The Misfits

Title: The Misfits

Author: James Howe

Grade Level: Middle School

Rating: 5

Summary: This book is more or less about a group of outsiders who come together and are all best friends.  They are probably four of the most picked on kids in school and when it comes time for their class elections, they want a change.  Addie, Skeezie, Joe, and Bobby create their own third party on the platform of stopping name calling.  Little did they know, what they were about to do was actually going to change things.

Opinion: I wasn’t sure exactly how I was going to like this book at first, especially after they started chapter three with almost a whole chapter of just dialogue that Addie was recording during one of their meetings.  Throughout the book my opinion started to flip the other way and I became very interested in what was going to happen next.  I think that in this book James Howe does such an amazing job of writing a story the middle school aged children can really relate to.  I don’t think that there was one thing in this book that I thought was too farfetched and could never happen to a middle school student.  I think that it helped a lot that Bobby was narrating the whole book because it makes you feel for everything that bobby is going through.  I couldn’t help but think about what was going to happen next to Bobby, even though the rest of the characters were important.  Also, as the book progressed it was really interesting to see the difference in how some of these characters were portrayed in the beginning of the book and how they actually were.  Skeezie is a perfect example of this.  They portray him as a complete dirtball in the beginning of the book, how is made to sound like a kid who just doesn’t care about anyone.  When we really look at Skeezie the person, however, we see how caring he actually is.  It becomes very clear that to Skeezie it doesn’t matter that Bobby is overweight, or Addie is a loud mouth, and it doesn’t even matter that Joe is gay; Skeezie likes his friend because of who THEY are.  Overall I just thought that this book did a great job of keeping my attention and making me wonder “what next!?”

Connection:  I wholeheartedly believe that this book would be really good in any 5-8^th grade classroom.  The whole topic of name calling is present everywhere in school, but it seems to me like the middle school age starting around fifth grade is where it really starts picking up.  I believe that this book could actually have a lasting impact on a student around this age because it shows them that: a. it does hurt the people that are being made fun of, and b. there is something that can be done to put a stop to name calling.  It would even be cool to take the idea of no name calling day/week and trying to implement it into your own classroom as part of an experiment to see if your students really understood the point of this story.

11/9/10

Title: The Sound that Jazz Makes

Author: Carole Boston Weatherford

Grade Level: Upper Elementary

Rating: 5

Summary:  The book takes you from African Tribe Music all the way through modern day rap and jazz.  It covers hundreds of years and has a lot to do with how music in each time period got people of color through hard times.  This book follows tribes, slaves, farmers, railroad workers, gospel singing, and jazz, rap, and finishes with how jazz was born in our nation.

Opinion:  I thought that this book was written really well.  While reading through it I could help but be mesmerized by the way the author wrote everything.  It also seems to be such an inspirational book.  One passage stood out to me above all the others, “Jazz is a down beat in our nation, chords of struggle and jubilation, bursting forth from hearts set free, in notes that echo history.”  This stood out to me because inspirational is exactly what it is.  The verses “chords of struggle and jubilation, bursting forth from hearts set free,” stood out because in two verses the author has described the whole book.  African Americans fight through the struggle, show their jubilation, and sing for being set free.

Connection:  I think that this book would be really good to use to show how African Americans have used music as a means of inspiration and healing, worship and celebration.  The author does a really good job of showing how much music has always meant to African Americans as a culture.  This would be a good book to introduce when talking about slavery, since we know that slaves often used song as inspiration to keep going, as well as a way to communicate about how to escape.

Title:  Home of the Brave

Author:  Allen Say

Grade Level:  Elementary school

Rating: 3

Summary:  This book is about a man who goes through the trauma of experiencing an internment camp in a sequence of dreams.  This book is touching on the time period during World War II when over 120,000 Japanese Americans were forced into internment camps.

Opinion:  I had a little trouble getting into this book.  I think that the author did a good job of writing this story, and I’m sure it has touched a lot of people, but I just couldn’t find any interest in this book.  One thing that did stand out to me about this book was the pictures.  The pictures are so well done, to be specific; the pictures of the little kids’ faces are amazing.  Each face the illustrator has made shows such emotion.

Connection:  This book could definitely be used to teach about Japanese Internment camps.  Much like slavery, I believe that this is one of the most memorable times in our nation’s history as far as depriving a group of people of their civil rights.  While teaching your students about this period in time, this book could be used to teach a few things, including the fact that not only adults were affected by these camps.

