Stories With Surprises

A Dog is a Dog
by Stephen Shaskan
Chronicle Books, 2011
review copy provided by the publisher

"A dog is a dog, unless it's a...CAT!" And that cat is a cat unless it's a...SQUID! And so on, until...

...Nah, I'm not going to tell you! You have to read it to find out! Suffice it to say that this is a book with a surprise every couple of pages. (That squid came at me from out of the blue!) It's a book about the essential nature of well-known animals, about disguises, and about surprises. I can imagine this book making Franki's Million Times list, or Bill's Picks From the Pit.

NCTE Sessions on Digital Reading/Digital Writing

Below are two sessions I was a part of for NCTE 2011.  One was as part of a panel on Digital Reading. I had a great time working with Sara Kajder, Teri Lesesne and Donalyn Miller on this one. I learned so much from each of them and loved thinking together.  My specific piece was about digital tools and how we can use them to create opportunities for deeper reading. When I uploaded the slides onto Slideshare, some of the text was cut off but I think you'll get the general idea.

How Digital Tools Can Help Us Create Opportunities for Deep Reading

View more presentations from Franki22


The other session was one I did with Becky McCraw and Bill  Bass. When I served on the NCTE Executive Committee a few years ago, Bill and Becky and I were part of a group that helped to create the Framework for 21st Century Curriculum and Assessment. I feel lucky to have ongoing conversations with these two and others in the group about our work in schools around these ideas. One thing we've been talking about is the idea of mentor texts in a digital writing workshop so we shared our current thinking together at NCTE's convention.

Mentor Texts in the Digital Writing Workshop

3 Great Middle Grade Novels

At NCTE, I was thrilled to pick up a box full of 2012 middle grade and young adult ARCs. But when I got home, I realized how many 2011 titles I still had on my to-be-read list.  I know myself as a reader and once I dig into the 2012 books, I won't take the time to go back to many of the 2011 books. Once 2012 starts, new books will be coming out fast. I am dying to read Kate Messner's upcoming EYE OF THE STORM (which looks FABULOUS!), but am trying to wait to get some more 2011 books read. Since this blog began as a way for Mary Lee and I to share our thinking around and to predict Newbery winners, I made a list this weekend and there are about 20 that I'd love to read before the new year begins. I won't get to them, but thankfully, my Twitter friends are helping me prioritize.  Over Thanksgiving weekend, I was able to finish 3 middle grade novels and I loved all three of them.


If you know Jennifer Holm, then you know that THE TROUBLE WITH MAY AMELIA will be a good book.  As Betsy Bird says in her review of this book, "Yet thus far Ms. Holm has remained fairly dud-resistant. There’s a level of quality to her writing that pleases consistently"  This is the 2nd story about May Amelia.  From what I understan, you should read the first one first.  But I didn't do that and this one totally stands alone. May Amelia lives in a houseful of brothers and is constantly getting into a bit of trouble.  This books is filled with the stuff of real life. I found myself laughing on one page and then crying on the next.  May Amelia is a character that I fell in love with in the first few pages of the book.


I had not heard of GHETTO COWBOY by Greg Neri until Colby Sharp mentioned it on Twitter last week. Why this book is not getting more buzz is beyond me. This is the story of Cole, a 12 year old boy is gets himself in a lot of trouble. Finally, his mother has had enough and she takes him to live with his father (the father he has never met) in Philadelphia. Cole's father, Harper, runs a stable right in the middle of the city and Cole begins to take to the horses.  This is a great story about a father and a son, a community working to do the right thing, and finding out who you are. And although this is a work of fiction, it is based on a true story. (See video below from Greg Neri's website.)







G. Neri's "Ghetto Cowboy" book trailer from Greg Neri on Vimeo.



I discovered THE UNWANTEDS by Lisa McMann on several Mock Newbery lists. Once the students in our Newbery Club heard about the book, I haven't been able to get a library copy back. It is quite popular with our 5th graders. So, I ended up buying the Kindle version and read it that way. The UNWANTEDS is a great new fantasy. It is a dystopian type story of a place called Quill that gets rid of their "Unwanteds" each year. They get rid of those people that are not obedient, do not follow the rules, have thoughts of their own. And they get rid of them when they are 13 years old. They are taken out of the city to be killed. This is the story of one group of Unwanteds. It is a great good vs. evil story with characters and plot that will hook a variety of readers. It definitely feels like a classic and the story will appeal to a variety of readers.   I am always looking for great new fantasies and this is one that I think will be popular for years to come.

