Genre Four

Book One:

Bibliography:
Montgomery, Sy.1999. THE SNAKE SCIENTIST. Photographer: Nic Bishop. Boston, MA. Houghton Mifflin Company. ISBN: 0395871697.

Plot Summary:
In The Snake Scientist readers learn about Bob Mason ( a zoologist at Oregon State University) and his research team and the three pits full of red-sided garter snakes. Each spring the team and volunteers gather these snakes into pillowcases. It is each spring when the ground warms up the thousands of these snakes come up from the earth. Instead of leaving and going to get something to eat the male snakes wait for the female snakes to surface. Researching how the mating balls of males know a female garter snake. Even though there are nearly twenty snakes in the mating ball the female snake will only mate with one usually the largest male. After mating they go get something to eat because they have been underground for nearly nine months. They also go back to the exact same place. Another area the researchers are studying.


Critical Analysis:

Montgomery provides titles throughout the book. He introduces the book by capturing the readers attention by telling of the thousands of snakes that gather at Narcisse dens. He goes onto tell about the snakes, the snakes uses of chemistry and ends it with things they are still researching like why the baby snakes stay away for two years. Sy provides an index and even further reading section.

Bishop provides clear close up pictures to capture the reader and allow them to experience the up close experience with the snakes and feeling as if they too are in the field with the researchers and volunteers.

Review Excerpts:
"A list of "unsolved mysteries" about the snakes and instructions on visiting the snake dens will keep interest high to the very last page."-School Library Journal

"With a research topic whose kid appeal is hard to beat, this is a solid introduction to the ethos of experimental science as seen by a genial scientist." -Horn Book

"Author Sy Montgomery, with the help of Nic Bishop's exceptional photos, enables the reader to join Mason and his team in the field and look over their shoulders as they work." - Scientific American

Connections:

Have students read one of the books suggested for further reading.

Have student chose an animal to research.

Have students infer to come up with answers for the "Unsolved Mysteries"


Book Two:

Bibliography:

Bartoletti, Susan Campbell. 2005. HITLER YOUTH: GROWING UP IN HITLER'S SHADOW. New York, New York. Scholastic. ISBN: 0439353793

Plot Summary:
Bartoletti begins the book with the catching story of Herbert Norkus. Telling of his death and how he died for Germany. She also tells how so many parents did not want their children to join the Hitler Youth, but many joined anyways. The book discusses how Hitler knew most of the adults didn't agree with his views. Therefore, the key to his success was the youth and they were willing to fight for his cause, because they were tired of the condition Germany was in.
Readers also learn the importance of physical fitness of the Youth. How the boys went on camping trips, nearly beat each other up in sporting competitions. The girls went on marches took classes on how to be a good wife. The book also tells the story of those who resisted the Youth and those who joined and then turned heir backs because of the treatment of others.

Critical Analysis:
Bartoletti's book depicts the gloom truth of what happened in Germany during WWII. She provides a window into another side that is very rarely told. She tells the bravery of those who resisted and the courage of those to stand up and follow Hitler and rebel against their parents.

Bartoletti begins the book with the start of the Youth, building it, establishing it and the fall of it.
Along with the fall of Hitler. The book is written clearly and provides access tools, starting with a table of contents and subtitles. This book is simply presented, with black and white photos that provide the gloomy reality of the victims and what happened. The accuracy of the book comes from Bartoletti's research and interviews with those who were there. She provides a quote source and an index.

Review Excerpts:

"With clarity and apt quotation (scrupulously sourced), Bartoletti's tracing of the Hitler Youth movement particularizes the events of Nazi Germany from rise to fall and is given further specificity by her recurring attention throughout to several individual young people. Many period candid and propaganda photographs are well married to the text by strong captions and placement."-Horn Book

"What was it like to be a teenager in Germany under Hitler? Bartoletti draws on oral histories, diaries, letters, and her own extensive interviews with Holocaust survivors, Hitler Youth, resisters, and bystanders to tell the history from the viewpoints of people who were there." -Booklist

"She covers Hitler Youth, the resistance movement among young people and the de-Nazification process after the war in this study of Hitler's horrifying 12 years and the courageous moral stance of those who resisted. Case studies of actual participants root the work in specifics, and clear prose, thorough documentation and an attractive format with well-chosen archival photographs make this nonfiction writing at its best."-Kirkus Review


Connections:

Have students discuss why parents wouldn't want their children to join Hitler Youth

Have students create a what if... What if Hitler would have succeeded.

Discuss the photos used on the book jacket.
Book Three:

Bibliography:
Krull, Kathleen. 2003. HARVESTING HOPE:THE STORY OF CESAR CHAVEZ. Ill: Yuyi Morales.New York, New York. Harcourt, Inc. ISBN: 0152014373

Plot Summary:
Krull tells the story of Cesar Chavez childhood. First growing up in Arizona, up until the age of ten, with his immediate and extended family . At ten, due to a drought his family looses their ranch. This forces them to become migrant workers. The migrant workers are mistreated; overly worked and underpaid. Cesar becomes tried feeling like a slave and the mistreatment. He decides to rally them together, and convinces the workers to go on strike. Marching more than three hundred miles. Trying to get the attention of the landowners and the government. Ultimately forming the National Farm Workers Association. Accomplishing a contract for the workers to improve conditions, treatment and pay.

Critical Analysis:
In Harvesting Hope: The story of Cesar Chavez, Krull tells the story of Chavez's struggle and his overcoming the struggle. Although a biography Krull doesn't provide any true access tools. There isn't a table of contents, the story isn't broken down with subtitles, and there aren't
any sources listed. Instead it reads as a story, which makes it flow smoothly and easier to read. Krull's language is simple vocabulary. She tells an elaborate story of Cesar's passion to become an advocate for the migrant workers. Although she only focuses on this portion of Chavez's life the reader still gets to know Chavez, who he was and what he stood for.

Yuyi's brightly pictures help illustrate Chavez's story. The vibrant illustrations compliment Krull's narration of Chavez's fight down to the grapes rotting with white mold. Her illustrations show the emotions of the characters, even Chavez's pain of the sores appearing on his feet from the long march to the joy and celebration when they make progress in their fight.


Review Excerpts:
"The brief text creates a remarkably complex view of Chavez--his experiences and feelings. Krull's empathetic words are well paired with artist Yuyi Morales's mixed-media acrylic paintings, which are suffused with a variety of emotions, especially fear and sorrow. The pictures glow with intense shades of gold, green, pink, and orange, and the farm landscapes show delicately detailed strawberries and grapes." -Horn Book

"While sufficient background information is provided to support the story and encourage further research, focusing on one event makes the story appealing to younger readers. The text is largely limited to one side of a spread; beautifully rendered earth-toned illustrations flow out from behind the words and onto the facing page. A fine addition to any collection."-School Library Journal

"She portrays Chavez as a quiet, patient, strong-willed man who believed implicitly in his "causa" and worked tirelessly for his people. She presents additional events in his life and the circumstances of his death in an author's note. Morales uses bright acrylic colors that flow across the pages, mirroring the constant movement in Chavez's life. The overall look of the work is reminiscent of a Diego Rivera mural. Krull and Morales introduce a long-neglected figure from recent history to a new audience in an informative, eye-catching manner. A notable achievement."-Kirkus Review

Connections:

Have students research another civil rights activist life and compare it with Chavez's.

Have students compare the treatment of slaves and the migrant workers.

Have students find examples of the ill treatment of workers now. (sweat shop workers)