Title:  Back to School

Author:  Maya Ajmera; John D. Ivanko

Grade Level:  Lower Elementary

Rating:  4

Summary:  This book is about how learning takes place all over the world.  It shows examples of how students get to school in different countries, how they take field trips, what teams and clubs they might participate in, as well as what you might wear to school.

Opinion:  I thought that this book was interesting.  When I first saw the cover, I wasn’t really sure what the author was trying to write about.  I thought that maybe they were just trying to write a book about minority students in school.  As I read through the book, I really thought that it was cool how these authors were bringing in different cultures and also showing ours, to send the message that there is school in many different cultures, and each may do things a little different.

Connection:  I think that this would be a really good book to use for the younger grades.  The reason that I connect this book to the younger grades is because I think it would be a good read out loud book for a young classroom to have a class discussion over.  It shows you that although people and countries are different, we are also very similar.

Title:  Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

Author:  Bill Martin, Jr.; John Archambault

Grade Level: k-1

Rating:  5

Summary:  This book is about the letters of the alphabet climbing up the coconut tree.  It shows both capital letters as well as lower case letters.  It also shows the letters in alphabetical order appearing one by one.

Opinion:  I really enjoy this book.  I remember my mom reading this book to me when I was little, and it still is just as much fun as it used to be!  I think that it is really fun how the authors use pictures to describe each letter as well.  The page where they introduce skinned-knee D, stubbed-toe E, and patched-up F, is a page that is fun to come to because we actually see D with a skinned knew, E’s toe is swollen, and  F has a band aid on.  Little things like this in the illustrations make the book fun for all readers.

Connection:  This would obviously be a good book to use for younger grades in reviewing the alphabet.  You could use this book as a read out loud, or an independent read where students just practice identifying both their upper and lower case letters.

Title:  Punk Farm on Tour

Author: Jarrett J. Krosoczka

Grade Level: k-2

Rating: 5

Summary:  This book revisits our friends of Punk Farm on their tour across the U.S.A.  Throughout the book the author shows the animals at various venues across the nation playing for packed barns and performing before sold out crowds.  The song in this book is the animals’ rendition of “The wheels on the bus.”  In the end of the book, the animals have to get back to the farm before Farmer Joe gets back from vacation!

Opinion:  My opinion of this book is off the charts, if I could have rated it above 5 I would have.  The prequel to this book, “Punk Farm,” is one of my favorite children’s books ever.  Needless to say, when I saw this book sitting on the shelf at the library I HAD to get it!  I love these books because the author does a really good job of incorporating a fun story in a book that kids can enjoy and even participate in.

Connection: Since this book uses a song throughout, it is a great book to share in front of the class and even get class participation out of.  There is a lot of repetition as far as the chorus of the song being repeated over and over again, so this presents a perfect opportunity to get your students involved and active.  I used the first Punk Farm book as a music book lesson for a preschool class last year and it went over really well.  The students really enjoyed singing a lot with me as well as playing the instruments that I had planned for them to play.

The Woodson Experience..

                The book that I read for this unit was Jacqueline Woodson’s “After Tupac and D Foster.”  When I first chose this book I had never read a book written by Woodson so I really didn’t know what to expect.  To be completely honest the only reason I chose this particular book was because it had Tupac in the title and when I was younger I listened to a lot of Tupac’s music, so naturally, I thought that this book was going to be about Tupac Shakur. 

                Being that I had never read a book written by Woodson before, I really had no expectations of this book.  After reading this book and discussing with others in class about the books that they read I have decided that Jacqueline Woodson is a very interesting author.  In the book “After Tupac and D Foster,” what stood out to me the most was the effect that two single events had on the lives of two relatively young girls.  Losing a best friend because they have to move is something that many people have to go through, but given that Neeka and our narrator only knew D Foster for a short amount of time I found it interesting that she had such an impact on their lives.  The effect that Tupac had on these girls was equally interesting to me.  Being that they were so young, I would imagine that they listen to music, and Tupac was a symbol for all African Americans, especially those who could relate to the lifestyle that he often sang about.  But the fact that Tupac’s death had such an impact on these young girls really struck me as something unexpected.  Their reaction to his death made it seem like even though they were young girls, they were beyond their years as far as their understanding of what was happening around them.

                After reading these books we had the opportunity to discuss with other groups what their books were about and discuss some things we learned about the author.  The first thing that my group really talked about was controversy.  It seemed to us that Woodson is an author who is really not one to shy away from writing about controversial topics.  This reason alone makes her a very interesting figure to look at.  She also writes a lot about relationships in the family.  In my book in particular, it seems like a lot of the book centered around the friendship of these three girls, as well as how events in the family affected them.  One thing we noted was that Woodson seems to center all her stories on African Americans.  We also saw a few examples in hear writing where she talks about interracial relationships, but the constant in all her books are black main characters. 

