Posts Tagged children’s bookstores

STEM Tuesday– CSI – Forensic Science and Anthropology- Writing Tips & Resources

By on November 19, 2019   /   CSI - Forensic Science and Anthropology, STEM Tuesday  

Trace Evidence of an Author: Point of View, Purpose, and Voice

In many ways, Locard’s Exchange Principle is the bedrock of modern forensic science. According to Locard, when two things come into contact with each other, like a suspect and a crime scene, they transfer materials. This explains why a suspect leaves behind trace evidence like fingerprints, hair, and fibers from their clothes while picking up tell-tale mud on their boots.

When we write, a similar exchange takes place. As authors, we leave fingerprints all over our work, especially in the purpose we choose, the point of view we take, and the voice we pick. Don’t believe me? Grab your tweezers and magnifying glass and let’s analyze the evidence.

Author’s purpose and point of view

The first, and perhaps, obvious way writers leave traces of themselves is through their purpose and point of view. Two authors writing about the same subject may have different purposes. The first may want to persuade you, while the other wants to inform. Even if two authors have the same purpose, their approach to the subject (in other words, their point of view) is as unique as their DNA. This includes what facts they choose to include or leave out and the conclusions they draw from the evidence.

Let’s take a closer look: This month’s book list features two books about the discovery of the Kennewick Man, a 9,000-year-old skeleton found on the banks of the Columbia River in Washington: MYSTERIOUS BONES by Katherine Kirkpatrick (illustrated by Emma Stevenson) and THEIR SKELETONS SPEAK by Sally M. Walker and Douglas W. Owsley. As an exercise, read the jacket flap copy and study the table of contents for each book. What does each tell you about the author’s purpose and point of view? Do the authors cover exactly the same topics or do you see a difference? Do you think their purpose and points of view are the same? If not, how do you think they will differ? Does one point of view more closely match your own?  

 

Voice

Authors also leave traces of themselves in terms of the voice they choose for a piece of writing. Is the voice humorous? Poetic? Energetic? Formal? Informal? The voice should help the author achieve their purpose and communicate their point of view. Try this activity: Compare a paragraph from MORE ONE-HOUR MYSTERIES (Mary Ann Carr) with Carla Mooney’s FORENSICS: UNCOVER THE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY OF CRIME SCENE INVESTIGATION. How would you label the voice of each? What elements of the writing led you to that choice? Hint: Look at things like word choice, punctuation, length of sentences. More informal or humorous voice might rely on shorter sentences, more exclamation points, and more informal language. 

Your Author Fingerprints

Now, look at a piece of your own nonfiction writing. What’s your purpose and point of view? How would you describe your voice? Why? Is your voice a good match for your purpose and point of view? If not, pick another voice and revise your work.

And don’t forget, Locard’s Exchange Principle is a two-way street. Even if a piece of writing doesn’t work out the first time, every time we write we pick up new skills. That means all our writing leaves its imprint on us, helping us develop and grow as writers.

 

Kirsten W. Larson used to work with rocket scientists at NASA. Now she writes books for curious kids. She’s the author of WOOD, WIRE, WINGS: EMMA LILIAN TODD INVENTS AN AIRPLANE, illustrated by Tracy Subisak (Calkins Creek, February 2020), CECILIA PAYNE: MAKING OF A STAR (SCIENTIST), illustrated by Katherine Roy (Chronicle, Fall 2021), along with 25 other nonfiction books for kids. Find her at kirsten-w-larson.com or on Twitter/Instagram @KirstenWLarson.

THE O.O.L.F. FILES

This month, the Out Of Left Field (O.O.L.F.) Files provides links to learn more about forensic science, voice choice, and much more.

  • Learn more about Locard’s Exchange Principle at Science Struck.
  • The Crime Museum is another fun place to explore Locard’s Exchange Principle and related topics.
  • Need some help deciphering voice? Melissa Stewart has one of the best videos around about The Voice Choice in writing. 
  • Looking for some online brain teasers and mysteries for your students? Check out Squigly’s Playhouse.
  • One-Stop English has a fun “murder in the classroom” mystery activity for students.
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STEM Tuesday– CSI – Forensic Science and Anthropology- Book List

By on November 5, 2019   /   Book Lists, CSI - Forensic Science and Anthropology, Fun!, Nonfiction, Nonfiction Titles, STEM, STEM Tuesday  

 

This month we uncover clues into the science of Crime Scene Investigation. Forensics is the science of finding evidence and analyzing it for clues. Evidence can be anything: blood spatters, carpet fibers, insects, pollen, powders, fingerprints, and footprints. Each piece of evidence reveals something about what happened at the scene of the crime – even if the crime happened hundreds of years ago.

