Dexter the Tough

I just finished reading DEXTER THE TOUGH by Margaret Peterson Haddix. I am a big Haddix fan. For starters, she is from Ohio. And I became totally hooked on her SHADOW CHILDREN series. She has written several great middle great books lately--THE GIRL WITH 500 MIDDLE NAMES and SAY WHAT? My very favorite by Margaret Peterson Haddix is BECAUSE OF ANYA--an amazing story about a girl who is dealing with the loss of her hair.

So, I was thrilled to see a new book for this age group. Each of Haddix's books for middle readers deals with a real-life issue. The issues all make for lots of thinking and great conversations. Haddix does a great job of writing about issues in ways that are appropriate for students in grades 3-5. She takes on big issues and helps us come to know the character as he/she deals with it.

DEXTER THE TOUGH is a short novel--144 pages. Dexter has just moved to a new school. He is having a bad first day. He is angry about his life and we find out, as the story unfolds, that his father is going through aggressive cancer treatment, so his parents have sent him to live with his grandmother during treatment. He covers his pain with anger but grows as he makes a friend. I think this would be great book for a book talk in the middle grades.

An Interview With Rose Kent--Author Of Kimchi and Calamari

I am VERY excited about today's release of KIMCHI and CALAMARI by Rose Kent. I read and reviewed it earlier when I had received an advanced copy. As a member of the adoption community AND as a fan of great children's books, I can't say enough about this book. I interviewed Rose to celebrate the publication of this book! Franki: What inspired you to write Kimchi and Calamari? Rose: My inspiration came wrapped in a diaper and drinking a bottle of soymilk, all the way from South Korea. I'm referring to Connor, my third child, who we nicknamed Buddha Baba because of his plump cheeks and glowing smile. Adopting Connor was a true joy and believe me that's how I felt. But I also realized early on that it also involved a primal loss for him. I remember holding him in my arms and worrying about how he would cope later, especially during puberty, a natural time for such reflection. I knew I couldn't spare him from some hurt, but I wanted him to know that I "got it"- that who he was as a person didn't begin the moment he arrived in America. So while Joseph's story is all his own, KIMCHI & CALAMARI came from a place where I wanted to connect with kids reflecting on their identities. And it isn't just adopted kids needing this knowledge; all kids do. I love that old proverb that says children need to know their roots to develop their wings. Nobody cruises through middle school without some struggle to figure out who they are and where they fit in. Franki: What do you hope readers come away with? Rose: Above all else, I hope they enjoy a juicy page-turner that makes them laugh and think a bit. We authors love giving readers a bit of a roller coaster. And I would like kids to relate to Joseph, since he has both unique and every kid qualities. I try not to preach in KIMCHI & CALAMARI - we writers at best are storytellers. Yet I do feel that kids today are pulled in different directions. Because he's adopted, Joseph calls himself an "ethnic sandwich." Other kids feel "sandwiched" by interests, expectations, friend groups, perhaps divorce, different ethnicities, the list goes on. No matter what the pulls, I think kids need to understand that who they are, in all its varying pieces is okay. They are okay. Franki: What kind of response are you getting from the adoption community? Rose: It's been wonderful. Adoption Family Magazine was kind enough to review KIMCHI & CALAMARI this month, and Multicultural Review will be covering it soon too. And I've been able to speak to families at a number of adoption conferences and meetings. The feedback that most pleases me is when adopted kids tell me they related to Joseph -- that he felt real to them. And several adoption cultural camps will be using the book for discussion this summer, and that makes me happy too. Franki: I love how realistic it is. I love how the birthmother search does not stop other things from happening in his life. How did you decide to have it work that way? Rose: Well I know that nothing in families occurs in a vacuum. I'm the mom of four children and stepmom of two children, ranging from 20-years-old down to eight. The same day that one of my older children was experiencing her first boyfriend break up, another was whooping it up over his All Star team win. Meanwhile, dinner was burning and someone else was yelling because he there was no soap in the shower. Life is one big mishmash of joys-struggles-and absurdities all packed in twenty-hour hours at a time, so I couldn't make Joseph's search for his birth parent be the only happening in his middle school life. I did, though, try to show respect for the significance of such a search and what it meant to Joseph. Franki: I believe that books are a great way for kids to make sense of the world. Are there books that did this for your children as they were growing up? Rose: Yes, Franki, many. My older kids still recall many touching books we read together, such as A WRINKLE IN TIME, MRS. FRISBY & THE RATS OF NYMPH, SKELLIG and REDWALL. As a teacher I bet you'll agree that special characters stay with you forever. We hear the term character development a lot in education these days, and I really feel kids learn a lot of the right stuff, if you will, from fiction -- when characters step up, in spite of struggle and do the right thing. This is really topical because my family recently experienced a death of a close friend. This was my younger children's first close encounter with death, and we'd just finished reading EACH LITTLE BIRD THAT SINGS by Deborah Wiles together. My daughter Theresa echoed back words Comfort Snowberger had spoken to comfort herself and her cousin Peach after the deaths of Great-great Aunt Florentine and Great Uncle Edesto. The story gave Theresa strength to deal with her grief. Franki: Your characters are immediately likable and you were able to portray the feelings of all family members and friends realistically when it came to the birthmother search. Was this autobiographical or based on other things? Rose: Thanks, Franki. Well I don't turn my friends and family into characters. They wouldn't like it and I don't think it would ring true. I do, though, try to tap into feelings that are real and relatable, and of course as an adoptive mom that's what I did in KIMCHI & CALAMARI. I've had many talks with people touched by adoption, including adoptees, birth mothers and adoptive parents, and those feelings fed into Joseph's search for his birthmother. I wanted to show that in this search, Joseph was not only looking for his birthmother, but also himself. Franki: The school project was an interesting one. The whole issue started with that assignment. What made you choose that as the main catalyst for the problem? Rose: I'm a great believer in the value of thoughtful school assignments. I remember a teacher-friend assigning an essay to her students at the start of the new year explaining the origins of the student's name. I loved that idea. Not only do these assignments involve writing, but they get kids talking to their parents, beyond the logistical chatter we all experience at home. Of course the ancestry essay represented a sticky point for Joseph who was adopted, but in the end, writing it helped him make realizations about himself. Franki: How did your children respond to KIMCHI & CALAMARI? Rose: My kids would be first to tell you they deserve mucho credit for Joseph's voice, and they are right. I often read sections of KIMCHI & CALAMARI to them, and they'd give me feedback on not only the plot, but also if the voice worked. And you know how kids are; they don't mince words. If Joseph didn't sound fourteen and boyish, they'd shout out "Uggh!" or "That's goofy, Mom!" Now that the book is coming out, they are very excited. It's also been a nice way for my adopted children to continue conversations about their origins. But as with many mothers who have jobs and other responsibilities, Mom the Author is quickly forgotten when Mom the Cook or Mom the Chauffer is needed! Franki: Are you working on any new books? Rose: I'm finishing up a novel about a girl who moves to upstate NY from Texas with her mom and deaf brother to open an ice cream shop. (This is a tasty story to research. :)) And my other work-in- progress is a baseball story, in tribute to the men in my life and their maniac obsession with this game--I live with a Yankee fan, a Mets fan, and a member of Red Sox nation. Now there's true diversity. (For another great interview with Rose Kent, visit Cynthia Leitich Smith's blog.)

