to be like the sun by Susan Marie Swanson

I LOVE sunflowers.
I LOVE picture books about sunflowers.
I LOVE poetry about sunflowers.
And I LOVE Margaret Chodos-Irvine's illustrations.

So, my favorite new picture book of the moment is to be like the sun by Susan Marie Swanson and illustrated by Margaret Chodos-Irvine. When I first looked at it, the title and the sunflower on the front drew me in. It wasn't until I opened it up that I recognized the illustrations and had to look back at the cover to see that they were indeed done by Chodos-Irving. The coloring is a bit different from Ella Sarah Gets Dressed but they are clearly her illustrations.

It looks like this book was first published as a poem as part of an anthology. Whoever decided to turn it into a picture book was very, very smart. It makes a PERFECT picture book. In my opinion, there can never be enough books about sunflowers or planting sunflowers.

This book takes you from the seeds in the spring to the winter when the sunflower is just a memory. The language may be what makes this book my favorite of the day. My favorite line is the one when the little girl is planting the seeds. "All the instructions are written in your heart." There are so many more lines like this.

I am always looking for books with great language. But I often find trouble finding books with great language that young children can enjoy and appreciate. Often the books are geared toward older children. This book is good for all ages and I think readers of all ages will appreciate the language that is so perfect.

As I sit here in the midst of a blizzard, it is quite nice to have this book to read and remember that spring isn't that far away.

WHY WE TEACH by Linda Alston

WHY WE TEACH: LEARNING, LAUGHTER, LOVE AND THE POWER TO TRANSFORM LIVES is a timely book for anyone who is teaching in 2008. It reminds us why we teach--through hard times, after hard days, and during these days of mandated curriculum and testing. Linda Alston shares stories of her own teaching career--short pieces that can remind us all the joys of teaching and of being in the company of children every day.

I have talked to so many teachers across the country who have told me that they aren't having fun anymore. That teaching is no longer enjoyable. Linda addresses the times and clearly holds on to what is important for the children we teach.

"At the end of the day, we are exhausted. We feel as if we cannot teach another day--that is, until tomorrow. In the morning, we find the strength to come back and teach again. Why? Because we love and believe in children. We behold the gifts in them and nurture the children to become their most magnificent selves. We hold on to hope that their futures will be bright and glorious. The day that we don't go back might well be the day we miss the miracle of a child making a connection, saying something funny or profound, creating a work of art, and giving our lives meaning and purpose." (Page 96)

I found the stories in this book to be just what I needed. The foreword by Vivian Paley and the afterword by Lester Laminack are also very powerful. The stories can be read in any order. But they all remind us how much we can learn from children and how important it is for us to do what is right for the children we teach.

Poetry Friday -- For Will and Lyra

Yesterday, I finished listening to The Amber Spyglass. Before that I listened to The Golden Compass and The Subtle Knife, all by Phillip Pullman. I had read all three books, but long enough ago to have forgotten much.

Here's a poem for Will and Lyra, and for me to remember now that they are gone until I read or listen them back to life.

Wild Geese
by Mary Oliver

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.


(the rest of the poem is here...the roundup is here)

Who Knew?

Did you know?
In New York, it is against the law to throw a ball at someone's head for fun.
The Venus Flytrap grows naturally only in North and South Carolina.
In Gary, a person may not enter a movie house or theater or ride a public streetcar within four hours of eating garlic.
In Alaska, it is against the law to wake a sleeping bear in order to photograph it.
Each August, Twinsburg, Ohio holds the Twin Days Festival, the world's largest annual gathering of twins.

I learned all of this AND SO MUCH MORE in the new book GO, GO America by Dan Yaccarino.
Beth at Cover to Cover shared this book with me yesterday. I thought it was going to be like all of those other books about states--general info. But when I opened it up and started reading, I was amazed at how much fun info was packed into every page. What fun information. Every single piece of trivia is as interesting as those I shared above. It is quite a fun book. One I'd love to read Cover to Cover. In terms of curriculum, there is lots of ways to use this book in the classroom. We are currently doing a unit on government-such a hard thing for kids to understand. But if we take some of these laws and learn about how they actually came to be, it might really help them understand how democracy works. This states in this book are set up in order of how the Farley Family travels the country. The Table of Contents is quite creative and the author dedication ties into the book too. At the end of the book, more traditional information about each state is shared (capital, state flower, motto, etc.)

