The Mushroom Fan Club: putting the FUN in Fungi!

 The Mushroom Fan Club, a nonfiction picture book written and illustrated by Elise Gravel is a delight for all of the senses.  We have Gravel's popular nonfiction  Disgusting Critters series   in our school library and it's highly popular with our students, so when I spotted this book in our local comic book store, Chops Comics, I knew I had to take a closer look!

Gravel takes the reader along with her and her daughter as they venture into the woods looking for some mushrooms. She adds diagrams that help readers learn the names of the parts of the mushrooms and differentiates among popular types they have encountered on their hunts.  

The best part is that Gravel brings personality to the mushrooms so readers can remember the information, connect with it and share what they've learned with others.  I am going to use this book with my kindergarten - 2nd grade classes when we are working on the difference between fiction and nonfiction.  I've used her book, The Fly, for this learning objective before and the students love to listen to the facts about flies, which they see everyday.  

The Mushroom Fan Club offers many opportunities for interactive listening and follow-up activities.  My favorite parts of the book are that there are actions that readers can do along with the mushrooms.  For example, Gravel's daughter stomps on puffballs to help spread their spores for reproduction, so readers can act out stomping, just like her daughter.  

There are also species of mushrooms that Gravel does not get to describe, she leaves only the attention-grabbing names.  Readers can choose one to research, illustrate and share a fact with the community.  Or they can draw what they think the mushroom would look like based on the clues in the name and then they can look up the actual one to see how close they were!

Readers can, of course, walk outside and look for mushrooms as a follow-up and document what they have found.  They can learn about what mushrooms grow in their area.  We are lucky in our town to have a mushroom hunting club and at our farmers' market, many mushroom growers who are happy to share their knowledge about mushrooms.

Finally, Gravel adds instructions on how to do a spore print which is perfect for a classroom art activity.  All you need are mushrooms, paper and a glass or bowl. 

 I'm looking forward to reading this book with my students and encouraging them to get outside to look for mushrooms.  I'm incredibly impressed with anything that Gravel has written so I feel lucky to have found this copy nearby! It's a must-have for school libraries, science classrooms and home libraries.

37 Environmental Picture and Chapter Books for Children & Middle Schoolers

How is the Earth connected to its creatures?  Why is it important for humans to be aware of the Earth's needs and be able to protect it as much as possible?  These questions and more can be discussed with readers in the following chapter and picture books that have environmental themes.  From plays to nonfiction and fiction books, there is something interesting for everyone. 

Need more ideas? Check A Mighty Girl's blog for additional titles.

We are Water Protectors: universal stewardship

 We are Water Protectors, written by Carole Lindstrom and illustrated by Michaela Goade, reminds the reader of universal truths:

1. nature is important

2. we are all connected

3. it is up to us to protect nature

Told through rich, rhythmic text and luminous nature illustrations that move across the page, the young Indigenous girl's story is a simple, yet complicated story that offers much discussion for any age of reader.  For the young readers, they can identify that the black snake will be dangerous to the girl's community, therefore, she must drive out the snake at all costs.  For the older readers, they can make the connection between the black snake and corporations that harm the environment and to current events where Indigenous people united to block the drilling on their land.

The Indigenous girl empowers herself to be a steward for the Earth's water and animals who cannot stand up to those who bring them harm.  This is a relatable theme for children and adults to discuss.  There is a pledge at the end of the book that asks the reader to join the duty of being an Earth and water steward.  The author's and illustrator's notes at the end of the book also provide more context for the story. Since it is an #OwnVoices book, the visuals and language is authentically used.  The reader can learn more words in the Glossary and additional sources for information are offered for further study.  

Goade won the Caldecott Medal for her work on this book in the Youth Media Awards in 2021, and is the first Native American person to win the award.  Read Across America has more discussion questions and ideas for writing prompts that accompany this book.

The Rise and Fall of Charles Lindbergh: the myth, man & lore revealed

 The Rise and Fall of Charles Lindbergh by Candace Fleming is a narrative, nonfiction biography that should accompany American History classes.  The myth of Lindbergh and his magnificent feats along with the scandalous kidnapping of his first born makes the subject matter intriguing for the reader from the first page.  But the surprising alliances, speeches, forays into scientific laboratories to test ideas of eugenics, and other relationships with his wife and mother, are what drive the reader to understand more about Lindbergh's life.

The lore associated with Lindbergh and the rumors about his being a Nazi sympathizer are finally revealed in Fleming's book.  Using Lindbergh and his wife, Anne's, journal and diary entries, Fleming weaves together the extraordinary events that took place in his life.  Told in an engaging and gripping style, the reader will want to find out how it all ends for this enigmatic figure in history.