Crime scene investigation:

Blood, Bullets, and Bones: The Story of Forensic Science from Sherlock Holmes to DNA by Bridget Heos (YA)

Crime scene investigation is not new; early detectives discovered ways to test for poisons, and conducted autopsies to determine cause of death. Over the years, crime-solving tools have become more sophisticated as technology improves. This book examines evidence from prints to ballistics, blood spatter to DNA and more.

Fingerprints : dead people do tell tales by Chana Stiefel.

Fingerprints are unique identifiers. Not even identical twins have the same fingerprints. This book explains the techniques scientists use to collect fingerprints and to identify criminals, and contains stories about how fingerprints helped solve real crimes.

 

Forensics: Uncover the Science and Technology of Crime Scene Investigation by Carla Mooney

This book introduces the science of crime scene investigation, with chapters about fingerprints, blood evidence, bones, and bodies. Sidebars highlight forensic careers, and there are plenty of hands-on activities for kids to try on their own.

Forensic Identification: Putting a Name and Face on Death by Elizabeth Murray

Forensic anthropologist, Dr. Elizabeth Murray takes readers into morgues and labs where scientists use technology to determine the identities of remains. Filled with case files and a diversity of techniques including facial reconstruction, dental records, X-rays, and DNA testing.

Ancient Cold Cases:

Bone Detective: The Story Of Forensic Anthropologist Diane France by Lorraine Jean Hopping

Meet forensic anthropologist Diane France as she lugs a two-gallon bucket containing a brain …without letting it slosh around. Any other day she might be examining skeletal remains of past royalty or Civil War soldiers, or be called to the site of a disaster to help identify victims. Side bars, photos, and diagrams explain science concepts.

Written in Bone: Buried Lives of Jamestown and Colonial Maryland by Sally M. Walker

Forensic scientists use their knowledge of human remains to help solve mysteries of remains found in colonial-era graves near Jamestown, Virginia. Using science, they help recreate the lives of a ship’s captain, an enslaved African girl, and more.

 

Two books about the Kennewick Man:

  Mysterious Bones: The Story of Kennewick Man by Katherine Kirkpatrick and Their Skeletons Speak: Kennewick Man and the Paleoamerican World by Sally M. Walker and Douglas W. Owsley

In July of 1996, two young men accidentally uncovered a skeleton along a bank of the Columbia River in Kennewick, Washington. Was this an unsolved murder or the remnants of a settler’s or Native American’s unmarked grave? Scientists determined that the bones were more than 9,000 years old – transforming our understanding of how humans colonized North America.

 

Channel your Inner Detective:

CSI Expert!: Forensic Science for Kids by Karen Schulz

This book contains 25 hands-on forensic science activities, including fingerprinting, blood-stain identification, chemical analysis, ballistics, and fiber identification. Each activity is set up as a lab.

 

Crime Scene Detective Arson: Using Science and Critical Thinking to Solve Crimes by Karen Schulz

This book includes everything teachers (or mystery dinner hosts) need to set up a mock crime scene based on arson. There are suspects to interview, forensic lab tests, and a section on forensic science careers.

Carson-Dellosa Forensic Investigations Resource Book by Schyrlet Cameron, Janie Doss, & Suzanne Myers

This book contains ten cases for students to solve, including forgery, theft, and vandalism. Each case (unit) highlights specific skill-based activities, such as handwriting analysis. Labs challenge students to apply the skills they learned to solve the crime.

 

One-Hour Mysteries, Private Eye School: More One-Hour Mysteries, and More One-Hour Mysteries by Mary Ann Carr

A series of fun classroom mysteries for 4th and 5th graders. Each book provides five mysteries that challenge students to apply their skills of deductive reasoning, inferring, taking notes, organizing data, and analyzing evidence to solve the case.

 

 

STEM Tuesday book list prepared by:

Sue Heavenrich writes about science for children and their families, from space to backyard ecology. Bees, flies, squirrel behavior—things she observes in her neighborhood and around her home—inspire her writing. A long line of ants marching across the kitchen counter generated one of her first articles for kids. When not writing, you can find her committing acts of science from counting native pollinators to monitoring water quality of the local watershed. Her most recent book is Diet for a Changing Climate (2018).

