Perspectives

Perspectives

I can see the train on the tracks two blocks away,
but an eagle can see a rabbit two miles away.

I can turn my head to look west down the street to the sunset,
but an owl can turn its head to see 270° (plus it can see in the dark.)

I can roll my eyes at Bill's corny puns,
but mantis shrimp and chameleons can roll each eye independently.

I can see your face,
but not your heart.

I can see through tears,
but not through closed doors.

I can see the stars,
but not the future.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2020


Can it really be the last Friday of National Poetry Month? Christie has the roundup AND the Progressive Poem at Wondering and Wandering.


And then this: Grant Snider is thinking about what we can and cannot see, too!

Environmental Activism

Here are four picture books that are just right for comparing and contrasting. Pair these with the Global Climate Strike September 20-27 so that your students can write their own version of this story.

The Promise
by Nicola Davies
illustrated by Laura Carlin
Candlewick Press, 2017


The speaker, who lives in "a city that was mean and hard and ugly," snatches an old lady's bag one dark night. Before the old lady lets go of the bag, she makes the speaker promise they will "plant them."

The promise is kept and the city is transformed. Many transformed cities later, the speaker is mugged, another bag of seeds is stolen, and another promise is extracted.

Don't miss the endpapers on this one!

The Last Tree
by Ingrid Chabbert
illustrated by Guridi
English translation by Kids Can Press, 2017

A boy has heard stories from his father about grass and trees, but he lives in a city where neither exist. He and a friend discover the last tree...and then they find out that condominiums will be built where it is growing. They dig the tree up and replant it where it will be safe.

Another book with great endpapers.

The Digger and the Flower
by Joseph Kuefler
Balzer + Bray, 2018

Little Digger watches the big machines doing their big construction work. But when they threaten to destroy the last flower in the city, Little Digger takes action and saves the flower, which thrives and spreads.

The Green Giant
by Katie Cottle
review copy compliments of Pavilion Children's, 2019

A little girl is staying with her grandpa in the country. In the greenhouse next door, she meets the green giant, who has escaped from the grey city. When she has to leave, the giant gives the girl a handful of seeds, which she plants when she returns. The city is transformed. Perhaps the giant will return some day.

Reading Without Walls

One Shadow on the Wall

by Leah Henderson

Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2017

Outside In

Jennifer Bradbury

Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books, 2017

This pair of books put me "in the shoes" of orphan boys in Senegal (One Shadow on the Wall) and India (Outside In).

Each of the boys must do whatever it takes to survive. In both books, bullies play a big part in making that survival difficult. The spirit of his father helps Mor (One Shadow on the Wall), while Ram (Outside In) is guided by the traditional stories of how the princes Rama (who marries Sita) and Lakshmana endure fourteen years of exile and defeat the evil Ravana (with the help of the monkey army).

Family is important in both books. Mor works to keep his together, while Ram finds one.

In both books, there is an outsider who helps the boys. In One Shadow on the Wall, Demba is mystical and thought by the villagers to be crazy. In Outside In, Nek creates art in secret.

It was quite surprising to read these back-to-back and find so many similarities. Makes me wonder how my next-reads will connect!

Crabby Characters

Penguin Problems

by Jory John, illustrated by Lane Smith

There's one in every crowd, isn't there? Look at that cover. Everything's just fine with the entire raft (rookery, colony, and huddle, waddle) of penguins. Except that one.

Thank goodness for the walrus, who talks some sense into our crabby, dissatisfied penguin friend. Except in the end...

Hungry Bird

by Jeremy Tankard

Here's another whiney, dissatisfied character (with a bunch of REALLY patient friends). Bird hasn't packed a snack for the hike, but he also doesn't want anything the other animals have to offer. In the end, he does taste their snacks, but when his favorite shows up (a worm)...sigh...

Leave Me Alone!

by Vera Brosgol

Grandmother has had it with all of the bothersome, interfering grandchildren. One day she packs up her knitting and walks off yelling, "Leave me alone!" This is her refrain over and over again as different characters in different settings hamper her ability to sit in a quiet spot and knit. She finally finds peace and quiet in a black hole. Then, in the end...ahhh, finally a character who recovers from a bad case of the crabbies. 

