This blog entry is brought to you by Laura Ford, otherwise known as “Miss Laura,” the FPL Youth Services Librarian.
On New Year’s day I read a couple of fascinating nonfiction books: The Superpower Field Guide: Moles and The Superpower Field Guide: Beavers, both written by Rachel Poliquin and illustrated by Nicholas John Frith.
Most of the time I read fiction…there’s nothing like a good story to take me away. But sometimes I like a good nonfiction book, full of facts. I love learning new things. These two books are full of fascinating facts, strung together with bits of humor.
Fact: Moles have two-way fur. You can’t rub a mole the wrong way like you can a cat.
Fact: Some moles live their whole lives underground.
Fact: Someone has been folding back the corners of the mole book. Please don’t do that, it’s not good for the books! You can pick up a free bookmark at the circulation desk every time you come to the library.
Fact: Beavers have orange teeth.
Fact: Beavers have fur lined lips.
Fact: The biggest beaver dam on record is visible from space! (There was some push back on this fact when I announced it to my family. I did a little poking around and found that the fact was corroborated by a few random articles i found on the internet, but that wasn’t good enough of course. So I looked it up in our Gale Power search database, and found it in The National Geographic for Kids magazine, cited here: Kiffel-Alcheh, Jamie. “Beaver dam visible from space.” National Geographic Kids, Dec. 2010, p. 11. Gale In Context: Science,. Accessed 1 Jan. 2020.)
Both of these books have quizzes and a puzzle or drawing page in the middle. Please follow the author’s suggestion and “If this is a library book, DO NOT DRAW ON THIS PAGE! Your librarian isn’t going to like that. Not one bit.” <-True!!
Moles and Beavers are part of a four book series. Ostriches was published this year, and there is one copy available in CLAMS (and we’re ordering another one!) Eels will be published in June 2020, and it’s already on the purchase list.
When I come across a book that I like, I often look the author up in the catalog to see if they have written any other titles. Poliquin has also a book called Beastly Puzzles : a brain-boggling animal guessing game that I have put on hold to look at. And just from looking at the entry in the CLAMS catalog, I’m interested in the illustrator, Byron Eggenschwiler. Oddly enough, Eggenschwiler also illustrated Operatic by Kyo Maclear. Which just happens to be sitting in my To Be Read pile, right next to me.
Have I mentioned that I love books?
