PICTURE BOOK - The Quest for Z: The True Story of Explorer Percy Fawcett and a Lost City in the Amazon by Greg Pizzoli

Illustrated by the author
2017, Viking

Hardcover $17.99

40 pgs.
Nonfiction/Biography

Goodreads rating:  4.14 - 120 ratings

My rating: 5

Endpapers:  Green - Newpapers cut up in the shapes of leaves and vegetation

Illustrations:  "silkscreen, photographic halftones, Zipatone, photocopy machines, newspapers, cut paper, and Photoshop"!

1^st line/s:  "Less than one hundred years ago, maps of the world still included large 'blank spots': distant and dangerous lands that mapmakers and scientists had no yet explored."

My comments:  A fascinating, interesting read, a perfect nonfiction picture book for 3rd and 4th graders, and a great addition to the nonfiction adventurer/explorer genre. Simple illustrations add to the text but do not overpower it.  Mr. Pizzoli doesn't shy away from facts that might be glossed over by other authors, particularly the many deaths that accompany a dangerous profession.  Included are four sidebars with information about The Royal Geographical Society, The Amazon Rain Forest, Mosquitoes, and Famous Explorers, and an Author's Note, afterward, glossary, and resource listing that are all just as interesting as the story.  Diseases spread by mosquitoes kill at least 750,000 people every year! And 20 percent of Earth's oxygen is produced in the Amazon rainforest!  Top Notch.

Goodreads:  British explorer Percy Fawcett believed that hidden deep within the Amazon rainforest was an ancient city, lost for the ages. Most people didn't even believe this city existed. But if Fawcett could find it, he would be rich and famous forever. This is the true story of one man's thrilling, dangerous journey into the jungle, and what he found on his quest for the lost city of Z.

PICTURE BOOK - Ada's Violin: The Story of the Recycled Orchestra of Paraguay by Susan Hook

Illustrated by Sally Wern Comport

2016, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

HC $17.99

40 pgs.

Goodreads rating: 4.38 (72 ratings)

My rating:  %

Endpapers:  Pale Aqua

Title Page: Dirt-ish background with torn scattered pieces of musical score strewn about

Illustrations:  Collage and drawings together, perfect for this book!

1^st line/s:  "Ada Rios grew up in a town made of trash."  Powerwful!

Note:  In the MIM in Phoenix, there is a display of some of these intruments!  There has been a 60-Minutes segment on it and there are all sorts of YouTube videos.  recycledorchestracateura.com

My comments:   Nonfiction picture books that tell true stories of what's going on in other parts of the world draw me like a bee to nectar.  And when they're well told, illustrated beautifully, and loaded with pertinent information, I'm one happy teacher.  However, I don't have a classroom in which to share this book anymore, and this is a book to be shared and discussed.  Perfect for the intermediate-grade classroom that is learning about how to make a difference in our world.
          I can't imagine a town that's built on, at, or even near a huge garbage dump.  What a wake-up message for kids AND adults.  Lots of additional information so that I can look and learn more, and maybe even help a bit.....

Goodreads:  From award-winning author Susan Hood and illustrator Sally Wern Comport comes the extraordinary true tale of the Recycled Orchestra of Paraguay, an orchestra made up of children playing instruments built from recycled trash.
     Ada Ríos grew up in Cateura, a small town in Paraguay built on a landfill. She dreamed of playing the violin, but with little money for anything but the bare essentials, it was never an option...until a music teacher named Favio Chávez arrived. He wanted to give the children of Cateura something special, so he made them instruments out of materials found in the trash. It was a crazy idea, but one that would leave Ada—and her town—forever changed. Now, the Recycled Orchestra plays venues around the world, spreading their message of hope and innovation.

61. State of Wonder - Ann Patchett

Harper, 2011
HC $26.99, TPPL
for:  adults
353 pgs.
Rating:  5

First Line/s:  The news of Anders Eckman's death came by way of Aerogram, a piece of bright blue airmail paper that served as both the stationery and, when folded over and sealed along the edges, the envelope.

Setting:  First 50 pages, Minnesota; remainder of book, the Amazon rainforest of Brazil, particularly west of Manaus, where the Lakashi tribe live.  Contemporary.

Dr. Marina Singh:  American mother, Indian father, born and raised in Minnesota with her mother, visiting, as a child upon occasion, her father in Calcutta.  Trained until residency as a doctor - on obstetrician, then switching to pharmacology and working for Vogel Pharmaceutical.  Now 42, she shares an office with fellow cholesterol researcher Anders Eckman and is seeing her boss, the head of Vogel, in secret, since that's how Mr. Fox wants it kept. As a secret.

But Anders, after being sent on a mission to find a Vogel researcher in the Amazon of South America, dies of a fever in the rainforest.  And it's Marina that's sent to figure out what happened and how the vague research of Dr. Annick Swenson is progressing.  It's not easy to find Dr. Swenson, who has made sure that her location in the jungle is a total secret.  Dr. Swenson had been Marina's mentor in her med school days, and there's a mysterious connection between the two that we slowly discover. Marina's search for Dr. Swenson and what happened to her friend and coworker becomes quite a story.

Magnificent writing.  Fascinating setting.  A mystery to solve.  A great amount of research.  And a satisfying story, that I hated to end.

Marina thought of the crickets and the meadowlarks, the rabbits and the deer, the Disney book of wildlife that slept in the wide green meadows of her home state.  "No bullet ants," she said.  Her scalp was soaked, her underwear, the ground beneath her feet loosened as streams of water sluiced between the trees.  The heard a high whistle piercing through the thunder and wondered if it was their imagination.  Imagination played a major role in the jungle, especially during a storm.

What a wonderfully satisfying story, the perfect way to pass a weekend of laziness.  I read her Magician's Assistant awhile ago, I've got to put some of her other's, particularly Bel Canto, on my upcoming radar.