Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge: Sweet Dreams, Sarah Guest Post - Vivian Kirkfield

Sweet Dreams, Sarah: From Slavery to Inventor
by Vivian Kirkfield, Illustrated by Chris Ewald
Creston Books (May 1, 2019)
Nonfiction * biography * women’s history
Audience: Ages 7 to 10
Indiebound | WorldCat

Thank you so very much, Alyson. I’ve been a fan of Kid Lit Frenzy for a long time. I’m thrilled to be here today, chatting about SWEET DREAMS, SARAH.

One of the problems of writing about someone in the past, someone who is NOT famous, is that there isn’t much written about them…but this is also a good thing, because the book is needed.

In researching Sarah E. Goode, I reached out to my local librarian…who reached out to librarians at some of the bigger libraries: the Schlesinger Library which is part of the Radcliff Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University and the Harsh Research Collection at the Chicago Public Library. One of the librarians responded:

Wow! Your author seems to have amassed much more information than we ever dreamed there would be. We have nothing in our files on Goode and her name only comes up every Black History Month when some unlucky child has her name assigned for a report. All we've ever been able to lead them to is a photo of the patent and a brief blurb in a "Black Inventors" book. Essentially nothing more than can be found on the internet.

And that response made me even more determined to dig deeper and write this story!

I did uncover a lot, but did not include it all in the manuscript. The reason is simple…this is intended to be a story for young kids. Everything presented needs to be honest and authentic. But I believe it also has to be inspiring and uplifting…and full of hope. When writing for young children, it’s also important to stay focused on the theme…the heart of the story. If you include too much information and go off-topic, you may be leading the reader away from the what you hoped to convey.

For instance, here is something I discovered that I mention briefly in the back matter. Sarah E. Goode got her patent in 1885, but by 1887, there is a listing in a local newspaper of the time - an advertisement of those same cabinet beds for sale by another vendor because 'the manufacturer of these beds went bust'. In 1886, Sarah's mother and one of her own children died...perhaps she became ill or depressed and couldn't work anymore. But there is no more mention of her store in any records. And she died at the age of 49. Which is so sad and not anything I felt belonged in the text of the story itself.

I also found one small newspaper article from a few years after the advertisement. It was about a law suit against her husband Archibald. It seems his wife (I assume it was Sarah) bought/rented a piece of property, but when the landlord discovered a black family was moving in, he claimed misrepresentation and fraud. In some sources I read that Sarah mentioned she was from Toledo, Spain (census records show Toledo, Ohio as her birthplace in 1870 when she is 15 and living with her parents...census records show Toledo, Spain in 1880 when she is married to Archibald). She was biracial (race category on the census says 'mulatto'). Perhaps her features and coloring allowed her to 'pass' as someone of European/Spanish descent. This 'fact' I did not include in the back matter since the 'wife' mentioned in the newspaper might not have been Sarah...the journalist might just have been repeating what someone told him. But it is interesting, nevertheless, especially when we look at the information on the census records.

Tied into those same census records is the question of where Sarah was born. We need to remember that Sarah was born in about 1855. Slavery was still the law of the land, especially in the southern states. Obviously, Sarah could not have been born in both Toledo, Ohio AND Toledo, Spain. And still other sources say she was born in the south. I mention this in the timeline at the back of the book. If you look at the map, the southern border of Ohio runs along the northern border of Virginia. Her father was a freedman. Her mother was a slave. It might have made sense for them to say that Sarah was born in the free state of Ohio, not the slave state of Virginia. But I don’t go into detail about this in the story because the important concepts that I am trying to highlight for kids are that she had been a slave, but still had a dream. And through perseverance, hard work, and paying attention to the needs of her customers, she built her cabinet bed…and built her dream into reality. As the end of the story says, ‘She built more than a piece of furniture. She built a life far away from slavery. A life where her sweet dreams could come true.’

