Finding Myself in the Classroom Library

I haven't seen my class list for this coming year, but I am almost sure to have students from Mexico, Japan or Korea, the Indian subcontinent, and perhaps several more countries or cultures. It is a struggle to make sure that every child I teach can find him or herself in the books in my classroom library.

Several new picture books from Marshall Cavendish will help me with this goal.

The Furry-Legged Teapot by Tim Myers is a version of a Japanese folktale in which a tanuki (a Japanese raccoon-dog) transforms himself into a teapot. In Myers' tale, the tanuki gets stuck in teapot form until he meets the Emperor and his grandson.

The Three Cabritos by Eric Kimmel is an original retelling of The Three Billy Goats Gruff, "with a Texas twist." A cabrito is a "young goat" in Spanish, and the monster under the bridge in this tale is a chupacabra, a legendary "goat sucker" or vampire monster first reported in Puerto Rico.

I'll have to get some help from my students (if they are literate in Spanish) or our ELL teacher with Sopa de Cactus, also by Eric Kimmel. This one is written in Spanish! In the author's note (Nota del autor) I see something something Revolucion Mexicana, something something Pancho Villa y Emiliano Zapata. So besides being what appears to be a folktale, perhaps a Stone Soup variation, this one might have some Mexican cultural and political history woven in.

The House Takes a Vacation by Jacqueline Davies

I am always looking for books with word play to share with my students. Often, the humor in language often goes right past them when they don't realize how playful language can be. I have books like Agatha's Featherbed and Tough Cookie in my classroom library. Sharing these books filled with puns, gives students new ways to think about words and often this shows up in their own writing.

THE HOUSE TAKES A VACATION by Jacqueline Davies is one that I am happy to add to my collection (thanks to Marshall Cavendish Children's Books). What a find! The concept is a fun one--a family takes a vacation so the house decides to do the same. The chimney complains in a "smoky voice". The roof is sore after the long trip and says, "Man, am I sore. I feel like I've got shingles." This picture book is full of puns and word play--new things for readers to discover with every reread. (I am still finding things I missed during the first few reads!)

The illustrations add to the fun of the book--they are done by Lee White.

Definitely worth checking out to add to your word study basket if you teach middle to upper elementary grades.

Cultural Literacy

Another summer of classic movies (CAPA's 38th season) at the Ohio Theater is almost over.

Slowly but surely I am attempting to make up for a lifetime of movie illiteracy. Once, and sometimes twice a week all summer, we go downtown to the gorgeous old Ohio Theater, hear live organ music on the Mighty Morton Theatre Organ (it raises and lowers near the orchestra pit and organist Clark Wilson performs with several silent films each season) and fill some of the gaps in my out-of-school education.

This summer we have seen
"North By Northwest" with Carey Grant,
"Treasure of the Sierra Madre" with Humphrey Bogart,
"Dr. No" with Sean Connery,
Alfred Hitchcock's "Rope" with Jimmy Stewart,
"12 Angry Men" with Henry Fonda,
and in a couple of weeks, this summer's education will end with
"Charade" with Carey Grant

It was interesting to see "Dr. No" in the same summer as "The Bourne Supremacy" (dvd) and "The Bourne Ultimatum." In my mind, James Bond doesn't hold a candle to Jason Bourne.

My other movie this summer was "The Simpsons Movie." Not sure where that fits in the big picture of cultural literacy, but having seen it will probably get me brownie points with my students!

Read Alouds With a Global Perspective on Choice Literacy

Choice Literacy has a follow-up article to Shari Frost's Read Aloud article. This one focuses on great beginning of the year read alouds with a multicultural/global perspective. A great list by Mary Ann Reilly. The article has books for K-3 and for 4-6.

