Bountiful! Corn by Gail Gibbons

It won't be long before those primary grade field trips to the farm are back on the agenda, which means that there's no better time for a great book on that staple of agriculture (almost as American as the Fourth of July!)--corn. And who to do it better than the superstar of nonfiction picture books, Gail Gibbons.

Forthcoming in paperback in July, her Corn begins at the beginning, with the Mayans and Aztecs, who took a local grass and turned it into that powerhouse of agriculture--CORN! Gibbons shows how the native Americans introduced corn culture to the first settlers. Even then, corn was prized for its versatility. In a portentious page showing a Pilgrim family's kitchen, we see that the corn plant had already proven its utility--from cornbread, popcorn, corn pudding, and sweet corn to eat to corn husk mattresses and dolls, and corn cobs for fuel to cook the corn. And people have gone on to increase the lists of products produced from this bountiful plant--from baby powder to ethanol, from paper to biodegradable plastics and packing materials, from medicines to muffins, oils to paint.

Cultivated widely on every continent except Antarctica, corn comes in four types: sweet corn, eaten while the kernels are tender; popcorn, eaten from exploded dry kernels; and flint corn and dent corn, from which dried kernels are processed into corn flour, grits, cereal, animal feed, and the myriad of other products made from this miraculously bountiful plant.

Gibbons' teaches the physiology of the corn plant, including its amazing corn silks, which carry pollen inside the husk to fertilize the egg cells which become each separate kernel of the ear of corn. She shows how corn is cultivated on large industrial farms and small family gardens and how silage and kernels provide tremendous provender for animals.

It's a powerhouse of a little book for a powerhouse of a plant, and even a jaded adult will finish this book with a great appreciation for corn in all its many permutations. Engaging and accessible text and bright, tempting illustrations in Gibbons' familiar ink and watercolors make this book a first choice for the introduction of this subject for the primary grades.

Savanna Superman: Elephants of Africa by Gail Gibbons

Gail Gibbons has made her name as the queen of the nonfiction picture book, with books on holidays, plants, animals, and even ecosystems, as in her Coral Reefs, a little jewel of an introduction to this subject for primary graders.

In Elephants of Africa Gibbons takes on an animal so big and powerful that it almost creates its own ecosystem as it goes. Gibbons first briefly describes those enigmatic ancestors of the modern elephant--mammoths and mastodons--and then jumps right into the fascinating facts of the African elephant.

For example, who knew...?

Elephants can swim for several hours and several miles at a time, "snorkeling" along with their trunks above water and most of the rest of the pachyderm submerged.

Elephants often deliver food to other disabled animals who cannot forage for themselves.

Elephants need up to 40 gallons of water daily.

The matriarch of each family group has the responsibility for remembering where water can be found at any season. She is said to be able to smell underground water miles away and lead her charges to the spot where they then dig a water hole with their powerful tusks.

Elephants have very thick skin--1.5 inches thick. What they do not have is a layer of fat under the skin to protect them from cold.

Elephants see poorly in bright sunlight, only up to about 60 feet away. Their eyes function better in subdued light, however.

Gibbons organizes these and many other facts logically, with colored drawings illustrating the information fully. For preschoolers and the primary grades, Elephants of Africa is a great place to start for knowledge about this largest of living land animals.

Nonfiction Books That Make the Grade: Big Science Ideas

Crabtree, one of the stalwarts in quality nonfiction publishing for the elementary grades, has a new primary zoology series titled Big Science Ideas, written and edited by the noted Bobbie Kalman.

The series sets out to teach some of the basic concepts in zoology--the characteristics and behavior of animals. Among the already published books in the series are three which deal with the feeding characteristics of animals, What Is a Carnivore? (Big Science Ideas), What Is a Herbivore? (Big Science Ideas) and What Is an Omnivore? (Big Science Ideas) and the recent What Is a Vertebrate? (Big Science Ideas).

Each of these books definitively presents the basic concepts of its subject within a framework of scientific observation and classification. For example, What Is a Vertebrate? (Big Science Ideas). clearly defines vertebrates as animals with backbones, and in a colorful double-page spread shows the human skull and backbone with examples of the each of the five classes of vertebrates. The next chapter describes the skeleton (bony or cartilaginous), the head and skull of vertebrates, and how their joints articulate and are moved by muscle systems. This background information is followed by a closer look at the different characteristics of each class of vertebrates--fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals.

The numerous photos, while clearly calculated to draw the attention of primary-aged kids, are meticulously chosen to illustrate the concepts presented in the adjacent text. For example, in the chapter "Reptiles with Shells," photos of crawling land turtles and swimming sea turtles are accompanied by labeled drawings of their respective skeletons to show how they are adapted for movement on land and in water. Likewise, photos of bird skeletons and their wing skeletons show how they are adapted for flight, and a similar page design shows how the bills of various birds accommodate their methods of feeding by contrasting the bills of a hummingbird, a pelican, and an eagle and an egret.

All volumes in this series introduce scientific terms in boldface and define them specifically or by context in the text. All of these terms are also defined in child-friendly language in the glossary, and a full index is also included. Accelerated Reader levels for this series range from 3.5 to 3.7. And unlike most children's nonfiction books, which tend to be on the pricey side, this series comes in at a modest price easy on the bottom line.