Blue Whales

Billy Twitters and his Blue Whale Problem
by Mac Barnett
illustrated by Adam Rex
Hyperion Books, 2009
review copy from my classroom library

I love the sly way this book weaves facts about blue whales into the story of a boy who doesn't clean his room.

"Billy Twitters, clean up your room, or we're buying you a blue whale, " his mother threatens. Billy doesn't take her seriously because he knows "a thing or two about blue whales."

But one day, a whale shows up outside his door and it's his responsibility...

The reader learns plenty of facts about blue whales in the text and the illustrations absolutely communicate the scale of a blue whale in a classroom, on a playground, and next to a school bus.

Billy comes up with a clever solution to both the problem of owning a blue whale AND the problem of cleaning his bedroom!

(Mac Barnett will be at Cover to Cover Bookstore on March 7 from 10:30-12:00!)

The Blue Whale
by Jenni Desmond
Enchanted Lion Books, 2015
review copy provided by the publisher

This book works the same way. "Once upon a time, a child took a book from a shelf and started to read."

You guessed it. It was a book about blue whales.

The words we read are the words the boy is reading in his book about blue whales. But the pictures tell the story of what the boy imagines, how he conceptualizes sizes and distances and amounts, and sometimes what he does between page turns.

These will be two fun books to share with students to learn about blue whales and to invite conversations that compare and contrast the two books.

A Tale of Two Beasts

A Tale of Two Beasts
by Fiona Roberton
Kane Miller, 2015
review copy provided by the publisher

I have a whole collection of books that have two stories that dovetail in the middle. This one is similar, but instead of dovetailing, it has two parts, each told from a different point of view.

In the first part, a little girl discovers a strange beast stuck in a tree in the forest. She rescues it, takes it home, feeds it, dresses it, walks it, and shares it with her friends. The minute she opens the window, the beast runs away. Later that night, when the little girl is lying awake in her bed trying to figure out where she went wrong, the beast comes back.

In part two, a small furry forest animal (maybe a squirrel?) tells the story of being "ambushed by a terrible beast!" This beast ties him up and carries him away to her lair where he is subjected to any number of indignities. Finally, when she opens the window, he is able to escape. Later that night, when he is hanging upside down from a tree in the forest, he realizes that there might be a reason to go back.

Same story, two different points of view. Is there one beast in this story, or are there two? Depends how you look at it!

A fun book for children of any age who are working to understand point of view.

That Look of Surprise

Enzo Races in the Rain/Enzo Picture Book #1
by Garth Stein
illustrated by R.W. Alley
HarperCollins, 2014
review copy provided by the publisher

I love that look of surprise when you hand the right book to the right reader at just the right time. A review copy of Enzo Races in the Rain had just come, and I had a reader who was more than half of the way through Racing in the Rain: My Life as a Dog, the kids' adaptation of The Art of Racing in the Rain.

When I put this book in her hands, the look on her face was priceless! Like I was a magician, or something!

She read it right away, noting all of the ways it is different from Racing in the Rain. She was surprised that the story in the picture book didn't even get to chapter three in her book. (If I had seen that the full title includes "Enzo Picture Book #1, that would perhaps have explained that...) We noticed the careful marketing -- the cover background and font colors are exactly the same as Racing in the Rain (and the adult version, as well) and the dog looking out at the reader from the picture book matches the dog on her book. Except for the checkerboard collar. But we developed a theory about that.

My reader took the picture book home to read to her 5 year-old brother. After reading it again to him, she noted these similarities and differences:

SAME                                    
•Enzo is in both                    
•Pile of stuffed animals is in both (although the "evilness" of the zebra is not dealt with in the picture book)
•Enzo is born on a farm

DIFFERENT
 •The Farmer in the picture book is The Alpha Man in the chapter book
•Zoe is already born in the picture book, but is born later in the chapter book
•Enzo doesn't run with cars in the book

The biggest difference she noted was that Racing in the Rain is not about a dog running with cars in a rain storm (as portrayed in the picture book). It is about a dog whose owner is a race car driver. The checkerboard collar seems to be the only evidence of auto racing.

