At Daddy's on Saturday by Linda Walvoord Girard Illustrations by Judith Friedman

I used this book in a text about transitions and when I read it the book provoked an emotional response and I knew I had to blog about it. At first glance the book looks a little cheesy, the cover is a violet color and the illustrations are dull. The colors used are dull and pastel. The illustrations seem very 1980's which make sense because the the book was published in 1987.
I did not look this book because of it's illustrations though it was the story that really moved me. Like the title might indicate this story is about a girl whose parents are divorced and she spends Saturday with her father. I felt that the writing was very heartfelt. I was moved when the girl talked about how she was afraid her father did not love her anymore and that he would leave her. This is a concern that many children have when their parents get divorced and this book talks about that concern in a way that children would understand. I would recommend this book as a good book on the topic of divorce. Even though this book was written in 1987 it is such a sensitive topic today and this book addresses it tastefully and so chlorine can understand. It will definitely help get questions answered and conversations started.

If You Give a Mouse Cookie By Laura Joffe Numeroff Illustrated by Felicia Bond

I had never heard of this book until I began working at the daycare I am at and that is really unfortunate since this is such a fun book. If You Give a Mouse a Cookie is a fun story about a mouse that wants a cookie, then a glass of milk, then a napkin, and it goes on until the human who is serving him falls asleep. The illustrations are pretty straightforward pencil drawn pictures, however, I found the mouse to be very cute. A character that asks for one thing after another can be obnoxious but if he is cute it makes him a lot less annoying. The one issue I had with this book is that I found i had little educational value. I don't know how I would fit his book into a curriculum. I guess we could create a story about a mouse and mimic what the idea of the book. I like to chose books that can be used cross curricular. There is not that much time for to teach the children all that you would like so I would like to pick books that can be used across subjects because it might save a little time and students can see that different subjects can go together.

Over the Farm By Christopher Gunson

Usually when I think about counting books I think about little board books that young children can chew on and quite frankly I think many of those books are boring. This book is a paperback so it is geared toward children who are a little older and no babies. I really liked the illustrations because each of them looked like a painting, There was visible paint strokes and color mixing in the pictures. I really enjoy seeing details like this because we can see the illustrator's process. We can see the paint they used and how they moved their brush. The book is about counting animals so in addition to counting they are learning about different animals. This book seems simple and straightforward and it is but that is works for kindergartners, they don't need some great literary piece they just need a book that is educational as well as entertaining.

Rosie's Walk by

I found this book on a search for a wordless book for my child study, which was an opportunity we had to work with 2nd graders on reading and writing. In class we were shifting from an emphasis on reading to an emphasis on writing. I thought that using a wordless book would be good to use because the student would still be working with text like we had done previously but in a different way, we would be writing the text that was missing from the book. Rosie's Walk did contain some text so it did not seem intimidating to write the missing text because only some pages did not have text as opposed to the entire book.
Rosie's Walk is about a hen taking a walk, being unaware that the entire time she was being followed by a fox that wanted to eat here. It was actually quite comical because the fox experienced many unfortunate things happening to it while Rosie the hen kept walking, completely unaware. The illustrations were interesting. There were a lot of oranges, greens, yellows, and reds. They seemed very 70's, I felt like I was stepping into the Brady Bunch house when I looked in the book. Besides it's slightly outdated illustrations I liked the book and the 2nd grader I worked with liked it as well, and it was a great book to write on.

Me I Am! By Jack Prelutsky Pictures by Christine Davenier

This book is all about being who you were meant to be. This book is meant for younger children and I think that it would be good for them to understand what feelings are and everyone has feeling they all different. I work in a daycare and young children sometimes do not grasp feelings and that they are different from others. By understandings this they can learn more about themselves and appreciate themselves for who they are. I think this book promotes healthy self esteem, which is something many children lack. By building healthy self esteem children will be able to follow their interests, not be affected by their peers, and lead happier lives.
Besides this positive message I also really enjoyed the pictures. They were really engaging because they contained a lot of detail. Children, especially younger children, really like to point out the details they see in the pictures. The bright colors uses is also eye catching. The one thing that liked was that it looked pencil drawn which gave it a rough look sort of un finished look but I think it worked for this book.

