Paint the Wind by Pam Munoz Ryan

I was lucky to read and Advanced Copy of PAINT THE WIND by Pam Munoz Ryan. Ryan is one of my favorite authors and ESPERANZA RISING is one of my all-time favorite books. So, I was thrilled to read this new one.

This is the story of Maya, who has lost her parents, and now her grandmother. She goes to live with her mother's family and spends the summer at Sweetwater River learning about her mother, horses and herself.

Maya, as are all of Ryan's characters, is a strong female character. She has had lots of hard things happen in life but somehow finds a way to stay true to who she is.

This is a horse story, so it will appeal to lots of readers who love horses. Maya develops a relationship with a horse named Artemesia as she learns about horses and her mother from her Aunt Vi. Pam Munoz Ryan has included a glossary of "horse terms" as well as a note on the back of her book sharing some of her own experiences with horses.

But this book will also appeal to readers who aren't necessarily looking for a good horse story. It is a story of family, grief and of growing up. Pam Munoz Ryan continues to give us great female characters--girls who are strong, who are connected to their history and their family, and who find their own identity in rough times. I always read for character--plot is secondary to me as a reader-and Maya will stay with me for a very, very long time.

On an aside, this is a fat book with big print/spacing. So, it isn't as long as it appears. It should be perfect for middle elementary students. It seems perfect for 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders. I am anxious to share it with mine once school starts in the fall. It is due out in September.

A Week of Travel

"It must be so nice to be a teacher--having the summers off..."

How many times have you heard this since June?

This week, I was fortunate enough to participate in two workshops for teachers. I've been gone for a week, learning lots and seeing great people. I spent two days in Monterey, California at the Writers At Work Conference hosted by The Culham Writing Company. What a great time. If you don't know Ruth Culham (otherwise known as "The Traits Lady"), she runs an amazing 3 day conference every year. This year, I was able to hear Lisa Yee (who, by the way, is as wonderful in person as she is on her blog), Ralph Fletcher, and James Blasingame (who shared lots of great new YA titles), Many others presented but I wasn't able to hear their sessions. It was a great line up--Ruth Culham, Janet Angelillo, Lester Laminack, Bridey Monterossi, Linda Rief, Laura Robb, Charles Smith Jr., and Janice Wright--a combination of teachers, writers, children's authors, experts in children's lit and more. A great time and lots of learning!

Then I flew to Portland, Oregon for a Choice Literacy Workshop. I gave a workshop for two days on literacy in grades 3-6 and met such great people. Most of the people were from the Portland area but a few traveled far to attend the workshop and enjoy the city. There were other Choice Literacy Workshops going on by The Sisters, Jen Allen, Andie Cunningham, and Ruth Shagoury.

Both of these conferences understand how important teachers' learning is. Teachers learn lots and are thrilled with an hour for lunch! Teachers were in groups small enough for great conversations--groups where they could share and learn from each other. At both conferences, teachers talked about not knowing what to do with a full hour for lunch. We are so used to eating in 10 minutes, rushing to duty, etc. An hour lunch was a much appreciated luxury--as was the time to talk and learn with other colleagues who were thinking about literacy.

After spending four days with teachers at great institutes, I was very energized. (well, after recovering from my all night flight home!) We are all working so hard to make sure we do the best we can for our students. Teachers seem to be the target of so much criticism lately and I just don't see it. Teachers are working harder and smarter than we ever have. We understand more about how children learn and how best to create classrooms that meets the needs of ALL kids. As a profession, we seem to be losing confidence in our own decision making and we shouldn't be. I met so many amazing teachers this week and I learned a ton from them. Thinking together about student learning IN THE SUMMER.

I am tired of the world thinking that we all became teachers because we get our summers off. I admit that summer takes on a different pace but I wouldn't call it "OFF". I so treasure this time in July when I can attend workshops, read professionally, find new children's books that my students might fall in love with, and think ahead for the fall. In every city across the country, teachers are getting together attending workshops, and learning new ways to meet the needs of their students. I loved every minute of my learning this week.

Sneeze!

I just received a copy of this great new nonfiction book--SNEEZE!--from Charlesbridge Publishers. What a great book! I am pretty sure it will be a favorite in my class once school begins.

The topic alone is always interesting to kids. And the book is really informative. I learned so much that I didn't know before.