October 26th

Title:  After Tupac and D Foster

Author:  Jacqueline Woodson

Grade level:  Middle School

Rating:  5

Summary: This book is about three girls who become best friends after D shows up and Neeka and her best friend’s doorsteps.  This book also takes place during the time period when Tupac Shakur gets shot and killed.  The book is centered around these three girls friendship as well as the impact that Tupac and his death have on their lives.

Opinion:  I thought that this book was a very fun and easy read.  The whole book was a pretty quick read that kept my attention the whole time.  What I found to be very interesting was the way that the two girls thought of D.  To them, D was the most interesting but mysterious person they had ever met.  They never really knew much about D until the very end of the book, and this was something that was kind of odd to me considering they had been friends for a while by that time.  One part of the book that I found to be pretty interesting is when the two girls find out that D is allowed to ride the bus by herself and doesn’t have to be back to her foster mom’s until nine.  At this point in time D was only about eleven or twelve years old, so I found it just as shocking as the other two girls did that D was allowed to just “wander” as she put it.

Connection:  Given the fact that I plan on being a lower elementary school teacher and I believe that this is more of a middle school book, I don’t really think that I would ever use it in my own classroom.  However, if I were to teach a higher grade, I think that this book could be very beneficial to my students.  It felt like a book that a lot of students could relate to.  The main character in this book is going through a couple of losses in her life (the loss of Tupac and D), much like a lot of middle school students may be experiencing in some way.  This is also a story of friendship and family, another thing that everybody can relate to.

Title:  David Goes to School

Author:  David Shannon

Grade Level:  Early Elementary, K-2

Rating:  5

Summary: As the author says in the “Authors Note” teachers (especially his teacher) used the word no a lot.  This book is about David’s day at school.  Throughout the day all David hears his teacher say is no, or stop, quiet, sit down, etc.  The whole book is centered around all the things that David does wrong during the day to earn him time after school.  At the very end of the book David’s punishment for drawing on his desk is to stay after school and clean the desks.  When he is done the teacher gives him a gold star and tells him what a good job he did.

Opinion:  I thought that this book was very fun to read.  I have never read a “David” book even though I have seen a lot of them around.  I think it’s interesting that the author took something that happened during his childhood and made a book about it.  While just reading the story a lot was fun, I couldn’t help but laugh as I flipped each page and looked at the pictures.  Since there was no illustrator listed I’m assuming that David Shannon did his own illustrations, and I think that they were all done so well.  Every picture was exactly how I would picture a little boy acting with each scenario that the author presented.  There was one page where the teacher says “Again?!” and in the picture we see David standing up with his legs crossed, hand in the said, and painful look on his face.  I would have to say that I immediately knew that it meant he was asking to go the bathroom, and thought that that was exactly what a little boy would look like if he had to go really bad!

Connection:  I think that this would be a fun book to share with the class!  As a read out loud it would be an entertaining book for the students to listen to, but it would also be a good book to do a class discussion on the carpet about.  This is a great book for a teacher to use to show and talk to their students about how we should and shouldn’t act.  For example, on one of the pages it shows David shouting out an answer to the teachers question while his classmate is next to him raising her hand.  This would be a good page to stop the reading and ask your class if David is acting appropriately, or what the rules are for raising hands in your class.

Title:  Come Along, Daisy!

Author:  Jane Simmons

Grade Level:  Lower Elementary

Rating:  5

Summary:  This book is about a little baby duck named Daisy.  Daisy is supposed to stay close to her mama, but as the book progresses Daisy gets distracted by many different things.  Eventually Daisy and her mama get separated due to Daisy not staying close enough, and Daisy gets really scared.  In the end Daisy and her mom are reunited and she learns her lesson.

Opinion:  I thought that this book was pretty boring, and really predictable, however, I gave it a five out of five rating because I think that the lesson that it tells in the story is extremely well done and easy for young students to find.  I also think that it is one of those stories that might be boring for adults, but that young children in the early elementary school years might really enjoy. 

Connection:  As I stated in the opinion section, I think that this book could do an excellent job of relaying an important message to young kids.  As kids seem to be very adventurous when they are young, and understandably so, they also have to realize what their curiousness could cause.  In the book, Daisy’s curiosity causes her to become separated from her mother, and only after the separation does Daisy seem to realize the seriousness of the situation.  Prior to being separated, Daisy seems to not have a worry in the world.  We see her very scared while she is lost.  This is a message that I believe even the youngest of students can understand and possibly even relate to, if this has ever happened to them.

