TOFU QUILT and a couple more cool teachers

Tofu Quilt

by Ching Yeung Russell

Lee & Low Books, Inc., 2009

Review copy provided by the publisher

This is the story of a girl growing up in a culture that values boys. Luckily, her mother scrapes together the money to send her daughter to school, where Yeung Ying falls in loves with books and stories and writing.

This is the story of a writer being born -- it is about her false starts and first steps and her perseverance and her dream.

This is the story of the impact a few good writing teachers can make on a writer's early life. The poem, "mr. hon," (did I mention, this is an autobiographical novel in verse?) tells about Yeung Ying's 4th grade teacher:

He reads us

a Chinese translation of a story

about three American boys from

a long time ago,

who rode a raft on the Mississippi River.

.

.

.

And Mr. Hon is the first teacher

who displays my stories

marked, "Great work!"

on the classroom bulletin board

even though

I

am

just

a

girl.

Not until her seventh grade teacher does Yeung Ying get encouragement again, when she hears, "Your story really comes to life" and "You write very well./ Keep trying./ You can be a writer someday."

I nominate Mr. Hon and Mr. Lee for inclusion on our list of 100 Cool Teachers in Children's Literature. (We are up to 128 Cool Teachers. Has there been a Cool Teacher in a book you read recently?)

For a fabulous review of Tofu Quilt, complete with mouth-watering photos, head on over to Jama Rattigan's Alphabet Soup.

Frankie Pickle and the Pine Run 3000

Frankie Pickle and the Pine Run 3000

by Eric Wight

Simon and Schuster, February 2010

ARC received at NCTE

The dedication of this newest Frankie Pickle adventure reads, "To my dad, who is always there to help -- even when I don't know how to ask." I'm thinking there is perhaps a fair amount of autobiography woven into this story, and as a child whose earliest mantra was, "Do it SELF," this book rings true for me as well.

Frankie gets too tied up in his own imagination to receive his Possum Scout merit badge for knot-tying. This means he won't move up in rank from Pygmy to Shrew with the other boys in his troop unless he wins the Pine Run 3000. Which is this weekend.

I won't reveal the rest of the plot, which involves messes, mistakes, revelations, disqualifications, and unlikely displays of good sportsmanship.

This book is another winner by Eric Wight, and luckily, we will only have to wait until June for book three!

My review of the first book, Franki Pickle and the Closet of Doom.

Eric Wight's website at Simon and Schuster.

Eric Wight on Twitter: @Eric_Wight

News of the next book:

Another Winter Book!

SLEEP, BIG BEAR, SLEEP! by Maureen Wright and illustrated by Will Hillenbrand will make a fun winter read aloud. As everyone knows, bears sleep through the winter and it's time for Big Bear to do just that. Old Man Winter keeps telling him to "Sleep, Big Bear, Sleep", but Big Bear doesn't hear very well and he thinks he is hearing different directions--such as, "Drive a jeep." and "Dive Deep." Bear does as he thinks he is being told, but he is very, very tired!

This is a fun book and the repeated phrase, "But Bear didn't hear very well; he couldn't sleep in his den in the dell..." is one that will invite kids to join in on the reading. As always, Hillenbrand's illustrations are wonderful and the feeling of winter is clear. I will add these to my other great new winter books! Kids seem to love to hear stories about the seasons. These will be great to read when we get our first snow. (I do remember that last year, in early March, when we were all sick of snow and cold, one little first grader came in demanding a book about SUMMER! So, I'll read these winter books in the early part of winter when we enjoy winter and snow!)

*This book is a review copy provided by the publisher, Marshall Cavendish Children's Books.

Poetry Friday -- I Praise My Destroyer

Some of those close to me are dealing with the tragic loss of young lives, and others with the painful loss of parents or friends to cancer or Alzheimer's. It's easy to be angry and disbelieving and sad to the point of drowning.

from "Elegy" by Diane Ackerman

The world is breaking someone else's heart

today, the roses are busily mumbling scent,

all the greens of summer have blown apart...

...My own sorrow starts

small as China, then bulges to an Orient.

The world is breaking someone else's heart.