 

Maria is a children’s author, blogger, and poet passionate about making nature and reading fun for children. She’s been a Cybils Award judge since 2017 and a judge for the #50PreciousWords competition since its inception. Two of her poems are published in The Best Of Today’s Little Ditty 2016 and 2014-2015 anthologies. When not writing, or reading, she bird watches, travels the world, bakes, and hikes. Visit her at www.mariacmarshall.com

 

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Indie Spotlight: EyeSeeMe bookstore, University City MO

By on September 11, 2019   /   Articles, Diversity, For Kids, For Librarians, For Parents, Indie Spotlight  

Two years ago, we interviewed the owners of EyeSeeMe in St. Louis(www.eyeseeme.com) which was and still is the country’s only African-American children’s bookstore. We’re returning today to celebrate the store’s unique mission and congratulate the owners on its success in its four short years.

Like many founders of independent bookstores, Pamela and Jeffrey Blair had little experience in the business when they started in 2015, just a passionate vision of what a bookstore could be. As the store’s name suggests, they wanted to provide a place where children could find stories about and by people who looked like them, stories they would feel part of and be eager to read.
But their vision was even larger. When Pamela was a girl, she treasured the wonderful stories her father told her about glorious cultural heroes of Africa. Yet her children were coming home from school saying that all they heard about in history was slavery and segregation and civil rights, with blacks mostly the passive victims. Pamela and Jeffrey wanted their children, and all children, to know the positive cultural heritage of African Americans. They knew it would not only make them eager to read, but inspire them growing up.

EyeSeeMe has a solid collection of books about slavery and civil rights of course, including those about the African-American heroes in that history. But here is a small sampling of the books you won’t find just everywhere.

How about Africa is Not a Country, by Margie Burns Knight which shows how contemporary kids live in various countries across the African continent? Or The Kidnapped Prince: The Life of Olaudah Equiano, by Ann Cameron? African Folk Tales, by Hugh Vernon-Jackson is a good introduction to traditional stories.

For general African American History, try 100 African Americans Who Shaped American History, by Christine Beckner or A Kid’s Guide to African American History by Nancy I. Sanders.

EyeSeeMe carries countless compelling biographies, including Bad News for Outlaws: The Remarkable Life of Bass Reeves, by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson, the Zora and Me books by T.R. Simon (based on the early life off Nore Zeale Hurston, and The Undefeated,
by Kwame Alexander.

Poetry books include One Last Word: Wisdom from the Harlem Renaissance, by Nikki Grimes and My Black Me: A Beginning Book of Black Poetry, edited by Arnold Adoff.

 

What Color is My World?: The Lost History of American Inventors, by Kareem Abdul Jabbar,  and Hidden Figures Young Readers’ Edition, by Margot Lee Sheerly explore the little-recognized contributions to science  African Americans have made.

Of course for middle-graders there have to be series! One in great demand at the shop is Miles Morales, The Ultimate Spiderman, by Brian Michal Bendis.  The Robyn Hoodlum Adventure Series by Kekla Magoon cleverly reworks the Robin Hood Legend. Spy on History, by Enigma Albert is a lively historical chapter book series.  .

The store  has extended its outreach with book fairs in area schools.  Don’t live in the St. Louis area?  They also arrange on-line book fairs for groups and schools

EyeSeeMe has definitely inspired its readers.  When Sydney Keys III’s mom took him to the store, he started picking up books he couldn’t put down, and he got an idea. Why not start a boys’ book club?  So at age 11 he founded “Books and Bros,” meeting at the shop. The club started with seven members and grew into a large group of boys from the area. They now wear “Books and Bros” T-shirts and agree that reading rocks. In the process of leading “Books and Bros,” Sydney has overcome his tendency to stutter. He has also appeared on Steve Harvey’s Show, and earned on-air praise from Oprah Winfrey.

One of the things that has surprised and gratified the Blairs is the number of people who are not African American who come to  the store.  This includes parents who bring their preschoolers to story hours, wanting them to know these stories, too.

EyeSeeMe’s popularity has made it possible to move  to a newer, larger space recently.  Now they can hold more author events and classes.  They are also expanding their collections to include more bilingual books and stories about Latino, Asian, and Muslim people.

So give your hope a boost. Visit EyeSeeMe at the shop or online in the very near future!  It is a treasure for all who imagine an inclusive America where everyone can grow up proud of their own heritage and aware and respectful of the heritage of others.

 

 

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