Strange, Unusual, Gross and Cool Animals by Charles Ghigna: A Review and Giveaway

Congratulations to Joan Edwards who won the audio CD of "The Road to Bittersweet." Thanks to all who left comments. Keep persevering and entering. More giveaways coming up--starting today!

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Charles Ghigna, the Father Goose of children's books and no stranger to this blog, has done it again. But this time, it's not a clever book in rhyme for the youngest readers. Strange, Unusual, Gross, and Cool Animals  (Animal Planet, 2016) will appeal to kids of all ages who want to get up close and personal to some very weird animals. 

The animals are divided the way the title predicts: Strange, unusual, gross, and cool. Within each section there are four types of pages: a gallery spread which shows animals that live in different parts of the world but have adapted to their environment in similar ways; a featured creature that highlights one phenomenal animal through details about its life, stats, and maps; a creature collection which compares and contrasts a large group of animals; and macroview pages which show tiny details of very small animals.

Charles Ghigna gave me a "behind-the-scenes" look at the book's creation. After he agreed to write this book in nine months, he realized it would be a book that was, "Full of facts. No fanciful word play. No imaginative nonsense rhymes for toddlers. My tranquil treehouse would become the center of the universal pursuit of the biggest, baddest, best creatures on the planet. No more loose and loony alliteration. This was serious business."

Enter Strange, Unusual, Gross and Cool Animals--an accessible, factual, humorous book that will make every young reader want to learn more about the animal kingdom--even if she's scared of snakes and spiders like me. And guess what? Ghigna couldn't resist including a rhyme or two.

STRANGE

Strange how we as humans

view creatures great and small--

for we who see their strangeness

are the strangest of them all!

How strange is the star-nosed mole? Pretty strange. "It's nose is covered in 22 sensitive appendages that are so good at detecting vibrations they can tell when earthquakes are coming...It can even smell underwater by blowing bubbles it then breathes in through its nose." (p. 10)

UNSUSUAL

Unusual is what we call

The weird, the fast, the rare.

We classify each creature--

But do they really care?

The thorny dragon looks like it comes from prehistoric times. Besides having a camouflaged body covered in hard, sharp spikes and two horns--it also has a false head growing on its shoulders! The sharp spines make it difficult for a predator to swallow. Besides, as Ghigna points out, "Who would want to eat a thorny, two-headed , puffed-up dragon?"

GROSS

Gross is used instead of yuck

for words like poop and pus,

but all these animals agree--

it's only gross to us!

From my experience with kids, many are delightfully intrigued by gross stuff. From finding out that honey is really regurgitated nectar and millipedes can secrete yucky liquid that burns other bugs, discovering parrotfish who poop out sand, reading about a Goliath bird-eating spider that can be up to five inches long and when threatened, has a hiss that can be heard 15 feet away--readers looking for gross animals will find it in these pages.

COOL

Cool is how we think we look

when we try to impress,

but animals are born that way-

with lots of cool finesse!

Because of its translucent skin on its belly, "you can see through the glass frog and see its liver, heart, and intestines without an X-ray machine, just like Superman can!" (p. 108) Some see-through creatures include glasswing butterflies, the pelagic octopus, and the big skate that looks like a slimy ghost! Other cool animals glow in the dark, sport blue feet (blue-footed booby) or climb walls like Spider Man (mwanza flat-headed rock agama). 

A book to leaf through or read from cover to cover, young readers will enjoy discovering new animals just as much as Ghigna did: "The Blobfish first caught my eye. Icky pink and bulbous looking. Voted the “World’s Ugliest Animal,” I knew that one would become a hit with the 8-12 year old crowd. Who could resist the Rosy Wolfsnail, the fastest snail on earth? Who just happens to be a cannibal from Hawaii. And who just happens to inhabit my home state of Alabama and throughout the Southeast. Or the Fangtooth Fish whose teeth are so large it can never close its mouth?"

Ghigna told me, "I am glad I could be a part of this irresistible collection of amazing creatures whose lives will be explored by an endless parade of curious kids who might even put down their iPhones to ponder these scary, stunning pictures of exotic animals from around the world taken by some of the world’s top photographers."

GIVEAWAY

In mid-July Joyce Hostetter and I will publish our summer issue of Talking Story on "The Great Outdoors." Since all of these animals can be classified as existing somewhere in that category, I'm going to give away this tremendous classroom resource through Talking Story. Leave me a comment here (with your email address if you are new to my blog) and I'll enter your name once. Follow the directions to enter the Talking Story giveaway (and if you don't know about this quarterly newsletter for teachers and librarians here is a link to the spring issue. You can subscribe through the link) and your name goes in twice. Winner will be drawn on July 21. 

SCAR: A Review and an ARC Giveaway

Congratulations to Linda Phillips who won THE HIRED GIRL audio CD. For those of you who know that Linda and I are best writing buddies, I can assure you that this was not rigged and the winner was chosen through random.org!

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Sixteen-year-old Noah Daniels is a patriot with a problem. Lame since childhood, Noah wants nothing more than to take arms up against the British as his father did. But his childhood injury holds him back--both mentally and physically--until the day in which all of his abilities are tested and proved. 

