Woodsong By Gary Paulson.

        I am really kind of embarrassed to say this but I have never read any of Gary Paulsen's books before. I remember when I was a kid, kind of having a sense that he was a "boy's writer" in that he wrote books that only boys would want to read (I know,  I know, what was wrong with me??).  By the time I was old enough to know better,  Paulsen had fallen off my radar screen. However, his memoir, Woodsong, has really made me realize how much I missed out in the past few years.
    Woodsong is almost like a book of short stories about Paulsen's life. Most of these stories discuss the time he spent with his dog team and the life lessons that he learned from his journeys and from his dogs. The first part of the book focuses on the sledding trips he took with his team while living in Minnesota. The second part of the book then focuses on him racing his dogs in the Iditarod.
      I think this book would be appropriate for upper elementary and would be great to read aloud. There are lots of things you could use this book for. It would be great for lessons on visualization and sensory images. It would also be a great book to talk about how we learn things about the world not only through school, but through animals, through life experiences, and through ourselves.

An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793

          An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793, by Jim Murphy is fascinating read about the Yellow Fever  Epidemic in Philadelphia, which was then the nation's capital, at the end the eighteenth century. This book is one of my favorite types of history books; it is the type of history book that tells the historical event from multiple perspectives and how it affected life throughout the city on multiple levels. It also tells about the events that are going on outside of the fever epidemic, and how the epidemic affects those events. For example, it shows the effect the epidemic had on a new nation, when the president had to flee the capital to avoid sickness. Additionally, it looks at how the fever affected people from multiple classes of life. The book also follows Benjamin Rush, a notable doctor, scientist, and thinker of the era, as he tried to do all he could to stop the epidemic.
         Something that I especially liked about the book was that it talked about the role of free blacks during the epidemic. During the epidemic, Rush convinced free blacks who had survived the disease as children in Africa, to nurse ill whites, some of who even brought their slaves with them to the hospital. Despite indignities they had faced previously in the city, and the certain indignities that would follow after the epidemic, free blacks put much effort into nursing the sick folk of the city.This is just one of the fascinating aspects described in this book.
        The book is wonderfully written, and organized. Although the reading level is a bit high for many elementary students, I would definitely have this book in a fifth grade or sixth grade library. This would be a great book, to add a little something extra to any lessons about America as a new nation.  One cool thing to do with this might be to have kids pick an event from the book, and write an article about it for a pretend newspaper.
       This book is a Newbery Honor book and has won many other awards, such as being a National Book Award Finalist.