Poetry Friday -- Today (Call for Poetry Friday Roundup Hosts)

One Day

by Robert Creeley

One day after another—
Perfect.
They all fit.

When I first read and chose this poem, I loved it while thinking small -- "One day after another" this weekend, or this school year. But when I went to look for a picture, my eyes gravitated toward the ones I took last week (only last week/already a week ago?) at the Field Museum in Chicago. Then "One day after another" expanded, and I remembered the feeling of minuscularity I got when I walked through the scientific creation story of our planet. The improbable perfection of our planet is quite overwhelming when you slow down and study how everything fits.

I also chose today's poem to honor the march of time since last we queued up for hosting the Poetry Friday Roundups. Is it really possible that six more months of weekly bloggerly camaraderie around poetry have gone by, "one (Fri)day after another"?

Indeed so. If you'd like to host one of the roundups in 2012, leave the date you choose in the comments. This will be our record of "first ask, first get." I'll update the calendar throughout the day (and probably the next couple of weeks), so check before you ask.

Heidi has the roundup today at my juicy little universe. 

January

6 JoAnn at Teaching Authors

13 Tara at A Teaching Life

20 Elaine at Wild Rose Reader

27 Jim at Hey, Jim Hill!

February

3 Karissa at The Iris Chronicles

10 Laura at Writing the World for Kids

17 Myra at Gathering Books

24 Jone at Check it Out

March

2 Dori at Dori Reads

9 Myra at Gathering Books

16 Gregory K. at GottaBook

23 Mary Lee at A Year of Reading

30 Heidi at my juicy little universe

April

6 Robyn at Read, Write Howl

13 Anastasia at Booktalking

20 Diane at Random Noodling

27 Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference

May

4 Elaine at Wild Rose Reader

11 Irene at Live. Love. Explore!

18 Katya at Write. Sketch. Repeat.

25 Linda at TeacherDance

June

1 Carol at Carol's Corner

8 Jama at Jama's Alphabet Soup

15 Mary Lee at A Year of Reading

22 Amy at The Poem Farm

29 Marjorie at Paper Tigers

Riches

Flickr Creative Commons photo by simpologist

Time has slowed,
stopped flowing
like sand or water or air
between my fingers.

The clock's ticks were
a blur.
Now I feel space
between each beat.

Between each beat
I reach
and catch the coins,
make a stack of riches:

moon's tug
eyes' blinks
Christmas cactus' bloom
heart's thumps
pencil's scratches


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2011

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.

Poetry Friday -- #NCTE11

Tell all the Truth but tell it slant—

by Emily Dickinson

Tell all the truth but tell it slant—
Success in Circuit lies
Too bright for our infirm Delight
The Truth's superb surprise
As Lightning to the Children eased
With explanation kind
The Truth must dazzle gradually
Or every man be blind—

Tabatha has the Poetry Friday Roundup at The Opposite of Indifference. My lateness to the Poetry Friday Party this week is due, not to indifference, but the "opposite of indifference," which in this case is the overwhelming press of Life as I got ready to come to NCTE in Chicago.

Today has been an Extraordinary Poetry Friday, spent in the company of lots of Poetry and Poetry Friday friends, most especially Heidi, of My Juicy Little Universe, to whom I dedicate today's poem pick -- one that found me as quick as I got Internet access (the secret code worked -- thanks, Patrick!) and started looking, and which seems to fit quite nicely with our chat this afternoon! 

GASP!! I just went to Heidi's blog to grab the link and look at the image she chose for her poem today...a poem which completely captures how I felt yesterday at the Field Museum...

THE THIRD GIFT by Linda Sue Park

The Third Gift
by Linda Sue Park
illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline
Clarion Books, on shelves November 15, 2011
review copy provided by the publisher

I opened this book excitedly because the author is Linda Sue Park, because the illustrator is Bagram Ibatoulline.

