A TRUE TALE WITH
A CHERRY ON TOP
Beach Lane Books
(SImon & Schuster Children's Publishing)
(pub. 10.3 cvjusdx.2023)
40 pages
Baby to 8 years
Author: Jonah Winter
and Illustrator: Jeanette Winter
Character: Mercedes Sosa
Overview:"When billy barr came to the mountains as a young man, his only companions were a skunk and a pine marten. He needed something to fill the hours. So he began measuring the snow that fell. Day after day, and year after year, he measured.
As he grew older, he noticed something: the snow was disappearing. It arrived later, melted sooner, and there wasn’t as much of it. He shared his records with a local scientist, who shared them with other scientists, until his measurements were used by scientists all over the world studying climate change. Thanks to his curiosity, groundbreaking data was gathered that still helps us today!"
Tantalizing taste:
"He recorded the date
of the first snowfall each winter
and the date in spring
of the first wildflower blossoms.
He noted when animals
came out of hibernation
at the end of winter.
He noted when certain birds
arrived in spring -
such as the broad-tailed hummingbirds
who always arrived just in time
to drink the nectar
of the glacier lily blossoms.
This was his life."
And something more: Jonah Winter in the Author's Note explains that "The Snow Man is a true story about a real person named billy barr ... who grew up in Trenton, New Jersey, but has spent most of his life in the Rocky Mountains, living alone at the bottom of a 12,631-foot mountain in the wilderness of a ghost town called Gothic, eight miles from the nearest town with any people, Creston Butte. He first came to this location in 1972 when he was twenty-one years old, still a college student and only intending to stay for one summer ...
But as the years progressed, he started noticing patterns - signs that the climate up there in the mountains was changing, getting warmer. And what started as a random pastime soon became the focus of his life - and an invaluable resource for scientists studying climate change."
Santiago Ramón y Cajal,
Artist, Doctor, Father of Neuroscience
A TRUE TALE WITH
A CHERRY ON TOP
mit Kids Press
(Candlwick Press)
(pub. 11.14.2023) 40 pages
Ages 5-9
Author: Christine Iverson
Illustrator: Luciano Lozano
Character: Santiago Ramón y Cajal
Overview:
" Santiago Ramón y Cajal’s father, the village doctor, wants Santiago to be a doctor. He discourages his willful son’s love and aptitude for art. But drawing and painting are as necessary to Santiago as breathing, so when his father confiscates his art supplies, the boy finds a way to draw in secret. He draws on doors, gates, and walls, and to the neighbors, his drawings are a nuisance. But Santiago sees things differently. He’s an artist and always will be, even after he grows up and becomes a doctor. And art helps him discover what no one else could: branching connections within the nervous system."
Tantalizing taste:
"After graduation, he had to trade hikes in the mountains for duty in Cuba with a Spanish army. In Cuba, there were tropical forests, dangling vines, and swaying palm trees to explore. There was also malaria.
Santiago returned home too sick and weak to hike. Instead he used the last of his army pay to buy a microscope for studying anatomy. When he peered through the lens, he discovered a world rich with uncharted lands. He picked up his pencil and began to draw.
Santiago drew and studied and tutored until he became a professor of anatomy in Valencia. "
And something more: The Life and Works in the back matter explains that "in 1906, Santiago won the Nobel prize for medicine. He shared the award with Dr. Camillo Golgi, the Italian scientist who invented the staining method Santiago used for his discoveries. Golgi still did not believe Santiago's findings and spent the majority of his Nobel Prize acceptance speech disagreeing with the neuron doctrine. Santiago was not flustered. The next day, he gave the speech he had planned, ignoring Golgi's criticism, crediting Golgi for inventing the staining method, and then explaining his own findings... Scientists using modern technology have confirmed that Santiago was correct."
Updated: May 17, 2024
Excited to see the promotion for our picture book biography, DRESSING UP THE STARS - The Story of Hollywood Costume Designer Edith Head, in CD which is the Costume Designer Guild's magazine full of wonderful photos of costumes and the accompanying sketches for current movies ... just as Edith Head did during her long career!