Eleanor Roosevelt: A Life of Discovery

           One time, long ago, when I was in the fifth grade,  I was wondering around the elementary school library.  That day was the last day, in a week of days, that students got to come into the library BY THEMSELVES to pick a book to adopt and donate to the school library.  I had wanted to adopt a book so badly, but my parents were hesitant to let me, because, as parents who wanted to put four children through college and who worried about money, they were always hesitant to spend money on something that wasn't essential or wasn't a special present for someone. I had spent weeks begging them to let me adopt a book. It seemed so cool, and I loved books so much, and I wanted to have a book with my name in that would be in the school library forever. So finally, they decided that maybe $20 to adopt a book could be a special present for me and as I walked through the library, I clutched the check that my mom had written that morning.  I remember being disappointed--I had had my heart set on adopting one of the American Girl craft books that had been some of the choices, but of course they had been some the first ones to go--so I walked around looking at the rest of my choices, my heart sinking down further and further becuase all the "cool ones" and then all the "interesting ones" had already been adopted. And then, out of the corner of my eye, I spied this book, Eleanor Roosevelt: A Life of Discovery by Russell Freedman. I remember taking the book down, considering it, thinking about it, and wondering that if I choose this book my dad--who was always taking to me about civic virtues, great thinkers, and strong women--would be proud of me that I choose this book out of all the others, and so that is what I did.  I choose this book, had my name written down and pasted on the back of the front cover, and then went back to class, still a little sad because I had not gotten to adopt an American Girl craft book.
         When you adopted a book from the school library, you got to be the first person to check that book out from the school library. So I checked it out, took it home, and it sat on the end of a table for a week. Finally, one weekend, in between all the other books I was reading, I picked it up and started to read in and becuase of this book I fell in love with Eleanor Roosevelt.
        This book discusses Roosevelt's life in an honest, engaging way. It does not sugar coat her life, but nor does it cast Roosevelt as a victim.  It does no vilifying, victimizing, or glorifying of its subject like some biographies do. It simply presents Roosevelt as an ordinary person, someone with struggles and triumphs, and everything in-between. It is a great book for talking about the time period of the Depression, the presidency of FDR, and how Roosevelt became her husband's eyes, ears, and feet. It also showcases Roosevelt as a woman of great compassion and wisdom. 
       What made this book so important to me was that, it also showcases Roosevelt as a woman who overcame something that cripples many girls and boys, including myself, an extreme and painful shyness. Until recently, I have barely ever been able to talk in class and I have an extremely difficult time when I'm not around people who I feel comfortable with, and I was this book inspired me, as Roosevelt still inspires me now, to talk to more people and feel more comfortable with myself as a person. As I read this book, I was amazed by how a girl who seemed even shyer than myself as a young girl and as a young lady, could somehow grow up to be this fascinating person, who did all these brave and amazing things, and who talked to all these people, and who people across America loved becuase she took the time to listen, to care, and to understand their lives. It was this woman who I wanted to be, and who I still want to be today. It was this woman who inspired me to want to do things to make lives better and to change the ways people was viewed.
        It is to Russell Freedman's credit to that I had, and still have, these inspirations. Others could have skipped over Roosevelt's accomplishments, her shyness, her struggles, and could have ignored her hardships, but Freedman. They could have made her seem like a victim in some circumstances but  Freedman does not. Others could have made her seem like an unreachable ideal, but Freedman does not.
   This book is 200 pages, and probably would not good for read-alouds but it could be great for a higher level (fifth or sixth) guided reading groups or class reading. This website and this website have great ideas for using it.  It is a Newbery Honor book and both the writing and the pictures are suparb. Another awesome book about Eleanor Roosevelt that I have seen used as a great read-aloud in a volunteerism Social Studies lesson is Eleanor, Quiet No More.  I will definitely have both of these books in my classroom library if I teach upper elementary.
        This book really meant a lot to me when I was younger, and I guess I have talked more about that then given an actual review, but it is a really great book. Also, if you go into my elementary school library, you will not find the American Girl craft books, but you still find this book still there, sitting on a shelf, waiting for another young girl to come and read it and fall in love with Eleanor.


      

Bread Comes to LIfe: A Garden of Wheat and a Loaf to Eat

               Since we got so many free nonfiction books from the Agriculture in the Classroom presentation we attended, I thought that I would take advantage of this opportunity to actually read one of them! I found Bread Comes to Life: A Garden of Wheat and a Loaf to Eat by George Levenson to be lacking and content and instead to be propagandist towards bread over all other type of foods (not surprising, considering it was donated to Agriculture in the Classroom by the Virginia Small Grains Board).  The short book talks about different types of bread and also vaguely follows the journey grain takes from the field to the oven to being bread.  This book would not function very well as read aloud, or an explanation book for a learning cycle lesson on grain to bread. However, I do think this bread would be good for a reader in the primary grade who likes nonfiction. It is written in a sing-songy poem verse which I think would appeal to younger readers, and it does have absolutely beautiful photography and a good one-to-one text to pictures. 
               Something I did not consider until I saw this review on Amazon.com was that it would be a good book to teach the economics of natural resources and how grain goes from bread to the table. This again, would work especially well with young children. There is also an educational video narrated by Lily Tomlin that goes along with this book.  This book has also gotten many awards, so maybe I am wrong, or maybe I have spent to much time in the upper grades, but for some reason I was just not impressed with this book!

