5 Nature Facts Kids' Authors Should Tattoo on their Forearms

re: 5 Nature Facts Kids' Authors Should Tattoo on their Forearms

Miriam Axel-Lute — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 14:28:50 GMT

Tanya: Yes, I was muttering to myself recently about a board book that included a mother-daughter bee pair.

re: 5 Nature Facts Kids' Authors Should Tattoo on their Forearms

Tanya — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 01:19:10 GMT

This is something that annoys me to not end in kids movies. Ant and bee "societies" do not have males as soldiers and workers. These creatures do not have romantic relationships. The hero dude does not get the girl. They are all sterile females! I would love an accurate depiction of this in cartoon form.

re: 5 Nature Facts Kids' Authors Should Tattoo on their Forearms

Robin Tell — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 14:58:54 GMT

Oh, and speaking of Pandas, anybody seen Angel Bear Yoga? A fine little vehicle for introducing hippies' children to yoga, I suppose, but right from the cover picture of a winged panda under the title "Angel Bear," it's hellbent on a campaign to drive the message PANDA EQUALS BEAR, PANDA EQUALS BEAR so deep into your kid's hippocampus that you'll never dislodge it as long as she lives.

re: 5 Nature Facts Kids' Authors Should Tattoo on their Forearms

Robin Tell — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 14:32:04 GMT

Maybe another angle on the it's-all-fiction-anyway argument would be to differentiate between plot details and background details? As in, of course it's goofiness for a caterpillar to eat all this cafeteria food, but that's precisely the part of the story that kids often find compelling, and they know it sounds like an improbable lot of food--but the mention of a cocoon instead of a chrysalis is just incidental to the fact of the transformation, which is the plot point they're paying attention to.

Then again, maybe it matters also that to describe binge eating, the book doesn't have to mention any words that are likely to be new to the kids, except maybe some of the foodstuffs. "Cocoon" is entirely likely to be appearing for the first time ever in kids' vocabularies, and they're learning facts from it in passing, only not quite the right facts.

Disclaimer: I'm 36 and thought "cocoon" and "chrysalis" were interchangeable until the past year. I am a mere statistic in the grievous saga of modern American science education! I cannot say for sure that there are no bears in Africa!

re: 5 Nature Facts Kids' Authors Should Tattoo on their Forearms

Joann — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 20:45:45 GMT

I'm always amused when people critize Carle's use of cocoon instead of chrysalis in The Very Hungry Caterpillar. I would have preferred chrysalis (which he says he would now use). But what caterpillar eats chocolate cake, ice cream, a pickle, Swiss cheese, salami, a lollipop, cherry pie, a sausage, a cupcake and watermelon all in one day? It's meant for fun! It's a fantasy, not a science book.

re: 5 Nature Facts Kids' Authors Should Tattoo on their Forearms

Miriam Axel-Lute — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 14:47:43 GMT

Jane: I'm putting that on my to-read list right now!

re: 5 Nature Facts Kids' Authors Should Tattoo on their Forearms

Jane Cothron — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 04:25:48 GMT

What a great post--thanks. Has anyone come across the book, Boy Were We Wrong About Dinosaurs!, by Kathleen V. Kudlinski, illustrated by S.D. Schindler? It uses examples from the history of studying dinosaurs to show how scientists have changed their ideas about how dinosaurs lived. It's basically an introduction to scientific theory.

re: 5 Nature Facts Kids' Authors Should Tattoo on their Forearms

Miriam Axel-Lute — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 03:14:24 GMT

Alan: Cool to know that lions and tigers and bears all live in India, but my point was about habitat, as you mention, not national boundaries.

re: 5 Nature Facts Kids' Authors Should Tattoo on their Forearms

Alan Kellogg — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 03:05:26 GMT

Being picky here I have these two things to say.

1. Loquacious panda

Haiku recital expound

Own business his

2. Welcome to exotic India, when lions, tigers, and bears do live; though the lions and the tigers rarely have the opportunity to mix thanks to their preferred environment.

re: 5 Nature Facts Kids' Authors Should Tattoo on their Forearms

Sam — Sun, 11 Jan 2009 04:12:43 GMT

As a math teacher, the shape books bug me to death. A square tipped on its side (so that the corner points down), is not a diamond. It's still a square, Baby Einstein. And if we're going to teach kids about other quadrilaterals, can we call the diamond its correct name - a rhombus?

re: 5 Nature Facts Kids' Authors Should Tattoo on their Forearms

Tina — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 04:55:09 GMT

I loved that fact about birds not laying nests for sleeping in -- from my observations of budgies and canaries that at least those species of birds sleep standing up!

