| Hey! One of my nonfiction books, Home on the Earth, is featured on the Wild About Nature blog today! This is one of the Science Songs books I did for Picture Window. Thanks, Heidi and Laura, for featuring it!
If you’re interested in reading more about the writing process behind the first set of four Science Songs books I did, you can check out these four posts that share the highs and lows of how these assignments went. I first heard of the terra cotta army when I was writing China for Capstone Press, one of my very first educational books. The idea of an army of soldiers and horses, all statues, each one unique, posted underground in the burial vault of the first Chinese Emperor, intrigued me. |
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| So when I saw this title, Emperor Qin’s Terra Cotta Army, from Twenty-First Century Books (distributed by Lerner Press), I had to check it out. Author Michael Capek wrote this book for the Unearthing Ancient Worlds series.
Like all the best nonfiction, it tells a story and makes the reader think. The story is not only about how and why the terra cotta army came to be there in the first place, but also about its modern discovery and excavation. In fact, it reminds me a little bit of one of my favorite nonfiction books, Fossil Fish Found Alive: Discovering the Coelacanth, by Sally M. Walker. Excellent storytelling, great primary source outquotes, and fantastic pictures make this book a fascinating read for upper elementary kids. I think books like this one and the Walker book mentioned above are great ways to get kids interested in and connected with the past and other cultures. By telling the story of rediscovery, too, they show kids what it’s like to be a scientist, sociologist or scholar in today’s world, and I wouldn’t be surprised if this book inspires an army of budding archaelogists. |
For the Nonfiction Monday Roundup, see Wendie’s Wanderings!