A Pizza tge Size of the Sun by Jack Prelutsky Drawings by James Stevenson

Jack Prelutsky is one of my favorite authors that I have recently rediscovered through being assigned to read poetry books, His writing is absolutely delightful. I say this because it is always entertaining to read his work. In this book of poems he writes about random things like a poem called, "I sailed half a ship" and "Do Not Approach an Eu." I can envision reading a couple of poems while the kids sit down or lie down with their eyes closed so they can listen to the descriptive language and form images in their mind. I would do this if the class needed to unwind from a stressful or tense day, it would give everyone a chance to let loose and relax. This book also makes a great read aloud because the pictures are black and white and very simple so as a teacher I would not feel guilty about not showing the pictures. By not chowing the pictures the students will be able to create their own mental images and it is important for readers to be able to do this.

Author Study

As a class we chose to research different authors and come in with background information about them and a list of books they wrote or illustrated. We were also asked to inlcude their website as well. This is the biogprahpical information I found out about my cjosen auhtor, Tomie dePaloa!
Tomie dePaola was born on Sept. 15th 1934 in Meriden, Conn. Growing up dePaola lived with his father, mother, and three siblings. At a young age dePaola loved books, his mother read to him every night which fostered his love of literature. At age four dePaola declared that he wanted to be an illustrator and dancer. dePaola pursued these passions though his school career by taking both dance and art lessons. After dePaola graduated high school he went on to attend art school at the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn, NY. After attending the Pratt dePaola went on to receive his MFA from California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, California. DePaola has named artists such as Fra Angelico, Giotto, Georges Rouault, and Ben Shahn as major influences on his art. Despite having received his MFA it took dePaola several years before he illustrated his first children’s book. dePaola took jobs teaching, designing greeting cards, and stage sets before illustrating his first children’s book in 1965. The first children’s book that dePaola illustrated was a science text titled, Sound. A year later dePaola wrote and illustrated his first children’s book titled, The Wonderful Dragon of Timlin. To this day dePaola has illustrated 200+ children’s books and dePaola wrote and illustrated 100+ of those books.
There is a list of books he was written
DePaola, Tomie. Marcos Colors . New York, New York: G.P.Putnam's Sons, 2003.. This is a board book so it is meant for younger kids. The book teaches children to identify colors in both Spanish and English.

DePaola, Tomie. Adelita- A Mexican Cinderella Story . New York, New York: G.P.Putnam's Son's , 2002.
This book is about a girl Adelita who is orphaned and forced to work for her stepmother and stepsisters. One day there is a grand fiesta and Adelita attends and falls in love with a man she meets there. She feels bad for her lack of wealth and position so she leaves the fiesta. The man searches for her and finds her and they live a happy life together

DePaola, Tomie. Tom. New York, New York : G.P. Putnam's Sons , 1993. This story is about Tomie’s grandfather who he called Tom. The whole book is a recollection of their greatest memories together .

DePaola, Tomie. Strega Nona- Her Story. New York, New York: G.P. Putnam's Son's , 1996. Strega Nona is the subject of many of Tomie dePaola’s books. This book is the story of how she learned to be a strega and other memories from her childhood.

DePaola, Tomie. Big Anthony- His Story . New York, New York : G.P. Putnam's Sons , 1998. Big Anthony is Strega Nona’s helper and he is a loveable character who sometime causes problems because he is inattentive. This is a story about how Big Anthony came to meet Strega Nona
These are some great resources I used when complying this information
Ellem.
Tomie dePaola’s Website
http://www.tomie.com/

Other Helpful websites
http://www.kidsreads.com/authors/au-depaola-tomie.asp
http://childrensbooks.about.com/cs/authorsillustrato/a/tomiedepaola.htm

The Semester Recap!

This semester I have been overwhelmed by children’s books Reading and blogging about 45 children’s picture books and 9 novels seemed daunting at the beginning of the semester. I didn’t know why we had to read so many books! Looking back I have ended up actually enjoying it, at times it was hard but I have been exposed to so many books. My knowledge of children’s literature had been expanded. Before I could only tell you about the fiction books that I loved as a child. Now I know so many authors and different types of books different genres of children’s books.
One of the projects that I found to be especially helpful was the genre presentation. For this presentation our classmates researched different genres and presented us with information on the characteristics of the genre and books in that genre. I referred to the information we received on the genres for another class I was in. I was working with a student and we were moving from an emphasis on reading to writing. When thinking about what resources I could use that incorporated reading and writing I remembered our discussion of wordless books and how these books have illustrations but little to no text. I thought that I could use this during my time with my student so she could read the little text the book had and then write the “missing text.” This example demonstrated how important knowledge of children’s books is to the classroom teacher.
The discussions we have had in class on the choice of text and what choosing a certain text might mean to the students has also been helpful. I never thought much of text selection before, I thought that as long as it tied into what I wanted to teach on then it would be okay. Now I am taking into consideration who is the text writen for? Is there a group of people who are stereotyped by the text? What message am I sending my students if I read this text aloud? Read alouds can be powerful and can show students what you as a teacher value. I want to value all of my students and their backgrounds so in order to that I need to be critical of the texts I read or have them read.
Now all the blogs and the time spent in the library searching for the right books has been time well spent. My blog can be a great resource for me to refer back to when I am looking for a poetry or a book about two dads. I have a list of poetry books, controversial books, graphic novels at my finger tips. Now I can see that I have created a resource that will serve to help me in the future

