Manga Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet

Manga Shakespeare: Romeo and Juliet
illustrated by Sonia Long
Amulet Books, 2007
2007 Cybils Graphic Novel nominee

Library copy. Due today. No renewal possible, which means someone has it reserved. I hope the person who has it renewed is a high school student who desperately needs to read Shakespeare in manga in order to access and comprehend this play. Better yet, I hope the person who has renewed it is a high school English teacher who is gathering all possible versions of Romeo and Juliet in order to meet the needs of every learner in her/his class.

It is what the title says it is: Romeo and Juliet in manga. The setting is present day Tokyo, where two teenagers, Romeo and Juliet, fall in love. Their rival families are still at war. But Romeo is a rock idol, and Juliet is a Shibuya girl (a Japanese "Goth Valley Girl"). Tybalt is tattooed with dragons and Mercutio has dredlocks. Friar John and Friar Laurence are Shinto monks.

Shakespeare's exact words are in speech bubbles rather than lines of poetry, while the story is played out in the classic conventions of manga (as defined by Scott McCloud in his book MAKING COMICS): the iconic characters with simple emotive faces; a strong sense of place; frequent use of wordless panels that prompt readers to "assemble scenes from fragmentary visual information"; small real world details; "various emotionally expressive effects such as expressionistic backgrounds, montages and subjective caricatures"; and "subjective motion -- using streaked backgrounds to make readers feel like they were moving WITH a character, instead of just watching motion from the sidelines."

If you think you know Shakespeare, you must check this out and think again. If you want to know Shakespeare, you should check this out because it will give you a different way into the canon of English Literature. And if you need to know Shakespeare for the test on Monday, this seems like a much better way than CliffsNotes to get a unique understanding of the story.

Poetry Friday -- A Noiseless Patient Spider

"It launched forth filament, filament, filament..."
First, I scanned my shelf of poetry and decided on Walt Whitman. I chose the Nature Company collection in the cardboard sleeve, illustrated with provocative black and white photos.

"It launched forth filament, filament, filament..."
I quickly found a poem that spoke to me -- A Noiseless Patient Spider. But could I use the whole poem? What would Copyright say?

"It launched forth filament, filament, filament..."
I did pointless Google search after fruitless Google search until I ran across the phrase I needed but couldn't find inside my brain: Public Domain. And my answer: Yes, you can use the whole poem.

"It launched forth filament, filament, filament..."
But then I found LibriVox: "LibriVox volunteers record chapters of books in the public domain and release the audio files back onto the net. Our goal is to make all public domain books available as free audio books." And here are eight different readings of A Noiseless Patient Spider. Eight. As in, how many legs does a spider have?

"It launched forth filament, filament, filament..."
And those eight readings made me think of this email I got from Franki (she's still in NYC):

Did you pick this up at the exhibit hall?
Might be a good poetry Friday post--just an fyi.
It is a pretty cool project and site.
Videoclips of kids reciting these poems.
Much more fun than a spelling bee, I would think.

Franki

http://www.poetryoutloud.org/

Poetry Out Loud dot org. Out loud. Like LibriVox.

Enough. Here's the poem:



A NOISELESS PATIENT SPIDER
by Walt Whitman

A noiseless, patient spider,
I mark'd where on a little promontory it stood isolated,
Mark'd how to explore the vacant vast surrounding,
It launch'd forth filament, filament, filament, out of itself,
Ever unreeling them, ever tirelessly speeding them.

And you O my soul where you stand,
Surrounded, detached, in measureless oceans of space,
Ceaselessly musing, venturing, throwing, seeking the spheres to
xxxxxconnect them,
Till the bridge you will need be form'd, till the ductile anchor hold,
Till the gossamer thread you fling catch somewhere, O my soul.



Roundup is at Susan Writes.

On Second Thought

Squiggles: A Really Giant Drawing and Painting Book
by Taro Gomi
Chronicle Books, 2007
review copy compliments of the publisher

I grew up with coloring books and paper dolls. I learned to keep my coloring inside the lines and my cutting on the lines. I can only wonder how my life would be different if I had had this drawing and painting book that is filled with partially drawn pictures to be completed however one wants, and provocative sentences that pluck one's creativity strings (for example, in the "Time to Eat" section -- "This is going to be very difficult to eat.")

Initially, this book went up on the gifts-to-give shelf in my closet to wait for the children of my friends to be old enough to enjoy and provide a "guest review." ON SECOND THOUGHT...I am going to take this book to school and give it to my students for homework. Stay with me here: each child will take the book home for a night and complete one of the pictures in any way he or she desires. It's a big book ("A Really Giant Drawing and Painting Book") so everyone will have a chance to do more than one page over the course of the rest of the year. We will make a very different kind of class book that will preserve these students' art and writing in a unique way.