This will be a definite hit in my classroom (if I ever decide to share it!).

Stories That Dovetail in the Middle

All three of these books tell endless stories.

Both covers are front covers. The middle is the shared ending or the roundabout that tells you to flip the book over and read the same story told a different way.

For 20 years I had one example of such a book. All of a sudden in 2007 I found two more.

One is unique; three is a collection. Do you know of any other books that have stories that dovetail in the middle like these?


Giant Story/Mouse Tale: A Half Picture Book
by Annegert Fuchshuber
Carolrhoda Books, 1988
personal copy

The giant wants a friend, but he's afraid of everything. He runs away to escape his fears, and finds himself in a meadow. In the center of the book, he stretches out in the grass to rest, wishing for a small friend he could hold in his hand. Read from the other side and find a brave mouse who wants a friend, but no one wants to be a friend to such a brave mouse. She goes searching for a friend and winds up in a meadow, where she curls up in a warm spot to rest until she has enough strength to go looking again for a friend. The center spread? The giant stretched out sleeping with the sleeping mouse in his hand.


I Love You More
by Laura Duksta
illustrated by Karen Keesler
Sourcebooks, 2007
review copy compliments of the publisher

Read from one side and hear Mommy answer the question, "Mommy, just how much do you love me?" Read from the other side and hear a little boy answering his mother's question, "So, just how much do you love me?" In the middle, you find the ultimate answer that they each have for the other: "I love you more than anything in the whole wide world."


Dogs and Cats
by Steve Jenkins
Houghton Mifflin, 2007
personal copy

If you start on the dog side of this book, you will find double page spreads with information on one aspect of canines (size and shape, how breeds came to be, etc.) and fabulous cut and torn paper collage illustrations. Don't miss the cat shadow in the corner of each page with a single sentence of information about cats on the same topic. In the center of the book, a cat and dog are stretched out together on a rug. Flip the book over and you read detailed information about cats (with the same great illustrations), keeping watch for the shadow dog and the single sentence of related information about dogs.

Meme: Passion Quilt

Monica, from Educating Alice, tagged us for the Passion Quilt Meme.

Here are the rules:

• Think about what you are passionate about teaching your students.
• Post a picture from a source like FlickrCC or Flickr Creative Commons or make/take your own that captures what YOU are most passionate about for kids to learn about…and give your picture a short title.
• Title your blog post “Meme: Passion Quilt” and link back to this blog entry.
• Include links to 5 folks in your professional learning network or whom you follow on Twitter/Pownce

For us, just like for Monica and Doug, at Borderland, it's a struggle to untangle our passion from the passions of our students, and on top of that, to find a photo that represents it all.

The best we can come up with is this one. In a Choice Literacy article, Franki wrote about creating Revision Toolbags for her students -- big ziplocks filled with all the fun tools for revision that she uses when she writes: highlighters, sticky notes of all sizes, scissors and tape, gel pens with colored ink, staplers and staple removers. Knowing that our children have only been writers for a couple of years, really, and that they are still children, after all, her idea was to let children play with revision, let them experiment with revision and all the tools writers might use. I read the article and it made such good sense that I stopped at Staples after school that very day and spend a wad on revision tools. And sure enough, when I introduced the revision toolbags, revision's popularity soared. Suddenly, revision was fun.

So here's a picture that shows Franki's idea and the way one of my students put her idea into action. It's a picture that exemplifies the ways we share professionally and "borrow" each other's ideas either flat out or with a new spin. It shows how our students try on our passions (reading and writing) and make them their own.


We'll tag Karen and Bill at Literate Lives, Katie at Creative Literacy, Megan at Read, Read, Read, and Meredith at Learning Together. We know that one of you is in Chile (last we heard) and two of you are up to your ears with report cards. Do this when you get around to it. Can't wait to see what you come up with! (I did a blog search of Meme: Passion Quilt and there are hundreds of entries. It would make interesting reading, but alas, report cards are calling my name, too. Actually, I need to finish grading...sigh...NOT my passion!)

The Spotlight...

...is on US over at 7 Impossible Things Before Breakfast!!!

Jules and Eisha, thank you for the fabulous interview (love the images you found!!), and Liz, Jen, Sarah, and Susan, thank you for your kind words!

Great Characters!

I always look for books that can become children's favorite characters. I look for characters that are featured in more than one book so students can look forward to the next book about the character and can think about what might be next for their favorite characters. Here are a few that I recently picked up.