All the greens of summer have blown apart.

Eventually, acceptance is necessary in order to go on another day.

from "We Die" by Diane Ackerman

...Lost friend, you taught me lessons

I longed to learn, and this final one I've learned

against my will: the one spoken in silence,

warning us to love hard and deep,

clutch dear ones tighter, ransom each day,

the horror lesson I saw out of the corner of my eye

but refused to believe until now: we die.

And if we are to live joyfully in the midst of tragedy, loss, and the breaking of hearts, then we must learn to praise our destroyer.

from "I Praise My Destroyer" by Diane Ackerman

...Our cavernous brains

won't save us in the end,

though, heaven knows, they enhance the drama.

Despite passion's rule, deep play

and wonder, worry hangs

like a curtain of trembling beads

across every doorway.

But there was never a dull torment,

and it was grace to live

among the fruits of summer, to love by design,

and walk the startling Earth

for what seemed

an endless resurrection of days.

I praise life's bright catastrophes,

and all the ceremonies of grief.

I praise our real estate -- a shadow and a grave.

I praise my destroyer,

and will continue praising

until hours run like mercury

through my fingers, hope flares a final time

in the last throes of innocence,

and all the coins of sense are spent.

I Praise My Destroyer

by Diane Ackerman

Random House, 1998

(my own copy, autographed by the author!)

(If you follow the link to Amazon and "Click to look inside," you can read the three poems I've excerpted in their entirety.)

The round up this week is at Wild Rose Reader.

November Mosaic

What a month.

I stepped off the treadmill of school life on November 2 and went back home for two weeks to help my mom while she recovered from surgery.

Back Home.

I've lived in Ohio longer than all my growing up years in Eastern Colorado, and yet I still go Home. Home to the streets I rode my bike on, the house where my kindergarten teacher lived, and the place where the glow of a lamp and the view from the back windows is as familiar as the scar on my knee from the incident with my cousin's Shetland pony and the barbed wire fence.

Home is where my fourth grade teacher, Mrs. Bryner, still lives. I visited her in the nursing home and we talked about the importance of finding a way to love every child so that you can reach them and teach them. ("And," she said with a twinkle in her eye, "some children are harder to love than others!") True then, true now.

I had one day to unpack and repack my suitcase, and then we were off to Philadelphia for NCTE for five days.

For one day on the Tuesday before Thanksgiving, and then again on Monday, November 30, almost exactly a month from the day I stepped off the treadmill, I stepped back on the treadmill of school life...or at least I attempted to. In the weeks I was gone, someone ramped up the speed...or I lost some of the stamina I'd built up to deal with the unrelenting onslaught of meetings, meetings, meetings, planning, teaching, report cards, committees, behavior issues, homework issues, meetings, meetings, meetings, report cards, PD, data, grouping, grading, meetings, meetings, meetings...

I drove to another building for a committee meeting after school yesterday. On the streets leading up to the school are "traffic calming" humps. I've learned it's not worth it to zoom up to one and then screech down to 25 mph to go over and zoom up to the next one and screech down. It's better just to go a steady 25. It's calming.

It's calming. And I'm not just talking about traffic here. By the time I got to the committee meeting, my brain had slowed down and my blood pressure had fallen and the clutter of my brain had settled down somewhat.

I need some speed humps in my life to keep things calm and steady. I need to try to quit zooming and screeching. I need to find a steady speed I can maintain.

LETTERS TO A SOLDIER

I am excited to add LETTERS TO A SOLDIER by First Lieutenant David Falvey and Mrs. Julie Hutt's Fourth-Grade Class to our school library. It is hard to find a book that answers kids' questions about a soldier's experience in a way that makes sense to them. But this book does just that. In 2008, while David Falvey was serving in Iraq, Mrs. Hutt's fourth graders decided to write letters to a soldier--thanking him and finding out a bit about his life there. This book is a compilation of the letters that Mrs. Hutt's fourth graders wrote along with the responses that Falvey sent back. Each two-page spread gives us a copy of a letter by one of Hutt's students along with Falvey's answer. In his introduction, Favley talks about the importance of the letters and the challenges at answering some of the questions. The book is filled with children's honest questions and a soldier's honest answers. The questions go from very big questions (Why are we at war?) to questions that had to be a little bit more fun to answer (Are you a Red Sox fan?). Some photos are included that give readers a little more insight into life as a soldier in Iraq. This would be a great book to share near Veteran's Day or at any other time during the year. I imagine it will be checked out from the library quite often.

