Acoustic Rooster and His Barnyard Band

It might be hard to feel motivated in the dog days of summer. It’s too easy to hide in front of a fan or with the AC, but then you’d be missing all the fun. Acoustic Rooster and his Barnyard Band by Kwame Alexander and illustrated by Tim Bowers (Sleeping Bear Press, 2011) is just what you need to beat the summertime blues😊. In no time you’ll be tapping your toes and swinging to the beat of jazz and itching to find out more about the African American roots of jazz.

Written in verse with lively characters modeled after jazz giants, Acoustic Rooster and his Barnyard Band is the story of a rooster determined to win the yearly band contest at his barnyard. I won’t tell you if he wins – I want you to read it yourself – but he does make a lot of friends and introduce the reader to instruments and musical vocabulary. The backmatter is great. Besides the musical vocabulary, there is a brief introduction to the characters/musicians – for example Bee Holiday is based on Billie Holiday – as well as a jazz history timeline.

I highly recommend Acoustic Rooster and his Barnyard Band for some fun summer reading. I hope you’ll be inspired to swing, getting some exercise inside or out. But I also hope you’ll be engrossed for many more enjoyable hours as you explore the history of jazz in America.

Bringing the Outside In

Covid-19 is still here, and we are lucky that it has affected us thus far in spring and summer when we can be outdoors more. I hope all you reading this post have the chance and the spaces to spend a lot of time outdoors. If you are sharing your space and time with young readers, I have a great book to help you enjoy the outdoors – and even the messes we sometimes bring back home.

Bringing the Outside In by Mary McKenna Siddals and illustrated by Patrice Barton (Randon House, 2016) is a rollicking look at the different activities we love to do outside. Written in verse with a quick pace, we are treated to the antics of young children when they play outside. Your grown-up side might already be groaning about the mess, but you’ll get a sweet surprise when you find the children themselves doing all the cleanup. The book starts with spring and goes through all four seasons ending with a reflection of the year and the memories of play. The illustrations are pencil sketches colored in digitally, yet they have a timeless appeal, and a whimsical feel. The spring section found me wishing for some rain so I could don my boots and splash around in some puddles.

This book could be a great starting point for listing all kinds of activities to do outside – especially when fall and winter arrive and we may think it better to be in more, but should go out more to help stay healthy. In winter, when I start thinking it is too cold for my daily walk, I remind myself of the Forest Schools popping up here and in Europe where students are outside most or all of the day, year-round. It is hard to justify my excuse for a 45-minute walk in my snug coat when somewhere grade-school children are out in the cold for hours.

Of course, pouring over the pages with your child is also perfect for reminding them when they come in from play that they can “clean up just like the kids in the book!” It’s quite brilliant really. And while a grown-up is only shown on three pages in the book, and never in the outside scenes, I hope you will take some time – but not all of a young one’s outside play – to be a kid yourself and splash, explore, skip, build and bring the outside in.

Reflections from a Stream

In my writing journey I like to take stock monthly and twice a year with regards to my goals and progress. So much has happened in the world since January when I published The Hidden Life in Streams, with Covid-19 and the encouraging surge of attention towards the Black Lives Matter movement being the two most pressing and important.

I did go through a stage of feeling scattered when the virus disrupted schedules and plans, and then of despondency after the death of George Floyd. But thanks to the inspiring words from many black voices that I have been reading over the past few months, I find myself feeling hope too. It is the same kind of hope that fuels my desire to write about ecology and our environment for children. Whether we are parents or teachers, aunts or uncles or friends, we have the chance to feel hope in the curiosity and yearning of children. A colleague recently shared his son’s newfound love of gardening from being stuck at home with school disrupted. A friend shared a news story about a girl with a sudden interest in birding, which is leading to an understanding of their decline. Another friend regularly takes her son on adventures to find fish, frogs and snakes. We don’t always know where these interests come from (though they can be sparked), but we can nurture them, and in turn find some grounding and hope ourselves.

Back when we lived in Sugarland, Texas, I tested water for a wetland project that the local sugar factory installed as mitigation to a fish kill they had caused. It was a wonderful project with community and educational components. I used to take my children with me, and I have a sweet memory of them gently rocking the dissolved oxygen samples back and forth. I got this interest in wetlands from my masters’ research (on a whim I googled my paper while writing this blog post and it’s still out there in the world!), which itself stemmed from a lifelong love of nature. A wetland background led me to further water sampling when we moved to Virginia via the Maury River Monitors branch of the Isaac Walton League’s Save Our Streams organization, and volunteering with Boxerwood, our local nature center and woodland garden. Now I have watched hundreds of fourth graders gently rocking their dissolved oxygen samples back and forth, marvel at the insects that live in the stream, and ponder the food chains that start with these critters. Volunteering with Boxerwood led me to pursue a Masters in Teaching, and my years teaching informed who I am now as a writer.

I enjoy thinking about these connections, how we get to where we are in life, the tangled webs we’ve woven. It helps me realize I have made some differences along the way. And it motivates me to stay grounded in the pursuit of continuing to make good and strong connections.

My latest book, The Hidden Life in Streams is full of literal and constructed connections all stemming from a fascination with what lies below, at the bottom of the water column, continuing to live out life cycles perhaps oblivious to humans, but not to the impacts of humans on their environment. The main character is my daughter, obviously a strong connection in my life, and two dear friends, more connections I have made here in Virginia. Other characters include the macroinvertebrates, who still instill awe and wonder in me every time I sample.  I hope future water monitors will become a part of the story when they read it and go off to explore. Boxerwood and its mission is another connection – and a portion of proceeds from the sales of this book will go to their education programs. You can be a part of the story too by sharing this book with a child, by helping to add hope to the world. And what better time is there to get started than during these hot days of summer. All you need is a book and some curiosity.

Where are You Going Black Child?

 

Who are you? Where are you going? Do you know you are strong? These important and motivational questions are asked by Useni Eugene Perkins in the poem he wrote in 1975, Hey Black Child, which is now a picture book illustrated by Bryan Collier (Little, Brown and Company, 2017). It is a beautiful pairing of Perkins’ words and Collier’s watercolor and collage. Readers will be able to ask themselves these questions and ponder their future, their potential. Bold illustrations of black children are in the foreground with backdrops of their African heritage, the Civil Rights movement and the protests of today.

Perkins wrote Hey Black Child as the closing poem for a children’s musical he wrote titled Black Fairy and Other Plays. He wanted to inspire all black children towards their potential despite life’s challenges. You can read more about Useni Eugene Perkins here.  Sadly, 45 years later, the challenges black children face because of racism are still prevalent. This book and its message is needed.

Hey Black Child is a powerfully focused book with a black child on every spread, allowing black readers to see themselves in a picture book and white readers to ‘step aside’ and let a black classmate/friend/child be center stage. This book should be in the homes of both black and white families. It should be used in schools to build the classroom community. Every child deserves to be motivated, encouraged and seen as a whole person worthy of striving for what they can be, what they want to be. I hope that the tomorrow we create because black children have equal chances, when all children have a voice, does not take another 45 years.