#bookaday -- Mary Lee's Pile #1

It's already a good first day of break -- I've finished my first #bookaday and I haven't even had a plate of Christmas cookies for breakfast yet!

I have to warn you that this review is going to be a little weird. First of all, because the book was (more than a little) weird, but also because this is one of those books where you can't help yourself, it's like being around people with a Texan or Swedish accent and all of a sudden you start talking with that accent yourself. This is all to say that my writing has been infected by M.T. Anderson's in

Agent Q, or the Smell of Danger (Pals in Peril series)
by M.T. Anderson
illustrated by Kurt Cyrus
Simon and Schuster (Beach Lane Books), 2010
review copy provided by the publisher (and an extra bit of thanks for WHALES ON STILTS -- I fell head over heels in love after reading two chapters, took it to school and read those two chapters to my fourth graders, and wound up sending home 6 books from the series (checked out from the well-stocked public library branch near my home [YAY, LIBRARY!] with readers who appreciate irony and humor to enjoy during the winter break))


Don't you think? (seriously infected writing style, in case you lost my original train of thought)

So, since it would be impossible to explain the plot of this book, which, I think, is part of the point of these books, let it suffice to say that the cover illustration gives a pretty good idea of the pace of the plot and some of its details. One thing you can't tell from the picture is that those are sentient lobsters. Yes, this is the kind of book that has sentient lobsters in it. And monks from a time in the history of Delaware (not the Delaware with which you're familiar) when there has been an embargo on vowels. And rivers in Delaware that conceal giant amoebas (which allows for a diagram of an Amoeba proteus supergiganticus labeled helpfully with front, back, inside, outside, and pie hole). And chase scenes through the sewers of Wilmington. (It's a spy thriller, you see.)

As I go through all the pages I have tabbed down, places where I laughed out loud (the restaurant named the Friar Tuck-In; the monks who don't mind endless songs like "The Song That Never Ends" because it's kind of like their chanting, anyway; the defense of librarians on page 150 [you might need to look that one up and read it yourself]; the spy-based reality television show at the end...) I realize there's nothing for it except to say,

READ IT YOURSELF!
and
WHAT IS IT WITH M.T. ANDERSON AND THE STATE OF DELAWARE???? (partial answers might or might not be found at this amazing website)

Happy #bookaday! I'm off to eat that plate of Christmas cookies for breakfast!

Lulu and the Brontosaurus

Lulu and the Brontosaurus
by Judith Viorst
illustrated by Lane Smith
Simon and Schuster/Atheneum Books, 2010
review copy provided by the publisher


Publishers Weekly didn't like this book too much, but I'd venture to say that they didn't read it aloud to a roomful of living, breathing children! If they didn't read it aloud, they have no idea how infectious Lulu's song is, or how much fun the chatty narrator is.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. The audience at hand (4th graders) was hooked on the first paragraph of chapter one: "There once was a girl named Lulu and she was a pain. She wasn't a pain in the elbow. She wasn't a pain in the knee. She was a pain -- a very big pain -- in the b u t t ." And she is -- Lulu gets whatever she wants by screeching until the lightbulbs break. However, when she wishes for a brontosaurus for a pet, her parents refuse.  For 12 days they refuse, until finally Lulu packs her suitcase and goes to get a brontosaurus for herself, singing,

"I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna gonna get

A bronto-bronto-bronto

brontosaurus for a pet."

Lulu bullies her way through the forest, dispatching a snake, a tiger, and a bear, until she finds her brontosaurus. But lo and behold, Mr. B refuses to be her pet. He wants Lulu for HIS pet! Mr. B is so kind and nice and polite and patient in his refusal to let Lulu go and his insistence that she will be his pet, that Lulu stops screeching and starts asking nicely. She even uses the "P" word. (please) 

But has she really changed? You decide -- think about how she runs away from Mr. B at her first opportunity.  But think about how she mends her relationship with the snake, the tiger and the bear. And think about each of the three alternative endings -- which one is too sour, which one is too sweet, and which one is just about the way life really works, give or take the part about the brontosaurus?

This is a very fun read aloud. Very fun. To the reader of our blog who recently asked for chapter books to read aloud to Kindergarten -- this one receives my endorsement! And I heartily recommend that it be read aloud to first, second, third, fourth and fifth graders, too!   

other reviews:  Creative Literacy, Kids Lit, Brimful Curiosities

the public library says its subjects are: Behavior -- Juvenile fiction., Apatosaurus -- Juvenile fiction., Pets -- Juvenile fiction., Birthdays -- Juvenile fiction.

Happy Holidays!

