Poetry Friday: You Read to Me, I'll Read to You

INTRODUCTION

Here's a book

Of Aesop's Fables,

Tales where turtles

Turn the tables,

Tales with lions,

Tales with mice,

Tales where ants

Give good advice.

(to read the rest of the poem, you'll have to get your own copy of the book!)

You Read to Me, I'll Read to You: Very Short Fables to Read Together

by Mary Ann Hoberman

illustrated by Michael Emberley

Little, Brown and Company, 2010

review copy provided by the publisher

At ALA last June, I got the chance to tell Mary Ann  Hoberman that she is a rock star in my classroom. On Poetry Fridays, her You Read to Me, I'll Read to You books are the most popular books on the poetry shelf in my classroom. And why not? They are so fun, and perfectly designed for buddy reading. They are easy enough for struggling readers to figure out, and easy enough for confident readers to read with dramatic expression. They are well enough known that sometimes the audience joins in the performance!

This newest volume is a welcome addition to the set. The fables Hoberman chose to include are well-known or have an easily-understood moral.  Emberley's illustrations start telling a story of their own from the title page on. Fun, fun, fun!

There's more fun to be had today at the Poetry Friday Round Up.  Karen, at The Blog With the Shockingly Clever Title, is hosting today.

MEMOIRS OF A GOLDFISH by Devin Scillia

My good friend and colleague Nicole, told me about this new book called MEMOIRS OF A GOLDFISH. As she was telling me all about it and why her 2nd graders loved it, I knew I had to have it. I picked it up last night and my 5th grade daughter had just heard it read aloud and she said it was hysterical. This is one of those books that will be great for many ages. It will make a great read aloud for the library.

The story reminded me a bit of the Diary of a Worm series by Doreen Cronin in that it is a diary format. I think kids who are fans of that series will enjoy this book too. This a 14 day "memoir" of a goldfish and the events that happen to him in his bowl. Day 1: I swam around my bowl. Each page/day gets a little longer and more complex as Goldfish's life gets a little more crowded. He is quite funny and his voice make the book amusing.

I can see using this book when talking about personal narrative. There is lots to learn about first person writing and about sharing events and feelings by the fish in this book. Kids of all ages will laugh out loud at this one. I imagine it will be a popular one in the library.

Tuck Me In! by Dean Hacohen and Sherry Scharschmidt

I just found a great new book for beginning readers, TUCK ME IN! by Dean Hacohen and Sherry Scharschmidt. This is a fun bedtime book for young children. It is also a great book with predictable text for young readers. Several baby animals are getting ready for bed. Each page asks Who needs to be tucked in.  Then an animal yells, "I do!" and the reader lifts the flap/blanket over to tuck in the baby animal and reads the Good night page.  This pattern continues throughout the book. It is fun for readers to tuck in each animal and the blanket prints and cut pages make it even more fun. The predictable text and large font makes it perfect for new readers.  Lots of repetition and picture support.  (This would make a great baby gift too!)

And Yet Another Song Book

As you know if you read my blog posts, I love new songbooks. I think they are quite fun and I also know how important they are for early literacy development. When I heard about THERE WAS AN OLD LADY WHO SWALLOWED SOME BUGS by Johnette Downing, I ordered it immediately. I love all of the different versions of this story/song. And this one is a bit unique. The story follows the typical "There was an old lady" format and in this version, the old lady eats a variety of bugs including a mosquito, a worm, a slug and a roach. UGH! The illustrations are unique in that you don't see the entire Old Lady getting bigger and bigger. Instead, each page focuses on the tongue and the stomach--close ups of the "old lady" eating each bug and them gathering in her tummy. But this one has a fun surprise ending that I think kids will love.

The text of this one is a bit tricky in that some pages contain a lot of text and some of the bug names might be unknown to young kids but I think this book will be enjoyed by kids of all ages--a fun version of a well-loved song!

Overheard Conversation in the Library

In the library today, I overheard one of our second graders with a new student. She was walking around showing her the library and helping her look for a book. The new girl was not having any luck finding a book. So the "tour guide" turned to her and said, "Tell me about a book that you really really really love and I'll help you find another one."

I say that to kids all the time but didn't realize it until I heard this second grader saying it! Crack me up! It was too cute.

Columbus Metropolitan Library Website Demo

Have I mentioned lately that our public library system, the Columbus Metropolitan Library, won Library Journal's 2010 Library of the Year Award?  We are SOOOO lucky to have this library system in our community.  I imagine we take the library for granted at times and we probably shouldn't!

I have to admit that I don't visit many of the library's branches. I need to make some time to get downtown to the main branch. But our Dublin branch is so good and I always bump into one of the children's librarians there, that it is the one I visit most frequently. The 3 children's librarians at the Dublin Branch have been so supportive of our school and we have done great partner activities over the last few years to build relationships between the students and the librarians there. The 3 are all very familiar faces to our students and at least once a week, some child comes in to tell me that they talked with one of them on a recent visit to the library.  

As I move into my third year, I am able to bump things up a bit in terms of student learning.  This year, when Loren Scully and I met to set our year plan, one of the goals was to help students be more independent at utilizing the tools at the public branch library and to help them know the resources available. So, this week, Ray, the teen librarian at Dublin, spent time with every 4th and 5th grade class. He spent about 35 minutes with each class, giving them a tour of the CML website and some of the resources they could find there. He demonstrated how to go about reserving a book that they were hoping to read.  He also shared some resources available to the community such as CultureGrams. Kids learned how to search available books by favorite authors and more.  And, of course, Ray can't leave the school without sharing some great new books with kids.  He is so knowledgeable about books for this age group that many kids found new books to add to their "to be read" list.  The kids were GLUED to his talk. They seem excited to explore the CML website on their own.  I have to spend more time on it myself--there is so much there--really amazing resources. 