My reader's little brother didn't like the book much. But that's likely because he's more into superheroes than dog stories.

Compare and Contrast: American History Edition

Master George's People: George Washington, His Slaves, and His Revolutionary Transformation
by Marfé Ferguson Delano
National Geographic Children's Books (January 8, 2013)

review copy from the public library

This is an important book.

All year long my students struggled with the reading standard about how the setting (both time and place) influences the story. What I realized by the end of the year is that this standard is easier to grasp when applied to a person's own life, or to historical events.

That George Washington, the slave owner, was influenced by the time and place of his life story is one of the main themes of this book. We can't blame him for owning slaves, and we can't judge him for owning slaves. We need to understand what it was about his life and times that made it okay, even necessary. But the most important thing we need to learn, is how Washington's views about slavery changed during the course of his lifetime. And that is another of the main themes of this book which relates to another hard standard -- identifying what influences a character's thoughts, words, or actions.

I'm not sure I'll read this entire book aloud next year, but the chapter that details Washington's change of heart and mind will be a good one for close and repeated reading.

Crankee Doodle
by Tom Angleberger
illustrated by CeCe Bell
Clarion Books (June 4, 2013)
review copy from the public library

This is a silly book.

Crankee Doodle and his horse could hold their own with Dr. Seuss' Sam I Am and the "I do not like them" character, with Elephant and Piggie, with Bink and Gollie.

The book includes a historical note about the song, but you will love it more for the characters than for any deep and lasting understandings about American History or Folklore.

Bomb: The Race to Build--and Steal--the World's Most Dangerous Weapon (Newbery Honor Book)
by Steve Sheinken
Flash Point; First Edition, First Printing edition (September 4, 2012)

review copy from my classroom library

This is a scary book.

At first it's a gripping and fast-paced description of, as the subtitle puts it so well, "The Race to Build--and Steal--the World's Most Dangerous Weapon." I'm hoping to encourage a group of my fifth graders to dig into this book next year in a book club. I want to test my sense that it's written at an understandable level for middle grade readers. I also want to start conversations about the realities of war with a generation that has no qualms about the virtual death and destruction that they reenact in video games. I want them to witness the horrific destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki through the multiple points of view presented in the book. And I want them to think about the final thought Sheinken leaves the reader with:

"In the end, this is a difficult story to sum up. The making of the atomic bomb is one of history's most amazing examples of teamwork and genius and poise under pressure. But it's also the story of how humans created a weapon capable of wiping our species off the planet. It's a story with no end in sight.

And like it or not, you're in it."

Scary.

Happy Belated Chinese New Year!

Kindergarten Day USA and China
(A Flip-Me-Over Book)
by Trish Marx and Ellen B. Senisi
A Global Fund for Children Book
Charlesbreidge, 2010
review copy provided by the publisher

Jesse T. Zoller Elementary School is in Schenectady, New York. Little Oak Children's House is in Beijing, China. Kindergarten classes from both of these schools share this book.

Read from one side and you are in kindergarten in the United States: learning to read, coloring, eating lunch, playing with friends at recess, celebrating a birthday, and thinking about China while you practice telling time and look at the globe.

Flip the book over and you are in kindergarten in China: learning to read, coloring, eating lunch, playing with friends at recess, celebrating a birthday, and thinking about the United States while you use your fingers to count and look at a map of the world.

This is a great book for exploring similarities and differences, for comparing and contrasting, for thinking and understanding. It would be fun to do a kindergarten photo essay from lots of different kindergarten rooms in the same school district to see how different things are even when we think they are going to be more the same. What if we compared kindergarten in the city to kindergarten in a rural school? More the same, or more different?

And on the subject of photo essays, wouldn't it be fun to have kids bring in pictures of their bedrooms to compare and contrast? (You know you loved it when we shared pictures of our classrooms...but of course I can't find links to any of those posts...)