Here's our traditional holiday greeting. Regular readers of A Year of Reading are waiting on the edge of their seats for this (or so we're told)...

Enjoy!

#bookaday -- Mary Lee's Pile

Half Upon a Time by James Riley
Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus
Keeper by Kathi Appelt
Forge by Laurie Halse Anderson
Pals in Peril: Agent Q or The Smell of Danger by M.T. Anderson
Tortilla Sun by Jennifer Cervantes
Noonie's Masterpiece by Lisa Railsback
Trash by Andy Mulligan
Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness
They Called Themselves the KKK by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
Sugar Changed the World by Marc Aronson
The War to End All Wars by Russell Freedman

12 days of vacation...12 books to read...beginning Thursday. (Who voted for this calendar, anyway?)
Stay tuned for daily updates....beginning Thursday.
Fluff the pillows on the couch, bring over the fuzzy throw, get my mug ready for tea...ready for Thursday.

Blow, blow thou winter wind

Blow, Blow, Thou Winter Wind

Act II, Scene 7 from As You Like It by William Shakespeare (1600)


Blow, blow, thou winter wind.
Thou art not so unkind
As man’s ingratitude;
Thy tooth is not so keen,
Because thou art not seen,
Although thy breath be rude.
Heigh-ho! sing, heigh-ho! unto the green holly:
Most friendship is feigning, most loving mere folly:
Then, heigh-ho, the holly!
This life is most jolly.
Freeze, freeze, thou bitter sky,
That dost not bite so nigh
As benefits forgot:
Though thou the waters warp,
Thy sting is not so sharp
As friend remember’d not.
Heigh-ho! sing, &c. 




I have just one word for the weather we've had for the past few weeks: BRRRRRR.


I'll stop complaining and put on my boots, hat, mittens, snow pants and down coat so I can head over to Amy's place in upstate New York. I have a feeling that we don't really know what cold is compared to the cold they have there!  The Poetry Friday roundup is at the Poem Farm this week!

The schedule of roundup hosts for the first six months of 2011 is almost completely filled. Hosts are still needed on

• December 31, 2010  TAKEN!!  Thanks, Carol!
• January 21, 2011    TAKEN!!  Thanks, Tara!
• February 25, 2011  TAKEN!!  Thanks, Sara!

If you'd like to host the roundup on one of those dates, comment on this post, please.

#bookaday

This summer, Donalyn Miller (@donalynbooks on Twitter)  shared her Book-A-Day Challenge with us on her blog. Her goal was to finish a book a day all summer. She shared her reading via blog and Twitter (#bookaday).  As her pile grew this fall, Donalyn suggested the book-a-day challenge again over holiday break. Lots of people jumped on board to join.  Because my pile of books has grown and grown with no end in sight, I thought I'd try to participate this year.  It seemed like a good time for me to catch up on some great books I've been dying to read.  If you want to join us in meeting a reading goal, just tweet using the hashtag #bookaday.

I decided to try to catch up on Middle Grade novels for the #bookaday challenge. I am trying to fit in a few YA novels before break begins but have a stack of 12+ middle grade/early YA novels that I am hoping to read during #bookaday.  Many of these were in my ALAN box but I am choosing the ones that lend themselves more toward younger YA readers.  With a K-5 building, I am exciting to catch up with new books our older kids may love.

Here is what is on my stack so far.  This list could change, but this is how it stands right now.

Dash and Lily's Book of Dares by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan (Okay, so one true YA book:-)
Warp Speed by Lisa Yee
Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin (can't believe I haven't read this one yet.)
A Long Walk to Water by Linda Sue Park
Penny Dreadful by Laura Snyder
The Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place by Maryrose Wood
Zora and Me (highly recommended by Paul Hankins)
Bystander by James Preller (can't believe I haven't read this one yet)
The Kneebone Boy by Ellen Potter
Big Nate by Lincoln Pierce
The Defense of Thaddeus A. Ledbetter by Gosselink
Lulu and the Brontosaurus by Judith Viorst
How I Nicky Flynn Finally Get a Life (And a Dog) by Art Corriveau

Zooborns: Book and Website

Who doesn't love cute baby animals?  In my quest for great nonfiction for elementary kids, I came across ZOOBORNS (the book and the blog) from 2 different sources.  During my last visit to Cover to Cover, Bill at Literate Lives had ZOOBORNS: ZOO BABIES FROM AROUND THE WORLD by Andrew Bleiman and Chris Eastland on his pile of books.  I immediately ordered a copy.  That same weekend, I learned about the blog ZOOBORNS from Larry Ferlazzo on Twitter.