Penguins! National Geographic Kids

        The kids in my class love penguins and a lot of people have been telling me to check out the National Geographic Kids nonfiction series, so I decided to combine the two and read Penguins! by Anne Schriber from the National Geographic Kids series. I really, really liked this book! I think Schriber did an excellent job of using easy language to talk about penguins, while still keeping the writing interesting. Unlike many children's nonfiction picture books, that are horribly written, this one was actually fun to read. I learned a lot too! For instance, did you know that penguins usually live in colonies of millions of other penguins and the all huddle together when it gets cold? And did you know that they leap out of the water when they want to swim faster and that it is called porpoising?
       The other thing I liked about this book was that it explained any unusual terms to students. Also, although it did have text bubbles interspersed with the pictures (a trend I have noticed in children's nonfiction which often distracts me), it was only a little and was formatted in a non-distracting way.  Also the pictures matched the text and were always interesting and relevant to what the author was talking about. Another pet peeve I have with children's nonfiction is that it often seems like they choose pictures/photos at random to put in the book, but there was none of that in this book. The photography was beautiful as well.
     I will definitely have this book, and others from the series, in my class library and I will definitely use them in my instruction.  Also, if you are interested you should go to the National Geography Kids website; it is definitely worth exploring!

So You Want to Be President?

        So You Want to Be President by Judith St. George is a humorous books of random facts about past presidents. It includes trivia such as the shortest president, the tallest president, the various ways various presidents became presidents. It also has other funny facts such as the number of presidents who were born in log cabins and how many different pets there have been in the White House.
        This book is very fun to read and has extremely humorous pictures in it and it won The Caldecott Medal. One picture has the fattest president (Taft) being lifted into the bathtub with a crane! Additionally the facts in it are surprising and fun to know. 
         This book would be an excellent way to introduce the presidency to young children. It shows presidents as human beings with all their quirks and it will be sure to make all your students roll on the floor laughing! It would also be a great book for President's Day!
         I do have one reservation about this book.  It is only goes up to President Clinton, so a teacher may want to have supplemental material on President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama when using this book. Here is a great suggestion from Scholastic for adding President Obama to lesson.
There are a ton of great lesson plans online in addition to this. Here is one more.
Additionally, here is an interesting review from The New York Times if you want to learn more about the book.

Tornadoes

The book Tornadoes by Seymour Simon, really reminded me of the types of nonfiction books I hated as a child. It has facts about tornadoes, some good pictures, some useful signs to know about tornado paths, and some examples of famous tornadoes. Although the book has good information and could be used to inform students about tornadoes, it was poorly organized and it did not explain all terminology used (for example it kept referring to the "F-1, F-2 scale" but didnot explain how the two were distinguished. Although I find tornadoes interesting usually, this book could not keep my attention. The pictures were marvelous as well.   One could use it in a class as an explanation, but I would look for other options first.

The Hunger Games

I am OBSESSED with The Hunger Games! First of all, I have to admit that I was a bit skeptical, as I usually am with popular literature.  But now, I am totally hooked and I cannot wait to start the next book in the series!

                The book is set in the post-America, post-democracy country of Panem.   This new country is divided into 12 districts, and each district is forced by the government to sacrifice one boy and one girl to participate in what is called the Hunger Games. The Hunger Games are meant to remind the districts that the government controls each, and every aspects of the their lives. During the Hunger Games, the contestants live are forced to fight for survival in a closed arena, where any mistake can mean certain death. Only one victor is allowed out of the arena alive.

              The book follows one participant, Kitness Everdeen, as she battles for her life, struggling against violence, death, and love.
             Science fiction almost always provides an interesting view on power and politics and this book is no different. Although, not recommended for younger students, I think this book would be great for any student sixth grade and above to use to study how sometimes power gets out of control.

