Melvin Might?

My students were THRILLED this week when they saw that I had a copy of the new Trucktown book by Jon Scieszka!  They have loved SMASH! CRASH! and were thrilled to see another one with the characters that they met in the first book.

MELVIN MIGHT? is about Melvin, a cement mixer.  Melvin is a worrier. He worries about everything! When one of his truck friends needs help, Melvin is worried that he can't do it. This book has a theme that is similar to The Little Engine That Could and also reminded me of Wemberly Worried by Kevin Henkes.  This is a great story with the same fun and colorful illustrations that we came to love in SMASH! CRASH!  There are also repeated lines that the kids naturally jump in on. And, just like the first one, this book has a great fold-out spread!  

Lots to love about these books.  Kids enjoy the stories and the illustrations.  Scieszka clearly understands young readers.  He gives them a story that works but also thinks about the text--giving them places where they naturally feel invited to join in.  And he uses great language--words kids love--"roars", and "soars"--and fonts that show kids how text can be read.  You know how I feel about leveled texts taking over our classrooms. Jon Scieszka's Trucktown books remind us that great authors can write great books for kids, without using controlled vocabulary and limiting text options.  Instead, these books support new readers by engaging them in a great story and giving them language that invites them to participate, notice words that are used again and again. .  Isn't this the best way to support our youngest readers?

The Snow Show: With Chef Kelvin

The Snow Show: With Chef Kelvin

by Carolyn Fisher

Harcourt, 2008

review copy provided by the publisher

Carolyn Fisher got the memo that science should be fun. 

The Snow Show is a TV cooking show and the reader is in the audience for the episode where they make snow. As with any recipe, you start with your "ingredients: (available in your better latitudes) sun, water, wind, specks of dust, heat, cold." Next, the directions take you through the water cycle, the formation of snow crystals, and the assembly of a snowman, all with illustrations that explain and entertain.

Along with the fun, the reader gets a giant helping of great vocabulary, like (new one to me) DEPOSITION -- when vapor turns to ice without turning into a liquid, and some scientific equations for phase changes, like the one for freezing: liquid - heat = solid (ice). 

A must-have for your weather unit. Especially this time of year!

Here is Carolyn Fisher's website, where you can get a free activity kit to go with THE SNOW SHOW. The activities range from easy to expert -- from seasonal to scientific.

How Fast Is It?

How Fast Is It?  A Zippy Book All About Speed

by Ben Hillman

Scholastic, 2008

I bought it.  Had to have it.

If you are a fan of How Big Is It? and How Strong Is It? you are going to have to buy this book.

Same great pictures that say almost as much as the words, same great text that grabs you and makes you want to read:

Birds Gotta Swim, Fish Gotta Fly

Some animals don't do as they're told. Birds are supposed to fly. Fish are supposed to swim. Now meet the penguin and the flying fish. They've turned the rules topsy-turvy. 

Coyote vs. Roadrunner

You may be surprised to learn that some television cartoons show events that have nothing at all to do with reality! But before you throw down this book and start writing an indignant letter to the television networks, let's see how bad it really is.

Computer

The fastest computer in the world is that small, squishy blog of glop inside your head.

Those are a few of my favorite leads. Hillman is a master of endings, which I think are even harder to write:

Even teenagers don't grow that fast.  

You might wonder if you can really use a sneeze to gain an advantage over your tennis opponent. You could, but please don't. It's not polite. And just to be safe, cover your mouth when you sneeze. Please.

"And if you make me explain relativity theory one more time, I'm stopping this bus!"

Who Invited Blogger to the Party?

November 6, the exact same day the 21 Day Comment Challenge started, Blogger rolled out a new way for readers to react to blog posts.  (Thank you, Megan of Read, Read, Read for the heads up on this, because I pay attention to the Blogger Blog, like, not at all.)

Give your readers a chance to give you feedback on your post with one click of the mouse.  Here are a couple of examples of what it might look like (from the Blogger Blog):

Check it out on Megan's blog -- let her know just how cute those nieces are!!!

The 21 Day Comment Challenge

Did you see the news at MotherReader and Lee Wind?  

Are you going to try to comment on 5 Kidlitosphere blogs each day for the next 21 (or so) days?

Give it a try. The bar is low. You can do it.

