ARE YOU AWAKE? by Sophie Blackall

I am a huge fan of Sophie Blackall. I fell in love with her work when I first read
MEET THE WILD BOARS and was thrilled to see her illustrations in the IVY AND BEAN series.    ARE YOU AWAKE? is my new favorite--written and illustrated by Sophie Blackall.

This is a small book-the size matches the tiny child on the front cover.  A small, sweet book.  The story is collection of questions--question that a little boy asks his mother in the middle of the night.  His first question, of course, is, "Are you awake?"

The story follows along the conversation between a very wide-awake child and his not-so-awake mother.  The child is full of why questions and the mother patiently answers every one.

There is lots to love about this little book.  The questions that the little boy asks are so genuine and true. Parents and children will all be able to remember a time when a child woke up far too early and wanted to chat.  The illustrations show the love and understanding of the relationship between mother and child and celebrates the curiosity of childhood.

This book would make a fun read aloud as well as an interesting text to study as a writing mentor.  I can't imagine anyone not falling in love with this book immediately.

June Mosaic

How to make a mosaic:

1. Make a photoset in Flickr.
2. Go to Big Huge Labs -- Home of fd's Flickr Toys -- and select the Mosaic Maker.
3. Choose the dimensions of your mosaic based on the number of photos you have.
4. Choose Flickr photoset as the way you'd like to upload, and paste in the URL for your photoset.
5. Create it, save it as a pdf, and -- VOILA! -- insert it into your blog as an image.

FARMYARD BEAT by Lindsey Craig and Marc Brown

Last year, I read and loved DANCING FEET by Lindsey Craig and Marc Brown.  I was thrilled to see that they collaborated on another fun book called FARMYARD BEAT.

This book will make for a great read aloud or a shared reading with young children.  The illustrations will draw readers in and the text will be fun to read over and over again.  The repeated phrases, picture support, rhythm and rhyme make this the perfect book for primary classrooms.

This is the story of a farmyard full of animals who can't sleep because they've "got the beat".  Each animal has his/her own beat that fits into the story.  I can only imagine the fun we'll all have when the animals are all sharing their beats together.  

I worry that we have gotten a bit away from shared reading in our primary classrooms.  I know I don't do enough of it in the library. But this book begs to be part of a shared reading experience.  I am thinking that I might make laminated cards with enlarged print for each animal in the story.  Then kids can join into the whole class reading but also use the cards to share the story in small groups.

Poetry Friday -- Poets Laureate -- Our National Poets

Joseph Auslander

Joseph Auslander was the first US Poet Laureate. The position was then known as the "Poetry Chair" or the "Consultant in Poetry." He served from 1937-1941.

About the position, he says

Having been appointed to the task of building in our national Library for the People of the United States a permanent sanctuary for the manuscripts and memorabilia of the poets of our tongue, I take the liberty of inviting your cooperation. Such a room, dedicated to the best and noblest utterances of the best and noble minds, is intended not only as a storehouse of treasures to inspire and instruct the multitude that daily throng our doors; it is to serve as one more heartening sigh, in a confused and darkened world, of the power of the poets and dramatists, the glory of our ideals and aspirations.

Isn't that a little bit what Poetry Friday is? It's temporary, but it's a sanctuary. It's built collaboratively each week. It's dedicated to what strikes us as the "best and noblest utterances of the best and noblest minds." And it is definitely a "heartening sigh, in a confused and darkened world."

Happy Poetry Friday in a flag-waving, country-loving, Fourth of July fireworks sort of way!!

I got my inspiration this week by dipping into my new book



The Poets Laureate Anthology
edited and with introductions by Elizabeth Hun Schmidt
foreword by Billy Collins
W.H. Norton, 2011
review copy purchased by me

Here's a poem by Joseph Auslander:

TESTAMENT

To see a dream
Reduced to rust
Is a bitter theme,
Yet it leaves a gleam--
It must...
But to lose trust
In a simple thing
Like the golden dust
On a miller's wing
Or the smell of spring
In the air--
That I could never bear.



The roundup today is at a wrung sponge. The roundup for the next six months is here, and in our sidebar. Thank you everyone for volunteering to host!

