Category: Munro Roxie

Lemuel's Bridge

9/21/2022

Roxie Munro
Visual Thinker

“What is this country bumpkin up to? Is this some kind of a joke?” Laughter rippled through the conference room in Richmond as Lemuel Chenoweth unloaded his saddlebags and took out a bunch of oak sticks wrapped in newspapers.

He was the last builder to show his plans for the great competition in 1850 to build a bridge across the Tygart River in western Virginia (now West Virginia). Only a ferry connected the bustling north-south throughway at Philippi, causing traffic jams and the slowing of our young nation’s relentless commerce and travel.

Engineers had come from all over the east to show their plans … blueprints of cable suspension bridges, fancy cantilevered structures, an arched bridge. It had to be durable, and support wagonloads of heavy goods and herds of livestock. ridge across the Tygart River in western Virginia (now West Virginia). Only a ferry connected the bustling north-south throughway at Philippi, causing traffic jams and the slowing of our young nation’s relentless commerce and travel.

Quietly Lemuel assembled a miniature bridge, using no hammer or nails. Compared to the fancy bridge models shown, his was plain. Then, he pulled out two chairs, placed his construction across them, and spoke.

“Since I have no blueprints,” he said, “you may allow me a demonstration.”

Suddenly he stepped up onto the top of the model, and walked across it--from one end to the other. A gasp went up. No way could it hold! They knew their mathematics. Had this been the actual bridge it would have been as if a six-hundred-foot man stood on it. But the model held, and in the hushed silence that followed, Lemuel turned to the other contestants and asked, “Can you stand on your models?”

No one dared. They all knew theirs would be crushed.

And that's how Lemuel Chenoweth, a shy western Virginian with a third-grade education, won the competition for the famous Tygart River Bridge.

The double-barreled bridge has survived fires, the Civil War, floods, and 18-wheeler trucks. It is the only covered bridge left in the US serving a federal highway. It has its own museum, and in 1983 Governor Jay Rockefeller declared June 15 Lemuel Chenoweth Day.

Lemuel started out making furniture, wagons, and coffins, and later built houses, a church, and many bridges. He married Nancy Hart, the great-granddaughter of John Hart, signer of the Declaration of Independence. They had 13 children.

So how do we know about this story?

Because Lemuel Chenoweth was my great-great- granddaddy, and throughout my childhood I heard the story of Lemuel, the model bridge, and the two chairs.

Roxie Munro's newest book uses thirty-seven of her favorite masterpieces by great artists as an inspiration for her own masterpiece that is a cityscape and a game. You can read a review of the book here.

Roxie is also a member of iNK's Authors on Call where you can invite her to your classroom virtually.

MLA 8 Citation
Munro, Roxie. "Lemuel's Bridge." Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think Tank, 16 Oct. 2017, www.nonfictionminute.org/the-nonfiction-minute/lemuels-bridge.

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The Architect Who Hated Straight Lines

5/27/2022

5 Comments

Roxie Munro
Visual Thinker

José Batlló’s house in Barcelona, Spain, was looking a little shabby. So, Batlló turned to Antoni Gaudí, the city’s most inventive architect—and got a house that astonished all Barcelona.

Its walls, studded with glittering blue and green shards, billowed like the sea. Some windows were egg-shaped, others had balconies resembling giant masks. The roof was more fanciful. Eerily iridescent, colors shifted from bluish green to golden orange. With scale-like tiles, it reminded people of a dinosaur’s backbone. Because of the oval windows, people called it the House of Yawns. Others, noticing columns that looked like shinbones, christened it House of Bones.

Born in 1852 into a family of coppersmiths, Gaudí grew up in a small town near Barcelona. As a boy he roamed the countryside making sketches, living in his own world of discovery and fantasy. Becoming an architect was his childhood dream.

He quickly developed a style entirely his own, drawing inspiration from nature rather than anything man-made. He was disdainful of straight lines. “They belong to men,” he used to say. “Curved lines belong to God.”

Near Casa Battló stands another Gaudi creation: Casa Mila, a six-story apartment building which, because of its soft swelling shapes, has been likened to human lips, pastries, and a hornet’s nest. Still, many people love it.

