Looking Closely Inside the Garden

Looking Closely Inside the Garden     By Frank Serafini      Kids Can Press 2008

The format is the same as the others in the series. Please refer to the review of

“Looking Closely Along the Shore” for details.

Though the format is the same, there is one important difference in this book. Since we have urbanized kids, the other habitats that are treated in this series may be more or less abstractions. Students may not have had a chance to visit the forest or the desert, and though they live in San Francisco, they may not be intimately familiar with the seashore.

The objects that are covered in this book are more likely to be extraordinarily familiar to urbanized kids. These are objects that the kids have seen up close, touched, and felt many times. Whether it is in the context of school gardening programs, playing in the park, or on a lawn, or even a random patch of dirt, students have extensive background knowledge and experience with the contents of this book.

However, this familiarity does not mean that the close up photos are readily apparent. Some require a bit of thought and imagination to guess correctly – even when the object is very familiar. I strongly feel that this further drives home the point that there in wonder inherent in the details that are all around you.

Looking Closely Along the Shore

Looking Closely Along the Shore    By Frank Serafini     Kids Can Press  2008

The author is a teacher and a nature photographer. He used to teach primary grades, and currently he is a professor of Children’s Literature at the UNLV School of Education.

The format presents objects in a series of close up views that appear in the center of a black page. The opposite page ventures a few guesses about the object before prompting the reader with the question, “What could it be?’

The next page shows the whole photo in context and gives some information on the object.

For example, the panel of the sand dollar goes beyond the reveal to provide the reader with some information regarding its structure and how it moves across the sea floor.  Similar information is given for each object that is treated in the book.

This book and others in this series by Serafini are great ways to introduce young students to different habitats.

They are also useful in priming students to observe nature more closely, whether it is on a field trip, or in the garden.

The guessing game aspect of the series is very attractive to kids, and it also has the added value of embedding a bit of informational text in its format. Furthermore, the leading questions that are used to prime the students before asking them to make their guesses provide models on how to engage in brainstorming.

Other titles in the series include “Looking Closely Through The Forest” and “Looking Closely Through the Desert”.

I, Too, Am America

I, Too, Am America Poem by Langston Hughes, Illustrations by Brian Collier

Simon and Shuster   2012

For our purposes, let’s start at the back of the book and refer to the illustrator’s notes. The poem is written in a collective voice in which the narrator’s identity is not specified. Collier’s execution of the artwork provides a fantastic example of using cross curricular connections to link the text of the poem to African American history.

He highlights the practice of Pullman porters collecting newspapers, magazines, and blues & jazz records that were left behind by passengers in order to toss them out of the last car of the train so that people who could not afford or otherwise obtain these items could access them.

This practice became the central metaphor for Collier’s treatment of the poem. The items that the Pullman porters gather travel through time and space across the deep South of the time to contemporary New York as a reflection of the progress that has been made. Regardless of time or distance, the recipients are elated to receive the objects and the messages that they contain.    

In another historical parallel, the objects that the Pullman porters release follow the trajectory of the Great Migration. This book would be an ideal match for Jacob Lawrence’s Great Migration book and The Jerry Pickney illustrated “God Bless The Child”.

Another use for this book would be to have this as a template for students' artistic interpretation of the poem. Who would they pick as their narrators, and how would their sentiments be expressed artistically? Those are very interesting questions.  

Barbed Wire Baseball

Barbed Wire Baseball        Written By Marissa Moss     Illustrated By Yuko Shimizu      2013

Abrams Books For Young Readers

Brilliant, brilliant book that presents a fascinating story that is little known.

The subject of the book is Kenichi “Zeni” Zenimura (1900-1968). He is considered the father of Japanese-American baseball, and he also popularized the game in postwar Japan. Zenimura was an extraordinarily talented player who played all nine positions. He pitched right handed, but he bat left handed.

Zenimura was born in Japan, and he moved to Hawaii when he was 8 years old. There, he fell in love with baseball. After he graduated from school, he moved to Fresno and formed a baseball team. In October of 1927, he was one of four Japanese–American players picked to play in an exhibition game with the Yankees in Fresno. There is a photo of Zenimura standing in between Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig that is reproduced in the artwork of the book. The actual photo appears in the afterword.

When he was interred at the Gila River camp, Zenimura began to covertly build a baseball field at the camp. When his efforts escalated to the point that he was going out under the cover of night to steal wooden posts from the camp fence so that he could build bleachers for the field, the camp guards noticed. However, they observed that he we only taking every other post, and thus leaving the structural integrity of the fence intact. The guards did not raise the alarm. They quietly watched Zenimura. Eventually, their position moved from quiet acquiescence to providing assistance to the effort.

As Zemimura’s efforts grew, more and more of the camp got involved. They pitched in to help weed the field, level it, plant grass, make uniforms, and they become players and spectators.

I am especially impressed by the insight that is offered in the artist’s note in the back of the book. I am always fascinated by the way that the real, the imagined, and the fanciful all interact and come together when non fiction stories are recounted in picture books. This illustrator’s notes are highly unusual because they present this interaction as its central theme.

The artist notes that while barbed wire was present at the early stages of the camp, it was later removed. He decided to maintain it in the illustrations in order to stress the fact that the camp was indeed a prison for those who were held there.

There are almost no photos of Zenimura during his concentration camp years. Actually there is one that was shot from distance in order to show the field. Zenimura and son appear in this photo, but the distance is too far to make out their features. The artist had to use photos of Zenimura from before the war to provide the model for his face.

I also appreciate the fact that the artist shares with us that while he did extensive research on the Gila River camp in order to depict it accurately, he also used photos from other camps in creating the art.

He could not find any visual images of the teams’ uniforms, so he adapted a homemade uniform from the period as a pattern, and he applied a bit of artistic imagination.

It is all too rare that we get such insights into how the creative process informs the depiction of nonfiction presentations.

The art is extraordinarily striking. Very stark and engaging, and yet with a fantastic range of expression preserved. There are elements of collage, older Japanese art styles, and a hint of Chinese propaganda poster style. The effect is very visually impactful, and it brings home the fact that this is a prison camp being depicted.

In emphasizing the starkness of the camp, the art highlights the humanity of the people held within.

Highest possible recommendation!

By all means, use in conjunction with “My Dog Teny” .

Zenimura standing between Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth