Non-Fiction Monday is here!

Non-fiction Monday is here today--please leave a link to your post in the comments, and I'll add them to the list!




If you are looking for a truly great book about Leonardo da Vinci for a five to nine year old, here is our favorite-- Leonardo da Vinci by A. & M. Provensen. The Provensen's have taken Da Vinci's marvelous creativity and, with considerable creativity on their own parts, made it into a pop-up book. So the reader can, along with Leonardo, hoist a model of the church of San Giovanni up into the air, practice various flying contraptions ("By very good luck Zola was not hurt. Leonardo and his apprentices gave up flying for the time being"), turn the pages of Da Vinci's notebook (with varied detailed facsimiles of his drawings), and read a sentence of his disguised writing-- Evom ton seod nus eht. Da Vinci wrote from right to left, backward. It is great fun, and a beautiful introduction not just to Da Vinci but to Renaissance Italy.

Here are the other folks participating in this edition of Non-Fiction Monday, with more links to be added as they arrive:

At Book Moot, Camile looks at The Lincolns.

Tricia at the Miss Rumphius Effect has a post looking at two sets of Double Plays--two books on the same topic. One set of books is on the wolves of Yellowstone, the other is on Wangari Mathaai.

At Just One More Book you can find a chat about Animals At the EDGE: Saving the World's Rarest Creatures, which is an exciting look at work of the Zoological Society of London’s EDGE of Existence Program an engaging introduction to the science of conservation.

At Picture Book of the Day, you can find Ella: A Baby Elephant's Story.

A Wrung Sponge is offering Red Scarf Girl, a "true memoir of a 12 year old girl coming of age during China's Cultural Revolution" which looks fascinating.

At the Jean Little Library The Periodic Table: Elements with Style, which I think is right up my 8 year old's alley...

At Lori Calabrese Writes! Honda: The Boy Who Dreamed of Cars

Here's Callista's review of 10 Things I Can Do to Help My World posted at The Well-Read Child, and along the same lines, Amanda's news that Penguin has put out a really nice Young Reader's edition of Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin's bestseller, Three Cups of Tea: One Man's Journey to Change the World...One Child at a Time.

Becky has a review of Duke Ellington His Life In Jazz.

Abbey has a little roundup of nonfiction titles she's read lately over at Abbey (the) Librarian

Tweet! Tweet! at Simply Science offers a fresh look at the United Tweets of America, with activities (and gosh how my five year old loves that book. Just saying "western meadowlark" to him cracks him up).

Tying in nicely with the tweets is this post at Chicken Spaghetti, where you can find "Wonders of America: Yellowstone."

If you have ever wondered how handwritting is being taught in schools these days, head over to Books Together, where Anamaria looks at Script and Scribble, a book for grown-ups.

And at Sweetness and Light, there's a look at Graphing in the Desert.

Wendie's Wanderings lead us to Baby Animals of the Grasslands.