Newman, Aline Alexander. "Do Animals Ask for Help?" Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think Tank, 9 May 2018, www.nonfictionminute.org/the-nonfiction-minute/ Do-Animals-Ask-for-Help.  |
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