There seem to be a lot of generic books about soldiers and things but none as personal and as geared to children's real questions as this one is. First Lieutenant David Falvey seems to be the perfect person to answer these questions for children in a book. His answers are authentic and respectful and we learn a lot about his life as a soldier.

*This book was a review copy provided by the publisher, Marshall Cavendish Children's Books.

Great Language and Word Play: 3 New Books

I received three books that I'll add to my books to share with kids when we are thinking about words and language. When I think about talking to kids about words, I want a variety of books to share. I want fiction and nonfiction. I want books with strong language and books that just have fun with words. I want my students to look at words and how they are used in many different types of text. Today, I found three books that will be great additions to word study talk.

COOL DOG, SCHOOL DOG by Deborah Heiligman is just plain fun. If you remember the book FUN DOG, SUN DOG, this is a sequel. Tinka is the dog in the story and each page tells us a bit about her . She is "a fun dog, a sun dog, a run-and-run-and-run dog". The pictures and the rhyming, rhythmic phrases help us get to know and come to love this dog! This would make a fun read aloud and kids will love the sing-songiness of the book. With older kids, I might really look at the way the author uses these fun phrases to tell us so much about this dog. Word choice is critical!

THE BUSY TREE by Jennifer Ward is a different type of book altogether. It is not quite nonfiction but it is a close look at one tree-a busy tree. The book starts at the roots of the tree and looks at so many part of the tree. We see how much can go on in one tree. The thing I like most about the book is the language used to tell about what is going on. Each page has 2 lines of rhyming text but I like so much more than the rhyme. What captured me was the way that each thing is described. For example:
"These are my branches, leafy and high,
a sidewalk for squirrels that soar through the sky."
I can see using this book in Writing Workshop and looking closely at the words the author uses to describe the tree.

SNORE, DINOSAUR, SNORE by John Benall-Brunello is a story told in VERY few words. Three little dinosaurs are trying to wake their mother up. But she won't budge. Each page uses only 3 words but the combination of words and pictures tells a great story. Younger kids will love the story and will do lots of picture reading. For older kids, I think this book would start great conversations about the great verbs that tell the story.

*All three of these books were review copies provided by the publisher, Marshall Cavendish's Children's Books.

Books in My Shopping Bag

Between NCTE and my trip to Cover to Cover today, I have lots of books that I am hoping to read in the next several weeks. Here are a few that are on the top of my pile:

CLAIM TO FAME by Margaret Peterson Haddix--I was so excited to see a new book by Haddix. I haven't been paying attention to new releases so I wasn't even aware that this was coming. This does not look to be part of any series that Haddix is so famous for. It is a stand-alone book that reviews say is for ages 9-12. From the inside flap, it sounds like the book is about a girl who is a TV star and then she realize that she can hear anything that anyone says about her. This become quite awful so she goes into hiding. I love all of Haddix's books and I think the 4th and 5th graders at school will be thrilled to see a new book by Haddix!

I am going to give myself permission to read more YA this year. I love it but always feel like I should be reading children's books that make sense for our K-5 library instead of YA. But this year, I plan to give more time to reading YA--just because I love it and I think YA books are some of the best out there. Two that I have been hearing a lot about, that I picked up today are THE MAZE RUNNER by James Dashner and CROSSING STONES by Helen Frost. I am a huge Helen Frost fan and Mary Lee cannot stop recommending CROSSING STONES so I picked it up. And THE MAZE RUNNER is another one I keep hearing about. I love the whole concept of this book-a closed-off world where kids enter. I keep hearing that this is one of those books that you can't put down once you start it so I am anxious to read it!

