ROCKY ROAD by Rose Kent

I have been anxious for this new book by Rose Kent to be released for a while. After having read and loved KIMCHI AND CALAMARI, I was so happy to receive a copy of ROCKY ROAD from Random House.

ROCKY ROAD is the story of Tess Dobson and her family. Her mother, who has patterns of good and bad days, decides to move the family from Texas to Schenectady, New York to open an ice cream shop. Tess is worried about the plan and has trouble supporting it at first. But, they make the move and start working on the shop that mom has decided to name, "A Cherry on Top". Lots of obstacles and surprises are in store. Tess isn't immediately happy with the apartment that they've rented as it is in a senior citizen building. Tess is the one who has to do most of the caring for her younger brother, Jordan, who is deaf, while her mother gets the shop ready to open. And the downtown area where Tess's mother has decided to put the ice-cream shop is a run-down part of town which might make it hard to find customers.

But, slowly things start to come together for Tess and her family. She makes great friends in the apartment building--a genuinely caring community who takes in and supports Tess and her family. Tess finds friends and a place to contribute in school and she eventually gets involved in helping out with "A Cherry on Top." And Tess's mother does amazing work to pull together a unique business that brings energy back to the city. Although everything isn't perfect and the problems Tess faces are big ones, things get better for her and she grows up a bit through the process.

Rose Kent does a great job of dealing with hard issues in the context of a middle grade novel. In this novel, Kent addresses many hard issues that are part of life. She does so in a way that makes them very accessible to 9-12 year olds. She helps us, as readers, see people for who they are beyond the troubles they have. She is brilliant at creating characters we care about. I found myself not only caring deeply about Tess, but also caring about the community that is supporting her.

The ice cream theme throughout the book is a fun one. My family, like Tess's, loves ice cream. It was fun to be part of a family creating an ice cream shop similar to those we love around here! Throughout the book, ice cream shop tips are included and at the end of the book, recipes for some of the ice cream treats sold at the store are shared. Rose Kent also includes information about what your favorite kind of ice cream tells about you!

I love the way that Rose Kent combines something as fun as ice cream with difficult life issues. A great combination that works well. I think this would be a great book for book clubs in upper elementary classrooms. I am sure kids will have lots to think and talk about. And they would have no trouble deciding on a snack for the book club to enjoy while chatting!

Rocky Road Book Trailer from Rose Kent on Vimeo.

BUG ZOO: HOW TO CAPTURE, KEEP, AND CARE FOR CREEPY CRAWLIES by Nick Baker

I received BUG ZOO from Dorling Kindersley Publishers. It immediately caught my eye as a great one for kids and every time I pick it up, I notice more about it that I love.

Kids love the outdoors and anything having to do with it. This book invites kids to begin their own "Bug Zoo" and includes all of the information they need to do so. The author begins with an introduction and his experience as a child who built his own bug zoo. He is really inviting them to be scientists, which I love. In the introduction, he says, "Building a zoo means you can become an explorer, a hunter, a collector of fine zoological specimens, and of course, a zookeeper." The author follows the introduction with a list of supplies you need. The tools needed include a notebook (for observations, measurements, etc.), a USB microscope, a tea strainer (to serve as a net), and more. Except for the microscope, the list of supplies includes things that most kids have around the house.

Before the book gets into specific bugs, there is a page on how to catch and keep the bugs for your bug zoo. Ways to capture bugs and types containers to keep them in are the focus for this section.

The remainder of the book focuses on bugs readers can collect for their bug zoos. Each two-page spread includes information on the bug, great photos, where to find them, what they eat, and more. Each page has information that is unique to that bug. A good combination of text and photos make this seem doable.

I am not really a person who would want to create a bug zoo. However this book makes it seem doable and fun. I can see this as something kids can do to explore the outdoors in a way that lets them really examine and care for bugs. I can imagine a bug zoo on the shelf of the library or in a classroom. The author is so detailed in sharing ways to create the right environment, securing the container so the bugs don't get loose and more.

This book seems like one that would appeal to kids of all ages. I can see all K-5 students in the library picking this up. Even if you have no intention of starting a bug zoo, you can learn so much about the bugs included by reading the book and looking at the photos. This book has many options for readers.

