The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything

I just finished my first Kindle Read. Can I say how much I LOVE the Kindle and how happy I am to have read THE ELEMENT by Ken Robinson and Lou Aronica?

One of my favorite features of The Kindle is the highlighting feature. While reading, I can highlight a passage, take a note, and then have those all stored in one place on my Kindle for later reference. So, after reading this book, I was able to quickly revisit all of the lines and passages that really resonated with me.

THE ELEMENT is a great book. I have always been interested in people's creativity and passions and that is what drew me to the book. I am always amazed to meet people who have some unique passion. And I am always interested in how to support this idea in schools. Through reading this book, I did lots of reflection on not only my work with students but about myself and the current climate or our communities. A very thought-provoking book that I would highly recommend.

The premise for the book is this: "We need to create environments-in our schools, in our workplaces, and in our public offices-where every person is inspired to grow creatively. We need to make sure that all people have the chance to do what they should be doing, to discover the Element in themselves and in their own way."

I have been lucky to spend lots of my life doing things that I love. But I have worried for a while about the impact on our kids who have gone to school in this testing era. I worry that they leave high school without having a passion or an interest in something because they haven't had the opportunity to know the possibilities.

I feel like much of our work in schools should be about opening the possibilities for our students--letting them discover who they are and what is possible out there for them.

The Element helps us think through the issues of creativity. They book defines creativity as "the process of having original ideas that have value" Much of the book is spent examining creativity--what it is, why it is important, why standardized IQ tests miss so much about a person's intelligence.

Some of my favorite chapters of the book dealt with Tribes--connecting to others who see the world as you do. People who share your passions. I rely completely on the people who I can think with and I want the same for my students.

The authors share with us so many examples of people who have found their passion outside of school. The patterns of doing work they love and the impact on their life are so interesting. The end of the book focuses on implications for schools. We hear about several schools that value creativity and individuality. The authors argue for customized, rather than standardized education for our students. They state, "The stakes could hardly be higher for education and for all who pass through it."

This book is a must read. I imagine I will reread it soon. So much to think about as teachers and members of so many communities. How do we support each other in finding our individual voices that are so critical?

STINK-O-PEDIA by Megan McDonald

Again, I am not sure how I missed this one since it's been out since January! But the new Stink book is quite fun. STINK-O-PEDIA:SUPER STINKY STUFF FROM A TO ZZZzzzz by Megan McDonald is quite a treat and will appeal to lots of readers. The book is technically nonfiction--filled with lots of true facts from Stink. It is set up in alphabetical order (since it is an encyclopedia) and has a variety of visuals throughout. In the same style as the Stink books, this book is full of fun illustrations, diagrams, comics and more. The information is inspired by the Stink and Judy Moody books and includes "Guinea Pig Mania" and secret codes. You find out early in the book that there are exactly 20 spelling errors throughout the book and as a reader, you are challenged to find them!

The book is full of fun facts. So many of my students love to check out nonfiction that is filled with interesting trivia. This book will appeal to them and I think they'll be able to read this one cover to cover--unlike some of the others that they just browse. I can see this book also appealing to kids who don't know Stink--those Diary of a Wimpy Kids fans may be drawn to this one.

I am pretty excited about this new Stink Book and the creativity that McDonald used in creating it. I think this is a great way to get to know a favorite character in a whole different way.

Bubble Homes and Fish Farts

Welcome, Fiona Bayrock, author of Bubble Homes and Fish Farts! We are delighted to be the third stop on your week-long blog tour.

On Monday, Fiona was at The Well-Read Child.
Tuesday's stop was at Abby (the) Librarian.
Thursday, she'll be at Celebrate Story.
And she'll end the week at Becky's Book Reviews.

My 4th graders saw this book on my desk and they were dying for me to read it to them -- talk about a catchy title!

Here are the interview questions my students wrote for Ms. Bayrock:

How did you come up with the title of your book?