New Poetry Friday Roundup Schedule

July 

1 Andromeda at a wrung sponge

8 Elaine at Wild Rose Reader

15 Mary Lee at  A Year of Reading

22 Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference

29 Kate at Book Aunt

August 

5 Libby at A Year of Literacy Coaching!

12 Karen at Karen Edmisten

19 Dori at Dori Reads

26 Irene at Live. Love. Explore!

September 

2 Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect

9 Katie at Secrets and Sharing Soda

16 Amy at The Poem Farm

23 Anastasia at Picture Book of the Day

30 Sara at Read Write Believe

October 

7 Mary Ann at Great Kid Books

14 david elzey at FOMAGRAMS

21 Jama at alphabet soup

28 Diane at Random Noodling

November 

4 Laura Salas at Writing the World for Kids

11 April Halprin Wayland at Teaching Authors

18 Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference

25 Heidi at my juicy little universe

December 

2 Carol at Carol's Corner

9 Robyn at Read, Write, Howl

16 Kate at Book Aunt

23 Dori at Dori Reads

30 Julie at The Drift Record

If you want the html code so that you, too, can have a cool sidebar list, email me at ayearofreading at earthlink dot net and I'll send it to you!

Dude: Fun with Dude and Betty

Dude: Fun with Dude and Betty
by Lisa Pliscou
illustrated by Tom Dunne
Harper, 2011
review copy purchased because it looked too hysterical to pass up (I was not disappointed)

Yesterday's book was a hard book; today's book is just plain fun. I took it to All Write and it made its way down the row in the PAC before Jeff Anderson's opening keynote, becoming many readers' #bookaday.

This book is a parody of Dick and Jane (or David and Anne for you Catholics).

"Here is Dude.

Hey, Dude. What's up?

Dude is a way cool guy."

Dude's friend is Betty, and his dog is Bud. "Bud is a most excellent dog." Dude, Betty and Bud play Frisbee on the beach, then Dude goes surfing while Betty soaks up rays on the beach.

"Yowza!

Stokaboka!

Check out those waves!

The waves are big.

Surf's up, Dude!

It is cranking today."

Dude gets biffed by a super gnarly wave, and he's done surfing for the day. The trio goes to the taco stand for a "bodacious burrito." Back at home, Dude and Betty listen to Dude's new Surf Punks CD. "Betty boogies. Dude plays air guitar." Dude's Father and Mother have the nerve to question him about cleaning his room and doing his homework, so he bails on that gnarly scene and heads back to the beach.

The book includes an extensive glossary.

I can't wait to hear my landlocked midwestern 4th graders perform this book!!

This Child, Every Child: A Book About the World's Children

This Child, Every Child: A Book about the World's Children
by David J. Smith
illustrated by Shelagh Armstrong
CitizenKid imprint of Kids Can Press, 2011
review copy provided by the publisher

This is an important book. It is not an easy book, but it is an important book.

Without support, it will be hard for children to grasp the concepts that compare children around the world in various aspects of their lives. And it is hard to read about children in the world who don't have proper food, clean water, caring families, or access to schooling.

Which brings us back to the fact that this is an important book, because no positive changes will come for children in need (whether they live in rich countries or poor) if we look away from the problem.

The format of this book is similar to David J. Smith's other books for the CitizenKid imprint of Kids Can Press, IF THE WORLD WERE A VILLAGE and IF AMERICA WERE A VILLAGE. It is organized by topic: Children and their families, Children at home, Children's health, Children on the move, Children at school, Are boys and girls treated equally?, Children and work, Children at play, Children and war, Children and the future, Children's rights. In each section, he introduces us to children from around the globe who experience each of the topics differently. In addition, on each 2-page topic spread, Smith highlights a pertinent section from the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (and all of the rights are listed in child friendly language at the end of the book). Also at the end of the book, are numerous ideas for using the book and the information and concepts in the book with children.

When we study rights and responsibilities in our 4th grade social studies curriculum, it is often hard for 9 year-olds to relate to the U.S. Bill of Rights. But the rights that are presented in this book are their rights--the rights of children in the United States and all around the world. I can't wait to share this book with my students!

You Can Count on Monsters

You Can Count on Monsters
by Richard Evan Schwartz
published by A.K. Peters, 2010
review copy provided by the publisher

I love teaching math, so excuse me for getting excited about a book that has fun with prime and composite numbers, and prime factorization!