The book, ZOOBORNS, is a great picture book for children. Each page in the book focuses on one specific baby animal born in a zoo somewhere in the world. 4-6 lines of text accompany each animal photo.  The end of the book gives more information about each animal, their home zoo, and their conservation status.  I imagine this book will be checked out at all times in the library. This is a great nonfiction book for young children.  It is all that I look for when looking for nonfiction for young kids--great photos, interesting information and accessible text. It would also make a great nonfiction read aloud.

The blog ZOOBORNS is quite fun and I shared it with several 3rd and 4th grade classes this week as we are trying to expand their nonfiction reading lives. Our kids are very honest about preferring fiction over nonfiction but my theory is that they haven't yet found interesting, accessible nonfiction text.  So many of the kids were excited about ZOOBORNS. This site highlights different baby animals from zoos around the world. It is updated often so there is always something new to read and learn. The side tags help readers who want specific information.  Readers can follow a certain kind of animal or a specific zoo.  This site is packed and seems accessible to middle grade readers.  It is tempting to just can the blog and enjoy the adorable photos but I am hoping that this site encourages children to read the text that accompanies the photos.

If you are looking for any last minute gifts, this would be a great gift book.  And I just noticed that there is another in this ZOOBORNS series. How exciting! I'll have to order it right now..

TALES2GO Offer for Schools

Tales2Go is a great app for kids. It is full of hundreds of stories told by various artists and organized in a way to be accessible to kids. This month, Tales2Go is offering a school promotion in which schools can get a FREE subscription (for up to 5 mobile devices). This offer is good through January 15, 2011.  I am excited that I'll be able to offer this on 5 of our mobile devices in the library!  Kids are going to be thrilled! So will teachers.  The regular price for a subscription is $24.99 per year.  Still a good deal but I so appreciate Tales2Go's effort to reach out to schools with their promotion.  If you have not seen the original demo of the Tales2Go app, you can watch it below.



I have been looking at this app as a great way for kids to experience stories using mobile devices. But I now see that there are also huge implications for classroom teachers.  The ways in which the stories are organized make it a great tool for teachers looking for the perfect book, a book to go with a genre study, etc.

I had previously only thought about this as a way for individuals to enjoy stories. But I now see the possibilities of sharing this with a whole class using a speaker system. I can also see the power of this as a great listening type of activity for several kids using my new favorite tool, the Belkin Rock-Star 5 Way Headphones.

Tales2Go has won several awards and has gained in popularity quickly because of its quality. (You can read the info from Parents' Choice Awards here.)   The promotion they are running for schools is a great treat for everyone. Thank you Tales2Go!

Pebble Go-Great K-3 Tool for Reading and Research

I have been working in the library to get more online resources and varied reading available to our students.  We have a school wide subscription to TUMBLEBOOKS which kids love. We also have started using iPod Touches and Kindles but are at the very beginning stages. I want all of our students to have access to a variety of tools for reading and learning.

One of the huge challenges I have had with many online literacy tools is how inaccessible they are to young children. Even if they are marketed for young children, many do not support students who are new readers.  With my understanding of literacy in grades K-4,  I am really looking for something that supports students as readers, writers and researchers and often the tools aren't build that truly support young children in growing in these areas.

One of my favorite resources that I purchased is a subscription to Pebble Go. Pebble Go is a nonfiction tool designed for students in Grades K-3. There are two databases available--one on Animals and one on Earth and Space.  Our school purchased a subscription to both from Follett for a total of $695 for the year.  One of our district librarians had mentioned it several timed and I looked harder at it at the SLJ Leadership Summit in October.

I LOVE LOVE LOVE Pebble Go. This week, I introduced it to 1st-4th graders at our school. The subscription we purchased allows students to access it from home or from school with our school's password.  I can't tell you how many kids told me they visited the site the evening following the introduction I gave.

There are sooooo many things to love about this tool:

-Pebble Go is a great nonfiction resource for kids. The text is simple, yet filled with great information. The images go with the text and there are videos, maps, and sounds that go along with the text.  Each topic is divided into subtopics and "tabs" with headings so students can access specific information.  I love that kids can learn from a variety of media on a topic.  There are also many different ways that information is categorized which is great for kids of this age.

-Pebble Go gives students lots of layers of support.  There are visual searches for students who need that but there is a search box for students who want to type in a search. There is a "listen" option for students who want text read aloud to them or who need search categories read aloud to them.  Students can also choose to read text on their own.  The entire resource gives layers of support and kids can use the supports as needed.

-There are words highlighted for students to get more support. If they do not know the highlighted word, clicking on it gives them a pronunciation and definition (read aloud to them if they'd like). Most of these are science specific words related to the topic.