A good title will get a book taken off the shelf, opened—with help from the cover—and read. That's a lot to expect from a few words! I spend a fair bit of time trying different ideas to come up with a title I hope will flex that kind of muscle. In my search, I look for:

• a title that's fresh and unexpected - bubble+home and fish+fart are both unusual combinations not seen in a book title before, way more interesting than plain old "Animal Bubbles", which is accurate, but *yawwwwn*.
• a title that'll get possible readers asking questions so they'll want to read the book to find the answers - Bubble Home? What could live in a bubble home? What would that look like? Where would it be built? How?...
• a title that matches the tone of the book - in this case, light and fun. Can you say "fish farts" without smiling? If it had been a more serious book, I would have chosen something else instead.

Bubble Homes and Fish Farts accomplished all that in a way none of the other combinations from the book did.

Why did you “hide” the section about fish farts?

Hee hee...it does look like I hid it, doesn't it? But, actually, the placement in the book just happened to work out that way. As with most list books, the order in Bubble Homes and Fish Farts isn't random. The animals are grouped according to function: movement, warmth, finding food etc., and where possible, the sections are linked in some way. The whale and seal spreads talk about using bubbles to catch fish—a great lead-in to herring—so the fish farts come after those spreads, which ended up coming where they do as the result of much rearranging to create the strongest logical flow.

How did you decide what animals to put in this book?

I started with a list of all of the animals I could find that used bubbles, and then pared it down to include one animal for each distinct purpose. It wasn't a long list, and as luck would have it, didn't contain a lot of duplication. When two similar animals had a similar purpose to their bubbles I chose the more interesting one (backswimmer over diving beetle, moth over grasshopper), or the one that wasn't already represented on the list. e.g. both dolphins and beluga whales play with bubble rings, but I already had a "whale", so the dolphin was in and the beluga out. One animal from the original list was cut when the research didn't support the bubble use the preliminary research had shown, and a few animals were added along the way as I became aware of their bubble use during the research process (violet sea snail, water shrew, and star-nosed mole).

How did you do your research for this book?

To get the initial list, I entered various animal names and "bubbles" into an online search engine and thumbed through the index of several large resource books about animal survival and adaptation. Then I used a combination of sources: journals, videos, local library books and interlibrary loan (I heart librarians!), and specific online sources such as NOAA, National Geographic, university labs, research papers, and Notes from the Field (my fave was by an Antarctic researcher during one of her research trips).

Once I'd done all the research I could, I turned to experts, one or two for each animal, to fill in any missing details. They checked my similes for accuracy, and helped me understand the sensory aspects (the frog really does sound like "fwap-fwap-fwap-fwap" and the pile-driving like a church bell). Some invited me into their labs or provided further material not available to the public, such as crittercam footage or photos to show what it was I was writing about. That was extremely helpful.

How long did it take you to write the book?

I researched and wrote half the book in a few weeks of solid work. That included the "easy" animals—the ones I was already familiar with and for which the research and experts were readily available. The second half of the book took a lot longer (over 18 months) partly because the animals were more obscure, and took more digging and waiting for materials to come via interlibrary loan and scientists to come in from the field, but also because I was working on other projects at the same time.

Which is your favorite animal?

If you'd asked me this question as I was writing the book, my answer would have been whichever one I was working on at the moment. Now that the book is complete, I still don't have one that stands out. Usually I do have favourite parts in whatever I'm working on, but I guess the bubble connection made for a list of animals that were interestingly quirky in their own ways, because I enjoyed writing about them all. It was a happy day when the book was expanded from 32 to 48 pages so I didn't have to cut any.

Did you always want to be a writer?

Nope. I kind of fell into it. I knew from a very young age that at some point in my life I would write a book. I didn't know what it would be about, whether it would be fiction or nonfiction, or for adults or children, but I thought it would be in *addition* to a career in another field, not the career itself. Now that I *am* a writer, I can't imagine myself doing anything else. Sometimes life throws you a curve ball and you catch it.

What are you writing now?

Aside from "answers to blog interview questions"? ;^)

I always have several book and magazine projects at various stages. Right now, that includes mostly quirky cool animal science, with one project focusing more on the scientists, and one involving an experimental format.


Thank you, Fiona Bayrock for answering our questions and for including us on your tour!!

Fun, Fun, and More Fun!

POETRY MONTH FUN

Gregory K., at GottaBook, announced his project, 30 Poets/30 days: "Every day in April, I'll be posting a previously unpublished poem by a different poet."