Among Gaudí’s accomplishments is what may be the world’s quirkiest park: Park Güell, a kind of fairy-tale fantasy, with two dancing gazelles flanking the entrance, a giant tile-encrusted lizard, and a roof topped with upturned coffee cups.

Deeply religious, Gaudí spent his last twenty years working on Sagrada Familia, a cathedral unlike any other, with eighteen towers symbolizing the apostles, evangelists, the Virgin Mary, and Christ. It became such an obsession with Gaudí that he set up residence at the worksite. Once something of a dandy, he became increasingly careless with his appearance. This neglect may have contributed to his death.

On a spring evening in 1926, taking one last loving look at a newly completed Sagrada Familia tower, he stepped off the sidewalk and was hit by a streetcar and knocked unconscious. Because of wretched clothing he was taken for a tramp and not immediately brought to a hospital. Gaudí was finally recognized, but was beyond help and died three days later.

The surprisingly different exterior of the Battló house. Art by Roxie Munro

Antoni Gaudi in 1878. Wikimedia

The roof (left) and the interior of the Battló house reflect the architect's unique ideas. Art by Roxie Munro

Gaudi's Park Güell is one of the most famous sights of Barcelona. welcoming more than 4 million visitors a year.
Art by Roxie Munro.

The tile-encrusted salamander in Park Güell has become a symbol of Gaudí's work. Wikimedia

Check your favorite bookstore for Roxie's latest book coming out on February 6th. Rodent Rascals has already garnered three starred reviews with Roxie's fabulous actual-sized artwork accompanied by fascinating facts about 21 rodents who share our world.
Roxie is a member of Authors on Call where she can visit your classroom and show you her work herself. Read more about here here.

MLA 8 Citation
Munro, Roxie. "The Architect Who Hated Straight Lines." Nonfiction Minute`, iNK
Think Tank, 31 Jan. 2018, www.nonfictionminute.org/the-nonfiction-minute/
the-architect-who-hated-straight-lines.

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Alberto Santos-Dumont

5/20/2022

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Roxie Munro
Visual Thinker

All art by Roxie Munro

Horse-drawn carriages stopped dead in their tracks. People pointed at the sky. “Look!” they shouted. “There’s Santos in one of his flying machines!” Above, along the Champs–Elysées, sailed a strange-looking contraption: a cigar-shaped balloon under which was mounted a gasoline engine, a large propeller, and, in a wicker basket, a dapper little man with a neatly trimmed moustache, starched collar, and a Panama hat. Spotting an agreeable sidewalk café, he landed his airship and hitched it to a lamppost. Then he calmly ordered his morning cup of coffee

He was Alberto Santos-Dumont, a very short twenty-nine-year-old Brazilian aviator who loved everything high. (His dining table had nine-foot legs with chairs to match. To reach it, his manservant climbed a step stool.)

A year earlier, in 1901, Santos had astounded Parisians with one of the most spectacular feats in early aviation history. A prize of one-hundred thousand francs had been offered to the first pilot who took off from the Paris Aero Club, circled the Eiffel Tower, and returned to the club within thirty minutes.

Though the money meant little to Alberto—his father had left him with a fortune— it presented a challenge.

Postcard showing the 14-bis. Via Wikimedia

His first attempt failed when his 16-horsepower engine conked out, causing his dirigible to fall into a tree. On his second try, the airship crashed into a roof, and the brave Brazilian was left suspended in his basket fifty feet above the ground.

His third attempt was a success. “Did I make it?” he shouted as he passed the finish line. “Oui! Oui!” spectators roared back at him, throwing handkerchiefs into the air and whirling their hats on top of their walking sticks.

Flight was Alberto’s great passion. Arriving in Paris at 18, he had a balloon made— so tiny it could be packed into a travel bag, but big enough to carry his pint-size figure. Then came dirigibles —fourteen altogether.

In 1906, after the Wright brother’s historic flight, he built his own airplane. Named 14 bis, it looked like a bunch of boxes haphazardly thrown together. But it flew, making him the first man in Europe to fly a heavier-than-air machine.