And guess what? In a couple of weeks, I’ll be in Chicago for some book events and school visits…reading Sweet Dreams, Sarah with children is what this is all about, right? I’ll even get a chance to visit the grave of Sarah E. Goode with my son and granddaughter. Six-year old Sophie thinks we should read the book as we lay flowers on the gravesite. And I think that is a GREAT idea. I can’t wait!

Thank you so much, Alyson, for giving me the opportunity to share some of the back story about SWEET DREAMS, SARAH.

About Vivian Kirkfield:
Writer for children—reader forever…that’s Vivian Kirkfield in five words. Her bucket list contains many more than five words – but she’s already checked off skydiving, parasailing and banana-boat riding. When she isn’t looking for ways to fall from the sky or sink under the water, she can be found writing picture books in the quaint village of Amherst, NH where the old stone library is her favorite hangout and her young grandson is her favorite board game partner. A retired kindergarten teacher with a masters in Early Childhood Education, Vivian inspires budding writers during classroom visits and shares insights with aspiring authors at conferences and on her blog, Picture Books Help Kids Soar. She is the author of Pippa’s Passover Plate (Holiday House); Four Otters Toboggan: An Animal Counting Book (Pomegranate); Sweet Dreams, Sarah (Creston Books); Making Their Voices Heard: The Inspiring Friendship of Ella Fitzgerald and Marilyn Monroe (Little Bee Books); and From Here to There: Inventions That Changed the Way the World Moves (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt). You can connect with her on her website, Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, Linkedin, or just about any place people with picture books are found

Don’t forget to link up your nonfiction reviews…

Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge: When Sue Met Sue Guest Post with Toni Buzzeo

When Sue Met Sue” Sue Hendrickson Discovers Her T. Rex
by Toni Buzzeo, Illustrated by Diana Sudyka
Abrams Books for Young Readers (May 14, 2019)
Nonfiction * Biography * Women
Audience: Ages 6 to 9
Indiebound | WorldCat

Thank you Toni Buzzeo for stopping by Kid Lit Frenzy and sharing a little more about your new book WHEN SUE FOUND SUE.

What a fascinating research journey I embarked upon for my new book, When Sue Found Sue: Sue Hendrickson Discovers Her T. Rex! I set out to learn everything I could about Sue Hendrickson, the self-made paleontologist who discovered the largest and most complete Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton ever discovered. Writing a picture book biography is incredibly challenging in that the author must generally research as though she would be writing a 40,000-word middle grade biography and then pare it back to a tidy 1000 words, with a single page allotted for an Author’s Note that summarizes everything she’s left out.

During my research, I learned that in childhood Sue honed her skills of observation, taking long walks of discovery, noticing everything worth noticing. As I am a person who lives very much in my mind (perpetually spinning stories, I suppose!), I was very curious about this habit of keen observation that began when Sue was young and has continued into the present. The proof is that Sue Hendrickson has been a professional diver since 1971, a specialist in fossil inclusions in amber from mines in the Dominican Republic and Mexico, a specialist in paleontology field work (especially dinosaurs), and a long-standing member of the Franck Goddio marine archaeology team. Not only has Sue searched for lost things throughout her life, she has possessed an uncanny ability to find them.

Having learned so much about Sue, my first several drafts were quite different from the book I published. Those early drafts covered all of Sue’s finding adventures in some detail, ranging widely across the span of Sue’s life because Sue Hendrickson has not just been a dinosaur-finder. Instead, Sue has been an everything-finder. So, in those drafts, I worked hard to highlight her propensity—present even in childhood and continuing in her many adult professional pursuits—for finding all manner of things.