The Worst-Case Scenario Survival Handbook: Junior Edition
by David Borgenicht and Robin Epstein
Chronicle Books, 2007
review copy compliments of the publisher

This seemed at first glance to be the perfect mentor text for a unit of study in writing workshop on "how to" writing. The book is divided into four chapters where a child's survival skills would be tested: at home, at school, in her/his social life, and outdoors. In each chapter, there are about a half a dozen "How To" situations, ranging from "How to Survive Being Grounded" to "How to Survive Farting in Public." Each survival situation begins with an introductory paragraph and a short numbered or bulleted list of steps. Perfect, right? Well, ON SECOND THOUGHT, I considered the very serious, very difficult, very un-frivolous survival situations that several of my students are going through right now. This book will be a part of my classroom library, and we'll discuss the format of the book when we look at nonfiction writing. I will probably invite students to add their own survival tips on 4x6 index cards in a pocket I'll make in the back of the book. But I don't think that in this class this year I will use this book for a whole-class project on "How To" writing.

NCTE: The Details

I have recovered from sleeplessness, sore joints (from all the walking), and two days of (pre-holiday/end of grading period) teaching. Now it's time to reflect back on NCTE. (Along with Jen, Betsy, Hloney, and Stacy and Ruth...among others, I'm sure. If you've got a post, let me know in the comments and I'll add you in!)

Great Sessions
Regie Routman spoke about how writing has the power to change children's lives...even more than reading. She was very inspirational. I can't wait to read her newest book, TEACHING ESSENTIALS.

Randy Bomer and three of his colleagues spoke about teaching the new literacies without technology -- as habits of mind and materials. They showed us ways to build a schema of the internet for children, with writing activities that promote an understanding of linking, multimodality, and design.

Bruce Morgan, Debbie Miller and Ellin Keene talked about professional development that has made a difference for each of them. Their examples ranged from the very personal (Bruce's) to institutional (Ellin's).

Betsy Bird (Fuse #8) shared a short list of books that defy description and categorization. I was familiar with most of them, but HOWTOONS is, in two days, the most popular book in my classroom.

Welcome to the Kidlitosphere was the best session in the history of NCTE! Okay, I'm a little biased, but we worked hard, had fun, and the folks who came to our session really wanted to be there. It was great to meet Stacy and Amy and Denise! Thanks for coming, fellow bloggers!

Children's Literature Assembly Breakfast featured Allen Say as the speaker. We got to see and hear his newest book, still in the editing stages. It's a sweet story with gorgeous pictures of the countryside of one of Japan's small, less inhabited islands.

Amazing Food
The reception for Rudine Simms Bishop (recipient of the Outstanding Educator Award) was held at The View on the 45th floor of the Marriott Marquis. The snacks included delicious raspberries and blackberries.

Liz, Susan, Jen and I had great Thai food at Pongsri.

AJ's brother suggested we eat at Keen's Steakhouse. The food was fabulous. I have never eaten a piece of red meat that big in one sitting, and I don't think I ever will again. But it was yummy. The creme brulee was...eh. Not the best I've ever had.

The Stenhouse NCTE Author Breakfast was at a quintessential New York deli: The Carnegie Deli. I was still stuffed from Keen's, so I ordered a fruit bowl. Think MIXING bowl size! A bagel and lox came with a two inch stack of lox and a slab of cream cheese the size of the BOXES of cream cheese in the grocery store!

Sharon Hancock from Candlewick invited me to a small, intimate dinner with Megan McDonald (of Judy Moody fame). We ate at Artisinal. The mix of people was very fun. In addition to Sharon, there was Charlie and Jenny from Candlewick; Laura and Sarah, librarians in Queens; Malore, formerly of ALA and now in charge of bringing The Electric Company back to life; and Carolyn, a retired high school librarian/professor of librarianship. And me, a blogger. I had the pumpkin risotto, Malore was the one who braved the pigeon in chocolate sauce, and what was I thinking when I had the creme brulee at a fromagerie?!?! Why didn't I get the CHEESEcake??? Oh, well. I'll have to go back, I guess!

The Loot (in no particular order)
HOWTOONS by Griffith, Dragotta, and Bonsen (HarperCollins booth sell-out)
THE CASTLE CORONA by Sharon Creech (HarperCollins booth sell-out)
THE PAINTED DRUM by Louise Erdrich (HarperCollins adult books booth one-free-book)
DIARY OF A WIMPY KID: RODRICK RULES by Jeff Kinney (uncorrected proof)
STINK AND THE GREAT GUINEA PIG EXPRESS by Megan McDonald (ARC, Candlewick dinner)
JUDY MOODY AND STINK: THE HOLLY JOLIDAY by Megan McDonald (signed, Candlewick dinner)
TRAILBLAZERS: POEMS OF EXPLORATION by BobbiKatz (review copy, signed)
HONEYBEE by Naomi Shihab Nye (uncorrected proof)
THE BEST EID EVER by Asma Mobin-Uddin (she lives just down the road from my school!!!)
HOW TO PAINT THE PORTRAIT OF A BIRD by Mordicai Gerstein (give-away by the publisher because I stood and looked at the book!)
KAMISHIBAI MAN by Allen Say (CLA breakfast)
(...and a few more that stayed at school...)

NCTE: Wow!

What a great conference!