New Versions of Old Favorites

I just came across two versions of old favorites. There are lots of these out there and I always wonder what attracts me to the ones I purchase. I have a large collection of picture books in my room and a whole shelf full of different versions of various "favorite stories".

OUT OF THE EGG by Tina Matthews is a new version of THE LITTLE RED HEN. As usual, the Little Red Hen does all of the work (this time planting a tree) and the Fat Cat, the Dirty Rat and the Greedy Pig have no interest in helping. But this Little Red Hen also lays an egg and a little red chick is born. The baby chick teaches his mother a good lesson about sharing. A great surprise ending makes this a great one!

GOLDILOCKS AND THE THREE BEARS by Caralyn Buehner drew me in with the cover illustrations. The illustrator Mark Buehner, illustrated SNOWMEN AT NIGHT, a favorite at our house. The bear family on the cover looks so....friendly. You can tell it will be a great version of this story. The story is basically the same, but this Goldilocks is full of energy and rhyme. When she sees the 3 chairs, Goldilocks says, "Big chair, middle chair, little chair too, Somebody's here to bounce on you!" She proceeds to jump rope on each of the chairs. Goldilocks proceeds through the house with her jumprope. Her facial expressions are worth a closer look. I like this one because it stays true to the story but the author/illustrator team have given it a new energy.

GIVING NEW READERS A DIET OF MORE THAN LEVELED BOOKS

I just wrote an article for Choice Literacy about the limits of leveled books. It includes a booklist of great books for new readers if you are interested. Here is the beginning of it.


GIVING NEW READERS A DIET OF MORE THAN LEVELED BOOKS

I am going on another diet. Not one of my favorite things, but something I have to do. I know that for the diet to last through all of the weight I need to lose, I need a little variety. I can't eat lettuce, grilled chicken and oatmeal for months at a time. When I have gone on diets without variety, I have always ended up deciding that I'd rather just be a little plump. It isn't really worth it.

