The Great Treehouse War

The Great Treehouse War
by Lisa Graff
Philomel, May 16, 2017
review ARC received at ALA

When I reviewed this book on GoodReads, I gave The Great Treehouse War a long string of tags:

• cats because Winnie's Buttons is truly "the world's greatest cat." 
• coming-of-age because it is a rare middle grade (not middle school) book that explores the end-of-5th-grade-going-to-middle-school phase, rather than being about 12 year-olds who already are in middle school. 
• characters because each of the ten Tulip Street/Treehouse Ten is a completely unique character who the reader gets to know through the story and the added sticky not comments, sketches, how-to segments, diagrams, and other paraphernalia (see hybrid below)
• empathy because that is Winnie's super power (she calls it Artist Vision) and what helps her to solve the problem that the epic sleepover turns into. 
• hybrid because there are fun sketches, maps, and sticky note comments from Winnie's friends.
• memoir because that's what the character Winnie is writing so she doesn't flunk 5th grade.
• incidental diversity, not because you can see the characters' differences in their physical features, but rather in their names (Aayush Asad, Winnie Malladi-Maraj) and small details like Lyle's "moms." (A student reader came and asked me if I thought that was a typo in the ARC, and I said, No, he probably just has two moms. Oh, okay, said the child, and off he went to continue reading.)
• divorce because Winnie has the most over-the-top wacky divorced parents ever. They take the fight for exactly equal time with Winnie to ridiculous lengths. Any child being pulled in two different directions will absolutely relate to the relief Winnie feels on Wednesdays, when she gets to live with neither parent, instead, staying in the treehouse that's halfway between the two houses. (She can have Wednesday to herself so that each parent has exactly three days a week with her.)

I can't wait to hand this book to my student who's writing her opinion piece on Why Kids Should Have More Rights. Winnie and her friends have some legitimate claims of parental unfairness (or extreme ridiculous fairness, in Winnie's case), but the parents have some legitimate counterclaims. The kids take a stand for their beliefs, but eventually it is Winnie's Artist Vision that helps kids and parents find middle ground.

Picture Books 10-for-10: Fairness

Thank you to Cathy (@cathymere) at Reflect and Refine and Mandy (@mandyrobek) at Enjoy and Embrace Learning for inventing and now hosting the FIFTH annual Picture Book 10 for 10 event. It's always fun to see what books everyone chooses and how much we all spend!!

I've shared my beginning of the year favorite read-alouds for community building with so many teachers that it's time to find a new group of books to use! Thank you #pb10for10 for helping me find 10 titles that will get my students and me thinking about issues of fairness. I'm excited to have a mixture of contemporary fiction, historical fiction, folktales, music, and nonfiction. I'll supplement these books with poetry on the same theme.

I found this image without attribution on another blog. This will be our first "text" to "read" and discuss as we think about fairness and justice.

It's Not Fair!

 by Amy Krouse Rosenthal

illustrated by Tom Lichtenheld

This book will continue our discussions about fairness and equality.

Big Red Lollipop

by Rukhsana Khan

illustrated by Sophie Blackall

Sometimes we don't want to share, or take more responsibility 

because we are older.

But it's important to remember that what comes around, goes around.

Each Kindness (Jane Addams Award Book (Awards))
 by Jacqueline Woodson
illustrated by E.B. Lewis

This book will help us to connect fairness and empathy.
Hopefully we will never miss the chance to be kind
to someone in our world.

The Little Hummingbird
 by Michael Nicoll Yahgulanaas

Is it fair that the hummingbird is doing all the work?

Tops & Bottoms (Caldecott Honor Book)
 by Janet Stevens

Is it okay to make a situation more fair by using trickery? 

The Red Hen
 by Rebecca Emberley
illustrated by Ed Emberley

If you've done all the work, is it fair to keep all the rewards for yourself?

Freedom Summer: Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the Freedom Summer
 by Deborah Wiles

illustrated by Jerome Lagarrigue

With this book, we'll begin to connect fairness and Civil Rights. I'm hoping to read aloud the Kindle edition of Wiles' Revolution (The Sixties Trilogy)

Through My Eyes
 by Ruby Bridges

Is it fair for children of all race, color, ethnicity and religion to go to American public schools?

Separate Is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez and Her Family’s Fight for Desegregation
 by Duncan Tonatiuh

I'm a new fan of Duncan Tonatiuh after hearing him speak at the CLA Monday Workshop last year.
This book will broaden students' understanding of desegregation
to include the struggles of Hispanic families.

We Shall Overcome: The Story of a Song
 by Debbie Levy
illustrated by Vanessa Brantley-Newton

The story of this classic Civil Rights song will give us the "So What Now?" in this picture book unit. What will we do to work towards more fairness in our classroom, our building, our community, and our world?

Empathy

My January reading has followed the same amazing path (see her post yesterday) as Franki's: The Fault in Our Stars, The One and Only Ivan, and Wonder (plus one she hasn't read yet, but should--an adult read: Unbroken).

When I put Wonder down last Saturday night after reading it straight through, I couldn't stop thinking about Auggie...and about all the other people in his life who had a voice in his story. I thought about how necessary it is that we help children learn to have empathy -- to "walk two moons in someone else's moccasins." I thought about the family I know whose son is profoundly stare-inducing, and all that they have gone through to advocate for him and include him in every part of their life.

I started thinking about other books that evoke empathy -- A Long Walk to Water and Home of the Brave came to mind immediately because of recent conversations with colleagues about the power of these two books as read alouds in their fourth and fifth grade classrooms. And I decided to start a new shelf in Goodreads: Empathy. Here are the books I tagged (some are adult/YA):

Home of the Brave, Applegate
The One and Only Ivan, Applegate
Because of Mr. Terrupt, Buyea
Iqbal, D'Adamo
Wit, Edson
No Ordinary Day, Ellis
Flying Solo, Fletcher
Eleven, Giff
The Thing About Georgie, Graff
The Fault in Our Stars, Greene
Uprising, Haddix
Unbroken, Hillenbrand
Rules, Lord
Larger Than Life Lara, Mackall
The Gold Threaded Dress, Marsden
We Are the Ship, Nelson
How to Steal a Dog, O'Connor
Greetings From Nowhere, O'Connor
Wonder, Palacio
A Long Walk to Water, Park
Beneath My Mother's Feet, Qamar
Anna Hibiscus, Tobia

It's not a perfect list because I haven't been particularly perfect about keeping track of my reading on Goodreads, but it's a start.

After spring break, I plan to ask my students to put their other reading aside and read from a collection of (age-appropriate for 4th graders) books I gather so that we can use literature to help us learn about, experience, have conversations about, and practice EMPATHY.

What books would you add to the list? (It occurs to me that the set of picture books I use at the beginning of the year to build community and introduce theme -- especially the ones about names -- would be perfect to revisit as we begin to understand the concept of empathy...)

Leave your suggestions in the comments -- picture books, poetry, middle grade, YA, adult...all suggestions are welcome.