New Release Books by Bobbie Malone

“The story of Felice and Boudleaux Bryant is the story of towering artistic achievement wrapped in a love story so deep and so complete that the two are their own country song. Bobbie and Bill Malone are precisely the right match to tell this tale of love and genius.”—Ken Burns, Director, Country Music You might not know the names of Boudleaux and Felice Bryant, but you know their music. Arriving in Nashville in 1950, the songwriting duo became the first full-time independent songwriters in that musical city. In the course of their long careers, they created classic hits that pushed the boundaries of country music into the realms of pop and rock. Songs like “Bye Bye Love,” “All I Have to Do Is Dream,” “Love Hurts,” and “Rocky Top” inspired young musicians everywhere. Here, for the first time, is a complete biography of Nashville’s power songwriting couple. In Nashville’s Songwriting Sweethearts, authors Bobbie Malone and Bill C. Malone recount how Boudleaux and Felice, married in 1945, began their partnership as itinerant musicians living in a trailer home and writing their first songs together. In Nashville the couple had to deal with racism, classism, and in Felice’s case, sexism. Yet through hard work and business acumen—and a dose of good luck—they overcame these obstacles and rose to national prominence. By the late 1990s, the Bryants had written as many as 6,000 songs and had sold more than 350 million copies worldwide. They were inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1972, and in 1991 they became members of the Country Music Hall of Fame—a rare occurrence for songwriters who were not also performers. In 1982 their composition “Rocky Top” was adopted as one of the official state songs of Tennessee. The Bryants were lucky enough to arrive in the right place at the right time. Their emergence in the early fifties coincided with the rise of Nashville as Music City, USA. And their prolific collaboration with the Everly Brothers, beginning in 1957, sparked a fusion between country and pop music that endures to this day.

For generations of children, including a young Oprah Winfrey, opening a Lois Lenski book has meant opening a world. This was just what the author wanted: to help children “see beyond the rim of their own world.” In Lois Lenski: Storycatcher, historian and educator Bobbie Malone takes us into Lenski’s own world to tell the story of how a girl from a small Ohio town became a beloved literary icon. Author and illustrator of the Newbery Award–winning Strawberry Girl and numerous other tales of children from America’s diverse regions and cultures, Lenski spent five decades creating stories for young readers. Lois Lenski: Storycatcher follows her development as a writer and as an artist, and it traces the evolution of her passionate belief in the power of empathy conveyed in children’s books. Understanding that youngsters responded instinctively to narratives rich in reality, Lenski turned her extensive study of hardworking families into books that accurately and movingly depicted the lives of the children of sharecroppers, coal miners, and migrant field workers. From Bayou Suzette to Blue Ridge Billy, Corn-Farm Boy to Houseboat Girl, and Boom Town Boy to Texas Tomboy, Lenski’s books mirrored the cultural energy and concerns of the time. This first full-length biography tells how Lenski traveled throughout the country, gathering the stories that brought to life in words and pictures whole worlds that had for so long been invisible in children’s literature. In the process, her work became a source of delight, inspiration, and insight for generations of readers.

What are some food favorites in Wisconsin, and why are they special to us? How have our landscape and the people who have inhabited it contributed to our food heritage? This unique blend of history book and cookbook gives kids a real taste for hands-on history by showing them how to create and sample foods that link us to the resources found in our state and the heritage of those who produce them. Designed for kids and adults to use together, The Flavor of Wisconsin for Kids draws upon the same source material that makes The Flavor of Wisconsin by Harva Hachten and Terese Allen a fascinating and authoritative document of the history and traditions of food in our state, and presents it in a colorful, kid-friendly format that’s both instructional and fun. Mindful of the importance of teaching kids about where the foods they eat come from, each chapter examines a different food source—forests; waters; vegetable, meat, and dairy farms; gardens; and communities. The authors explore our state’s foodways, from their origins to how they have changed over the years, and then offer a selection of related recipes. The recipes are written for modern kitchens but use many traditional ingredients and techniques. Level of difficulty is clearly noted, as well as whether a recipe requires a heat source to prepare.

In this highly accessible history of ships and shipping on the Great Lakes, upper elementary readers are taken on a rip-roaring journey through the waterways of the upper Midwest. Great Ships on the Great Lakes explores the history of the region’s rivers, lakes, and inland seas—and the people and ships who navigated them. Read along as the first peoples paddle tributaries in birch bark canoes. Follow as European voyageurs pilot rivers and lakes to get beaver pelts back to the eastern market. Watch as settlers build towns and eventually cities on the shores of the Great Lakes. Listen to the stories of sailors, lighthouse keepers, and shipping agents whose livelihoods depended on the dangerous waters of Lake Michigan, Superior, Huron, Erie, and Ontario. Give an ear to their stories of unexpected tragedy and miraculous rescue, and heed their tales of risk and reward on the low seas. Great Ships also tells the story of sea battles and gunships, of the first vessels to travel beyond the Niagara, and of the treacherous storms and cold weather that caused thousands of ships to sink in the Great Lakes. Watch as underwater archaeologists solve the mysteries of Great Lakes shipwrecks today. And learn how the shift from sail to steam forever changed the history of shipping, as schooners made way for steamships and bulk freighters, and sailing became a recreation, not a hazardous way of life. Designed for the upper elementary classroom with emphasis on Michigan and Wisconsin, Great Ships on the Great Lakes includes a timeline of events, on-page vocabulary, and a list of resources and places to visit. Over 20 maps highlight the region’s maritime history. The accompanying Teacher’s Guide includes 18 classroom activities, arranged by chapter, including lessons on exploring shipwrecks and learning how glaciers moved across the landscape.