Doo Dah Parade Silliness

This parade makes fun of just about everything. It is freedom of speech and expression in action. Happy Independence Day!

Measuring the Amount of Summer We Have Left

At the beginning of June, the vines in the Old Worthington flower baskets

have just begun to grow.

At the beginning of July,

the vines are halfway to the ground.

When we turn the calendar page from July to August,

and our thoughts from summer to school,

the vines will be all the way to the ground.

This is one way to measure

how much summer we have left.

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!!

(Enjoy it while you've got it...independence from schoolwork, that is!!)

ALA in Pictures and Lists

Everything I brought back, neatly sorted into piles. I LOVELOVELOVE my "It's A Book" bag! All that stuff on the bottom right is for you, Franki!

The bag that helped me find my new tribe when I was riding the Metro. Following this bag ensured I got on and off at the right stops.

Miscellaneous conference swag. Yes, that's a Binky the Space Cat ID lanyard and yes, I'm an official SPHDZ.

All of the books I got autographed. I'm proud to say that I brought 8 of the 14 from home. See below for more details about meeting the authors.

All the ARCs I got. I've already read Storyteller, Alvin Ho and Clementine. Franki gets first read of The Candymakers.

Bloggers I saw:

Pam of MotherReader

Christine of bestbookihavenotread

Tricia of The Miss Rumphius Effect

Laura of Writing the World for Kids

Terry of Scrub-a-Dub-Tub

Susan of Wizards Wireless (didn't get a chance to talk to her, but her post of ALA advice was priceless -- especially the part about working the bag check. My back says, "Thank you, Susan!")

Betsy of Fuse #8 (from a distance -- how could you miss those crutches?!?)

Laura of Laura's Life (I was behind her in an autographing line listening to her talk with grace and confidence about reading all of the Newberys and the pros and cons of first editions...humbling.)

More about the autographs and authors:

Jon Scieszka says thanks again for the great going away party that the Kidlitosphere threw for him when Katherine Paterson became the new Ambassador of Children's Literature.

I got to gush IN PERSON to Lynn Rae Perkins about how much I love As Easy as Falling Off the Face of the Earth.

If I hadn't gotten Mitali Perkins' autograph of Bamboo People, I wouldn't have run into Terry and Tricia and Tanita.

Tom Angleberger still appreciates the love we had for his first book, The QuikPick Adventure Society.

Melissa Sweet was just as delightful as ever. We reminisced a bit about her recent visit to the Dublin Literacy Conference and my school.

Amy Krouse Rosenthal will be one of our speakers at the 2011 Dublin Literacy Conference. She asked me who else is speaking and **poof** my mind went blank. Amy, here's the lineup of children's authors: you, Brian Pinkney, Loren Long, and Wendy Mass.

I got to tell Margaret Read MacDonald how important her book How Many Donkeys? was to my Arabic-speaking students this year -- it's the first book we'd ever seen that had Arabic in it.

(Just wait until we get our hands on Jeannie Baker's new book Mirror, which is sort of TRI-lingual in English, Arabic, and images...I saw an advance copy and it looks FABULOUS!!)

Marilyn Singer heard about how her new Reverso poetry form inspired me and it inspired my students to invent their own poetry forms.

I got to meet Thomas Gonzalez in person (Carmen Agra Deedy, too). I interviewed him for the 14 Cows for America blog tour.

Mary Ann Hoberman found out that she's a poetry Rock Star in my classroom.

Liz Garton Scanlon is just as nice in person as she is on the blogs. What a great smile!

And finally, what an absolute delight to meet my "cousin" Tanita Davis in person. She brought me this calendar and cool Celtic-design pen all the way from Scotland! You ROCK, Cousin T!!

Seattle/Tacoma Choice Literacy Event

I flew into Seattle/Tacoma on Monday for a Choice Literacy workshop. The week was a great balance of work and fun. I worked with The 2 Sisters and Brenda Power on a new workshop "Simply Beautiful Classroom Design". It was fun to work together and to think hard about the environments that best support literacy learning, and then I did another on my own. But the days left lots of time for fun, exploration and hanging out with friends. As you can see in the pictures, we all had lots of fun!