BUCK FEVER by Cynthia Chapman Willis caught my eye for several reasons. First of all, the cover is intriguing. A boy hunting for a deer, but clearly not shooting it. When I read the inside flap, the premise reminded me a bit of Wringer--a boy's father wants him to carry on the tradition of hunting but the boy (Joey) isn't interested in hunting and can't imagine killing an animal. This sounds like a great story about a boy growing up.

Another book I picked up was WILLIAM S. AND THE GREAT ESCAPE by Zilpha Keatley Snyder. This one is about four children who run away-to their aunt's house. It looks like this book is about their runaway adventure and their journey for a home and a family.

And, finally, I picked up LOVE YA BUNCHES by Lauren Myracle. It is one that I have been seeing a lot--definitely marketed to upper elementary girls. The inside format is fun and it looks like a great book about friendship.

I am sure I will add many more to my list before winter break begins but these are a starting point. Now, if I didn't need to do any holiday shopping, baking etc., I'd be set! I doubt Ill get as much reading time as I am hoping but I have plenty to read for the time I do get!

NEVER SMILE AT A MONKEY by Steve Jenkins

Steve Jenkins is one of my favorite nonfiction authors/illustrators. I love the way he organizes information and the combination of his words and his art is always a great combination.

I love this new book. So many of Jenkins' books are difficult to read aloud because there is so much on the page. But I think this new one, NEVER SMILE AT A MONKEY: AND 17 OTHER IMPORTANT THINGS TO REMEMBER would make a great nonfiction read aloud. The premise of the book is that things are dangerous. In his introduction Jenkins says, "What makes these animals dangerous? And what should you NEVER do if you encounter one of them?" He then goes on to tell us.

Each page focuses on one important thing to remember such as NEVER PET A PLATYPUS or NEVER STARE AT A SPITTING COBRA. Following the directive is a paragraph explaining a bit about the animal and why the creature may react to such a behavior. A large illustration of the animal also accompanies the text. There is a lot to learn in this book and kids are always fascinated by animals --especially the dangerous ones. The back of the book includes additional information about the creatures in the book.

So many books are written about a specific animal and I always love the uniqueness of Steve Jenkins' book topics. I think a nonfiction author study on Jenkins would be great. I also think his books have great lessons for our nonfiction writers in writing workshop. I can't wait to see what he writes next!

The Toon Treasury of Classic Children's Comics

I visited my grandparents' house every Sunday throughout my childhood. I tell the story often of going up to her attic each week and choosing a new Nancy Drew book. But, until recently, I had forgotten about the trunk of comic books that they had in the entrance hall. A chest filled to the top with magazines and comic books. I loved going into that trunk to see what I might find. It was packed full with great reads. I was not an avid comic book reader but it was fun to read a few comic books each week at my Grandma's while the adults chatted. I am not sure if it was more fun to hunt around in the trunk to see what I might find or to actually read the books. Either way, I have great memories of many of the comics I read there. Some of my favorite were Little Lulu, anything with Disney Characters, Richie Rich, Dennis the Menace and Archie's gang. I hadn't realized what a role these comics had in my reading life until I discovered the new book THE TOON TREASURY OF CLASSIC CHILDREN'S COMICS selected and edited by Art Spiegelman and Francoise Mouly . So many of my favorite characters as well as some stories and characters I had forgotten about these nearly 350 pages.

The book is divided into sections--giving categories to some of the comics that the editors hope are rediscovered by today's children-especially those who love graphic novels. There is a chapter of comics about kids (the first being Clifford by Jules Feiffer!), a chapter about Funny Animals, Fantasyland and more. So many great comics from the 1930s to the 1960s. Treasury is definitely the right word for this collection!

The introduction to the treasury is by Jon Scieszka and he shares his own experiences with comics as a child and some history of comics. There is also an introduction for grown-ups about the comic book in general, complete with a photo of a Comic Book burning in 1949. The editors make a case for comic books and the that parents might have in sharing our old favorites with our children.

This is a huge book and I am excited to put it on the shelves in the library. I am still trying to figure out how to house more comic books in the library since graphic novels are so popular. I can't keep them on the shelves. So I am sure that this book will definitely be a hit. It would also make a great holiday gift!