Chapter 9:Nonfiction Blog All 3321 classes!!!!

Greetings everyone! The weekend is almost upon us. I hope you all enjoyed the chapter on Nonfiction (chapter9) and how this genre has changed over time to encompass a wide variety of aesthetically pleasing and informative books. I particularly liked the information regarding boys and nonfiction. I think that armed with this information we are given the opportunity to motivate and engage all of the boys in our classrooms; regardless of age.
Here are some great nonfiction books to look for or familiarize yourselves with:

Could a work of art really take 500 years to complete? Leonardo's horse did! Leonardo da Vinci was commissioned by the duke of Milan to create a bronze horse. After years of work and before the horse was cast in bronze, the clay replica was destroyed in 1499. Leonardo died before resuming work on the horse. In 1977, Charles Dent vowed to build the horse and give it to Italy as a gift from the American People. Sculptor Nina Akamu completed Dent's dream. On September 10, 1999, the statue was unveiled in Milan five hundred years after the French destroyed Leonardo's horse.

When people think of pirates, they usually envision swashbuckling, adventurous figures who spend their time searching for buried treasure. But this is a distorted, romantic view. In reality, pirates were little more than thieves and murderers dedicated to plundering, looting, robbery, and enslavement. Milton Meltzer, who has been called "arguably the best writer of social history for children and adolescents ever," uncovers the true-and often bloody, always fascinating-stories of pirates and piracy, both past and present. Here are the real Blackbeard and Captain Kidd-and other notorious pirates-as well as the forms of piracy that plague us today. Meltzer's vivid, well-researched text and Bruce Waldman's striking monoprint illustrations give readers an unforgettable look at this nefarious world.