Streams to the River, River to the Sea, by Scott O'Dell

       I have had this book sitting on a shelf at home for literally 10 years and I have never finished it until now. It is one of those books that hits you wrong after the first couple pages, but then, when you come back to it after putting it down for a while (or in my case, 10 years), it is actually quite a good book.
       Streams to the River; Rivers to the Sea, by Scott O'Dell, is a fictional chronicle of the life of Sacagawea, the Sheshone guide who assisted Lewis and Clark on their voyage to the Pacific. The book provides an interesting, descriptive, and accurate narrative of Sacagawea's life from the time she was kidnapped from her tribe as a young girl, to the end of the Lewis and Clark expedition. The book tells, in a personal narrative form, how Sacagawea was kidnapped, and then how she adjusted to life as a enslaved woman in a new tribe. It also describes how she was won by a French fur trader, forced to marry him, and was then beaten by him. It then tells how valued she was on the Lewis and Clark expedition, both as an interpreter and as a knowledgeable and wise member of the expedition.
     One of the things that I really liked about this book was that is showed Sacagawea as a very strong woman, who was confident in her abilities to help, to teach and to learn. In the book, she often saves the men on the expedition, and also raises their spirits and motivates them under the worst of condtions. I think it really portrays her as a leader, and a contributing member of history.
        I also liked that Native Americans were shown in an equal light as the white men in the book.  In the book there is both the good and the bad about both groups. I liked that both Native American men and Cacuasion men where shown as being equally kind and cruel to Sacagawea, and that neither group was singled out as being better.  Additionally, the book celebrates the Native American love of nature and beauty.
       This book would be excellent to use in a unit about the expedition. I did a little research of my own, and it seems that Scott O'Dell, did an excellent job accurately researching Sacagawea's life. However, one of the things to watch out for, and one of the things that initially turned me off to this book 10 years ago, was that, as in many of his other books, O'Dell does tend to take a lot of creative license when writing fictional books about real historic characters. For instance, in this book, there is strong subplot of a love story between Sacagawea and Captain Clark that I do not think added anything to the story and that may confuse young readers. Although there is evidence that Clark often kept her husband from beating her, any love story between the two is pure speculation. If you do choose to use this in a class, make sure you teach your students to distinguish what is fact, what is fiction, and what is pure speculation.
        This book won the Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction in 1987. O'Dell donated the money from the award to a charity.

Sometimes Boys and Girls Just Have Trouble Getting Along

              Fifth-grade girls and boys just can not work together, according to the students at the beginning of Andrew Clements’ No Talking.  They also can not be friends. Boys have  cooties, all the fifth-grade girls in the book know that, just as all the boys know that it s really the girls who infected by the cootie-bug.  In fact, the students, known by their teachers as The Unshushables, find that the only thing they can do around one another, is talk--very loudly, and a lot. Unfortunately a lot of this talking is aimed at insulting the opposite gender: boys against girls, and girls against boys.
             The ringleaders hurling many of these insults are enemies Dave Packer and Lynsey Burgess.  One day, Dave, inspired by a school report on Ghandi, experiments by trying to take a vow of silence for a whole day, only to have have his attempt ruined by Lynsey. Soon, the two of them, along with their friends, face off in a “no talking” competition, boys against girls, and girls against boys.  The competition goes strong until suddenly, the teachers in the school, who are frustrated with the contest, order them to stop. What are the kids to do? Stop an important contest, or join forces in order to carry on with it? What will happen when the girls and boys are forced to work together? Will they unite to gain the freedom to finish their contest or will they continue to be divided and be forced to give the whole idea up? And what about those enemies Dave and Lynsey? Find out in this thoughtful book that shows how even fifth-grade girls and boys can forgo cooties, and learn to work together.
              I  really loved the no talking contest the kids did. In the contest, the kids were allowed to speak three words to answer any adult that asked them a question. It was so cool to see all the different ways the characters found to speak in three words or less. This would be a great book to teach about the value of brevity. I would also love to have a class tryout the experiment/contest for themselves and see if they could do it. I found one teacher online who tried it with disappointing results (I lost the link, sorry!), but I think with the right amount of determination, it could work out.   Here are more activites for this book!
       Another of the things I liked best about this book is that is showed how sometimes, being a teacher control freak is not always a good thing. When the students start their no talking contest, all of the teachers get super worried because they do not feel they are in control of their students. They try and try to stop the students’ contest, and the students become more and more determined to keep up with it. Eventually, the teachers learn to lighten up and let the students continue with their experiment. This view of teachers in book, serves as a good reminder for any overbearing adult that sometimes you should trust kids to know what they are doing and let them do things their own way (within reason of course). Just because kids are kids, does not mean they can not teach themselves something, as well as teach adults something too!
   