Daddy, Daddy, Be There By Candy Dawson Boyd and Floyd Cooper

I happened to stumble upon this book when doing some reading for a project. It is not really a poetry book. It is book written about fathers. On each page the text starts with Daddy, daddy…… then goes on to describe how fathers make their children feel or experiences children share with their fathers. . There is a mellow tone to the book and the illustrations portray this with the subdued colors. The illustrations were kind of blurred, almost creating a dream sequence as if recalling a memory.
The way that the text is written I feel that every page could be its own poem. When the poems are read aloud there is a rhythm to them, which is something that many poems have. I think I hold lose definition of poetry, I just think that poetry is different for every person so who am I to say they are wrong? Even though this book is not categorized as a poetry book in the library if I had my own classroom I would have this book in the poetry section.

Don’t Bump the Glump By Shel Silverstein

I loved Shel Silverstein when I was younger so when I found out that we were suppose to read poetry books I knew that a Shel Silverstein book would be one of the books I blogged about. I have never heard of Don’t Bump the Glump so I chose to read it. In true Silverstein style the poems in this book were kind of nonsense. A lot of words he wrote don’t make any sense but that is what makes his poetry fun. My favorite poem I read was titled, “Slithergadee.” It is a poem about how a creature called slithergadee won’t catch up with the narrator so the narrator almost begins to taunt him. Then the poem stops mid word making the reader assume the narrator got eaten by slithergadee. It’s a fun and silly book to pull out for a loud when there is some down time in the classroom.

Science Verse By Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith

This is such a fun book, it mixes poetry and science, and not many books can do that! First off I REALLY Enjoy Jon Scieszka and his books and the first that always catches my eye are the illustrations. His illustrations are very bold and distinct. I say this because it seems like he uses different art techniques when creating them, and he varies the techniques throughout the book. For example on one page there a picture of a dinosaur and it looks like it is painted, a couple of pages later there is an illustration of a collage of different words. This definitely keeps the book interesting as I continue throughout the book. The title of the book gives the reader a hint of what is going to be about, science! This is really interesting since science and poetry do not seem like they would go together. Each poem pertains to a different area of science. There are poems on the scientific method, skeletal system, matter, and planets. All of these poems have some funny twist to them this would be a fun book that could be used to help introduce a new science unit. Let’s say that a classroom teacher was starting a unit on matter then they could refer to this book and find a poem about matter ad read the poem to their students. By doing this the students might have some idea of what they will be learning and entertain them at the same time.
Speak to Me (And I will read between the lines) By Karen English Illustrated by Amy June Bates
The poem s written in this book seems to be written by children. In the front flap of the book there are the names of the children whose poems appear in the book and then it says, “One school day in the city, six distinct voices. Be sure to read between the lines.” This was attention getting and made me want to be more careful when read. I went through each poem and they pertained to some aspect of school life, friends, teacher’s homework, and recess. By the end of the book I did not understand what, “Be sure to read between the lines” meant. Despite that I thought that the poems were insightful , sharing with us hoe the children felt about certain activities they had to door wanted to do during their day, The illustrations were very straightforward, they basically showed what the text said, and not especially interesting.

Love that Dog by Sharon Creech

I loved this book! It is a great read aloud book. Love that Dog is a collection of poetry done by a student in Mrs.Stretchberry's class who does not consider himself a poet. He writes in his notebook all about his process of writing and reading poetry. As the reader you can tell that he does not consider this writing to be poetry but as the reader it is easy to see that it is, in fact, poetry. This book is a good example to remind or inform us that poetry doesn’t have to rhyme or be set up in a certain way. Poetry can look any way or sound any way the writer would like. The reason that it would make a great read aloud book is because it would give the class an understanding of what poetry is and what it does not have to be.