Thinking Like a Historian: Rethinking History Instruction by Nikki Mandell and Bobbie Malone is a teaching and learning framework that explains the essential elements of history and provides "how to" examples for building historical literacy in classrooms at all grade levels. With practical examples, engaging and effective lessons, and classroom activities that tie to essential questions, Thinking Like a Historian provides a framework to enhance and improve teaching and learning history. We invite you to use Thinking Like a Historian to bring history into your classroom or to re-energize your teaching of this crucial discipline in new ways. The contributors to Thinking Like a Historian are experienced historians and educators from elementary through university levels. This philosophical and pedagogical guide to history as a discipline uses published standards of the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians, the National Council for History Education, the National History Standards and state standards for Wisconsin and California.

How has the landscape of Wisconsin affected its history? How have people living here changed that landscape over time? What are the implications for the future? The second edition of Learning from the Land addresses these and other questions, asking elementary and middle school readers to think about land use issues throughout Wisconsin's history. This revised edition includes expanded chapters on logging and the lumber industry, land use and planning, and agriculture in the 20th century from farmers' markets to organic farming. New profiles of Gaylord Nelson, pioneer of Earth Day, and Will Allen, founder of Growing Power in Milwaukee, round out this history of land use in Wisconsin.

Voices & Votes: How Democracy Works in Wisconsin invites upper elementary school students to explore the intersection of American civics and Wisconsin history. This sixth and final book in the New Badger History series introduces students to the basic structures of American democracy, state government, and Wisconsin's road to statehood. Students will learn that citizens' voices and votes help government evolve to meet ever-changing societal needs. The last chapter emphasizes how young people can actively engage in their communities to bring about positive change.

Introduces young readers to Wisconsin's prehistoric and historic past, including the glacial times of the Paleo-Indians, Woodland era cultures, and French, British, and American settlers.

Introduces effigy mound sites, man-made hills shaped like animals usually used to bury the dead, that are found in five southern Wisconsin counties, and provides exercises in comparing, contrasting, and analyzing different mound groups.

The companion Teacher's guide and student materials engages students in hands-on exploration, highlighting historical processes and encoraging mulitiple learning styles.

Wisconsin History Highlights encourages middle school and high school students and teachers to use Wisconsin topics and resources to illuminate their own research in American history as they create National History Day or other research projects. Ten chapters on subjects such as immigration, environmental history, tourism, and manufacturing each contain concise introductions to specific events, people, or places in Wisconsin history. Topics include "Finnish Co-ops: Fair Trade in the North Woods," "A Watery Grave: Protecting Wisconsin Great Lakes Shipwrecks," and "Legendary Architect: Frank Lloyd Wright and Modern Home Design." Each synopsis includes one to three sample documents representing the kinds of primary source materials students will discover as they begin their research and introduces students to basic secondary sources for each topic. Every chapter closes with a two-page detailed bibliography of available primary and secondary materials. Distributed for the Wisconsin Historical Society.

The joy of maps abounds in this set of exciting classroom materials from the Wisconsin Historical Society's Office of School Services and the Wisconsin Cartographers' Guild, creators of the best-selling book, Wisconsin's Past and Present: A Historical Atlas. For use either independently or as a companion to the Atlas, this publication includes seven color transparencies depicting: landscape and glaciation; American Indians; migration and ethnic settlement; cities and counties; mining; timber; agriculture; and industry and transportation. Background information and classroom activities, as well as reproducible worksheets and blackline transparencies, give educators the opportunity to explore and integrate Wisconsin history and geography with students from grades four and up.

If buildings could talk, they would tell us all about the people who built them, maintained them (or allowed them to deteriorate), found new uses for them, and inhabit them now. Students can find out a great deal about Wisconsin history and the history of their local communities by studying the built environment. Wisconsin's Built Environment introduces students to a selection of the structures that together tell some of our state's many stories. It contains 22 pairs of photographs on separate perforated pieces of 8.5" x 11" inch card stock and a 68-page Teacher's Guide with background information and suggestions for classroom activities and student explorations. This resource encourages students to get out into the local community and explore history through real-life investigations.

Issue your students an invitation to visit the past by introducing them to those who inhabited familiar spaces and places in your community. Celebrating Everyday Life in Wisconsin History is a 60-page resource and planning guide designed to help upper elementary and middle school teachers and their students research, plan, and build classroom exhibits (actual or virtual) that explore state history by focusing on and celebrating the history that occurs closest to home. Celebrating Everyday Life in Wisconsin History includes five themes as areas of daily living to create a focal point for student exploration and design: seasons, changes in work, changes in foodways, childhood, and the built environment. These thematic areas relate directly to resources available at the local level, including students' family members and adult acquaintances, local historical societies, libraries, and historic preservation organizations. The idea is to choose one theme as the conceptual center that will give students the opportunity to do an in-depth historic investigation. Each theme contains three specific topics to give teachers suggestions for fruitful research possibilities. Celebrating Everyday Life in Wisconsin History uses oral history as one of the major thrusts of conducting local research, and includes sample interview questions for students that stimulate them to compare and contrast the past and present.

A Bohemian immigrant and one of the first U.S.-trained rabbis, Max Heller served for 40 years as spiritual leader of a Reform Jewish congregation in New Orleans - at that time the largest city in the South. Far more than a congregational rabbi, Heller assumed an activist role in local affairs, Reform Judaism, and the Zionist movement, maintaining positions often unpopular with his neighbors, congregants, and colleagues. His deep concern with social justice led him to question two basic assumptions that characterized his larger social milieu - segregation and Jewish assimilation.