Be Careful Who You Try to Eat, Because They Just Might Eat You First!

        Anyone who loves Roald Dahl, will not be disappointed by his fabulously funny book of poetry, Dirty Beasts.  The book is about various beasts, some who abuse humans in revenge for the abuse that humans give them, and others that abuse humans for the fun of it. For example, the poem, “The Pig” chronicles the intellectual discover of a “wonderfully clever pig” who was trying to figure out “what LIFE was really all about”. One day he realizes that the whole purpose of his life is to be eaten by Farmer Bland. Thus Piggy decides to take preventative methods, which, while they save his life, do not bode well for Farmer Bland. Another poem, discusses a scorpion who is a “most repulsive ugly thing” who likes to “sting you hard upon your rump”. My favorite is “The Ant-Eater”, not only because it is funny, but it discusses the differences between British English and American English, and how, when you are talking to an ant-eater, it makes all the difference in how you pronounce the word “aunt”!!!!!
             Like most children's poetry, fun language, like adjectives, similes, and metaphors, as well as lovely sounding rhymes, abound in Dahl’s poems. These are intensified by Dahl’s own personal magical and fanciful turns of phrases, and made up words and situations. It also deals with different pronunciations of words. I love reading Dahl’s work with children, because he is so good at getting them to think totally outside of the usual and teaches them to write very beautifully and descriptively!!!!
          Be careful that you only use these poems with children who have a sense of humor and are old enough to understand that animals do not routinely and premeditatingly eat and harm children!  It is an extremely dark humor book, which I personally LOVE, but some kids (and parents) might not appreciate it! This book is really funny, but it could really scare kids who do not understand that it is pure and utterly fanciful fiction! With that in mind, it could be a really great book to use to talk about how to treat others, and to emphasize how sometimes, once you mistreat someone, they will start to harbor ill feelings towards you and might seek revenge. For example, one poem  was about a winged cow who splattered a cow patty on the head of someone who makes fun of her. (Note, this poem has some very un-PC views on men from Afghanistan, so if you read this book to your class, especially in light of current American-Afghan relations, please figure out how to change the teaser’s country of  origin!)  The book does show the negative effects of abusing others, especially animals.The book is also delightful for showing various points of view, so it may be useful for teaching that as well. The poems come from both the points of views of humans and animals, as well as people from differing countries, and would be perfect to talk about how perceptions change depending on who you are are and where you are from! Just be aware that, in the wrong group of children, this book may prove controversial!!!

Another World Filled with Magical Creatures

               A Treasury of Mermaids: Mermaid Tales from Around the World, by Shirley Climo and illustrations by Jean and Mou-sien Tseng, brings together a collection of little known mermaid folk tales from all over the world. The book includes stories from Alaska, Iceland, Ireland, Japan, Greece and New Zealand.  Scottish and Swiss stories are  also included. One of the best things about this book, is its diversity; I really like how Climo retells stories from places like Alaska, Iceland, New Zealand and Switzerland, because those are places whose stories I never seem see in most story collections.  I feel like most of our perceptions of mermaids in America come from Disney and Hans Christian Anderson, and this book offers many new perspectives from many new sources.
        