PS, about the father issue, I really liked a picture book about fathers by Tana Hoban that managed to be commendable of dads.

What really gets my ire are books that are badly plotted, written and/or illustrated (especially by celebrities) and which do not respect the literary merit that children need. Yes, libraries need to carry these books but that fact alone cannot make me like them.

re: 5 Nature Facts Kids' Authors Should Tattoo on their Forearms

Miriam Axel-Lute — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 04:18:04 GMT

a: Oy. You're right. It wasn't whiskers that was the issue, it was ear flaps. I should tattoo "bloggers don't get external fact checkers" on my own arm. (It's also a good reminder that those who complain about errors are not always right. And I don't just mean me. :>)

re: 5 Nature Facts Kids' Authors Should Tattoo on their Forearms

Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:38:34 GMT

No whiskers on seals? Really? Exhibit A:

www.opiesoutlet.com/.../BabyHarpSeal2.jpg

(this picture can also serve as your RDA of Cute).

I'm generally with you on this, although I have to agree with the commenter who found the sociological issues more troubling.

From the perspective of cognitive and linguistic development-- I'm fascinated by the fact that children *do* easily identify real ducks, generalizing from purple and orange cartoon ducks. Children's mental models of the world are much more sophisticated than one might initially assume; kids "get" that pictures can be stylized, simplified, possibly inaccurate depictions of the real world at fairly young ages.

re: 5 Nature Facts Kids' Authors Should Tattoo on their Forearms

Robin Tell — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 00:20:37 GMT

April -- I always think of J.R.R. Tolkien's comment that despite the range and frequency of magical events in his books, "a mile is a mile." Things are realistic, and painstakingly so, except where magical events are specifically operating on them.

That's not a dogma I'm endorsing so much as one particular level an author can choose; others will choose a dreamy, irrational "magic realism" wherein whimsy rules, others may be as realistic as they can. Point is, it's not all or nothing. Some books draw all the animals in day-glo colors bearing no relation to the real appearance of the animal. I can adapt to that as I read, and I think kids can too. Others will draw fairly realistic animals who wear clothes and attend weddings across species; many personify some animals but not others. I like to know where I stand for the length of a given story, but there are many degrees of realism. And I'll nitpick more with a story that seems to think of itself as realistic.

But even if things are fanciful, kids will still make inferences about the real world. If lions and tigers live together in the jungle, again and again and again with few counterexamples, kids will begin to gather that the real ones also live in proximity, even while they understand the real animals don't talk. (And they're likely to come away with the impression that lions are much bigger than tigers--Saggy Baggy Elephant, I'm looking at you.) Some errors like that have hit such a flabbergasting rate of reiteration that it's no wonder the general populace is badly misinformed about them. This stuff really and truly gets deep into the general tenor of science education in the US.

Incidentally, I'll have to check out your books, as an antidote!

re: 5 Nature Facts Kids' Authors Should Tattoo on their Forearms

Kathy Isaacs — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 20:38:35 GMT

Hooray for the noticers! and thanks for the note to Childlit which led me to this page.

A student once told me that a waxing moon is bright on the right. Thanks to the rhyme, I've never forgotten that - though the right is pretty much the bottom in the winter in my part of the world.

re: 5 Nature Facts Kids' Authors Should Tattoo on their Forearms

April Sayre — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 19:44:01 GMT

Loved this post because I try hard to make all my books scientifically correct. I have the additional problem of knowing lots of birds, frogs, and insects by their calls. So when movies and television shows use the wrong creature in the wrong habitat, it shakes me right out of the story. (I recognize most of the calls used in the show LOST because I have heard them in the rain forests of Panama!)

That said, I don't mind giving a fair bit of license to writers who are clearly working in fictional realms. I'm sorry, but once the creatures start to talk, I don't demand everything be like real life.

My books are narratives (use suspense and story form) but the creatures do not talk, wear clothes, or play table tennis unless they do that in the real world. (Although in my chant books, all my text is nonfiction, whereas the illustrations are hilariously fictional.)