Title:  Frozen Noses

Author:  Jan Carr

Grade Level: K-1 (Early Elementary)

Rating: 3-4

Summary:  This book is all about the fun of winter.  Throughout the story we see a group of kids playing and doing different activities that are common for children to do in the winter.  At the end of the book we see the best thing about playing outside, coming inside to hot chocolate and blankets!

Opinion:  The first thing that really stood out to me about this book was the illustrations.  On every page I was trying to figure out how the illustrator was making the pictures that he produced.  As I looked closer the conclusion that I came up with was that it looks like she used some sort of fabric or felt for each of her illustrations and then laid them out maybe?  However she did it, it feels like the illustrations are very unique.  I also like the layout of the story.  A lot of the book has a rhyming theme to it, so it was very catchy while reading it.  The sequence of events in the story was also fun to follow.  We saw the kids in the morning wake up to snow, then play All day (just like I’m sure we all did when we were little), and finally coming in at night to hot chocolate and a warm house.

Connection:  I think that this book would be fun to use in a winter unit with Kindergarten or first graders.  This could be a unit where you have them write a story, or draw pictures about what they do outside when it is snowing, or even what their favorite thing about winter is.  Reading this book would generate a lot of ideas for the students to draw from.

Title:  Ready, Set, School!

Author:  Jacquelyn Mitchard

Grade Level:  2^nd-4^th grade

Rating: 4

Summary:  This book is about a Kit raccoon named Rory who is right about the age to start his first year of Raccoon school.  The beginning of the book starts with a night where Rory is supposed to spend the night at his aunt’s house with his twin cousins.  This is where we find out that Rory is scared to be away from home.  His parents finally calm him down and Rory stays the night and has a ton of fun.  At the end of the book Rory starts school.  On the first night of school while Rory is about to leave his parents begin to make a fuss about him starting school, only to have Rory calm them down like they did for him earlier in the book.

Opinion:  I thought that this book was pretty good.  Like some of the other books I have posted about, I feel like the message that is portrayed in this book is one that a lot of students could learn something from.  I also think it’s funny to read books like this where the author takes an animal and gives them human characteristics or makes them do things that are common from humans, such as going to school, having sleepovers, having a sleeping bag!

Connection:  Like many of my other books, this would be a good book to use if you want to relay the message the book is trying to give to your students.  Especially with the younger students, trying new things isn’t the most popular thing.  In this book we see that although trying something new may be scary, it could also turn out to be something fun!  In the case of Rory, he was very nervous to be away from his parents for a whole night.  Not only did Rory end up having fun, but he also learned that it is ok to try something new, because you never know what it may bring you.

Title:  Oil Spill Disaster in the Gulf

Authors: Mona Chiang, Cody Crane, Karina Hamalainen, and Lynda Jones

Grade Level:  Upper Elementary

Rating:  5

Summary:  As you could probably guess by the title, this book is all about the Oil Spill disaster.  It gives a background of other major oil spills that have happened, as well as many elements of oil spill, including how to stop the spills, the effects it has on animals in the water, as well as wetlands.

Opinion:  Reading this book was shocking to me.  Even though I occasionally watched the news and got updates on the oil spill and what was happening, there was so much information in this book that I never knew about.  I also found it very interesting to read about some of the statistics about oil and the United States.  One fact that stood out to me is how much oil we use compared to other nations.  It says that the United States uses 19,498,000 barrels of oil a day, the next closest is China with 7,831,000.  This was one of those jaw dropping facts that I would have never imagined.

Connection:  This would be such a good book to introduce for projects.  As I mentioned, it does such a good job of introducing statistics that most of us would have no idea about.  It also does an amazing job of giving other facts about the oil spill.  I could see this book being implemented in my classroom to show how much of an effect the oil spill had on the everyday life of the people living on the Gulf Coast.

Title:  The Giver

Author:  Lois Lowry

Grade Level:  Middle-High School

Rating:  5

Summary:  This book is about a kid named Jonas who lives in a community where everything is very uniform.  There is no color, everyone is given jobs instead of picking them, and as we find out, nobody really knows anything except for the Giver.  Jonas is assigned to receive special training from the giver, and receives memories of everything that has ever happened.  Only after Jonas has worked with the Giver does he realize how little the rest of the community really knows.  His life can never be the same again.