            The stories range from Odysseus’ voyage past the Sirens to stories of mermaids who fall in love with humans, only to be betrayed by them, to humans who are betrayed by the mermaids, as well as mermaids who help humans. Something that was interesting in all the stories, was that there was always a distinct impression of the mermaids’ world being divided from the human world. Even in the stories where a character crossed into another character’s world, there was a distinct impression of one character being the “other” who did not belong. These stories would be a great to introduce the concept of outsiders in literature.  It was also interesting to see the similar strands that ran through the stories, and how different cultures dealt with various issues. Since there are are so many similarities  in the stories, they would be great to use for compare and contrast activities for both the plot and the cultural values the stories reflect. Another aspect of this book that I really enjoyed, was the individual introductions Climo wrote before presenting a story, where she discussed the different names and legends that each culture had developed about mermaids.  These introductions provided interesting background for the tales, and they provided a sense that the stories really were authentic to the country the claimed to be from!
  
        This book would probably be best for upper-elementary. There are only a few pictures in the book and the stories are not vivid enough to hold a younger child’s attention for long. Also, although the pictures do not show anything inappropriate, there are some suggestions that there is no clothing or covering underneath the various mermaids’ strategically placed hair.
  
         Despite loving mermaid tales, I found most of this book to be rather stilted and boring. Although there is a decent amount of figurative language, I felt like Climo could have done much more creatively in her writing and retelling of the stories then she actually did. While reading most of the stories, I had a hard time picturing the story in my mind, because there was not very much imagery to help me see it in my head and to tell me what was going on in the story. This book is definitely not good to use for lessons about descriptive words!  Although there were beautiful illustrations at the beginning of the stories, there were none inside of the story, which made it even harder to picture what was happening.  I feel like the use of stilted and boring language a major problem with story collections, and retellings in general, is a fear of being creative with the stories. If you prefer to be true to basic plot line of a story, that is fine, but add enough flourishes to make the story worth listening to!!!

The Wonder of the Junkyard Kids

“I want you all to write the definition on the blackboard. Post it on your mirrors. Look at it every day. Memorize it! The definition describes every one of you.”--Mrs Peterson

 It is always important to shape your views of people, and things, from all angles and all points of view. In her new book, The Junkyard Wonders, Patricia Polacco, shows, once again, that is not what people appear to be, but who they really turn out to be that matters.

     Like many of her stories, The Junkyard Wonders is based on the author’s childhood growing up dyslexic in mid-20th century America. Also, like many of her stories, one of the book’s focuses is on one of Polacco’s many inspirational teachers who enabled her to become the wonderfully successful writer she is today. There a million cool and inspirational, as well as English majory, things I could talk about for this book, but I really just want to talk about the teacher, Mrs. Peterson, because she is the teacher that I want to be. 

Mrs. Peterson calls her class “the Junkyard Wonders”.  All the students in her class have been classified as “different”; they are the kids who are dyslexic, who have diabetes and other physical disabilities, the ones who refuse to talk, the boys who love ballet, and rest of the children, who for some reason or another have been cast off by the rest of the school.  Instead of lowering her expectations and teaching down to these children, Mrs. Peterson expects the most of them, and teaches them to expect the best from themselves. She starts the first day of school, by reading the definition of genius to her class and she tells them that each and every one has genius in them, it was just a matter of finding where it was.  Although many of the students in her class think that the term “junkyard kids” is derogatory and emphasizes their flaws, Mrs. Peterson shows them they are wrong. By taking them to the junkyard and having them pick out pieces of “real junk” to revitalize, she shows them how something that seems to have problems and seems not to work, can actually become something completely different, wonderful and new. In the process of remaking their objects, the students also remake themselves, discovering their own unique talents and geniuses. I like this aspect of the story because of the literary parallelism of how the things from the junkyard acquire a new beauty, a new meaning, and a new wonder, at the same time Mrs. Peterson’s “junkyard” students realize a new beauty, a new meaning, and a new “wonder” at the same time.  Mrs. Peterson is the type of teacher who helps children discover who they are and why they are special, and that is the type of teacher I want so badly to be. 

