Mrs. Harkness and the Panda

by Alicia Potter

Other authorsMelissa Sweet (Illustrator)

Hardcover, 2012

Status

Available

Genres

Nonfiction

Publication

Knopf Books for Young Readers (2012), Edition: 0, Hardcover, 40 pages

Description

Traces the story of a 1930s female adventurer who brought America its first panda bear, describing how she inherited a seemingly impossible expedition from her explorer husband and defied period conventions to travel up the Yangtze River and into the wilderness to bring back an adorable panda cub she named Su Lin, which means "a little bit of something cute."

User reviews

LibraryThing member abbylibrarian

A sweet nonfiction picture book about Ruth Harkness's quest to bring the first panda to the United States in 1936. I am a huge fan of Melissa Sweet's mixed media illustrations. Here, she uses Chinese characters, vintage postcards, and maps to great effect. Back matter includes a timeline and an

author's note that points out that today we might question whether it was right to take a panda from China, but that before the advent of videos and the internet, the only way many people could learn about animals was to study them or visit them in zoos.

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LibraryThing member alyson

The cute panda on the cover will draw you in, but it is Mrs. Harkness you will remember, a fabulous lady!

LibraryThing member HalleyEllis

summary: Ruth Harkness inherits an expedition from her husband to find a panda. She defeats all odds and finds a baby panda in the wild. She brings it back and finds a home for the panda in the zoo.

personal response: this books is a good book for elementary school kids. Pandas arnt the biggest

subject to learn about, but with this book and many others you could make a good unit.

classroom extention: take a trip to the zoo
#2: have each kid do a project over thier favorite bea

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LibraryThing member debnance

When you have read a lot of children's nonfiction as I have, you might start to think you've heard all the good stories. Then a book like Mrs. Harkness and the Panda arrives at your door and you happily learn there are many more stories to tell.

Ruth Harkness never expected to venture very far away

from her comfortable home. But then her husband died and she felt a need to carry on his work, to find and bring a panda home to America.

The reader will love following Mrs. Harkness' difficult journey, beautifully illustrated with cartoon panels of conversations and actual photographs of Mrs. Harkness and her panda, maps of the journey and real postcards of old Ch

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LibraryThing member Sullywriter

Mrs. Harkness is a fascinating, intrepid character and Melissa Sweet's mixed media illustrations are breathtakingly gorgeous but the story left me disturbed. Mrs. Harkness snatches the baby panda from its habitat. Was it an orphan or taken away from its mother? And then in the timeline, its

revealed the panda died after little more than a year in captivity. I understand it was different time and people thought differently about animal welfare but it leaves me troubled and I wonder if young readers will be, too.

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LibraryThing member matthewbloome

The story of a dressmaker that trekked into the wilds of central China to bring back the first giant panda that many Americans had ever seen is beautiful, true, and cleanly presented. I like the inclusion of a summative author's note and photograph at the end. Any kid could read and enjoy this, and

learn a little something too.

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LibraryThing member rsochu1

I really liked this book for a couple of reasons. First, I found the plot and information provided to be very interesting. It was a story that I hadn't heard before and maybe isn't told as often as others. Secondly, I really liked the way that the information and illustrations were organized within

the story. The illustrations are pretty and truly enhance the story. The big idea of this story was to share information about the life of Ruth Harkness and how the first panda bear came to the United States.

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LibraryThing member mirikayla

Such lovely illustrations; would be a great part of a nonfiction collection about women in history.

LibraryThing member LarisaAWhite

Story of the woman who traveled to China in search of Giant Pandas. She rescued a Giant Panda baby, and brought it into captivity for scientific study.

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