I am wondering if this is the same thing that our youngest readers feel when they are given only a diet of leveled books. I wonder if after months and months of leveled books as their only independent reading material, they feel as we chronic dieters do. Do they watch other students in the room reading "real books" in the same way that we watch size 5 colleagues in the lounge eating brownies? Do they think maybe they'd just rather not be readers? (Click here for the rest of the article on the Choice Literacy Website.)

Poetry Friday: Tour America

Tour America: A Journey Through Poems and Art
by Diane Siebert
Illustrated by Stephen T. Johnson
Review copy courtesy of Chronicle Books

Poetry Friday roundup this week at Big A little a.


Here's another book that would prompt these questions for my students: "Where in the library should this book be shelved? Is it poetry? Nonfiction? Geography? Art?"

Our social studies standards say that every fifth grader in the state should be able to

Use maps to identify the location of:
a. The three largest countries of North America;
b. The 50 states of the United States;
c. The Rocky and Appalachian mountain systems;
d. The Mississippi, Rio Grande and St. Lawrence rivers;
e. The Great Lakes.

Wouldn't it be fun to study the way Siebert and Johnson have highlighted, with poetry and art, the 22 states in TOUR AMERICA, and then try to make a supplemental volume that features the other 28 states? Or make a volume specific to the natural beauty, the historical significance, the unique events, and the known (or unknown landmarks) of your state or city?

Author Interview

Awards: School Library Journal Starred Review, Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award Honor Book, Cybils Honor Book

Reviews:
Wordswimmer
Bartography
propernoun

Setting Reading Goals

I was intrigued when I read this post by Jennifer at Kiddosphere. (thanks for the link, Jen Robinson!) Jennifer wants to read all of the Beverly Clary books before Cleary's birthday on April 12.

It seems that as readers, we set these kinds of goals every day. Fuse #8 has mentioned her goal of reading all of the Newbery books.

Years ago, once I realized that I hadn't really "read" any of the classics in high school or college---just got through the classes, I decided to read one Classic a Year. did this for a few years.

Then there was Mother Reader's 48 Hour Book Challenge--a competitive kind of goal setting thing. Shouldn't that be coming up again soon?

And then, of course, there is the goal that got this whole blog started--Mary Lee and I reading as many great middle grade novels in hopes that we would have read the Newbery before it is announced.


My students set these type of goals for themselves when it is part of our classroom talk. They find a series or an author and decide that reading the whole series is a good goal. Or they might want to try a genre that they have never tried.

Falling in love with a series or books by a certain author seem to inspire lots of goals.

I'm interested in goals that readers set for themselves--just for fun! If you have a minute to share your goals in a comment or on your blog, please do.

The Single, Most Important Thing a Great Teacher Knows

You cannot ask your students to do what you don't do.

NYC Teacher elaborates eloquently on this truth.

E.B. White Read Aloud Award

Don't know how this one passed me by: The E.B. White Read Aloud Award.

The Association of Booksellers for Children (ABC), founded in 1984, is a national organization made up of independent children's booksellers and other individuals that support independent bookselling. The E. B. White Read Aloud Award, established in 2004, honors a book that reflects the universal read aloud standards that were established by the work of the beloved author E. B. White in his classic books for children: Charlotte's Web, Stuart Little, and The Trumpet of the Swan. Each year members nominate a list of new books that they believe most embody this ideal, and a committee of booksellers determines the winner. The award is announced annually on the first Monday in April. In 2006, in recognition of the fact that reading aloud is a pleasure to be enjoyed by readers of all ages, the award was expanded to include two categories, The E. B. White Read Aloud Award for Picture Books, and the E. B. White Read Aloud Award for Older Readers. ABC members chose books for distinction based on their universal appeal as a "terrific" book to read aloud.

I found this year's winners here.

Picture Book: Houndsley and Catina by James Howe

Older Readers: Alabama Moon by Watt Key

Social Studies and Science in Literature

Miss Rumphius has been thinking lots about how and when (and if) we teach science and social studies in elementary classrooms, which books might be best for instruction in these areas (math, too), and the power of letting kids play outside.

Here's some good news from my 5th grade classroom on all of those topics:

Before break, my students planted terrariums as a part of their environments unit in science. Every group got the same size container, the same amount of soil and the same kind and number of seeds. Each container got roughly the same amount of light. The variables in this experiment were how they planted the seeds and how much water they gave their seeds. We did observations sporadically and in no consistent format. I told them to date each entry, to write down how much they were watering, and to measure their new plants, but it became obvious that they didn't always take accurate notes. They also experimented with ways to keep their observations: on paper in their Environments Journal, with words in the Memos application on their handhelds, with pictures drawn in the Notepad application on their handhelds, with photos taken with the digital camera on their handhelds, or some combination of methods. When they tried to graph the amounts and dates they had watered the first terrariums, and the growth of their plants, it became clear to them that consistent, regular observations are important if you are going to do anything with your data!