SCAR: A Revolutionary Tale (Calkins Creek, 2016), J. Albert Mann's first young adult historical novel, is short but powerful. Spanning the course of just three days, Mann artfully alternates between Noah's present predicament--he is wounded and is caring for a young wounded Indian--and the events leading up to it. 

The reader is immediately drawn into the story in the first lines:

Their screams blind me. I run. Fast. So fast that I run right through my limp. There is nothing I can do for them now--not for Dr. Tusten, nor for Mr. Jones or Jon Haskell, not for any of them. Even as I dodge a blur of trees and rocks and branches, the scene under the ledge replays in my mind, Dr. Tusten shouting at me to run, that hatchet...

My lame foot catches a rock and I meet the ground. Hard. The musket ball in my stomach shoots searing pain straight up into my teeth. 

This can't be happening. 

I dig my forehead into the hemlock needles and suck in the familiar smell of soil--I wish I could go back three days in my life, just three days... (p.7).

Even though the reader doesn't know the protagonist's name, there are enough clues in these opening paragraphs to set up the story and provoke questions: "Why is this boy running? What happened three days ago?" And even more importantly, "What's going to happen next?"

Through the use of alternating chapters (present story and events that happened three days prior) the reader slowly understands the backstory: Noah's father's patriotic fervor before he died; his mother's reluctance to let Noah become a part of the Continental Army; Noah's self-assessment as a "crippled farm boy;" Noah's longing to have his own farm; his infatuation with the new girl in the settlement, Eliza Little; and his fear and hatred of the Iroquois Indians who recently joined forces with the British.

After he is wounded, Noah stumbles upon a young injured warrior:

The brightness of the stars has always seemed cold to me. I frown and look back at the boy who has become my patient. The white light of the moon catches on the shiny scar running down his cheek....Scar. I will think of him as Scar.

My father named everyone. (p. 21)

Faced with the choice of helping him or abandoning him, Noah uses his newly-acquired "medical" training to try and help him. 

Without thinking, I pick up his hand in mind and look up at the sky between the branches of the hemlock trees. Why is it that when we want answers we know we can't have, we turn our faces to the sky? Maybe it's all those stars. Maybe just comparing our concerns to their twinkling masses shrinks our problems.

Scar squeezes my hand.

I'm afraid to look at him. I know that he knows he's dying.

He squeezes my hand again.

I look down. His eyes are like the stars, full of twinkle. (p.45)

Earlier in the story, Noah faced another choice: Was he going to join the men going to battle, or would he use his lame foot as an excuse not to go? Despite knowing that his mother would want him to stay, he remembers her admonition: "Don't let others shoulder a responsibility that is yours." (p. 82)

Later when Dr. Tusten, who has observed his lame foot, questions his decision to join the militia, Noah responds: 

If I were to ask these men sweating in the hot sun right now, each of them would own a good reason to stay behind, just as you believe I do." I wave over at Mr. Jacobson. "That men has six children to feed. And the Reverend has a portion of his flock to put to rest after yesterday. And Jon Haskell's wife is sick with fever." There is no shortage of pain and suffering in the lives of poor farmers, and I could have gone on, but instead I turn back to him. "And you, sir, you're standing before me, even though I'm sure that you must have a wife and children to think about. I will follow this militia, Dr. Tusten, whether you agree with my decision or not." (p. 93)

The book ends on an ambiguous note. In an email exchange Jennifer Mann said, "Every reader brings their own ideas to that end." You'll have to read SCAR, which launches tomorrow, to find out for yourself. An Epilogue and "About the Characters" provide more information about the battle and the combatants on both sides. 

From the Author

Since I'm always interested in how authors get their ideas (particularly when it comes to historical fiction!) I asked Jennifer how she became interested in the Battle of Minisink Ford. She responded:

On a weekend hike behind a friend’s home in the Upper Delaware River Valley of New York, I came upon an old wooden marker stating some small fact about a battle I’d never heard of. The second marker I came upon kind of changed my life. It was a simple wooden plaque drilled into the side of a rock ledge. It read:

Hospital Rock. Here on July 22, 1779, Lt. Col. Benjamin Tusten, a physician, and seventeen wounded militiamen under his care were trapped and killed by Joseph Brant's raiders.

A simple walk in the woods had brought me to a place where eighteen men had died. I started running up and down the trails looking for more markers. The markers told the story of The Battle of Minisink Ford, an obscure Revolutionary War battle. I didn’t know it then (or maybe I did), but I was to walk that trail literally and figuratively for many years to come as I undertook the challenge of writing my first novel of historical fiction. Standing there in the woods that day, I felt a deep need to discover who those eighteen men were and why they had died on a summer day in the shadow of a lonely rock ledge. In the end, I did find out “who” they were, but not “why” they died. That question never gets answered.

To be entered in the drawing for this ARC, leave me a comment by Friday, April 8. If I don't have your contact information, PLEASE include that also. This book would be a great classroom resource for grades 4-7 or as an addition to a home or school library. 

This review originally appeared on LitChat.