Opinion:  This book is one of those books that a lot of people either read in middle school or high school as part of some unit that their language arts teacher set up.  I however, have never read this book before.  From about the second chapter on I was completely hooked on the book.  I think that the way it is written and the story it tells really can’t turn anybody off.  I found myself feeling a lot like Jonas felt throughout the reading of this book.  When Jonas found out that when people are released they are really killed, and when his dad has to release one of the twins and realized that his dad was going to kill the baby, that’s when I really felt for Jonas.  I found myself telling him not to go home! Of course his dad wasn’t going to kill Jonas, but I still sympathized with him.  The whole book was a lot like this for me, whenever something happened to Jonas I felt for him.  I became so enthralled with his character, that when Jonas was happy I read it happy, when he was sad it read it a little sad!

Connection:  If I were a middle or high school teacher I would really enjoy using this book in my English classroom.  I think that my students could take so much out of this book, but really enjoy reading it at the same time.  Them enjoying a book as well as getting meaning out of it is a very important concept to consider.  When I was in school reading was the last thing that I wanted to do, so choosing a book that the students will enjoy is very important to me.  The one thing that makes me nervous about this book is the fact that a lot of schools don’t let their teachers teach it.  Even if my school allowed it, I would still be worried that parents might have a problem with it being taught to their children.

10-12-10

Title: Dinosaur Hunt

Author: David Catrow

Age Range: Pre K-1^st grade

Rating: 5

Summary: This book is about a dog who likes to hunt for Dinosaurs.  Through the book we watch the dog hunt for anything that looks like it could make a Dinosaur.  In the end he takes all the things he has found and puts them together into what he thinks looks like a Dinosaur.

Opinion: I think that this book is really good for the audience it is intended for.  Dinosaur Hunt is a Level One Scholastic Reader, and is intended for children ages 4-7 or pre k- 1^st grade.  There are a select amount of words throughout the book, and it is a very easy read.  It also has a lot of repetition with the words the author chose to use.

Connection: Just like in my opinion of this book, I believe it fits really well with the audience it was made for.  Along with it being an appropriate read for children around the K-1^st grade age, it is very attention grabbing and could easily keep a kids attention for the duration of the story.  This book is also good for teachers trying to get their students to recognize sight words, words that they can sound out, and uses very simple sentences.

Title: Down by the Station

Author: Jennifer Riggs Vetter

Age Range: K-1^st grade

Rating: 3

Summary: This book is about all different forms of transportation getting ready to go in the early morning.  Throughout the book we see cars, trains, rockets, and even boats setting out at the beginning of the day.  The story ends with all the vehicles ending the day later in the evening.

Opinion: I really didn’t care for this book.  Although I think it did a good job of using repetition and could help young readers with sight words, I didn’t think that the story was very good at all.  It seemed to me that even young children could get bored with this story.  Even though I think it used some good features in its writing for young children, I think that the Author wrote this book with too much of a preschool audience in mind.

Connection:  The only place that I can see this book fitting into the classroom is as a free read book for younger students or as a book where the teacher wants the students to focus on the repetition in words used.

Title: the Yankee at the Seder

Author: Elka Weber

Age Range: 3^rd-4^th grade

Rating: 5

Summary: This book takes place during a time right after the end of the Civil War.  In the book, a southern Jewish family takes in a Northern army soldier for the Passover holiday.  Both sides learn a lot through the experience of spending time together during this special holiday, and grown in their opinions of each other.

Opinion:  I think what both the Author and Illustrator did in this book is amazing.  The pictures on each page almost told their own story, they were rendered in oils and every picture in this book is just as captivating as the next.  The story itself was very interesting to me, we have all learned about the Civil War and at the beginning of the book, not knowing any Jewish terms, was wondering what “the Seder” was or had to do with the war.  The story of Passover and the Seder made this book enjoyable for me because it is something that I really didn’t know anything about.

Connection: This book connects really well with the topic of Historical Fiction books.  This book is a perfect example of what a Historical Fiction book should be like.  It does a really good job of taking a story that takes place in a real setting, with characters that were really around in the Civil War, and adds some things that may or may not have actually happened to put it into the Fiction category.  The cool thing about this book in particular is that after telling the story, the author has a section at the end of the book where it tells the “real story.”

Title: The Three Cabritos

Author: Eric A. Kimmel

Age Range: K-3^rd Grade

Rating: 5

Summary: This book is a play off of the original Three Billy Goats Gruff.  In this book, we see three brothers who love to play music trying to cross the border and get into Mexico to play their instruments in a fiesta.  Just like in the old versions there is a monster (or in this case a Chupacabra) under the bridge who is threatening each one of the goats as they try to cross the bridge.  Each goat convinces the Chupacabra to wait for the next goat that is bigger to come along.  When the oldest goat comes he tricks the Chupacabra and all three brothers get across the border safely.