Tricia, at The Miss Rumphius Effect, is sharing her interviews with "the most amazing writers of poetry for children on the planet." She'll have 36 interviews in 30 days.

Jone, at Check it Out, will be doing a variety of poetry projects with students in her school, as well as challenging herself to write 30 poems in 30 days for a 3rd year!

Anastasia Suen, author of PENCIL TALK AND OTHER SCHOOL POEMS, has started a new blog just for students' poems about school. She'll feature a student's poem every day in April.

Here at A Year of Reading...well, we're on spring break, so our National Poetry Month plans are a little fuzzy right now. Or fizzy, as the case may be. We're pretty sure there will be some kind of poetry post every day in April. Book reviews, links, Irish Dancing, original poems, student work, and 21st Century Poetry are all possibilities. Stay tuned.

BATTLE OF THE BOOKS FUN

And Monica, at Educating Alice, is having lots of FUN with BOB.

Dessert First

Dessert First
by Hallie Durand
illustrations by Christine Davenier
Atheneum Books for Young Readers
on sale May 19,2009

We didn't need any more than one page of this book to agree that Mrs. Howdy Doody, Dessert Schneider's third grade teacher, would be on our list of 100 Cool Teachers in Children's Literature (which, at this writing, is one teacher short of being 125 Cool Teachers!!). Mrs. Howdy Doody tells her class on the very first day of school

"that we should march to our own drummers. Then she said, "Watch and learn." And right there in front of us, even though we didn't know her very well, she put on her white snowball slippers and marched around the classroom."

Dessert comes from a food family -- her parents own a fondue restaurant. Put food family together with a girl who's learning to march to her own drummer and you get the dessert first of the title -- Dessert convices her mother to serve dessert first, and when everyone cleans their plates after dessert, the experiment becomes the norm.

When Mrs. Doody announces the Doody Drive fundraiser that will make money to build a treehouse at Lambert Elementary, readers know WAY before Dessert what sacrifice she will make, what beloved thing she will give up for two weeks in order to earn pledges for the fundraiser. But just in case we don't know exactly how hard it will be, we get to watch Dessert succumb to the call of a box of Double-Decker Brownies and then figure out a way to atone for her mistake.

This short novel will leave readers in grades 2-5 hungry for dessert and for more stories about Dessert.

WATCH ME THROW THE BALL! by Mo Willems

I finally got my copy of WATCH ME THROW THE BALL! I was very bummed that I did not get it the second that it was available. It was a crazy week. But it was worth the few-day wait. I LOVE Elephant and Piggie and know each time a new one comes out, that I will love it too. But this Elephant and Piggie might be my very favorite--which is amazing to me. Somehow, Willems is keeping these fresh every time. This one is quite hysterical. Piggie is in rare forms and has some great moves. Elephant and Piggie are learning to throw a ball. Elephant is all about the "right" way to throw it and Piggie just wants to have fun. The language that Piggie uses after she throws the ball made me laugh out loud. Can't wait to share it with kids. Looks like the next one is out in June! Can't wait:-)

Poetry Friday: Sneak Peek

J. Patrick Lewis generously shared the galleys of his new collection of riddle poems, illustrated with (pardon the gushing) precious illustrations by Lynn Munsinger. This fall collection (Chronicle Books), titled SPOT THE PLOT: A RIDDLE BOOK OF BOOK RIDDLES, contains thirteen riddle-poems whose answers are children's book titles!!!

Pat gave us permission to share with you one of the poems from this new collection. While Rapunzel's and Pinocchio's poems are probably my favorites, I'll share one from a more recent children's book:



Dear Mr. Farmer,

The letter we're typing
goes under GRIPING!
This barn is too cold,
not climate-controlled.
If we have to shiver,
we don't deliver.
No bedding, no butter.
No blankets, no udder.

Stop the madness.
End the battle.

Sincerely yours,
The Cattle


















The round up today is at Wild Rose Reader.