Some highlights from the trip were the Glass Walk that is part of the Tacoma Art Museum. I wasn't that familiar with Dale Chihuly's work but am now totally in love with it. And I just found out that his work has been on exhibit at the Columbus Art Museum and I just missed it!? I also had a chance to visit Pike Place Market in Seattle as well as the original Starbucks. In Tacoma, the workshops were held at the amazing Hotel Murano. We had a great meal at Indochine Asian Dining and enjoyed dessert from Hello, Cupcake!

The week was a good one. I met lots of great teachers from around the world, worked hard, played a bit and saw some new sites. Definitely a place I want to visit again!

Poetry Friday -- No Luck Searching

Apropos of nothing in the poem, Lotus Blossom, Two-O-One B&B, Annapolis Maryland, June 2010

NO LUCK SEARCHING

There are no poems on the Internet

for the four unsorted bags of books from ALA

still sitting there

by the chair

where the cat can hide behind them;

or for the fruit on the counter:

pineapple, plums, kiwis, nectarine,

(and in the refrigerator,

bags of limes and cherries);

or for the need

(on July 2nd, for heavens sake!)

to go put on a sweatshirt and socks

because it's so chilly in the house,

sitting here at the kitchen table

with my cup of tea

trying to find the perfect poem for today.

by Mary Lee Hahn, copyright 2010

Amy has the Poetry Friday roundup at The Poem Farm, and it's just occurring to me that today was the perfect day for an original poem, since Amy is the QUEEN of original poems, seeing as she's on #93 out of 365 in her poem-a-day project/challenge/celebration/routine/ritual. I think we should throw a party for her next Friday when she hits the 100 poem mark!

June Mosaics

June started with one rainy day after another, hence the fungus theme in the first row (and another at the start of row 3). Early June flowers were ordinary: clematis, daisy, yucca and butterfly bush, but I ended June with a lotus bloom. There are three butterflies this month, but the one floating above the black-eyed Susans came out looking like a hawk. We stayed at a great B&B, witnessed a great summer storm, and ate GREAT food in Annapolis. It was the perfect end to a hectic three days at ALA. (More on ALA in another post)

I was inspired by Toby Speed at The Writer's Armchair to take more pictures of the sky this summer. Toby is taking "A Sky-a-Day." I didn't quite manage one a day, and I'm not at all as good at finding shapes and stories in the clouds as she is, but looking at the sky has fine-tuned my awareness of the world around me by one more notch.

I wonder how I can get a digital camera for each of my students to carry in their backpack so they can capture moments of their lives in image the way we try to capture small moments with words in their writer's notebooks...

Get Your Credit Card Ready!

Do you love your office supplies and gadgets? Have a complete wardrobe of purses and bags for every occasion? Want to be on the cutting edge of travel apparel? Look no further!

At a recent Choice Literacy workshop, The 2 Sisters (Gail Moser Boushey and Joan Moser, authors of The Daily Five) modeled their new SCOTTEVESTs:

In a related post from last summer, here is Debbie Miller demonstrating an iPhone app.

And finally, here's the SCOTTEVEST version of The Sisters' tour, as an iPhone spoof:

THERE WAS AN OLD MONKEY WHO SWALLOWED A FROG by Jennifer Ward

I received a copy of the new book, I KNOW AN OLD MONKEY WHO SWALLOWED A FROG by Jennifer Ward from the publisher, Marshall Cavendish, and I am so excited about it! I love versions of this fun song! And this new one is especially fun.

The book takes place in the rain forest and the monkey is quite amusing. I love his facial expressions throughout the book when he is deciding what to eat next. This monkey definitely has personality. He never gets that miserable face that shows he has had too much to eat! He eats mostly animals--things like frogs, sloths, and tapirs. But he also eats things like cocoa (to sweeten the frog). I am excited to add this book to the shelf in the library. I think this is the perfect book for read aloud, to add to a basket of song books, to support new readers who are already familiar with the original story, and more. This is a really fun and well-done version of a favorite cumulative tale.

I reviewed another of Jennifer Ward's books last year, THE BUSY TREE. And, I noticed on Jennifer Ward's site, that she has an upcoming book (2011) called THERE WAS AN ODD PRINCESS WHO SWALLOWED A PEA--really, one of my favorite stories in this format. I can't wait to see what she's done!