PICTURE BOOK - The House of Wisdom by Florence Parry Heide and Judith Heide Gilliland

Illustrated by Mary Grandpre

1999, DK Publishing, NY

currently OP

40 pgs.

Goodreads rating:  4.07 - 68 ratings

My rating: 4:  

Endpapers:  peachy/orange

Illustrations:  orangy pastels, no white on the very large pages

1^st line/s: "Over many lands came caravans of camels, six thousand strong, swaying and rocking as the padded single file across the sands and plains on their way to Baghdad."

My comments:  I always get excited when I find a well-written picture book for older kids.  This is certainly one of them.  Based on history, this is the story of 9th century Baghdad and its books, libraries, scholars, and inquisitive minds. I love that it points out that at this time areas to the west (Europe) were basically uneducated and, perhaps, crude.  And when talking about scholars, like Aristotle, coming a thousand years before, the father tells his son, "We are like the leaves of the same tree, separated by many autumns."  What a great quote!

Goodreads:  This is the true story of Ishaq, a young boy in ninth-century Baghdad. And it is the story of the House of Wisdom. More than a house, more than a library, more even than a palace, the House of Wisdom was at the very center of the new ideas that flourished in Baghdad. It was here that thousands of scholars gathered to read, to exchange ideas, and to translate the dusty manuscripts that were brought by camel and ship from all over the world. Ishaq cannot understand why ancient words, words from faraway places, can cause such excitement. Then he embarks on a difficult journey seeking lost manuscripts. But it is what he discovers when he returns that ignites his imagination and changes him forever.Lyrical prose and glorious illustrations capture the splendor of Baghdad when it was the center of one of the world's great civilizations. They tell the story of Ishaq's transformation from a bewildered young boy searching for understanding to a brilliant scholar, the greatest translator of Aristotle, whose work preserved Greek thought for civilizations to come.

The Day the Stones Walked - T. A. Barron

Illustrated by William Low
Philomel (Penguin), 2007
$16.99
32 pgs.
For: ages 7 - 10
Rating: 4
Endpapers: navy blue

Lots of times a book - an article - a paragraph - even a simple reference - sparks an interest that takes us researching farther. This book awakened such an interest in me.

Easter Island. "The world's most remote inhabited island. It lies over 2200 miles west of South America, in the middle of the Pacific Ocean." 30-foot tall hand carved "moai" guard the island's shores. Who carved them? And why?

This story takes us to Easter Island on a long ago day when a tsunami hits. Pico is sent by his mother, who senses danger by looking at the clouds, to warn his father, who is carving a moai. The immense wave is powerful and disatrous. The story is really more about the tsunami than the carvings, which is a bit disappointing - although it is a moai that saves Pico when he is pulled underneath the roaring water. More information to come after some research!

The illustrations fully cover the page, complimenting the story well. The 2-page author's note at the end is informative and has now set me on a quest to know more about Easter Island. Fascinating.

Ox, House, Stick - Don Robb

The History of Our Alphabet
Illustrated by Anne Smith
8-11?
9-12?
Both are cited, I'd definitely move for the upper end
2007
Rating: 3.5
$16.95
Endpapers: Large dark pink calligraphy alphabet letters

A to Zed. Here is a very interesting history of how our current alphabet came to be, going all they way back to its Sinaitic roots, through Phoenician, Early Greek, Classical Greek, and then our current ROMAN rendering. It includes history, background, and interesting information about writing, paper, utensils, and where it all started or came from. For example,

"The origin of the letter E is uncertain. The Sinaitic symbol for the word HE looks a bit like a person with upstretched arms, and perhaps it indicated someone praying. Or it may instead have meant "high." Most scholars today believe that the drawing simply represented a person expressing surprise. The Phoenician symbol for HE looks entirely different, and some believe it meant "window." Whatever its meaning, it was a consonant in both Sinaitic and Phoencian. Borrowed by the Greeks, this letter became a vowel called epsilon. In Greek, psilon means "plain" or "simple." So epsilon -- (h)e-psilon -- was their plain, or short e vowel. They used a different letter for their long e sound."

The illustrations and added information are interesting. An although I read it completely from beginning to end, I had to put it down and pick it up to keep my attention alive. Or perhaps I'm just tired and needed to "nap" (I am taking care of two very energetic kids who are wearing me out) I'm not certain how much a kid would, especially one who has no added interest in the history of the alphabet. However, for kids with a big interest in history or ancient civilizations, this would be a great choice. I've got one or two in my fifth and sixth grade classes that would enjoy this a lot.

Kid's resource cited;
How Our Alphabet Grew: The History of the Alphabet (Dugan)
Alphabet Art: Thirteen ABC's from Around the World (Fisher)
The 26 Letters (Ogg)
The Little Greek Alphabet Book (Rees)
Alphabetical Order: How the Alphabet Began (Samoyault)

There are a few websites listed, too.