Corn

by Gail Gibbons

Perennial nonfiction favourite Gail Gibbons turns her spotlight on corn. Popcorn, corn on the cob, corn dogs, cornflakes--corn is used in many children's favorite foods. This book offers a cornucopia of information about the history of corn as well as details concerning planting, cultivation, harvesting, and its many uses.

Genres: Nonfiction, Picture Books, Science, Childrens, Food, History, Gardening

32 pages, Hardcover

First published September 15, 2008

About the author

From gailgibbons.com: I was born in Oak Park, Illinois, in 1944. Even as a little child, I was always busy putting books together. Sometimes I would bind them with yarn to hold the pages together. I've always loved drawing and painting. I was also a very curious child. My parents tell me that I was always asking lots and lots of questions.

Later, I went on to the University of Illinois, where I studied graphic design. Then I moved to New York City, where I got a job doing artwork for television shows. Eventually I was asked to do the artwork for a children's show. While doing that show, some of the children asked me if I had ever thought of doing children's books. My mind immediately recalled how much I enjoyed doing that type of thing when I was a child. So I put an idea for a book together and right away a publisher bought it. That book was called Willy and His Wheel Wagon. Since then, over 170 books that I have written and illustrated have been published. The type of books I write are non-fiction books. This is because I love researching so much. I get to ask lots of questions, just like when I was a kid. I also get to travel and meet lots of interesting people. While doing research for my book Nature's Green Umbrella: Tropical Rain Forests, I traveled to two islands where there are tropical rain forests, Saba and Dominica. I also had a great time writing and illustrating the book. I get a lot of pleasure from doing the type of work I do.

Reviews

[Karen Witzler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very good informational title. I agree with other reviewers that the Native Americans and corn were dropped too quickly -- but all in all, very satisfying.

[Roxanne Hsu Feldman · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like looking at all the varieties of corn in the book. I'm unsure about the mentioning of the Incas, the Mayans, and the American Indians in the beginning of the book and then completely dropping them out of the picture. All the people are white with one "black or darker skinned" person inserted for each picture with more than one person. There are no clear and distinct features of any of the characters to show the diversity of people who plant, harvest, and use Corn. It's the artist's style but it also seems a missed chance to parallel the nature of corn with the nature of its wide-spread enjoyment in the WORLD.

[Heather · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book caused many problems in our home. I'll get to that in a minute. The author shows how corn has been used for hundreds of years in many different countries and civilizations. There are nice little maps to show that. Then she talks about the various kinds of corn including popcorn, dent, etc. We then look at all the parts of corn and how it grows and then discuss the various products made from corn.

All my kids enjoyed this. Even though it's a little on the 'young' side the 9 and 8 year olds learned a lot. The illustrations are typical Gibbons, colorful and descriptive but not necessarily clear. I always recommend using real photos along with her books, either from the internet or another book.

We had just read about the Native Americans and it helped them understand corn better and why it was so important.

Now, for the problems. Under the popcorn section we see various kinds of corn from which you can make popcorn. Well, the 2-year-old saw a bluish popcorn and insisted that he get to eat blue popcorn. And further demanded that we go to the store RIGHT THEN to get said blue popcorn. There is only one problem, I can't find blue popcorn at the store. It took us days to get him to calm down about it and not talk about it nonstop. We have to hide the book because if he sees it he gets all crazy about eating blue popcorn again.

A fun read around Thanksgiving, harvest time, whenever you buy corn or study ancient or early American history.

[Morgan Haught]

Summary:
This is a non-fiction book by Gail Gibbons is a story about corn. The book begins with where corn came from and how it got started as a popular food item. The story also goes through the different types of corn and how they are used today. Each category of corn gets its own description and there are different types of corn in each section. The book also talks about how corn is reproduced and the growing process of corn.
Analysis:
Personally, I did not enjoy reading this book. Although the illustrations were fun and interesting to look at, the book was boring. I felt the story could have been more intriguing for the audience and the facts about corn could have been laid out in a better manner. I also did not like the fact that they refenced Native Americans as Indians in the entirety of the book. Although this group of people were once called Indians by the pilgrims, I believe it can be seen as incorrect to most people now.
How I can use this book:
I could use this book in a lesson about Thanksgiving. This book is a good refence to the first Thanksgiving and how they used corn as a staple food back then. It could be an informative lesson about how corn came to our meals and get the kids thinking about other foods that are common now, which may have not been common to settlers long ago.