Poetry Wednesday: Two New Gems

Yesterday I set Florian's Dinothesaurus and Lewis' The Underwear Salesman out on the chalk tray in my fourth grade classroom at the beginning of the day to shouts of, "YAY!" and "Can I read that during reading workshop?" Neither book made it back to the chalk tray during reading time -- both were read by individuals or with partners and passed from hand to hand to hand the entire time.

Dinothesaurus: Prehistoric Poems and Paintings
by Douglas Florian
Athenium Books for Young Readers, 2009

Surely you've seen the sneak peaks of poetry and art from Dinothesaurus at Douglas Florian's blog? If not, get over there right now and take a look! 18 dinosaurs are described with wit, wordplay, and creative multimedia illustrations.

There is a pronunciation guide for each dinosaur name (thank you, thank you, Mr. Florian!) along with the meaning of the name. These name meanings are rich for conversations during word study around root words. Seismosaurus (earthshaking lizard) and seismograph; Tyrannosaurus rex (king of tyrant lizards) and tyrant and rex; Troodon (wounding tooth) and Iguanodon (iguana tooth) and orthoDONtist.

The collection also includes a Glossarysaurus, a list of dinosaur museums and fossil sites, and a bibliography with suggestions for further reading.

Every illustration adds an additional layer of meaning to its poem and makes this a book that will bring readers back again and again.


The Underwear Salesman: And Other Jobs for Better or Verse
by J. Patrick Lewis, illustrated by Serge Bloch
Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2009

More wit, wordplay and multimedia illustrations to be had in this volume as well!

This book is packed with short poems (a couplet for the job of exterminator), brief poems (for the job of underwear salesman -- ha ha!!), vertical poems (for the job of elevator operator), poems that take to the streets (for the job of marathon runner), poems in two voices (for the jobs of talk show hosts and ventriloquists), poems that flop (for the job of gymnast), and poems that soar ( for the job of bridge painter and skyscraper window washer).

At the risk of being repetitive: Every illustration adds an additional layer of meaning to its poem and makes this a book that will bring readers back again and again.

11 BIRTHDAYS by Wendy Mass

I am a huge Wendy Mass fan.  I became hooked when I read JEREMY FINK AND THE MEANING OF LIFE.  I've finally read one of her new books, 11 BIRTHDAYS and I loved it too. 

Amanda and Leo are best friends. They were born on the same day, in the same hospital and have been best friends their whole lives.  But when they are 10, they have a misunderstanding and stop speaking to each other.  

I don't want to give too much of the story away so I gave you the basic set-up. This book is about friendship and consequences.  I see it as a great book for reading aloud to third and fourth grade. It would also make a great booktalk book for grades 3-4-5.  There is lots to talk about and so much that kids will be able to relate to when it comes to friendship issues and misunderstandings.  

The concept of the book is a fun one, the characters and their friendship is very believable.   Wendy Mass has a really amazing understanding of kids this age.   To me, this book seems to be for a bit younger audience than JEREMY FINK--more 3rd through 5th grades.

It is a fun read and one I am anxious to share with kids!

SCAREDY SQUIRREL AT NIGHT by Melanie Watt

I was so excited to get a copy of the new Scaredy Squirrel book from my friend Larry in Canada.  What a good friend to send me my favorite books hot-off-the-press.

This 4th installment of Scaredy Squirrel is as good as the others. This one is the story of our favorite squirrel who is afraid of going to sleep at night because he is afraid of bad dreams!  This one is as good as the others--the humor is there and Scaredy is just as great while dealing with this problem.  Here are the things I love about this one:

-Scaredy Squirrel's glow-in-the-dark teeth against the dark of night on the cover are a fun way to start the book! 

 

-Melanie Watt has kept with her usual Warning at the beginning of the book--this one says:

Warning:  Scaredy Squirrel insists that everyone check under their beds before reading this book.

-We get to see SS in his pajamas--such a cute little guy!

-Scaredy takes up scrapbooking to keep from falling asleep.  I find that quite amusing.

-The closeups of SS throughout the book are some of the best expressions I've seen on him. Quite the fun book.  (My favorites are the pictures of SS after he finally gets a good night's sleep!)

-The humor is similar to the humor in the other books about SS. You can't help but smile throughout.

A great addition to books about our favorite nervous squirrel.  Can't wait to share it in the library!