Tuesday, May 19, 2009
Bird, Butterfly, Eel
story and illustrations by James Prosek
Simon and Schuster, 2009
I knew that birds and butterflies migrated, but I had no idea, until I read this book, that eels do, too.
The story begins in the summer, when bird is raising a nest of babies and butterflies eggs are turning to caterpillars, cocoons and new butterflies. The eel has been in the pond for many years and is eating and storing energy for her upcoming journey.
The bird flies to Argentina for the winter, the butterfly flies to Mexico, and the eel swims out of the pond into the creek and then the ocean and eventually to the Sargasso Sea near Bermuda. The barn cat, who is in all the pictures at the beginning of the book when the animals are being introduced in their habitats near the farm (pond, meadow and barn), lays at the window watching it snow.
Spring comes, and bird, butterfly and eel's babies return to the farm.
One of the best things about this book are the illustrations. For most of the book, when Prosek is telling about their differences, each animal gets its own page. But three times during the book (fall, winter and spring), when the animals are similar in their readiness to migrate, in their winter homes, and upon return to the farm, the page is split horizontally into three sections and the animals are shown together. The only illustration I would quibble with is the map that shows where each animal goes for the winter. Instead of doing separate illustrations of the continents (main idea) and the location of the pond (detail), Prosek stretched the northeastern United States, shrank South America, and made it one illustration. Artistic license, I guess. The rest of the book is so beautiful that it can be forgiven.
This is a book that could be included in a study of migrating animals, habitats, Colonial America (didn't they eat lots of eels? didn't you ever wonder about the life cycle of the eel?), similarities and differences, nonfiction with a circular text structure, or just because it's beautiful!
Sunday, May 17, 2009
Twitter Mosaic Mug
Friday, May 15, 2009
A Vision for School Libraries
The question our team was to help answer was supposed to be: How can the MS/HS library program and facilities be improved to support student learning and achieve the ISB Vision for Learning?
But somehow it changed in a meeting with school officials this afternoon to: Does a school need a library when information can be accessed from the classroom using Internet connected laptops?
The new question is uncomfortable, messy, and incredibly important and not restricted by any means to one particular school. It is one to which all library people need a clear and compelling answer.
As a school librarian, this is an uncomfortable question. But it is one worth thinking about. What is the new vision for libraries with things changing so quickly. And he didn't give us an answer--instead he asked for others' thoughts.
In response to Doug Johnson's question about libraries, David Warlick responded on his blog. Such a smart answer. Warlick gives us a lot to think about. But the one part I keep coming back to is his ending:
In my classroom, I always tried for a coffee-shop feel. I believed that the feel of people gathering to chat about books with people they liked, to have smart discussions and to learn with friends was what I was going for. It helped me create the environment that I wanted. I have a similar vision for the library. But now, I have this new vision of a "Kinko's for Kids" to add to my coffee shop vision. I love Kinko's--like a playground of fun tools to help you create what you have in mind. And I love the idea of it even more than a coffee shop vision by itself. Can you imagine a Kinko's and a coffee shop coming together? A coffee-shop feel. But with all the tools you need right at your fingertips. A great place to get together with friends to think, talk, learn and create. I guess I always had creation in my vision but this "Kinko's for kids" idea gives me a better vision for what it is we might be trying to create.
SMARTBOARDS in the Reading/Writing Workshop-Thoughts and Questions
Poetry Friday -- In Translation
After the rain
A colorful slide is
made by sunlight
雨の後
カラフルなスライド
日光によって作られます
* * * * * * *
Rain falls
7 colors
appear
* * * * * * *
River of 7 colors
Appear after rain.
In the blue sky it
Never ends.
Before it fades,
On the 7 colors let's take a
Walk in the beautiful sight.
* * * * * * *
雨の後に
7つの色
橋が来ます
After rain
the bridge with
7 colors
is coming
* * * * * * *
Colorful half-circle
Is in front of me.
Can I
Climb on it?
カラフルな半円
私の前 にあります。
排除してください
それの上に登ります?
One of my fourth graders used SIDE BY SIDE (a 2009 Notable Children's Book in the Language Arts that features poetry -- in the original language and translated into English -- inspired by art from around the world) as her mentor text for her poetry collection. She wrote some of her poems in Japanese and translated them to English, and she wrote some in English and translated them to Japanese. She struggled with the fact that her English acrostic was no longer an acrostic in Japanese, and her Japanese haiku was no longer a haiku in English. But she learned that such is the nature of translation. The online translator that I used to get the Japanese for her poems was also problematic. The three I've included aren't exactly as she wrote them, and the two I didn't include simply didn't mean the same thing as her poems.