After considering the biotic and abiotic factors in their terrariums, the students made plans for new, more successful terrariums to be planted after break. They also insisted on a regular schedule for observations, and we will create an observation form so that they are sure to gather all the information they will need when it comes time to share the results of their new experiment.

Sometimes, no matter how much instructional time it takes, it's important to deliberately plan for a failure so that students have the opportunity to do an experiment over again and improve their methods. (No, I didn't tell them that I planned for the first terrarium experiment to fail!! Sometimes it's also important to keep your teaching cards hidden!)

To give them a bigger example of the fact that science is not a tidy, works-the-way-you-planned kind of discipline, I read Boy, Were We Wrong About Dinosaurs! by Kathleen Kudlinkski. I also want them to know that science is not DONE. There will be lots left to explore and discover when they grow up and become scientists.

I also read them A Seed is Sleepy and An Egg is Quiet by Dianna Hutts Aston. I asked them where they thought these books should be shelved in a library: fiction? nonfiction? science? gardens? birds? My students were in agreement that the two are nonfiction because of the inclusion of facts in the captions, but neither is the kind of book you would use to do research. Both books sparked lots of great discussion. At one point I was reminded of Scrotumgate. A student said humans don't have eggs. I corrected him and said that human females do indeed have eggs, and the student interrupted me to say, "yes, in their stomachs." No, I told him, not in our stomachs (that's where we digest food), in our ovaries. At a swift pace to head off any goofy embarrassment, I reminded them that even flowering plants have ovules and ovaries -- we learned that when we dissected flowers in 4th grade. The large picture of a chicken embryo in an egg caused another student to worry that he was eating baby chickens when he ate eggs, so we talked about the difference between a fertilized and an unfertilized egg. And then, thank goodness, it was time for P.E.!

About 1/3 of my class is involved in a weekly science enrichment pull-out. The rest of the class is working on a project for our preschool and kindergarten classes. I named the project "I See Science." We are taking pictures of anywhere in our everyday environments where we see science. (After another week or two of gathering pictures, we will create a picture book or multimedia project to share with the little kids.) An electrical outlet (the study of electricity), the geranium (biology), computers (computer science). Last week we took our cameras outside. We saw bumblebees, mud wasp nests, hyacinths blooming, a preying mantis egg case, chickadees, and budding trees and bushes. On the playground equipment, we found simple machines: ramps and pendulums and screws. I think they're getting the idea that wherever you look, you see science!

Rather than trying to cram the rest of this year's social studies content into the three weeks after break (before testing), I am going to use historical fiction (Blood on the River: James Town 1607 is our current read aloud), short nonfiction, and some videos and dvds to provide an overview of the remaining topics to build background knowledge that will help me to TEACH the concepts required by the state (after testing) rather than just COVERING the material (before testing). I'm really excited to share a book I found last week at Cover to Cover: Everybody's Revolution: A New Look at the People Who Won America's Freedom by Thomas Fleming. This book is full of great pictures, the text is very accessible, and his premise is perfect for my multicultural, multilingual classroom: What does the American Revolution have to do with me? Fleming highlights the contributions to the American Revolution of immigrants, blacks, Native Americans, women and children.

So that's my (rather windy) answer to the study that says we're not teaching science and social studies and our kids rarely get a chance to think.

Cracking Open the Author's Craft by Lester Laminack

I just received a copy of Lester Laminack's newest book for teachers called CRACKING OPEN THE AUTHOR'S CRAFT: TEACHING THE ART OF WRITING. For those of you who know Lester Laminack, he is a children's author, an author of professional books, and an amazing speaker. Because of this combination, he has written this amazing professional book that allows us to get inside of the decisions he made when he wrote his picture book SATURDAYS AND TEACAKES. 

Since SATURDAYS AND TEACAKES is such a great book, it makes sense to teach students about the craft of writing using words from the author. CRACKING OPEN THE AUTHOR'S CRAFT digs into Laminack's decisions and gives lessons to go along with several "visual and audible" crafts. Following each lesson, we also get other books that we can use for follow-up lessons on the same topic. Did I tell you the best part? It comes with a DVD of Lester reading aloud SATURDAYS AND TEACAKES and teaching the lessons himself. He tells us at the beginning of the book that the book/DVD set can be used flexibly. As teachers, we can watch the DVD to hear the language Lester would use when sharing the craft. Or, we could just pop in the DVD and have Lester teach the lessons to our students. It is a really unique book and Lester Laminack is one of the few people who has the expertise to do something like this. He is an expert in the field of literacy and he is also a great children's author. The combination allowed him to create this professional resource on writing. The book is not due in stores for a little while, but it is definitely worth keeping on your shopping list:-)