Here's my theory (well, one I borrowed that I like a a lot): The world doesn't get changed by single monumental acts. The world gets changed by doing something small over and over again. It's like the power of reading aloud to your students for 20 minutes EVERY DAY. Sharing a poem with your students EVERY DAY. Making time to make a personal connection to each student EVERY DAY. 

I'll be looking for you in the comments!

Walking to School

Walking to School: A Story from Northern Ireland

by Eve Bunting

illustrated by Michael Dooling

Clarion Books (Houghton Mifflin), 2008

review copy provided by the publisher

This is a story for today's children.  The problems in the world around them (in this book the tension and violence between the Catholics and Protestants of Northern Ireland) can seem too big and too long-standing ever to be solved.  And yet there's hope.  A connection is made, child to child, across the boundaries that are meant to keep them apart and at odds.  The adults may not be able to end "The Troubles," but perhaps the next generation will.

Allison is a Catholic child in Belfast, Northern Ireland.  To get to her new school, she has to walk through a Protestant section of town. Protestants line the road to harass and threaten the children and the adults who walk with them for protection.  If that's not scary enough, Allison has a secret.  She overheard her uncle planning to "teach a lesson" to a Catholic who has been seen associating with Protestants. The "lesson" involved being beaten senseless with both legs broken. What's a child to do when the adults around her perpetuate the violence rather than working to end it?  

The story turns around a button, a marble, and a connection made between Allison and a Protestant girl who has been forced by her mother to come participate in the harassment.

This is an amazing contemporary story, based on an actual event, about the power of young people to bring about social change and justice. Like I said, it is a story for today's children.

Eve Bunting has published over 250 books. She grew up in Ireland. She doesn't shy away from topics like homelessness, racism, divorce, and immigration (to name a few). This would make a great addition to an Eve Bunting author study in the upper grades and middle school.

You must visit Michael Dooling's website.  His catch phrase is History Through Picture Books, and when you browse through the list of books he's illustrated, you'll recognize many favorites. According to his bio, he often paints from life -- his family and neighborhood children dressed from the collection of vintage clothes and costumes that he and his wife have amassed.

Eve Bunting's bio on KidsReads.com.

Review and discussion at The Reading Zone.

The Bill Martin Jr. Big Book of Poetry

A great new poetry anthology by Bill Martin is out. It is called THE BILL MARTIN JR. BIG BOOK OF POETRY. And it includes a forward by Eric Carle.  It is a great anthology including almost 200 great poems for kids.  The poems are divided into categories such as Animals, World of Nature, People and Places, Around the Year, School Time, Mother Goose and more.  You will see many of your favorite poets in the collection such as Aileen Fisher, Eve Merriam, Margaret Wise Brown, and Jack Prelutsky.  The illustrations are done by some of your favorite children's illustrators including Lois Ehlert, Steven Kellogg, Chris Raschka and Ashley Bryan.  This is more than a collection of poetry--it is a true celebration of some of the best poets and illustrators for children over the years.

This is a big book--almost 200 pages and  bit heavy to carry around.  It is FILLED with the best of poetry for kids of all ages.  I didn't even hesitate when I picked this one up to buy. I think kids will love it and I think it is organized in a way that teachers can use it easily to find poems that they want to share with students.  (It would probably make a great baby gift too!)

The round up this week is at Check It Out.

Dr. Frankenstein's Human Body Book

Beth pointed this book--DR. FRANKENSTEIN'S HUMAN BODY BOOK:  THE MONSTROUS TRUTH ABOUT HOW YOUR BODY WORKS--out to me the other day when I visited Cover to Cover.  It is the coolest book!  The premise is this--Dr. Frankenstein is in his lab and the lab is filled with body parts because....Dr. Frankenstein is planning on making a living, breathing human being in his lab.  On each page, Dr. Frankenstein talks to readers.  You can tell that he is talking to you because of the font--his words provide an intro for each page.  Then the information begins.  Each page focuses on one part of the body such and is named accordingly. Pages are titled such things as "Bone Basics", "Kidneys" and "Cerebrum".  It seems that Dr. Frankenstein teaches us one thing each day because he keeps a little journal note on each page that includes extra info.  