Opinion: I thought that this was a really cool book.  It is always fun to see how authors can put their own spin on a story that is very well known such as The Three Billy Goats Gruff, but the author really makes this story his own.  He makes the story a very fun read, and the Illustrator of this book backs up the fun story with amazing artwork to match.  Another cool aspect of this book is that the Author decides to mix some Spanish vocabulary in with his story.

Connection: I believe this book would be very good for a unit showing how you can take a certain story and give it your own twist.  If you did something like this at an older grade it would be fun to see what your students could come up with in their own story.  You may be able to give them all the same beginning story such as the Three Little Pigs, and see where their imagination takes the story.  This book also would be good for the younger grades in teaching some Spanish to your students.  The words that the Author decides to use in Spanish are words that your students can tie into their writing, such as fiesta and Buenos Dias!

Title: The Princess and the Pea

Author: Lauren Child

Grade Level: 3-4^th

Rating: 4

Summary:  This book is about a Prince whose parents insist it is time for him to get married.  He agrees with their idea and sets out to find the “perfect” princess.  After many failed attempts to find a princess that met what the prince was looking for, a young princess wonders into the kingdom after getting lost in the woods.  The prince’s mother tests this young princess to see if she is a “true” princess by placing a single pea under twelve mattresses to see if it would affect the girls sleep.

Opinion:  Although I think that the story was really fun and easy to be engaged in, what really stood out throughout the whole book were the illustrations in the book.  The Illustrator, Polly Borland, did amazing work wither every picture in the whole book.  Polly has a unique style to how she creates her artwork, her work in books are not painting but photographs that she takes of sets she puts together.  For this particular book, she makes the set (or room) for each scene in a small box.  All the props in the scene are 3-D objects, the character she is focusing on is actually made of paper, and then she uses real cloth to make the outfits for the characters.  After she sets everything up she takes a picture of the scene and this is how he photographs come out.  Every picture in this entire book is just amazing, especially if you think about the process that was done to get the end result.

Connection:  This book could be read out loud to the class while the teacher is in the middle of a fairy tale unit.  You could do a similar activity with this book as I talked about in the three Billy goats gruff lesson.  Since much of this book for me focused on the incredible drawings, you could have your students re-create the book making their own pictures for the scenes.  If each student re-created one scene in the book, you could put them all together and make a class book with their own drawings of The Princess and the Pea.

Title: Mommy Laid an Egg

Author: Babette Cole

Age Level: Controversial

Rating: 3

Summary:  This book is about parents trying to tell their children where babies come from.  They tell white lies like babies come from eggs, and they are found underneath rocks.  After the parents finish, the two boys tell their parents that they got a few things right, but they would explain where babies really come from.

Opinion:  I had no clue what to think while I was reading through this book.  When I read the cover I assumed that it was a book about parents joking around with their kids about where babies came from.  Once I got to the middle of the book where the kids took over I was completely shocked.  I don’t think it would have been so bad if it was just the kids explaining what they knew, but the fact that this book showed the kids drawing very graphic pictures just set it over the top.  I can see why people view this book as controversial.

Connection:  I think that this is a book that I would avoid for my classroom.  Being that I am wanting to teach 2^nd-3^rd grade, and the pictures that are used in this book, I don’t think that there is a connection that can be made in my classroom.  I also don’t think that this book is worth trying to defend when parents come complaining about what their child saw in a book I read to them.

Title:  The Wall

Author:  Eve Bunting

Age Level:  2^nd grade and up

Rating:  5

Summary:  This book was about the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall in Washington D.C.  A child and his father visit the wall to find the child’s grandfather’s name.

Opinion:  I’m pretty sure that I have read this book before somewhere, and I find it to be a very well written and illustrated book.  I would like to see why this book is on the controversial children’s book list, because I find it to be a story similar to something that a family might actually want to go and do (finding a loved one’s name on a memorial).  The only reason I could think of while reading the book was that it has to do with a war and obviously has to do with death of a loved one.

Connection:  I’m not exactly sure where I would use this book in my class, but if there was an area that I could use it I would feel very comfortable with standing up for this book in front of whoever opposes it being taught.  One thing that I feel this book is doing is telling a real story that I’m sure families go through every year.  I went to the Vets Memorial Wall when I was in eighth grade, and I can still remember people searching the wall for the names of family members who died in the Vietnam War.