Demoiselle over Paris. Via Wikimedia

His final aircraft was made of bamboo, aluminum, and silk. Seeing him buzz around in it, people shouted, “Our Santos is riding a dragonfly!” And that became its name: Demoiselle (dragonfly).

Santos-Dumont is a national hero in Brazil, where it is popularly held that he preceded the Wright brothers in demonstrating a practical airplane. Library of Congress.

Le Petit Santos— a remarkable little man indeed.

What is the smallest rodent in the world? What is the biggest? How long can rodents live? How do they find mates? In this wonderfully detailed new book from Roxie Munro, life-sized illustrations of rodent species from around the world accompany simple, thorough text describing their life cycles, sizes, habitats, and ranges. From ground hogs to guinea pigs and pygmy jerboas to capybaras, kids will learn all about the rascally rodents who share our world!
Roxie's Rodent Rascals has earned starred reviews from Publisher's Weekly, Kirkus, and School Library Journal.

MLA 8 Citation
Munro, Roxie. "Alberto Santos-Dumont." Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think Tank, 16 May
2018, www.nonfictionminute.org/the-nonfiction-minute/Alberto-Santos-Dumont.

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The Magician of Iron

4/12/2022

6 Comments

Roxie Munro
Visual Thinker

The great Paris tower was underway. From each corner of a broad base the size of a football field, four spidery iron structures rose, curving inward in one majestic sweep toward the middle. The construction – a web of connecting girders – called for 300 workers to assemble some 15,000 pieces of iron and snap 2.5 million rivets into place. This would be the world’s tallest man-made structure, reaching a height of 300 meters (934 feet). A glorious demonstration of engineering, it was conceived by Gustave Eiffel, the most illustrious engineer of nineteenth-century France.

The tower was to be the focal point of the International Exhibition of Paris in 1889, commemorating the 100th birthday of the French Revolution. After that, since it had no practical use, it was to be torn down.

It took two years, two months, and three days to build the Eiffel Tower. Eiffel used wrought iron, which was a relatively new building material at the time, used primarily for bridges and aqueducts. As the tower rose, becoming the city’s most prominent feature, not everyone approved. “Useless and monstrous,” one newspaper called it. Another described it as an “odious column of bolted metal.”

Called the Magician of Iron, Eiffel’s mathematical prowess and attention to detail was legendary. To put the tower project on paper took 30 draftsmen working full time for 18 months. Every rivet of the 2.5 million needed for the structure had its designated place, down to a fraction of a millimeter.

The Tower became the hit of the International Exhibition, with nearly two million people visiting it. Still, not everyone loved this prodigious web of steel girders. A famous writer was once asked why he ate lunch there every day, since he was known to hate the sight of it. He replied, “Because it’s the only place in Paris where I can’t see the damn thing.”

So why wasn’t the Eiffel Tower torn down? It almost was. What saved it was the radio broadcasting center and the weather station that Eiffel installed at the top.

Now France’s most famous landmark, it is not the only national symbol that Eiffel was involved with. He also built the iron skeleton of a lady we’re all familiar with: The Statue of Liberty.

As for the Eiffel Tower, “I ought to be jealous of that tower,” he once said. “She is more famous than I am.”

The Eiffel Tower under construction highlights the intricacy of the design as well as the massive size of the project in relation to the city of Paris. Art by Roxie Munro

After dark during the 1889 Exposition, the newly-opened tower was lit by hundreds of gas lamps, and a beacon sent out three beams of red, white and blue light. Georges Garen via Wikimedia Commons

The Parisian art community criticized the tower even before it was built, calling it "a giddy, ridiculous tower dominating Paris like a gigantic black smokestack, Eiffel responded, "The tower will be the tallest building that men have ever built. ...And why would that which is admirable in Egypt become hideous and ridiculous in Paris? ". Wikimedia Commons

Eiffel's most famous works are still major tourist attractions in the 21st century. The Eiffel Tower is the most-visited paid monument in the world. An average of 25,000 people ascend the tower every day. Approximately four million people visit New York's Statue of Liberty National Monument and Ellis Island each year. Photo Benh Lieu Song viia Wikimedia Commons. Art by Roxie Munro

One of Roxie's most recent, Masterpiece Mix, is a book about art. As an artist searches for inspiration, she explores thirty-seven paintings of different genres, and comes up with a grand finale, using all of them. The book has "smart, concise, marvelously amplifying backmatter" (Kirkus), a dedicated web page, and free downloads.

