Strong Girls Rock the World

Franki recently shared her love for Shaking Things Up: 14 Young Women Who Changed the World by Susan Hood. (Olivia of @Livbits loves it, too. If you haven't watched her video, take a couple of minutes to do so. I'd add her to the list as the 15th young woman who's changing the world!)

I have two more Strong Girl books to add to your TBR stack and to your library.

Marley Dias Gets It DONE: And So Can You!
Scholastic Press, 2018

Marley Dias, founder of the #1000BlackGirlsBooks movement has written a book that is part memoir and autobiography and a whole lot Girl Power. This full-color book is jam packed with advice, inspiration, and action steps for young social activists. My favorite chapter is "Be The Change You Want to See in the World: Get Woke." She identifies three levels of Wokeness: Awareness, Consciousness, and Wokeness, then illustrates the levels using Disney Princesses. Cinderella is aware, Jasmine is conscious, but Mulan and Belle are full-on woke. It wouldn't be Marley Dias if she didn't have several sections on books and reading (her section on How To Read is fabulous!), plus an extensive booklist of books that feature black girls as the protagonist.

What Would She Do?: 25 True Stories of Trailblazing Rebel Women
by Kay Woodward
Scholastic Press, February 27, 2018

This book features the stories of 25 women from all times in history and from all over the globe. For each woman, there is a short blurb, full-color illustrations, a single-page highly readable biography,  a quote...and a question that a modern girl might ask with an answer based on that woman's life and legacy. Because of all of these features, this book will be accessible to a wide range of readers, and will likely be one they go back to over and over again to dig more deeply into the lives of  these inspirational women.

Memoir

Drawing From Memory
by Allen Say
Scholastic Press, 2011
review copy provided by the publisher

"Drawing is never a practice. To draw is to see and discover."

"Painting is a kind of writing, and writing is a kind of painting--they are both about seeing."

DRAWING FROM MEMORY is the amazing story of the earliest years of Allen Say's journey as an artist. It is the story of his relationship with his master, the man who become more than an art teacher to him -- the man who became his spiritual father.

Liberally illustrated with sketches and photographs, this is a book to read and re-read.

We have been working to understand the word "influence" in my fourth grade classroom. Students are asked to identify the influence of the setting of a story. In order to understand that, we are studying lots of ways influence happens. This would be a great book (along with a selection of other books illustrated by Say) to explore the influence of a teacher, of a setting, of friends, of family...

The House Baba Built: An Artist's Childhood in China
by Ed Young
Little, Brown and Company, 2011

This is a fantastic book to compare/contrast to Allen Say's -- a life framed by an early love of art, by family, by war... Whereas Say's book is a tribute to his teacher, Young's is a tribute to his Baba and to the house that unified his family. Say's book is INFLUENCED by his early training as a cartoonist, and reads more like a graphic novel, with clean lines and a crisp white background. Young's is painterly, with thick pages, collages of paint and chalk and photographs, and lots of gatefolds to open and explore. Again, it would be fascinating to read this book along with a collection of others Young has illustrated to explore how these early years made him into the artist he is today.

MEMOIRS OF A GOLDFISH by Devin Scillia

My good friend and colleague Nicole, told me about this new book called MEMOIRS OF A GOLDFISH. As she was telling me all about it and why her 2nd graders loved it, I knew I had to have it. I picked it up last night and my 5th grade daughter had just heard it read aloud and she said it was hysterical. This is one of those books that will be great for many ages. It will make a great read aloud for the library.

The story reminded me a bit of the Diary of a Worm series by Doreen Cronin in that it is a diary format. I think kids who are fans of that series will enjoy this book too. This a 14 day "memoir" of a goldfish and the events that happen to him in his bowl. Day 1: I swam around my bowl. Each page/day gets a little longer and more complex as Goldfish's life gets a little more crowded. He is quite funny and his voice make the book amusing.

I can see using this book when talking about personal narrative. There is lots to learn about first person writing and about sharing events and feelings by the fish in this book. Kids of all ages will laugh out loud at this one. I imagine it will be a popular one in the library.