Title:  The Higher Power of Lucky

Author:  Susan Patron

Grade Level: Upper Elementary- Middle School

Rating: 5

Summary:  This book is about a girl named Lucky and her life in the small town of Hard Pan, California.  She lives with her guardian Brigitte, and her best friend HMS Beagle (her dog).  Through the book we figure out that Lucky thinks Brigitte is going to leave her and return to France.  The only thing that Lucky thinks she can do to stop Brigitte is to run away.  In the end, we find out that leaving Lucky was the last thing on Brigitte’s mind, and she in fact loves Lucky.

Opinion:  The Higher Power of Lucky is a book that I had never heard of before a month ago.  I would have to say that I was pleasantly surprised with the book.  I think that the way the book was written was not only effective, but it was really captivating.  I found myself wondering what was going to happen next throughout the whole book.  When Lucky ran away I felt worried like everyone else in town.  When Lucky thought that Brigitte was going to leave her and go back to France, I felt sad for Lucky.  I thought it was interesting that a girl so young would be worried about hitting rock bottom and finding her higher power.  This shows me a lot of maturity in Lucky’s character.  Overall I think that this was a really good book, and would be very effective in teaching in an upper elementary or middle school classroom.

Connection:  I read in another student’s blog about connecting this book back to student’s families.  I think that this is a very valid point.  This book would be a good tool in reaching students who may not have a “normal” family at home.  Brigitte and Lucky’s relationship shows readers that it doesn’t have to be mother, father, and child to make a family.  The love between Lucky and Brigitte, you could argue, is just as strong as the love in families with a mother and a father.  In Lucky’s case, Brigitte comes across as loving Lucky more than Lucky’s own father does.  This could be a powerful message, especially for students who feel like their family isn’t “normal.”

Focus Question

How does knowing about literary elements impact understanding a story?

                A student knowing the different types of literary elements has a huge impact on their understanding of a story.  Being able to identify the different literary elements in a story demonstrates what the student understands is happening in the story.  If the students understand character, setting, theme, and conflict, they are going to be able to identify things in the story that other students may not find important or be able to pick up.  If you gave a student a particular focus element to watch during the story the student will be able to follow that element and really understand on another level what that particular element means to the story as a whole.  In the book “Lucky,” the setting plays a really big role in the whole story.  The student knowing that what they need to pay attention to, such as setting, will be able to follow the setting in the story and understand that the desert is a key element in the story.  Likewise, following a character in the story instead of just reading the story as it is, will allow the student to realize what this particular character means to the story, and appreciate that character, as a whole.  In “Lucky,” Brigitte is an important character who is worthy of following.  Without understand Brigitte as an individual, a reader could miss what she lends to the story.

Five new books

Title: Alice the Fairy

Author: David Shannon

Grade Level: Early Elementary

Rating: 4

Summary:  This book is about a little girl who is telling the audience all about her being a fairy. Throughout the book she tells the reader what she can do as a fairy, and what she still needs a little work on.  She also tells us how she is not a permanent fairy, just a temporary fairy, which means she hasn’t gone to fairy school yet.

Opinion:  Although I found the story fairly interesting, I think that this book would be more of a free read book instead of one that the teacher reads out loud to the class.  The reason for this is because although the book is pretty entertaining, it is a book that would be more appealing to girls than to younger boys.  The story was fun, and it really gave young girls a story that they can relate to.  What little girl hasn’t pretended that they were a fairy?  It was also cool how the author decided to use a font that looks like the little girl’s writing for the book.  It just adds to the story and makes it a little more fun to read.  The pictures are also interesting, I am not exactly sure what the illustrations are made with but they look like paint to me.

Connection: If you were to read this book to the whole class, it would connect really well with fantasy.  What do the students like to pretend to be?  If you were teaching a classroom around grades 2-3 you could use this book as a mini lesson and inspiration for a writing assignment where your students write about what they used to pretend, or like pretending to be.  This would be a fun little activity to get the students creating juices flowing. They could practically write about anything!

Title: The selfish Crocodile

Author: Faustin Charles and Michael Terry

Grade Level: k-2

Rating: 3

Summary: This book is about a crocodile that lives in a river and won’t let any other animals drink or swim in “his river.”  All the other animals are scared of the crocodile, and have to travel far away every time they need a drink or want to swim.  In the end, one of the forest animals helps the crocodile when he needs it the most and changes the crocodile’s whole attitude about being selfish.