-There are supports for students who are using Pebble Go for more formal research. There is a button that students can push on each page to "Cite the Source".  A pop-up window provides the info which makes for a great intro to citing sources. Students can also use photos and print articles in a printer friendly format (font and layout continue to support young readers.

I see this as a great intro to research, but more importantly, it is a great source of nonfiction reading for young children. It was a hard decision to decide to spend $700 of our library budget on these two databases but one of our goals has been to add more "readable" nonfiction text.  Although we have a great deal of nonfiction, it is hard to find lots of nonfiction that can be read by new readers.  This tool has hundreds of topics and the nonfiction text is accessible to readers at many reading levels. I also see it as a huge support for content learning and a great language support for our English Language Learners.

An added bonus is that our older kids are enjoying the resource. Some siblings have come in and told me that they've explored the site together. The tool is so supportive of young children, that they need no help to use it well once they've been introduced to the basics.  And it is so interesting in terms of the information, that it is engaging for older kids too.

Pebble Go has a great white paper that shares more details about the product. There is also a video on the Pebble Go site that helps explain it better.

I have never really reviewed an online resource like this, but I am so excited about this one that I wanted to share it.  I think it is well worth the 70 books I didn't buy because of I used the money for this. Instead of having 70 kids check new books, out, all of our K-5 students have access to this great nonfiction 24/7.  One of the things I learned early in the year (through a survey) is that our students spend a lot of time on computers but don't really know of great sites to visit.  I have been trying all year to help them see the possibilities of things they could do on the computer that support them as learners.

I have always been impressed with Capstone's nonfiction resources for young children. They understand the supports young children need. It is so nice to see that understanding transfer to online products.  I hope we see more things like this--things specifically designed to support young readers in ways that are embedded in authentic reading and learning.

Poetry Friday -- In Medias Res

FALL WIND

by William Stafford

Pods of summer crowd around the door;

I take them in the autumn of my hands.

Last night I heard the first cold wind outside;

the wind blew soft, and yet I shiver twice:

Once for thin walls, once for the sound of time.

You can go to the William Stafford Archives and see the drafts (in Stafford's handwriting) as this poem grew out of his daily writing. You can also hear him (I think it must be him) reading the poem. Wow.

Jama has the roundup today at Alphabet Soup, and there are still a few spots open on the Jan-June roundup host calendar. Comment there if you want to host a roundup in the first half of 2011. I'll share the html code of the calendar for your blog's sidebar once the calendar is filled.

And now, a little about the choice of this poem and the title of this post.

You might remember that I'm collecting autographs of Poet Laureates. So far, I have stood before Billy Collins, Ted Kooser and Kay Ryan as they signed my books and listened to me babble a bit about my love of their poetry.

My brother has had fun these last several years collecting autographs of long-gone Poet Laureates that have some meaning or connection to me. In 2008, he knocked my socks off with the gift of a book signed by Richard Eberhart, the Poet Laureate in the year of my birth, and a book signed by Robert Frost, who was the Poet Laureate before Eberhart (and who was oh-my-goodness ROBERT FROST!!!)  Last year he sent a signed book about poets and poetry by the very FIRST Poet Laureate, Joseph Auslander.

This year, he asked me to call when I opened my present so he could tell me why it was perfect. This year's book is TRAVELING THROUGH THE DARK by William Stafford, the 20th Poet Laureate. Here's why he picked this particular book/poet for this particular year:

Stafford was born in Hutchinson, Kansas (not too far from our childhood home…). One of the most striking features of his career is that he began publishing his poetry only later in life. His first major collection of poetry “Traveling Through the Dark” was published in 1962 (not too long after you were born…) when he was ALMOST 50 YEARS OLD! It won the National Book Award the following year in 1963. Despite his late start, he was a frequent contributor to magazines and anthologies and eventually published fifty-seven volumes of poetry. He kept a daily journal for 50 years, and composed nearly 22,000 poems, of which roughly 3,000 were published. (Thanks to Wikipedia for help with this info.)

So some parts of life can actually begin at 50! You have a pretty good chance that you still have at least half of your adult life left to do what you want with (like William Stafford did…)! May you have a healthy and happy second half … and beyond!! 

I found one more way this book is the perfect one for this year. The three parts of the book are "In Medias Res," "Before the Big Storm," and "Representing Far Places."  In medias res means "in the middle part." It's also a literary technique where the story begins at the middle, instead of the beginning. My life story is at its middle, and I feel like the good part is just beginning! Hooray for the middle place in life! Hooray for the times "Before the Big Storm!" Looking forward to traveling to all the "Far Places" that come my way!