The Misfits part 2

The first part of the Misfits went very slowly and it was hard to get into. This half of the book was a little faster paced but not much. In the second half of the book the misfits create the No Name party. Their platform is no name calling and they created posters with names they had been called and red slashes through them. DuShawn decides not head this party and that leaves Addie as the candidate for the No Name party. In the end they end up losing the election but on the upside Addie and DuShawn become a couple, Bobby finds a girl, and Joe finds a boy. So the book ends with the group pretty much all coupled up and they are not called names anymore.
I did not like how there was a happy ending where everything was nicely tied up, it’s just not realistic. When I was beginning to read the book I thought that kids could really relate to these characters since they seem like actual people but happy endings like in the Misfits doesn’t happen often. For a book that emphasizes not fitting in it is ironic that this book fits to the fairy tale, unrealistic mode of fiction- everyone gets their happy ending.

The Misfits by James Howe

The book starts with a group of misfits, there is one chubby boy, a tall girl, a punk rocker, and a possibly homosexual boy and together they are the misfits, a group of kids who do not fit in with their peers. Instead of seeing what other see on them these friends see the good qualities about each other, the qualities people sometimes don’t see because they can’t get past the appearance. The story is told from the point of view of Bobby, the chubby one. He is best friends with Addie, who is the leader of the group. One day Addie comes up with the idea of having the misfits chose a candidate to run for class president so they chose DuShawn, one of the few African American students in the school. She wanted to give a voice to those who didn’t really have one.
I was told that this book was a controversial book and in the first couple of chapters I could understand why it might be considered controversial. Some of the characters in the book I could see parents and administrators having a problem with, especially Joe the potentially homosexual one. In the chapters I read it did not say that Joe was homosexual but it might be inferred from the way he talks and activities he does like getting his nails painted. Of course these assumptions are based off of stereotypes people have about homosexual men but parents might be uncomfortable with their children reading about these characters. I would say to this concern that these are only characters in a book and there are many different people in the world that their children will be exposed to at one time or another so why not expose them to the different characters in this book? Besides its potentially controversial characters I thought that this text was really slow and it was hard to get into. Hopefully the pace of the text will pick up as the book continues.

So Far From the Bamboo Grove by Yoko Kawashima Watkins

This is a story about a Japanese girl named Yoko who lives in North Korea. At the time it was becoming dangerous for Japanese people to be living there so Yoko and her family decided to move back to Japan. Yoko’s brother Hideyo gets separated from the family and forced to work in an ammunition factory. The Journey from Seoul to Japan is a dangerous one, when Yoko, her mother, and sister reach Japan their mother leaves to find Yoko’s grandparent, who they discover are dead. Shortly after Yoko’s mother dies. Yoko and her sister Ko wait for their brother who, through a turn of events, eventually finds them
This story tugged at my heart because these girls lost pretty much their entire family. They had a great life to begin with and then it was ruined when they had to return to Japan. This personal account depicts how war tears families up. It can so easily destroy all someone hold dear. Yoko and her brother and sister were innocent children how did nothing to deserve the events they had to experience. Their lives and the lives of people around them were affected by the decisions of others. Once I thought about it this way it made war and conflict such as this especially unfair.
This book provokes an emotional response for me and it did for me, a 20 year college student, then it definitely would affect a 4th – 6th grader. This is a good book to teach to a class but I would not recommend it as a read aloud. To introduce the book I would give them some background knowledge so they can have this information as they begin the book. I would have the students read the book individually because it would be more powerful if the students were able to see the text and in their own mind formulate responses to what they read. Then I would have them discuss the content, but since this is such an emotional book be prepared to address the emotions the students might be feeling.

The Year of Impossible Goodbyes by Sook Nyul Choi

Its 1945 and ten year old Sookan abd her family are at the hands of Japanese military who are occupying Korea. Her father is part of the resistance movement, her brother is at a labor camp, and her mother is forced to work/ supervise a sock factory. Sookan must attend a Japanese school where she cannot speak Korean instead she is forced to speak Japanese. Teh book describes what it was like to leave Korea for South Korea, it was a hard journey and on the way Sookan's fmaily was seperated. Eventually they are reunited.
It was sad to read a bout the effec that the war had on her fmaily. In our class this book is paried up with, So Far From the Bamboo Grove, which is a story about a Japanese girl livign in Korea and her terrifying escape from Korea to Japan. By reading these two texts one after teh other teh stduents can see that it doesn't matter what side you are on war effects everyone. In this case it tore up a family and it did as well in So Far From the Bamboo Grove. This would be a good text set to read when studying a war in social studies. These books provide good prespective on how war effects people and helps to make it real, not some glamrouized, long ago event.