Too bad I have to go to work today instead of reflecting on the great sessions I attended (Regie Routman wins for inspiration; Randy Bomer and his co-presenters win for ideas I want to try in my classroom), the amazing food I ate (and some that I didn't -- pigeon in chocolate sauce), the distances I walked (will my feet and hips ever recover?), the books I got for free or cheap, and the new friends I met (some for the first time ever, and some for the first time in person).

Stay tuned for more!

Welcome CCBC Visitors!

We are proud to be the "Link of the Month" at the Cooperative Children's Book Center at the School of Education University of Wisconsin-Madison!

If you haven't checked out the CCBC website, go now and look at all the children's literature/education resources they have! This page of links is a great overview. Bookmark it for frequent use!

Thank You For Your Patience

We are NYC bound for the National Council of Teachers of English annual convention!

Polishing up the presentation, doing one more load of laundry and packing, writing lesson plans for the substitutes, finding quotes for the speeches...whew!

Hopefully, we'll manage to post some highlights during the conference, but if not, stay tuned for some post-conference posts next week!

Poetry Friday -- A Meditation on Consumerism

I give you the middle stanza. Here is the whole poem, which begins with apples and ends with a dog.

The Necessary Brevity of Pleasures
by Samuel Hazo

***
Call it a tug-of-war between enough and more
than enough, between sufficiency
and greed, between the stay-at-homers
and globe-trotting see-the-worlders.
Like lovers seeking heaven in excess,
the hopelessly insatiable forget
how passion sharpens appetites
that gross indulgence numbs.
Result?
The haves have not
what all the have-nots have
since much of having is the need
to have.
***

The round-up is at a wrung sponge.

The Complete 4 For Literacy by Pam Allyn

I heard Pam Allyn, author of THE COMPLETE 4 FOR LITERACY, speak at the Connecticut Reading Association Convention last week. I have been spending the last few days with the new book and am loving it.

Now, I am not usually a fan of things with names or numbers attached. My inferring skills have told me that many of these have been far too prescriptive, contrived, and scripted for me.

But, the Complete 4 is none of these! It is AMAZING.

Pam Allyn has created a framework to help teachers plan literacy in a way that keeps the decision making on the teacher. She respects our knowledge and does not intend to tell us how to teach. However, the framework she provides is brilliant. She has thoughts about yearlong planning so that all areas of literacy are covered over the course of the year. She spends time talking about the importance of the whole school, K-5 conversation so that students' learning builds. She shares goals for various units and how the goals would be different in a K-2 nonfiction unit than a 3-5 nonfiction unit. She shares sample yearlong plans with explanations about the things she's included. She includes ways to teach conventions in authentic ways in both major and minor units.

This is really better than any planing guide I have ever seen. It is really a tool to help teachers THINK in powerful ways about their daily and long-term planning.

I have a habit of becoming TOTALLY obsessed with a professional book every year or two. This is the book I am currently totally obsessed with. Such amazing ideas and they seem like things that teachers at all experience levels would find helpful. I have rethought my planning already and I can't wait to share it with teachers that I work with.

On a side note, check out Pam Allyn's website. She founded a Books for Boys program in NYC that is pretty amazing.

My Dead Girlfriend

My Dead Girlfriend
by Eric Wight
TOKYOPOP, 2007
a 2007 Cybils nominee

This was a fun book to read, and it is going to be even more fun to review. I'm going to get to use the phrase, "bitch-slapped by a Honda" in this review, and that's an occasion I don't want to miss. (You might remember the time another Kidlitosphere blogger used a similar phrase. My role model.)

I really didn't think I was going to like this book. After all, I had just finished reading The Plain Janes by Cecil Castellucci, and she gets high school cliques so right. Now here I was reading about caricatures of high school cliques: The Deadbeats are just that -- led by a vampire and including Frankenstein the bully. The Aberzombies are brainless conformists. The Foreign Exchange Students are aliens. Literally. The Coven of Witches are the drug dealers. The Lab Monkeys are the science nerds. Finney and Dahlia seem to be the only "normal" kids in the school. (It always seems like you are the normal one, right? Surrounded by all the freaks?) Right about here is when Finney gets beat up by the Frankenstein bully. When Dahlia asks him if he's okay, he says, "Felt kind of like being bitch-slapped by a Honda."

Then Finney meets Jenny Wraith (just a little foreshadowing there) at the carnival and has a great time. They arrange to meet the next day, but Jenny never shows up. Finney is in a deep, deep funk. Then his dad (who is a ghost) has a heart to heart talk with him and tells him that while he can't choose the way he'll die, he can choose the way he'll live. So Finney snaps out if it and asks Dahlia to the movies.

While walking home through the woods, Finney is ambushed by Franken-bully and his pals. Just when it seems that all is lost, a dark spirit (death is fighting for Finney's life?) swoops in and takes out the whole group, then whisks Finney away to the graveyard. And shows him a gravestone. The gravestone of Jenny Wraith, who fell into a well and died the day she was supposed to meet Finney and didn't. Then the hood of the dark cape falls away and you see that the ghost of Jenny is who saved Finney.

There you have it: the dead girlfriend in the title of the book. Plus, the perfect set-up for book two in the series. What is Finney going to do about Dahlia, the live girl that he asked to go to the movies, now that he has a dead girlfriend?