MLA 8 Citation
Munro, Roxie. "The Magician of Iron." Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think Tank, 7 Mar.
2018, www.nonfictionminute.org/the-nonfiction-minute/The-Magician-of-Iron.

6 Comments

Mary Kingsley

3/3/2022

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Roxie Munro
Visual Thinker

“It is at these times you realize the blessing of a good, thick skirt,” said Mary Kingsley after she crashed into a cleverly concealed leopard pit lined with twelve-inch ivory spikes.

The year was 1895, the place Equatorial West Africa, and the spunky lady saved, thanks to her observance to the dress code of the day, was a young Englishwoman collecting species of fish and beetles for the British Museum.

Mary Kingsley was the daughter of a physician who spent most of his time traveling. Although she received no formal education (reserved for her brother Charles), Mary learned to read, becoming fascinated with subjects such as science, exploration and piracy.

At one point she was granted permission to teach herself German, but only after she could iron a shirt properly. Mary learned chemistry, experimented with gunpowder and electricity, and became engrossed by the intricacies of plumbing. After years of caring for her invalid mother, in 1892 both her parents died. With the small inheritance left to her came the fulfillment of a dream: to explore West Africa.

When Mary crashed into the leopard pit, she was traveling in what was then the French Congo, getting to know the Fangs, reportedly a tribe of cannibals. Traveling by canoe, she was once marooned in a crocodile-infested lagoon. When one tried to climb aboard, she was there with a paddle, ready to “fetch him a clip on the snout.”

After two trips, she wrote a book called Travels in West Africa. She became a sought-after lecturer and celebrity. In public appearances she was both funny and serious, peppering her narrative with jokes, often at her own expense, but also being critical of the way the British had steamrolled into the African continent, with little regard for its ancient cultures.

In 1900 she sailed to Africa for the third time, responding to an urgent call for nurses in South Africa, where war was underway. Assigned to a hospital where hundreds of soldiers were dying from a raging epidemic, she became ill herself, and died two months later. She was buried at sea with military honor.

In her book, she remembers: “Indeed, much as I have enjoyed life in Africa, I do not think I ever enjoyed it to the full as I did when dropping down the Rembwe… Ah me! Give me a West African river and a canoe for sheer pleasure.”

“It is at these times you realize the blessing of a good, thick skirt.” Art by Roxie Munro

Nothing like a "clip on the snout" to ward off an ill-tempered crocodile. Art by Roxie Munro

“Indeed, much as I have enjoyed life in Africa, I do not think I ever enjoyed it to the full as I did when dropping down the Rembwe… Ah me! Give me a West African river and a canoe for sheer pleasure.” Art by Roxie Munro

Rave reviews for Roxie Munro's book Market Maze:
"A great way to introduce kids to their foods' origins and to prepare them for a greenmarket visit of their own." Kirkus (Starred review!) excerpt.
"From a parent’s or teacher’s point of view, here’s a good way for kids to gain the visual discrimination skills needed for reading, while they learn about the sources of food at their local farmers’ markets. For kids, though, the combination of mazes and hidden objects is just plain fun. It’s a winning combination." Booklist review excerpt.

Roxie Munro is a member of iNK's Authors on Call so you can meet her face-to-race through interactive videoconferencing. Learn more about her programs here.

MLA 8 Citation
Munro, Roxie. "Mary Kingsley." Nonfiction Minute, iNK Think Tank, 15 Mar. 2018,
www.nonfictionminute.org/the-nonfiction-minute/Mary-Kingsley.

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Lemuel's Bridge

The Architect Who Hated Straight Lines

Alberto Santos-Dumont

The Magician of Iron

Mary Kingsley

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