[Jillian Cryder · Rating 5 out of 5]

Honestly reading about corn isn't that exciting, but this book was so cute! It was completely educational but interesting. The pictures in the book were colorful and added so much to the writing. The whole book is about corn, it discusses ways to use corn, for breads, for cooking, ways to eat, how people use to eat it, how people eat it now, a very strange book at first glance but it is kind of funny to read about corn. I liked that it teaches readers the different places where corn is grown and who grows it and how they learned, all the different kinds of corn that can be grown, how popcorn works and the process of growing to harvesting corn. I loved this book because it was an innocent book, it didn't need humor or a crazy story line to be interesting, it was simply about corn. This would be a good book to bring into the classroom for a funny unit, students can study corn and read the book, I know that I would have laughed if I did a unit on corn in elementary.

[Caleb Ensminger · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is all about corn (hence the title). It starts out with where corn was originated how the Aztecs were the first ones to start growing it. It then starts talking about how corn got into the Americas because of the Native Americans and how they showed the pilgrims to grow it. It then starts going into a section of the book where it talks about all of the food that corn is in. I could use this book in a history/social studies class when trying to my class how corn and different crops got to America.

I was a little bored reading this book. Maybe because it just wasn't really a topic that I enjoy. But I still feel like it would beneficial for kids to learn about how things like corn got to America.

[Kendra Degner · Rating 3 out of 5]

This picture book by Gail Gibbons talks about corn and about the many different varieties of corn used in food. This book also talks about the history of corn, its cultivation, how it is made, how it grows, and how it is harvested. This book goes into statistics and specific numbers about corn.

I am from Iowa and so I really liked this book because I grew up around corn all of my life. I found the facts in this book very interesting because there are so many different things about corn you can find out. I also liked the illustrations throughout this book because they were very informative.

I could use this book when talking about a unit on plants, harvesting, Indians, and cultivation. This book was very informative in many different ways.

[AMY · Rating 4 out of 5]

32 pages. This book focuses on the corn industry and how corn is grown, used, etc. It is a good book to pair with Thanksgiving or How to book studies. The only thing that bugs me is there is a mistake on the last page…it has a map of the mid-west and has a state abbreviation for Missouri listed as MS - it should be MO. That needs to be fixed by the publisher as soon as possible! MS is for Mississippi! Some editor apparently missed that one. But otherwise it is a great book for reading and research. Highly recommended for grades 2-5.

[Emily · Rating 3 out of 5]

You can certainly tell this was written before "Native American" was determined to be politically correct. It's really factual, but I almost don't see the point in including the part about the Aztecs and Mayans if they were literally never going to be mentioned again. But why are there so many words on every page?? Most of the book follows a story style where a happens, then b, followed by c, d and e, and so on. But then randomly it stops following that pattern and jumps from the form it followed the whole book. It was just weird to me.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This source would work for a wide range of ages. It starts out simply and gets more complex as you read. There was a good level of detail of corn in history, food, and science. I could recommend it for kindergarten kids being read to up to independent researchers in fifth grade.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A cool informational book about all things relating to corn, including a brief history, types of corn, and more!

[Jo Oehrlein · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lots of info about corn, but more textbook than anything else.

[Kris Dersch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Pleasantly surprised by this one. I thought it would read like an infomercial for corn, but I actually learned lots I didn't know and it was user friendly for the 5-year-old.

[Nolan Brendel · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked it because I learned about corn.

[Paula Watkins · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love all of Gail Gibbons books. Full of information and beautiful pictures.

[WinterBat · Rating 3 out of 5]

3 1/2 stars

Informative, with lovely, detailed pictures to keep it interesting for kids

[April Dawn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book Title: Corn by Gail Gibbons

Short Description of the Book: Gail Gibbons describes for children the history of corn, current uses of corn, how corn grows, different types of corn and much more in this colorful book which children will love.

FOCUS: Features I would Use in a Mini-Lesson:
1-Structure of Informational Text: Sequence (the first part of the book) – Gail Gibbons describes the history of corn at the beginning of this book starting with the Mayan Civilization and ending with current uses of corn.
2-Informational Text Features: Captions, Diagrams, Science Vocabulary (pollination, harvesting, etc), Support sounding out words. This book shows a lot of pictures and lists words that are related to corn throughout. This would be a good focus to bring to students’ attention.

TEACH: CCSS Connection:
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.4.2 Write informative/explanatory texts to examine a topic and convey ideas and information clearly.
• **CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.4.2a Introduce a topic clearly and group related information in paragraphs and sections; include formatting (e.g., headings), illustrations, and multimedia when useful to aiding comprehension.
• **CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.4.2b Develop the topic with facts, definitions, concrete details, quotations, or other information and examples related to the topic.
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.4.2c Link ideas within categories of information using words and phrases (e.g., another, for example, also, because).
• **CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.4.2d Use precise language and domain-specific vocabulary to inform about or explain the topic.
• CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.4.2e Provide a concluding statement or section related to the information or explanation presented.