Every spread begins with a black and white photo of a child. Sometimes that child is sneezing. If not, there is definitely a potential for a sneeze in the scene(a cat, for instance). The second page in the spread uses great colorful "micrographs"--a new term for me that is explained at the end of the book. Micrographs are taken with either a scanning electronic microscope or a transmission electronic microscope. The images are magnified and very interesting to look at.

The back of the book also has some additional information on sneezes. Lots of info about sneezes and the body, told in a very kid-friendly way make this a great book to add to my nonfiction library. As I've said earlier, I am looking for nonfiction books that invite kids to read them from cover to cover. So many of the books that I have in my classroom have lots and lots of information spread out across the page. I feel like many of these books invite browsing and skimming. So, I am very excited about SNEEZE! The topic, photos, and format make it perfect for kids in middle elementary grades. And it is available in paperback!

Newbery Alert

Sharon's Newbery is picking up where Nina's Newbery (mock Newbery blog/event in Oakland) left off last year.

Poetry Friday -- An Original

The Test Scores Are In

A child is more than any one score.
And so is a teacher, too.
But when the scores surprise and please,
Loudly shout, "WOO - HOO!"

I celebrate the highest highs,
I celebrate every success.
Every score is a sign of learning;
Every score measures progress.

I know I taught, but did they learn?
The question haunts me less
Because I see the numbers there
And can measure my teaching with the tests.

A child is more than any one score.
And so is a teacher, too.
But when the scores surprise and please,
Loudly shout, "WOO - HOO!"


Round up this week is at Chicken Spaghetti.

Secret of the Sirens

Secret of the Sirens
by Julia Golding
Marshall Cavendish, 2006
review copy provided by publisher

Al Gore would love this series.

The basic premise is that mythical creatures (unicorns, pegasi, sirens, etc.) do still exist. They are protected by a group of humans who belong to the Society for the Protection of Mythical Creatures. These humans each show an affinity for a certain kind of animal. For example, one of the characters, Colin, has an affinity for horses. He is companion to a pegasus. The main character, Connie, seems to have an affinity for birds, and she is companion to the sirens before she knows any more than that she gets along well with animals, before she even knows about the Society and companions.

Here's where Al Gore comes in. The work of the Society, to hide and protect the few remaining mythical creatures from other humans, has become increasingly difficult as humans have overtaken and developed most of the remaining wild places in the world. And now, along the English coast where Connie lives, an oil refinery threatens the coastal rocks where the sirens live. The sirens are fed up with being pushed out of their homes, and they are retaliating by drowning refinery workers. If they keep it up, they could cause an oil tanker to wreck and foul the coast and the coastal waters. It's up to Connie to find a way to prevent that from happening.

To complicate matters, Connie learns that she is not simply a companion to birds/sirens. She is the only living Universal Companion. She is able to be companion to all species and all mythical creatures. Good thing there is a new Universal, because the ultimate evil, Kullervo, is gaining strength. In some ways he is like Connie, but when she asks, "Is he a universal companion?" this is the answer:

"Universal he may be, but companionship is far from his mind. I think he is more like a whirlpool -- or black hole -- pulling all who venture near him inexorably into his wicked schemes. Once creatures go down his road, it is nearly impossible to pull them back. They get in too deep, falling for his lies that all humans are the enemy -- the oppressor. It's tragic that while the sirens think that they are choosing freedom to act without restraint, they are in reality choosing captivity. They may believe he's serving their cause, but once he has his hooks into them, they will end up his slaves. He is only interested in them in so far as they further his goal."
"His goal?"
"The eradication of humanity."

There are all kinds of great tensions in this book. Good vs. evil, obviously. But also wilderness vs. development, humans as destroyers vs. humans as conservationists, nature vs. technology. Like I said, Al Gore would approve.

I can't wait to read the other books in the Companions Quartet: The Gorgon's Gaze and Mines of the Minotaur. Michelle at Scholars Blog doesn't like the not-so-subtle environmental message as much as I did. That just means that you'll have to read these and see what you think! Go now! You have a week before HP!

BIG News

Ginormous made it into the new edition of the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary. I remember hearing my students (one in particular...you know who you are) use this word for the first time four years ago.