Me and the Pumpkin Queen by Marlane Kennedy

Beth, at Cover to Cover told me that this was a good one. And, of course, I did! ME AND THE PUMPKIN QUEEN by Marlane Kennedy (Class of 2K7) is a story of Mildred. Mildred lives in Pickaway County Ohio and dreams of winning at the Circleville Pumpkin Show. This is a great story--the author's first book. It has the feel of a Deborah Wiles book--great characters, small town charm, grief, family and friends. As an Ohioan, I love this book. A great Ohio story, based on the best Pumpkin show ever. Since I have never been to the Circleville Pumpkin Show, it was fun to learn all about it and the time and commitment it takes to grow giant pumpkins. I think I may have to attend the pumpkin festival this year. I had no idea these giant pumpkins were over 1000 pounds!? Whether you are from Ohio or not, this is a great story with great characters. The themes of family, healing, and friendship are strong and the info about pumpkin growing are woven throughout in a way that helps you cheer for Mildred to grow the biggest pumpkin. Kids will love this story--everything about it! A great story for upper elementary school. Believe me, you'll want to make a trip to Circleville for the annual pumpkin show after you read this book. And you'll be looking for the Mildreds in the crowd. (To read about the real winners of last year's pumpkin show, visit here.) Pretty cool stuff!

Poetry Friday -- Back to School

One of the books I reread almost every year in August to get myself jived up again for the new school year is Educating Esme by Esme Raji Codell.

Here is one of her poems from the book:



HOW TO TEACH LEARNING

Sing it
Seal it in an envelope
Twist it under a bottle cap
"You are a winner!"
Tie it to the leg of a carrier pigeon
and let it soar
Hoard it greedily, with your back turned
Then share it with magnanimous grin
and glittering eyes
Make it a surprise
shining like a quarter
under a pillow
Whisper it
like the tow of summer's breath
through the willow
Or
Hide it
just between the tart skin and sweet flesh
of an apple
Make it forbidden
Make it delicious
Then
let the children
bite


Used with the blessing of Esme Raji Codell.
Used with apologies for Blogger's erasure of line indents. (Has anyone figured out how to get around this?)

Big A, little a has the roundup this week.

MOXY MAXWELL-INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR!!

It was totally my lucky day! I was at a Choice Literacy Workshop last week and met someone who loved MOXY MAXWELL DOES NOT LOVE STUART LITTLE as much as I did. She had loved it so much that she had found the author's email. She happily shared it with me and Peggy Gifford agreed to a blog interview. Since Moxy Maxwell Does Not Love Stuart Little is my most recent favorite children's book, this is great fun! (As you all remember, I made a call in my first post about Moxy to find the author and tell her to write more!) Well, read away and get the latest scoop on Moxy Maxwell and Peggy Gifford.
Franki: So many people love Moxy already. Is Moxy a character who was like you growing up or is she based on someone else in your life?

Peggy: When I was interviewed by Kirkus they asked the same question and my response was that Moxy is based on Everychild - of which I am one.

Franki: Tell us a bit about your childhood.

Peggy: I spent my summers (2nd through 5th grade) in the basement writing plays. When they were finished I would recruit reluctant adults and children to be in them. I was always the director and the star.

Franki: How did you decide to write about Moxy? Can you tell us a bit about the process?

Peggy: I was in a steam room taking a break from a long nonfiction piece I had been working on, when I noticed that I was noticing my toes. It occurred to me then that I had spent a fair amount of my childhood doing that very thing. What, I wondered, was I doing all those years looking at my toes and then I remembered that I was actually doing very little. As soon as I got home I wrote the first line of Moxy.

(I had tried writing a few times prior to that but now I see that my mistake was in trying to 'sound' like a children's story rather than telling the story I knew in a voice that was most natural for me.)
Franki: The photos in the book add so much and are such fun! How closely were you able to work with the illustrator/photographer on those? How did that piece come to be part of the book?

Peggy: As I was writing, Mark kept creeping in there with his camera taking photographs and I kept writing captions for them, the entire time thinking well, if an editor does like this book, they no doubt will want to cut them. (I thought this because I had never seen fiction illustrated in that way.) When Anne Schwartz and Lee Wade decided not only to keep them but to hire the extraordinary Valorie Fisher to take the pictures as well, I was truly shocked....utterly pleased.

Franki: We are SOOOO happy that there are more books about Moxy Maxwell coming out soon. Can you tell us a bit about the next books in the series.