However, my wise editor, Tamar Brazis, encouraged me to focus in more closely on the discovery of Sue the T. rex. But as I condensed the information about Sue’s other pursuits and concentrated primarily on Sue’s paleontology efforts, I never lost sight of Sue’s almost-magical ability to detect, to locate, to find what has long been lost.The long-lost skeleton of Sue the T. rex was no exception. During the summer of August 1990, her fourth spent digging duck-billed dinosaurs in the blistering heat of South Dakota, Sue felt pulled to a sandstone cliff in the distance. She couldn’t say why, but she says she was called to that cliff. On the last day of the dig, in the absence of her team members who had gone to town to get a tire fixed, Sue finally answered the mysterious call. She hiked for four hours over seven miles of rugged ground, and there she found the three enormous backbones of Sue the T. rex protruding from the cliff. As Sue Hendrickson herself tells it, “For two weeks this dinosaur was doing something to me, calling me. I didn’t actually hear voices. But something kept pulling me there. Something wanted it to be me that went there and found her.” (Tyrannosaurus Sue: The Extraordinary Saga of the Largest, Most Fought Over T. Rex Ever Found by Steve Fiffer, 2000.)

For me, then, the most intriguing piece of researching Sue was learning about her preternatural gift for discovery and the exciting life she has built in using that gift to enrich human knowledge—simply by finding things!

About the author: Toni Buzzeo is the author of the Caldecott Honor Book and New York Times bestseller One Cool Friend and many other books for children. She lives in Arlington, Massachusetts.

About the Illustrator: Diana Sudyka is a Chicago-based illustrator who got her start designing and screen-printing posters for musicians such as St. Vincent, Andrew Bird, and the Decemberists. She also volunteers at the Field Museum in Chicago, where Sue the T. rex is housed.

Look for WHEN SUE FOUND SUE in your local indie bookstore or community library.

Don’t forget to link up your nonfiction reviews…

Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge: Elephants and Wolves

Despite how hard I work to find books when they are released, sometimes, I don’t discover them until months or a year later. The Elephant has been on my list of books to read, since I first heard about it last year. Lobos was a 2018 release that I just discovered. In case, like me, you missed these last year, I hope you enjoy learning about them now.

The Elephant by Jenni Desmond (Enchanted Lion Books, November 2016) -

In a similar fashion to The Blue Whale and The Polar Bear, Desmond tells readers about The Elephant. Initially, I expected the book to be more of a compare and contrast text between the African Savanna Elephant and the Asian Elephant, but Desmond focuses ore on what they share in common than how they are different.

After reading multiple picture books about elephants, I am still surprised when I see one that seems to add something to my knowledge of elephants. Desmond’s illustrations pair beautifully with the text.

Lobos: A Wolf Family Returns by Brenda Peterson, Photographs by Annie Marie Musselman (Little Bigfoot, August 2018)

Peterson shares the story of a mated Gray Wolf pair and how they and their pups travel from Wolf Haven International to eventually be released into the wild in Mexico.

The simple straightforward text provides young readers with the basics of re-introducing wolves into a new area to help with re-population. For older readers, this would be a jumping off point to learning more about wolf conservation and species survival plan.

Look for both of these books at your local indie bookstore or at your community library.

Don’t forget to link up your nonfiction reviews…

Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge: May Releases

Can’t believe it’s already May and there are more new releases to celebrate. Here are a few of the books that are being released this month. I have included the links to past month round-ups in case you want to look back on past releases.

January | February | April part I | April part II

Titan and the Wild Boars: The True Cave Rescue of the Thai Soccer Team by Susan Hood, Patthana Sornhiran, Illustrated by Dow Phumiruk (HarperCollins, May 2, 2019)

Crossing on Time: Steam Engines, Fast Ships, and a Journey to the New World by David Macaulay (Roaring Brook Press, May 7, 2019)

The Truth About Crocodiles: Seriously Funny Facts about Your Favorite Animals by Maxwell Eaton III (Roaring Brook Press, May 7, 2019)

Before They Were Authors: Famous Writers as Kids by Elizabeth Haidle (HMH Books for Young Readers, May 14, 2019)

The Girl Who Named Pluto: The Story of Venetia Burney by Alice B McGinty, Illustrated by Elizabeth Haidle (Schwartz & Wade, May 14, 2019)

When Sue Found Sue: Sue Hendrickson Discovers Her T. Rex by Toni Buzzeo, Illustrated by Diana Sudyka (Abrams Books for Young Readers, May 14, 2019)

Serena: The Littlest Sister by Karlin Gray, Illustrated by Monica Ahanonu (Page Street Kids, May 20, 2019)

Our Flag Was Still There: The True Story of Mary Pickersgill and the Star-Spangled Banner by Jessie Hartland (Simon & Schuster, May 21, 2019)

Science Comics: Cars: Engines That Move You by Dan Zettwoch (First Second, May 28, 2019)

The Sound of Silence: Growing Up Hearing with Deaf Parents by Myron Uhlberg (Albert Whitman Company, May 28, 2019)

Don’t forget to link up your nonfiction reviews….

Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge: Titan and the Wild Boars by Susan Hood & Pathana Sornhiran

Titan and the Wild Boars: The True Cave Rescue of the Thai Soccer Team
by Susan Hood and Pathana Sornhiran, Illustrated by Dow Phumiruk
HarperCollins (May 7, 2019)
Nonfiction * Science * Disasters
Audience: Ages 7 to 10 years
Indiebound | Worldcat

Description of the book: Follow the remarkable true story of eleven-year-old Titan, his teammates, and their soccer coach who went exploring the Tham Luang Caves in Chiang Rai, Thailand, only to become trapped inside by monsoon rains. This nonfiction picture book describes the world-wide teamwork that led to the boys’ daring rescue, written by acclaimed author Susan Hood in collaboration with respected reporter, Pathana Sornhiran, who witnessed the events first-hand.

This picture book marries Susan Hood’s lyrical text with Pathana Sornhiran’s first-hand account reporting of the event and is brought to life by Dow Phumiruk’s beautiful illustrations. It will also include an introduction, a timeline, and extensive back matter with additional resources.

Quick thoughts on the book:
Most of the time when I have read a book about an unusual event or disaster, it is about something that happened so very long ago. In the case of the Thai soccer team and their coach, the dramatic rescue was less than a year ago. I remember seeing posts on social media and the headlines in the papers and being amazed by the efforts of the divers and the many volunteers that worked to rescue the team.

Susan Hood and Pathana Sorhiran share with young readers the 18 day rescue through the use of facts, free verse, the letters of the boys to family members, and quotes. Even though I was familiar with the story and new how it turned out, I still found myself getting a little anxious as it took longer and additional challenges arose in the attempts to rescue the boys.

Dow Phumiruk’s beautiful artwork captured the emotions and provided the visual narration to complete the text.

The end of the book includes extensive back matter including an author’s note, fascinating facts, timeline, sources and websites and also an interview with British Divers Chris Jewell and Jason Mallison.

This is a beautiful, powerful story of bravery and hope and perseverance and teamwork that will capture and engage young readers and stay with them for a long time.

Go Behind the Art….

Look for this book at your local indie bookstore or community library.

About the authors:
Susan Hood is the award-winning author of many books for young readers, including Ada’s Violin, Shaking Things Up, and Lifeboat 12. She is the recipient of the 2017 E.B. White Honor Award, the 2017 Christopher Award, the 2017 Américas Award, and the 2017 Bank Street Flora Steiglitz Straus Award, given annually to “a distinguished work of nonfiction which serves as an inspiration to young people.” Visit susanhoodbooks.com.

Pathana Sornhiran was born in Bangkok, Thailand, where she attended the Faculty of Arts at Chulalongkorn University with a major in English and French. She later completed her master’s degree in journalism in London, UK and now works as a journalist in Asia, traveling across the region to find and tell stories that matter.

About the illustrator:
Dow Phumiruk was born in Bangkok, Thailand and came to the United States with her family when she was very young. Her mother was a nurse, and her father, a retired Royal Thai Air Force captain. He worked for Thai Airways for many years, which allowed her family many trips back to Thailand when she was younger. Dow currently lives in Colorado with her husband and three daughters. She is an author and illustrator of children’s books and has been a member of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators since 2011. Dow is also a general pediatrician who teaches medical students part time. When she is not creating or teaching, she likes to hike the trails near her home. Visit her at artbydow.blogspot.com

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Don’t forget to link up your nonfiction reviews….