Here's my prediction for a word that will be added some time soon, based on 1. my inability to break my students of saying it, even after two years of intensive interventions, 2. the efficiency of this word compared with the "correct" version, and 3. I broke down and used it myself. The word? VERSE, vb., meaning to compete with someone in a game or sport. "I'm going to verse him in chess." The roots of this word are in the preposition VERSUS, as in Army vs. Navy. (The correct/clunky/inefficient way to say "verse?" "Go against." How does "go against" relate to versus? On the other hand, it is clear to see how "verse" relates to versus.) Other words in the dictionary around VERSUS include, as a reminder that language is a living, changing thing: versatile and version.

For other new words that made it into the dictionary, see USA Today's AP story.

Happy Birthday

Today is the birthday of E(lwyn) B(rooks) White.

I celebrated by reading Moxy Maxwell Does Not Love Stuart Little, which I loved as much or more than Franki said we would!

Simply Sarah

Simply Sarah: Patches and Scratches
by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, illus. Marcy Ramsey
Marshall Cavendish, 2007
Review copy courtesy of the publisher

Simply Sarah: Anyone Can Eat Squid
by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, illus. Marcy Ramsey
Marshall Cavendish, 2005

Simply Sarah: Cuckoo Feathers
by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, illus. Marcy Ramsey
Marshall Cavendish, 2006

In a move that was quite revolutionary (for me), I read the three books in this series out of order. (I know. Amazing.) But because of that, I can say that they all stand alone quite nicely, and unlike some other early reader series books (Magic Tree House comes to mind), the way Naylor weaves in the common background information never feels formulaic.

I did have a disturbing sense of de ja vous as I started Patches and Scratches. Sarah is a spunky little girl of an unspecified age (maybe it's in there, but I can't recall it) between 2nd and 4th grade. She lives in an apartment in a big city (Chicago), her mom is an artist, and she has a little brother and a friend who lives on another floor in the apartment building. Her father is not the building manager, but Mr. Gurdy, the man who lives in a room in the basement of the building, does feature prominently in this book. In the book Cuckoo Feathers, the problem centers around pigeons. Echoes of Clementine?

Maybe Clementine-ish. There's nothing in any of the three books of the Simply Sarah series that has the flash and splash of the Clementine books, but the writing in the three books in this series is more consistent and even. (I liked the first Clementine book a WHOLE lot and the second one so-so. The same was true for my 5th graders.)

The basic premise in all three books is that Sarah wants to be anything but ordinary. She wants to be special. In all three there is a satisfying plot twist and things work out in the end...but definitely not the way Sarah or the reader thought they would work out. I think this structure of the text will support beginning readers who need to learn to pay attention to clues in the text as they read so that they can modify their predictions as they go along.

There's a lot going on with the characters in these books, but it is all woven very naturally into the story, so that it doesn't seem like the laundry list that I'm going to make it into: Sarah's father is out of the picture -- he is overseas building bridges and we only meet him through his weekly phone calls. Sarah's best friend Peter is black, and he lives with his grandmother. Sarah's two newest friends, Mercedes and Leon, live in the apartment building across the street. Mercedes is Leon's cousin. She was born in Mexico, and is now living in Chicago with her aunt, uncle and cousins. Mercedes and Leon attend Catholic school via a school bus; Sarah and Peter walk to their neighborhood public school. One of Sarah's friends at school is Tim, who is Chinese. In Anyone Can Eat Squid, Sarah comes up with the idea that saves Tim's family's Chinese restaurant from closing. Like I said, as a laundry list, it seems like a bad case of "what other element of diversity can we include?" But when you read the books, it comes off quite naturally.

I give Sarah a stamp of approval, and nominate her to be a part of the new Spunky Girl Character Club along with Clementine, Moxy, and Grace.

Children's Authors at NCTE

I know lots of bloggers are planning on attending the NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English) Convention in November in NYC. It is always a fun time with lots of authors and great talk about reading, writing, and books. Children's authors are always a highlight. Some of the major authors who are speaking have been announced on the website--thought you might be interested. Some are children's authors, some YA, some adult, some professional:

Jonathan Kozol at the Opening Gala
Amy Tan at the Friday Kickoff
Andrea Davis Pinkney and Brian Pinkney at the Books for Children Luncheon
Rudine Simms Bishop at the Elementary Get Together
Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson at the Middle Level Luncheon
Esmeralda Santiago at the Secondary Luncheon
Gregory Maguire at the Secondary Section Get Together
Ishmael Beah at the College Section Luncheon
Jerry Spinelli at the ALAN breakfast
Allen Say at the Children's Literature Assembly Breakfast


There are lots of others but these are some of the sessions that are being highlighted. Check it out!