This book is PACKED with information.  After having spent a bit of time with it, it is one of the best body books I have seen.  Lots of good information, a great layout, easy for kids to understand, and a fun premise. I think because of the storyline, some kids may decide to read this book from cover to cover which is an added plus.   I am not usually a fan of nonfiction books embedded in a fiction story but this one works. Because Dr. Frankenstein is talking to us, the readers, it is an easier read than you would expect when you first look at the pages. And humor is spread throughout the text. This is a DK book that doesn't look like any of the others.  And the size/shape/cover of the book are fun. Very unique and surprising. The book also includes a table of contents, a glossary and an index.   And things are written in very developmentally appropriate ways.

This will definitely be a popular book in the library!

Another Great New Wordless Picture Book

I just picked up another great new wordless picture book at Cover to Cover yesterday.  It is called WELCOME TO THE ZOO by Alison Jay.  This is one about a day at the zoo with bright, colorful pictures.  There is lots going on in the illustrations and I couldn't quite get a handle on what was going on until I got to the end.  At the end of the book, the author gives you a few things to do. She gives you one page of "can you find" pictures.  Kids always like that. But my favorite is her list of "What else can you find?" On that page, the author gives you hints to all of the stories going on in the book.  For example, "What happens to the hat?  Can you follow it through the whole book?' She gives us several questions that invite us to go back through the book following that item.  It was in that way that I discovered so many stories going on in the pictures that I hadn't noticed the first time.   There is also a map so this book would be a fun one to use for mapping.  This is a great book to add to your library--I think kids will have lots of fun with it.

A Great New Professional Book About Writing

Ann Marie Corgill's new book OF PRIMARY IMPORTANCE:  WHAT'S ESSENTIAL IN TEACHING YOUNG WRITERS is a MUST HAVE! No question!  OF PRIMARY IMPORTANCE is a book about primary writing workshop and I really don't know of any other professional book that does what this book does.  It really brings together all that there is to running a great writing workshop for primary kids--teaching well while staying true to what we know about how kids learn.  Ann Marie has been teaching for fifteen years --at the Manhattan New School in NYC and now in Alabama.  Although this is marketed for primary teachers, I think there are definitely things to learn if you teach older students too.

First of all, the book is gorgeous. From the cover, to the inside color photos, to the photos throughout, you can see that Ann Marie creates beautiful spaces for her students to learn.  You read about the space but you also have the opportunity to see the space. It is also clear that Corgill values student art and she makes that part of her students' work.  (You see some of the student art on the front cover of her book.) As a writing teacher, I love the process of writing. But my struggle in the classroom was always in balancing the process with the product---finishing things up in ways that kept to my beliefs and also ended in products kids could be proud of.  In this book, Ann Marie shows us how to value both.

I would not say this is a how-to book. Ann Marie is all about the "whys" of her teaching.  She understands the theory behind all that she does and her book helps us think through our own writing workshops.  She also spends a lot of time talking about the issues she has with mandated curriculum and the importance of workshop.  But she also gives us some nuts and bolts. She shows us her yearlong plan and then goes into depth with each unit of study---sharing book titles and planning that goes into each unit.  At times, she even tells us exactly how she had kids create the art that went along with a piece of writing. Reading the book will make you want to be just like Ann Marie, but, it is clear that she doesn't expect us to just do what she does. She is sharing her story so that teachers can become better teachers of writing.  

I can see this book working for teachers no matter where they are in the teaching of writing. For me, it helped me think through issues with my own teaching--reflecting as you do when you hear an expert teacher share their story.  I also got some ideas and found lots of things I wanted to try.  For teachers who are looking for units of study, Ann Marie shows us the nuts and bolts to many of her units--including children's books she uses in her teaching.  Teachers can easily pick a unit to try "Ann Marie Style". Or you can follow Ann Marie's yearlong plan.  For teachers new to the writing workshop, this book is a great intro into the best of what writing workshops can be.

Assessment is a huge part of Ann Marie's work and she shares her assessments and record-keeping. So many books ignore this piece.  Again, Ann Marie is able to show us how she balances process and product when she assesses.  Ann Marie has several routines in place and shares several folders that help her keep track of student growth. She also shares ways to involve students in the assessment process.

Her family celebrations sound like a great time for students and parents and she spends time telling us about those events.

From classroom space to routines to tools to strategies--Ann Marie covers it all.  This is a book written BY a classroom teacher--one of the best writing teachers I know--FOR classroom teachers.  It is thoughtful and practical, grounded and political, all at the same time. I really can't think of another book for elementary writing teachers that does as much as this book does. It will definitely impact writing classrooms everywhere.