Peggy: MOXY MAXWELL DOES NOT LOVE TO WRITE THANK-YOU NOTES is coming out next May and after that, MOXY MAXWELL DOES NOT LOVE TO PRACTICE THE PIANO.

Franki: Will all of the Moxy books have photos?

Peggy: I've just seen the photographs from the Thank You Note Moxy and they are SO FUNNY.

Franki: What kinds of books do you like to read in your free time? What kinds of books did you read as a child?

Peggy: As a child, I was a very eclectic reader picking up this and that.... among the most memorable: Eloise; THE LITTLE LAMB ON WHEELS; A Wrinkle In Time and Don Quixote, which was read to us by my sixth grade teacher over the course of the year. It (subconsciously) introduced me to the wide range of narrative voices; subject-matter and irony that are possible in fiction.

Currently I am staring at the face-down, spine-broken, two-thirds read GRAPES OF WRATH. There is nothing like The Grapes of Wrath to give you a little perspective.

Franki: Do you have a web site where people can learn more about you and your books?

Peggy: My web site will be up by the first of September. Perhaps you would be kind enough to post the address for me when I have it?

Franki: We would love to--can't wait!

More Back to School Books

Hornbook's Monthly Special is Back to School Books that received starred reviews in recent years. Everything from picture books to YA.

Also, the theme of Hornbook's 2008 special issue is...School!

(Thank you, Read Roger, for these news items.)

In local back-to-school/book news, I have added about 1200 titles (more like 1800 books, when you consider multiple copy sets for literature circles) from my classroom library into my LibraryThing. (search the tag "school" to see my classroom library) When I get back to it tomorrow, I will tackle my nonfiction shelf. Right now the mission is to catalog all the books in my classroom library. More later on how I intend to use this behemoth database.

Great New Blog --TWO WRITING TEACHERS

We just discovered a new favorite blog--right up our alley. Ruth and Stacey have started a blog for writing teachers and it is full of great stuff. It is called Two Writing Teachers. This is their mission:

Good teaching is good teaching. Too often we get caught up in what's
happening in our own classroom walls or in the faculty lounge of our own
school building. This blog is a place that erases all of those barriers
and focuses simply on teaching kids to write and catching minds in the
midst. It's happening not only 872 miles apart, but in classrooms beyond
our Midwestern town and East Coast City.


I don't think we realize how important this is in these political times--to connect with other teachers and to learn together without the politics/specific stresses of our own spaces.

Another thing that I love is how they came to blog together (didn't you wonder when you read that they lived 872 miles apart?) Well, here is how it happened:

Ruth and Stacey met in March 2007 at the Teachers College Reading and Writing Project’s Saturday Reunion. Ruth attended Stacey’s session, which was about grant writing. Even though Ruth and Stacey live 872 miles apart, they’re in touch daily.

Gotta love that! We all know as teachers how we often find others we connect with and can learn with and from. There is no better way to learn about teaching.

So, check them out. It is a great site--one I will definitely visit regularly! There is lots more I can say, but I think it would be more fun for you to visit for yourself!

Girl With 500 Middle Names by Margaret Peterson Haddix

Since we have been talking about good beginning-of-the-year read alouds and since this is our 500th post(!!!), I thought I would review a book that goes with the theme of the moment!

THE GIRL WITH 500 MIDDLE NAMES by Margaret Peterson Haddix would be a great read aloud. It is an early chapter book with lots to talk about. This is the story of Janie who moves into a new school. Her mother knits sweaters so that Janie can attend the school. But it is hard for Janie to fit in at a school where everyone lives in a big house and has new clothes. Janie has to wear the sweaters that her mom knits--those that were returned with names already on them--and she tells her classmates that she has many middle names. This is a very short chapter book and can cause lots of good discussion about fitting in, etc.


Isn't it coincidental that we posted our 500th post AND Alex Rodriguez (Yankees) hit his 500th career homerun this week? Rodriguez is the youngest in history to accomplish his milestone. And I am the YOUNGEST of A YEAR OF READING bloggers.