Opinion:  When I read this book the first thing that stood out to me was that I felt like it was a little boring.  From the beginning it was pretty easy to predict what was going to happen next, and I feel like this is one of those books where a young student probably could have told you what they thought was going to happen next and more than likely been right about it.  I still think that it is a good book to read to a class, it has a good story line, and pictures that are likely to hold young students attention through the whole story.

Connection:  I think that this would be a really good book to use at the Kindergarten level.  It could be presented as a mini lesson on the importance of sharing.  We see the crocodile being very selfish in the beginning of the book, and because he is so selfish when he needs help none of the other animals are willing to lend a hand except for a single mouse.  After the crocodile gets help, and realizes how selfish he was being, he decides to share the river like he always should have done.  The story ends with you pointing out that sharing makes friends.  Because the crocodile shares the rest of the animals become his friend.  This would be a great book to use to show kindergartners the importance of sharing and the results of sharing with others.

Title: Bear Feels Scared

Author: Karma Wilson, Jane Chapman

Grade Level: K-1

Rating: 4

Summary: This story is about a bear that gets lost in the woods on a dark rainy night.  Bear is scared out in the woods all alone and doesn’t know what to do.  Bear’s friends get worried and start a search party to look for bear, and end up finding him jus feet from the den entrance.

Opinion: This book is a cool book to read to little kids because it is something that they may be able to relate to.  Many kids are scared of the dark, so this may be able to be a book that you can have a discussion about.  The topic could be presented as “what things can be scary at night?”  It’s also a great book to teach kids about rhyming.  There is rhyming on almost every page, and the fun thing about this rhyming is that it is semi predictable.  The pictures are also exciting, the illustrator of this book used acrylic paints to create each picture.

Connection: As I briefly touched on in my opinion section, this book would be good for a few different mini lessons in the early elementary school classroom.  It would be a good interactive book to have a discussion about what things at night might be scary.  This type of discussion could really get the students creative juices flowing and allow a fun interactive discussion where everyone can be heard.  It is also a great book to use to teach kids how some books use rhyming.  This book does such a good job of using rhyming that it would be fun to ask the kids what they think the author is going to use next.  Again, this is another interactive mini lesson where the kids feel like they can really participate.

Title: Who Took the Cookies from the Cookie Jar?

Author: Bonnie Lass, Philemon Sturges

Grade Level: Kindergarten

Rating: 5

Summary: This book is similar to other “Who Took the Cookies from the Cookie Jar” books.  The skunk is missing his cookies and the whole book explores skunk going around to other characters and trying to find out who took his cookies from the cookie jar.

Opinion:  The cool thing about this book is that although the “Who Took the Cookies from the Cookie Jar” has been made into many books and different stories, these two authors are able to give it a little twist of their own.  I also thought it was cool how the authors incorporated rhyming into the responses of why each animal didn’t take the cookies.  For instance, when skunk thinks that it was mouse, mouse says: “Who, Me? Couldn’t Be! Please don’t tease, I eat cheese.”  These little rhymes make the book fun to read.

Connection:  Just like Bear Feels Scared, I think that this is a good book to use to teach students about rhyming in books.  It does such a good job of using rhyme, and not making it feel like every word has to rhyme with one another.  Another thing that this book does really well is use repetition.  Because much of the book repeats itself over and over again this would be a great book to use with young readers to help them identify words.

Title: The Very Cranky Bear

Author: Nick Bland

Grade Level: Pre-K

Rating: 5

Summary:  This book is about four friends who are looking for a place to play on a very rainy day.  They go into a dry cave and run into a VERY CRANKY BEAR.  All four of the friends try and do something to make the bear not so cranky, but it ends up that the “most plain” of all the friends is the one who helps the most.

Opinion: Following with the rhyming theme that I have stumbled across in these posts, this book does a good job of rhyming through the whole book.  Although the author uses rhyming on every page, it doesn’t seem too overwhelming or like he used too much.  The illustrations in this book are also very interesting to me.  When reading this book, I felt like the pictures were very plain, but that is why I found them to be so cool.  The story itself it also fun to read, the story focuses on the cranky bear, but it also focuses on the hero being the character who seems like the least important.  Throughout the whole story the sheep is said to be plain, but when the other three animals can’t cheer up the bear, it is the sheep that finally comes through.

Connection:  One connection that I immediately thought about was how everyone is important.  As I said, in this book the focus is on every character except for the sheep.  The sheep is seen as the character that just stands on the outside because he doesn’t have anything to give.  But in the end, it is the sheep’s kindness and willingness to help out that puts the bear in a good mood.  This is a very important message to send kids.  Everyone is important, and sometimes kids don’t understand that everyone can bring something to the table.