 One thing I also have to add about this book is the way Polacco makes every character be important. There are no minor characters in the book; every character mentioned in the story has a distinct personality and a specific and important role in the story. Her emphasis on character can also be seen in the pictures she draws in the book.  In every picture, it is impossible not to notice every person; each one has a distinct expression and personality.  Even in the pictures where there are large crowds it is impossible not to be drawn toward every face, and by looking at the faces you know what each one is feeling and something about their personality without even knowing what the text says. She even focuses on facial expressions of characters not in the story, giving each one of her drawings an identity the reader can relate to.
  
 This story is an excellent example of a book where you need to read every single word in it, even the ones not directly in the story, to fully understand the story. Both the introduction and the afterword have important details that enable the reader to understand the story at a new height.
   
 I would be more inclined to use this book in upper elementary, especially in a class where there is a student, or multiple students, that have low self-confidence and maybe who feel like they are a “junkyard kid”. I would also use it to teach about diversity and about getting out of one’s comfort zone to make friends with someone who others think is weird or not cool. Hopefully students would then be able to see outside of the labels schools put on their peers.

No matter how you use The Junkyard Wonders, it is a wonderful and touching story and would be a wonderful addition to any class library!

*Picture from:http://unioncitylibrary.wordpress.com/

The Food is Falling, The Food is Falling . . . from the Sky!!

I chose to read Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, by Judi Barrett, because many of the children in my cooperating teacher’s classroom had written about it in their reading journals and had liked it a lot. It is a very cute story about two children, their grandpa, and the stories they hear from him. One day, prompted by an unfortunate incident with a flying pancake, Grandpa tells the children “the best tall-tale bedtime story he’d ever told”. The story is about ChewandSwallow, a town that has no grocery stores because all of their food falls out of the sky.  One day, however, the weather goes awry and destructive meatballs and giant pancakes threaten the survival of the townspeople.

 The pictures in this book were a lot of fun of to look at because there were lots of hidden jokes inside them. You have to really study the details of the pictures to find most of the fun details, such as in the picture showing an overview of the town, where all the movie titles displayed on the movie theater’s masthead had to do with food. Also, if you look at the pictures you realize that they are telling parts of the story that don’t get told in the text. For example, the reason Grandpa accidentally flips a pancake on Henry’s head (an action that later prompts him to tell a story about ChewAndSwallow) is that he trips over the dog as the dog chases the cat. However, the cause of Grandpa’a accidental pancake toss is never specified in the text; you instead have to see the picture of the dog chasing the cat and Grandpa tripping over them. It is also extremely fun to look at the pictures and discover all the different activities and facial expressions that are going on in them.
 
 Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, seems like  a great way of teaching the concept of a story within a story, as well as teaching about basing fiction on incidents from real life. It is also a presents a good opportunity to introduce the concepts of hyperbole and tall tales to children, who may be able to relate to having a family member telling excessively silly stories. 

This book is extremely fun to read and to look at. I highly recommend it!

*Picture from:http://blissfullydomestic.com/2009/cloudy-with-a-chance-of-meatballs

What Happens When A City Mouse Goes to the Country?
Mr. McMouse  by Leo Lionni
  
Mr. McMouse is a story about a city mouse who finds himself unexpectedly living in the country. In order to get accepted by the country mice, Mr. McMouse must pass a series of tests, each of which he fails. As he is about to attempt the final test, a cat attacks all of the mice, and Mr. McMouse uses his city smarts to save himself and his friend. Thus he shows himself, and they country mice, that sometime being different and having unique skills is a good thing.

One of the major themes of the story is a feeling of not belonging.  At the beginning of the story Mr. McMouse runs away from home. One day he doesn’t recognize himself in the mirror and is frightened, so he runs away to the country. There he meets more mice like himself; however, to be accepted by them, he must prove he can act like a country mouse through completing a series of tests to get his “Field Mouse License”. But what really happens is that Mr. McMouse learns that, although he cannot do all the things that the other country mice can do, he does have his own unique talents to offer. 