Mini Lesson- 1- Ask students how they would share everything that they know about the topic of corn with someone? What would be the best way to go about presenting the information? Would you include pictures/diagrams? 2-Read Corn by Gail Gibbons to the students. Have students look at the book with a writer’s eye—what features do they notice? 3-Turn and Talk about text features that were noted while reading the text. Chart any important features of new features to our Informational Text unit. Also chart domain specific vocabulary that is used in the text. 4-Have students brainstorm science and social studies content areas that they could focus in on a topic and write an informational piece focused on a singular topic. 5-Write into the day! Allow students to spend time reading more informational text that have a similar structure during their writing time if they need to be immersed in the text further. 6- Author’s Chair- Allow students to share what they have been working on. Celebrate successes.

EXPECTED OUTCOME: The student will be able to introduce and write about a specific topic clearly including informational text features that help the reader understand the concept that is being written about. Students will use precise language and domain specific vocabulary to inform about the topic.

[Ashley Dement · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first thing that attracted me to this book was the exceptional illustration on the cover. I like the way the author used small, colorful pieces of corn to form the title of the book. The cover is very detailed and appealing to the eye. Inside the book there is little to no negative space to be found. Each page is filled with a variety of images and text that corresponds to each picture. The color scheme is both bright and warm. The book is very busy and uses a variety of line shapes and sizes to illustrate which I enjoyed to an extent. The information and pictures being provided seems to be a little bit jumbled and I found it to be a little bit overwhelming.

[Jessica]

Corn by Gail Gibbons is book about the history of corn. The drawings are brightly colored and depict the Mayan civilization growing and preparing corn products. The book goes on to include Pilgrims', and modern day usage. There are descriptions of different types of corn as well as different usages for the vegetable including decorating for Fall with corn, making grits, feeding animals etc. It is not a storybook but rather an informational one. It would be good for doing reports with children in third through fifth grade. It all seems accurate and provides detailed experiences that a child could enjoy while learning about a popular food.

[Casey · Rating 4 out of 5]

A decent Gail Gibbons book, found it for $2 in a clearance bin. Would be a nice resource to have in the classroom, or could work as a quick read aloud when talking about agriculture. Discusses the somewhat dated but perpetually used story of the first Thanksgiving.

[CFAITC]

This book offers information about the history of corn as well as details concerning planting, cultivating, harvesting, and its many uses.

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like corn, especially when it's in my Chipotle salsa!

[Mia Valdez Quellhorst · Rating 4 out of 5]

good beginning look at corn. breaks it down into for main types. however, doesn't address the main evils of the industrial farming industry.

[Brian Cave · Rating 4 out of 5]

This informational book lets the audience know of all the different forms in which corn comes in. The book provides good information regarding harvesting, planting, and cultivation of corn as well.

[Alley Denney · Rating 4 out of 5]

Awesome
Informational book on corn.
Excellent for introducing corn as a topic! Packed with information.

[Vicki · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great book to share near Thanksgiving with the older children. A nice tie in with our Popcorn snack!

[Kacie Winfield]

Goes through the process of how corn came to the Americas. It introduces students to the Mayan cultures and Native Americans. It explains the different types of corn and what they are used for, how corn is planted and how it grows, and the farming part of corn (planting and harvesting). The pictures are wonderful and it shows where we see corn in our daily lives.

[Julie]

This book describes a the history of corn and how we still use it today. It was the major crop of the Mayans and Aztecs. The Native Americans shared it with the European pilgrims and had the first Thanksgiving. The pilgrims learned to use corn for their food, decorations, and dolls. There are four major types of corn listed, and they all have different uses. The book gives lots of detail about the anatomy of the corn plant, how it's pollinated, farmed, and harvested. The end of the book includes a list of facts about corn in America and about the plant itself. This book would be great for older readers who are learning about plants and farming. I would use this in a second-fifth grade classroom, especially around Thanksgiving break. This is a very informational and interesting book that will catch attention from students.

[Christina Bell]

This book gives a simple yet effective history lesson on corn, where it came from, how it was used, and the different types of corn. The illustrations give more detail that paragraph on the page, keeping me engaged (and making my boys curious). Love how the author talks about the science behind corn and again gives a great illustration. The different types of planting was nice, a simple farmer to an large - corporate farmer.

[Sue · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little too utopic. Nice corn varieties, and I loved the tractors.