I read, savoring every word, learning about the harvesting of the resin of a shrub native to the Arabian Peninsula.

I was delighted to learn the name for the resin, and the reason that the boy's extra large "tear" of resin is chosen for purchase...and by whom.

I'm not going to say any more. I don't want to spoil the surprise for you. Find a copy and read for yourself.

CROSSED by Ally Condie

I have been waiting for CROSSED for a full year. CROSSED is the second book in Ally Condie's MATCHED trilogy. MATCHED was a great book-a YA novel that I read and then both my 11 and 20 year old daughters read.  We have all been looking forward to CROSSED and have had the date of its release on the calendar for months.

Somehow, I was the first one in the house to get to read CROSSED!  I finished it this week and LOVED it. I have to say, I didn't love it from the start.  I was disappointed at the slowness and the quietness of this book during the first half, I kept jumping on Goodreads to see what others had said and was not surprised at how many people saw it as so much different, and less engaging than the first book.

But, then I got to the last third of the book, and I now realize I love this book even better than MATCHED.  A conversation on Twitter helped me mid-book.  Katherine (@katsok) had finished the book and tweeted, "Liked the second 1/2 better than the first 1/2. Also enjoyed the journey of each character." When I mentioned that I wasn't liking Ky during this part of the book, she said, "Aw, I still loved him at the end. Both Cassia and Ky are flawed at times. Need to figure out who they are."


And Katherine was so right. I realized soon after that twitter conversation that CROSSED is one of my favorite kinds of books. It is a book about character and characters' personal journeys.  I think MATCHED was such a plot-based book that I was reading this one as the same kind for a while.  But when I realized that plot wasn't the key, I read for character and I loved it.


In this book, Ky and Cassia are on a journey. A physical journey. But each is also on a personal journey-one that helps them live out the stories of their lives--a journey that lets them be truthful to themselves about those stories of their past.  There are so many lines I wanted to mark in this book--lines that were hugely powerful/  This is a book of growing and a book of choices. I don't want to give much away, but now that I finished this book, I realize that it is actually a much deeper, more intense book than MATCHED was. We learn more about the characters and who they are.  We have different hopes for who they might become.  That is huge for me as a reader.  There is still a good plot and definitely a cliffhanger ending but thinking about it, the book is about Ky and it is about Cassia--who they are together and who they are apart. When I finished MATCHED,  I loved it and was happy to pass it along. But when I finished this book, I wanted to talk to others about it. Condie left us with so much more to think about in this one.


So, if you've read MATCHED, know that this is a different read. Know that you might be disappointed during the first bit of the book. But also know that it is worth it because it is no less of a good story.  You will come out of the book knowing and understanding each character so much better than you did before.  And you'll have lots to think about--so many ideas that Condie has planted about growing and changing and crossing over to who you are.  (brilliant title on so many levels, I think) And when you close the book, you will again hate the idea of waiting a full year for the final book in the trilogy! What a LONG wait!


Now time to let the 2 girls fight over who gets to read it next:-)


(And for those of you who haven't read MATCHED, I would HIGHLY recommend both of these!)


Ally Condie has a great blog tour with more insights into the trilogy. The tour posts are listed on her site.

SWIRL BY SWIRL by Joyce Sidman

Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature
by Joyce Sidman
illustrated by Beth Krommes
Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 2011
review copy provided by the publisher

I am so looking forward to hearing Joyce Sidman speak at NCTE this week. She's the featured speaker at the Children's Literature Assembly Breakfast on Sunday and one of the poets speaking at the CLA Master Class on Saturday afternoon. I will have the chance to meet her in an informal gathering as well. I'll try not to swoon.

Her new book, SWIRL BY SWIRL, is a rhyming picture book that explores the many things a spiral does in nature. Each page has Beth Krommes' characteristic wood engraving illustrations (see one here, on Beth's website).

SWIRL BY SWIRL is a gorgeous, thought-provoking book. I will connect the spirals in nature to the spiral of time found in Steve Jenkins' book JUST A SECOND (reviewed last week) and GROWING PATTERNS: FIBONACCI NUMBERS IN NATURE (reviewed last year).