I really love the illustrations in this book. For one thing, Lionni ,who also does the illustrations, uses basic shapes to create them. By using the basic shapes such as circles, ovals, and triangles to make complicated art, he shows how easy it is to draw once you understand the basics. The reader can look at the pictures and understand how the collage’s shapes work together to form the illustration.   Another really cool thing about the illustrations is that he uses a collage not only of shapes, but of textures and designs as well. The textures in the art create an interesting contrast between Mr. McMouse’s life in the city and his life in the country. While he was living in the house, his environment only had two colors, one pattern, and one shape, but when he runs away, he runs into a world full of different shapes, patterns, colors, and textures. The further Mr. McMouse travels into the country, the more diverse the shapes, colors, patterns, and textures become. This contrast between the two environments really emphasizes the contrasts between Mr. McMouse’s narrow and boring world perspective in the city, and his broadened and diverse worldview in the country.

Mr. McMouse is a great book to teach shapes, colors,textures, and art to a younger audience. In an upper-elementary class, it would also be a great book to discuss how illustrations can deepen the reader’s understanding of a book’s underlying themes.


*Picture from http://children.bookbest.com/node/literature/other/18333_10.html

More than Black and White

             David Macaulay’s Black and White has four stories within one book. Or is it one story with four parts? On each set of pages are four squares, which claim, at the beginning, to represent four different stories.



            One story, that is always told on the upper half of the left page, has a boy returning home to see his parents. This story is told only with  the boy’s  observations and only from his point of view. There is no other perspective or dialogue. At one point, a train stops due to a black and white blob on the tracks. Luckily, the black and white blob eventually moves away from the track. The second story, told on the lower half of the second page, is about a child whose parents seem completely normal, until one day they come home acting strange, and insisting on dressing in newspapers. This story is told completely from the daughter’s point of view.  The narrator and her brother like to play with their train set.




                                                                           The stories portrayed on the right pages are both told almost completely in pictures. One  is about a group of people who are stuck waiting at a train station for a train that is mysteriously late.  The other story is about a group of cows, who, when they move out of the field in a group, look like just one big black and white blob.

                What I really liked about this book was that figuring out how the story worked was like reading a puzzle. You had to look at all the details, and read all the text and then put them together o figure out what was going on in the story. This book would be really fun to read with a group of strong writers and readers to see how long it took them to figure out what was going in the story.  It also is a great way to demonstrate the different layers and aspects that go into story writing, because there are several stories going on at one time, but then they all come to the same conclusion.  This book really shows how story telling goes deeper than things just black and white.

Click, Clack, Moo.  What happens when you have cows who can type?

    Click, Clack, Moo Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin is hilarious! The book is about Farmer Brown and his troublesome cows who, after finding an old typewriter, start typing out demands of things they want Farmer Brown to do in exchange for all the milk they provide for him. When Farmer Brown refuses their demands, the cows go on strike and soon other farm animals follow their example. So what is a poor farmer to do when his animals type demands and go on strike? Find out in this laugh-out-load book!

One of the best aspects of this book is that it can be used in lots of different ways, with lots of different age groups. The text has a rhyming, sing song, rhythm to it, that makes it appealing to younger students. It also makes extensive use of onomatopoeia, which is an aspect of syntax that younger students really understand and appreciate. This book could also be used to demonstrate cause and effect by asking students questions such as  what caused the animals to strike and what the effect of their striking was. It also might be a cute, unique, if slightly silly way of introducing a social studies lesson on labor movements, because of its whimsical take on an overworked group striking to get better working conditions. Yes, I know, it seems a slightly silly and trivial way to introduce the subject, but it might serve as useful hook to get kids interested in the subject of working conditions, labor unions and the strikes of the nineteenth century.

The pictures are awesome too. The illustrator used interesting water color techniques and blends colors in interesting way to emphasize when the farm animals are plotting how to best get their demands. For readers who are also interested in art, the artist included an interesting note on the copyright page explaining her technique in making the pictures.

You do have to read this book to your class no matter how you use because it is adorable.  It will brighten your day to read it.

*Picture from http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/766955.Click_Clack_Moo