LaRUE FOR MAYOR: LETTERS FROM THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL
For those of you who love LaRue from his last few books (Dear Mrs. LaRue), you'll love this new one about this amusing dog. This time LaRue is writing letters to his owner as he decides to run for mayor. The other candidate wants to take away dogs' freedom! fun book and also one that can be used to explain elections in a way that could make some sense to young children.


BIG CHICKENS FLY THE COOP by Leslie Helakoski
The four chickens from BIG CHICKENS are back. This time they leave the safety of their chicken coop to find the farmhouse. But things aren't that simple. I think the illustrations of these 4 chickens are the best--their personalities definitely come through. The story line and the repeated text are predictable and fun. Makes you look forward to a third book about these chickens!



MONKEY WITH A TOOL BELT by Chris Monroe
I am including this one even though there is only one book about this Monkey. I am including it because I am hoping that there are more to come. I picked it up after reading Fuse #8's review and the post at Schu's Blog of Lit and More. The illustration of the monkey totally sold me. I'm not sure what it is about this book but I LOVE it. The monkey totally cracks me up and he grows on you more and more as the book goes on. What a concept!

NonFiction Monday

As part of our writing workshop, we are doing a study of Literary Nonfiction. When I think about what that means, I think it is quality nonfiction writing --the nonfiction writing that has the qualities of good writing. It is different from encyclopedia or traditional report writing.

Knowing that this is a big focus for our grade level standards, I have been trying to pick up some good mentor texts--nonfiction books that students can learn from. I am amazed by how many great nonfiction books are out there these days. These are some of the newer ones I've picked up.

POOP: A Natural History of the Unmentionable by Nicola Davies
The version of this that I purchased is a very tiny book (3" X 5") which makes it quite fun! The illustrations are amusing and the writing has a great deal of humor embedded in it. A topic that kids love to read about and they can certainly learn from the casualness of the writing.




THE BROOK BOOK: EXPLORING SMALL STREAMS by Jim Arnosky is full of great information about brooks. The illustrations are soft and the colors work. Many features of nonfiction text (labels, question headings, etc.) are embedded throughout and there is variety in the page layouts. The language is perfect when looking at quality nonfiction writing. One page says, "As a brook tumbles and runs downhill, the moving water shapes te land it flows over." Every line seems packed with information and the writing is quality nonfiction. The author's note lets readers know that the book is set up to help you get the most out of a visit to a local brook!


A DICTIONARY OF DANCE by Liz Murphy is a fun dictionary of dance vocabulary. Each letter of the alphabet is accompanied by a dance specific word such as improvisation or kick. The pronunciation and definition are included. The illustrations give readers a visual to further explain the word.



I GET WET by Vicki Cobb is an older book (2002) that I just discovered. I purchased this one because of the writing and the page layouts. Cobb often places the words in a wave coming out of a faucet or something similar. The key is that the writing in those spaces is well-written. My students often have fun with font and word placement but forget about the quality of writing when doing so. This will show them how to tie those things together.

FROGS by Nic Bishop
The photographs in this book were what drew me to it in the first place. The writing is as spectacular as the photos. The book is packed with information and organized in paragraphs about different things. One paragraph lead says, "Some people are confused about the difference between a frog and a toad, but you do not have to be." Love that! A great index and glossary are found at the end of this book.



HOW STRONG IS IT? by Ben Hillman
I heard about this book from Karen at Literate Lives. HOW BIG IS IT? by the same author is a class favorite. This is a great second book. The illustrations are fascinating--showing strong things like lasers, sharks, and wood. The photos draw you into the text and the text goes on to tell you the information you want to know. The writing is tight--one column per photo. It is organized by paragraphs and well written. Each page can be studied by nonfiction writers and they will learn lots about organization, choice of details, and more.

HOORAY FOR INVENTORS! by Marcia Williams
I would consider this book to be a graphic novel of sorts, but not really. Each page stands alone and has the feel of a comic book. Some boxes hold isolated information while other spreads connect a story about a famous inventor. Facts are found in every white space on the page so there is lots to look at and discover. The organization is an interesting component. The index helps readers find the information they are looking for.



Nonfiction Monday roundup is at Picture Book of the Day.

Weekend Reading

The February Carnival of Children's Literature is up --Leap In!

The February issue of The Edge of the Forest is up -- thank goodness for that extra February day so that it could be published in February (with 29 minutes to spare)!