I did just read a fantasy book, Melting Stones, by Tamora Pierce. It takes magic into realms of geophysics and volcanoes. It's delicious in the way it delves into science and imagination.

April Pulley Sayre

Author

www.aprilsayre.com

Trout Are Made of Trees

Vulture View

Trout, Trout, Trout: a Fish Chant

re: 5 Nature Facts Kids' Authors Should Tattoo on their Forearms

Cynthia — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 03:29:22 GMT

-- Anyone notice how the butterfly at the end of The Very Hungry Caterpillar has it's wings upside-down? My husband noticed this from across the room. Kinda ruined it for me :(

-- However, many frog species DO have baby frogs, not tadpoles -- "Several hundred frog species in adaptive radiations (e.g., Eleutherodactylus, the Pacific Platymantines, the Australo-Papuan microhylids, and many other tropical frogs), however, do not need any water for breeding in the wild. They reproduce via direct development, an ecological and evolutionary adaptation that has allowed them to be completely independent from free-standing water. Almost all of these frogs live in wet tropical rainforests and their eggs hatch directly into miniature versions of the adult, passing through the tadpole stage within the egg."

-- I agree more (loving) fathers in books would be wonderful!

-- Isn't it funny how we adults have learned these conventions for symbols of "ducks", "moose" etc. that look nothing like the real animal? The moose on my kids pj's are pretty funny...

-- In terms of teaching kids science, what really matters isn't "chrysalis" vs. "cocoon", but teaching an open-minded approach of questioning and experimenting. HA! What children's book gets anywhere near THAT???

re: 5 Nature Facts Kids' Authors Should Tattoo on their Forearms

gretchen — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 01:26:20 GMT

i agree the moon and sun are not opposites but they are enduring symbols of day and night so it isn't important in a childrens' story to have the phases of the moon correctly illustrated or that we see also see the moon during the day. think of harold, with the moon following him on his walk. is the point really that the moon would be in a different part of the sky as he continued his walk? i know you are talking about books which are meant to be more realistic than harold but still, unless it is a book about the phases of the moon, it just doesn't seem to matter.

re: 5 Nature Facts Kids' Authors Should Tattoo on their Forearms

linny_mama — Mon, 05 Jan 2009 01:14:36 GMT

My daughter's teacher has come up with a game for the kids in her class related to this...if they find an error on something she wrote or in a text book they get a free homework pass (1 assignment 1 night). Not sure if it is a good thing or not but my darling kid almost never has to do homework anymore. As a data analyst I've taught her to question everything and only accept it if you can prove it.

re: 5 Nature Facts Kids' Authors Should Tattoo on their Forearms

Kittsono — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 01:37:37 GMT

We have been driven mad by "Baby Beluga," which my son naturally loves. The illustrator clearly did no research. dolphins are shown as killer whales, penguins live with polar bears, etc. But the real problem is me - I can't help but comment on all the errors as we read, which doesn't do much for the meter of the song. Publishers, pity the nerds!!

re: 5 Nature Facts Kids' Authors Should Tattoo on their Forearms

Miriam Axel-Lute — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 21:19:44 GMT

natl enq: No problem. I might well have pointed it out too since it was ironic given the post, but in the same spirit. (You missed, however, that I apparently also had typed kangaroo wrong. :> Ouch.)

re: 5 Nature Facts Kids' Authors Should Tattoo on their Forearms

natl enq — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 21:04:35 GMT

Miriam:

While spelling errors bug me, I generally let them slide on blogs (I think the "quick post" format lends itself to normally decent spellers making typos, which is slightly different than spelling errors).

Sorry I had to point it out, it was just funny to me. Thanks for taking it in stride!

re: 5 Nature Facts Kids' Authors Should Tattoo on their Forearms

Miriam Axel-Lute — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 20:35:02 GMT

Salem: Want to tell us why?

Kristina: Wow. That's one I've never seen before. Someone couldn't tell a hippo from yak?

re: 5 Nature Facts Kids' Authors Should Tattoo on their Forearms

kristina — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 20:29:41 GMT

my son has a book that says hippos live on snowy mountaintops

re: 5 Nature Facts Kids' Authors Should Tattoo on their Forearms

Salem — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 20:22:59 GMT

Yeah this annoys me too...wait...are you guys mad at the stuff or the people pointing out the stuff in children's books? The latter is what irks me...