I know the librarians are hugely busy and we appreciate the time they give to the students at Riverside.  Our kids LOVE when they see one of the Dublin librarians whether they are at school or at the Dublin Library. Our students love anything connected with the library because of this.

TELL THE TRUTH, B. B. Wolf by Judy Sierra

I enjoyed MIND YOUR MANNERS, B.B. WOLF by Judy Sierra when it came out.  I picked up TELL THE TRUTH, B. B. WOLF as soon as I saw it. I loved it. The story is about B.B. Wolf again and it takes place in the library.  The librarian, Miss Wonderly, invites B.B. Wolf to tell his story of how he met the 3 Little Pigs. But he is a bit nervous.  He says, "But I wasn't a hero."  As in the first book, lots of other characters we love are part of the story.  Rumpelstiltskin, The Three Little Pigs and the Little Engine to name a few.

B.B. Wolf doesn't exactly tell the story as it happens. Instead, he twists things a bit and the crowd does not like it. Many of the listeners (including the pigs) demand that B.B. Wolf tells the truth.  There is great word play embedded in the story. I love the line:  "No one is falling for your story," cracked Humpty Dumpty.  There are a few other fun words hidden throughout. Finally, B.B. Wolf admits that he wasn't so nice, tells the group he's changed and apologizes.  He even changes his middle name from "Bad" to something much more fitting. And he figures out a way to make it up to the pigs.

An overall fun story!

Poetry Friday -- Over the Rainbow

Someday I'll wish upon a star

And wake up where the clouds are far

Behind me.

Where troubles melt like lemon drops

Away above the chimney tops

That's where you'll find me.

from "Somewhere Over the Rainbow"
music by Harold Arlen and lyrics by E.Y. Harburg

I've been wishing for a rainbow recently, and last weekend I got one. Now if only we could arrange for the "troubles melt like lemon drops" part...

But sometimes if you can't get your troubles to melt, at least you get some good news to sweeten things up -- our Poetry Friday Panel proposal ("Poetry Friday: Sharing Poems and Celebrating Poetry, One Blog at a Time") was accepted for KidLitCon! If you haven't signed up to go to Minneapolis (October 23), now you've got one more great reason: you can come chat about all things Poetry Friday with this great panel: Andromeda Jazmon of A Wrung Sponge, Elaine Magliaro of Wild Rose Reader, Laura Salas of Writing the World for Kids, Mary Ann Scheuer of Great Kid Books, Toby Speed of The Writer's Armchair, Amy VanDerwater of Poem Farm, and me of here. We're very excited to meet each other in person, and we can't wait to meet YOU and talk about poetry in the Kidlitosphere!! I even heard a rumor that the "founder" of Poetry Friday, Kelly Herold of Big A little a might be coming to KidLitCon. What are you waiting for? Go register now!



Because sometimes it makes you feel better just to sing along, here's Israel Kamakawiwo'ole's version of Somewhere Over the Rainbow, and here's Judy Garland singing it.

Elaine has today's Poetry Friday roundup at Wild Rose Reader.

3 Great Nonfiction Books

As I work on updating the nonfiction section of the library, I am thrilled with the books I am finding lately. JUST ONE BITE by Lola Schaefer is a great book for all ages. Because LIFE-SIZE ZOO has been such a hit, I think this one will be too. Although the illustrations are not photos like LIFE-SIZE ZOO, it is an over-sized book with great illustrations.

Each spread gives information on one animal and what it can eat in one bite (or flick, when it comes to a frog.) The basic text is pretty predictable and inviting for new readers. The end of the book has more information on each of the animals included. There is a bit of invited prediction and a pull-out page, which are fun features for kids. I think this book would be a great lead-in to conversations about the food chain or any other animal unit that elementary students are involved in. So much information in such a simple book.

UP WE GROW: A YEAR IN THE LIFE OF A SMALL, LOCAL FARM by Deborah Hodge is a book about farming. It is often difficult to find books for kids that show farms now, rather than in the past. Hodge writes a great book that follows the seasons on a farm--the work, the activities, the fun. The text would make for a great read aloud. It is packed in terms of information, but written in a way that is accessible to kids. The author stops to ask questions of the reader throughout the text which will make the book engaging. The photographs by Harris help to capture animal life on the farm along with the life of the family.

THE BAT SCIENTISTS by Mary Kay Carson is the newest in the Scientists in the Field Series. This book is packed with so much great information. It is definitely a big read--for upper elementary kids, it would make a great read aloud or a great independent read for kids interested in the topic. The photos will draw readers in. The book includes great photos of scientists doing their work, diagrams of bats, basic information and more. The text is separated into short chapter-like parts. Extra resources as well as a glossary are listed in the back of the book.

AND THEN THERE WERE GNOMES

Guinea Pig Pet Shop Private Eye #2: And Then There Were Gnomes
by Colleen Af Venable
illustrated by Stephanie Yue
Graphic Universe, 2010
I bought this book because I'm a sucker for series books, and besides, you just can't have too many books with a guinea pig main character in your classroom library. Plus it's a mystery and a graphic novel all in one.

Sasspants the pet shop guinea pig who, in book one, was called upon by Hamisher the hamster to solve a mystery because the g on her cage label had fallen off, making her a GUINEA PI (private investigator, get it?), is once again needed to solve the mystery of where all the mice are going to. The pet shop is down to just one mouse, the pet mouse of the chinchillas, and the store is being haunted by a ghost to make things even more complicated and creepy.

In spite of the clueless (pardon the pun) pet shop owner, the airhead goldfish, the vain chinchillas, and the rabbits who borrow one of the mystery books from Sasspants' personal library but need to be told what books are for: "READ them, don't EAT them!" Sasspants manages to solve the mystery of the missing mice.