Mathematician Richard Evans Schwartz has created a monster for each of the numbers from 1-100. The prime number monsters are what make up the composite number monsters, in the same way that each composite number is made by multiplying prime factors. The monster for the prime number 2 has two blue and pink google eyes. The monster for the prime number 3 is a red triangle with a big yellow smile. The monster for the prime number 5 is a bright gold star with green google eyes. The monster for the composite number 30 is made of the prime numbers 2, 3, and 5 because those are the prime factors of 30 -- 2x3=6 and 6x5=30, so 2x3x5=30. In the 30 monster you can find the bright gold star, a blue google eye and a big red triangle.

This will be a great book to preview with kids to show them how it works, and then turn them loose with it to see what they can find.

Stanford mathematician Keith Devlin talked to NPR's Weekend Edition host Scott Simon about You Can Count on Numbers. (Listen here.) He says that mathematicians are different from regular folk because to them, numbers have personality, structures and relationships. The brilliance of Schwartz's book is that he makes those ways of thinking and seeing come to life for anyone who studies the pages of YOU CAN COUNT ON MONSTERS!

At Richard Evans Schwartz's website, you can see what some of the monsters look like.

Go look! What do YOU notice?

Rah, Rah, Radishes!: A Vegetable Chant

Rah, Rah, Radishes!: A Vegetable Chant
by April Pulley Sayre
Beach Lane Books, June 2011
review copy provided by the publisher

April Pulley Sayre is the queen of chant books.

A few years ago at the CLA breakfast at NCTE, I sat beside April. We got to talking about her school visits, and she offered to perform her chant book, TROUT, TROUT, TROUT: A FISH CHANT, while I held the book up and turned the pages for our table-mates. She could recite that book from memory faster than I could turn the pages!

Her other chant books in that first series include BIRD, BIRD, BIRD: A CHIRPING CHANT and ANT, ANT, ANT: AN INSECT CHANT.

In her newest book, April takes us to the South Bend, IN Farmer's Market to romp and stomp and chomp the names of both familiar and unusual vegetables. Here's a bit of the backstory about why this book came to be:

"In 2006 I watched British chef Jamie Oliver's four-part BBC documentary, "Jamie's School Dinners," in which he interviewed children and found that many didn't know the names of vegetables. That shocked me, a girl who grew up picking vegetables on her grandparents' farm. I had to do something...

...RAH, RAH, RADISHES! A VEGETABLE CHANT is about having fun with vegetables--and with delicious words, colors, and shapes. The photos are a celebration of farmer's market produce; I photographed it at our local South Bend Farmer's Market."

Here's a sample of the jazzy rhythm, rhyme, and language:

Rah, rah, radishes!

Red and white.

Carrots are calling.

Take a bite!

Oh boy, bok choy!

Brussels sprout.

Broccoli. Cauliflower.

Shout it out!

The colors of the foods jump off the pages and the words beg to be shouted aloud. I'm sure this will be a favorite book for partner reading during next year's Poetry Fridays in my 4th grade classroom. (For a review and some inside images, go to jama rattigan's alphabet soup.)

April has a sequel planned: GO, GO, GRAPES! A FRUIT CHANT, and rumor has it that while in New Orleans for ALA she visited a Vietnamese fruit market to do a photo shoot. Stay tuned for another YUMMY chant book!

Georgia Heard, Poetry, and Common Core Standards

Earlier this summer, I downloaded two Common Core Standard apps for my iPhone. You can find them at the iTunes app store or read about them ("The Common Core app isn't going to revolutionize the way you teach, but it certainly will make it convenient to find the standards that you need to know.") at Free Technology for Teachers.

I'm approaching the switch to the Common Core Standards on a "need to know" basis. They aren't exactly giving me hives, but I'm on the apprehensive side of curious to find out how they'll impact the way I do business in my 4th grade classroom.

Georgia Heard's session at All Write, "Understanding the Core Standards: Reading Standards for Literature -- Poetry," seemed like a good place to dip my toes in. And the main message I got from this session? Good teaching is good teaching, no matter what labels they give us to name the pieces and parts.

Georgia started with the big lessons that poetry teaches -- lessons of language. Poetry is filled with figurative language, and with the language of heart and soul: rhythm and sound, compression and precision, images, and figures of speech. (And she showed us where all of these pieces and parts and labels can be found in the Common Core Standards.)

She named the questions we need to ask of poems we read and write:

• What makes this a poem?
• What is this poem about?
• What is the poet's message?
• What tools did the poet use to help show his/her meaning?

(The standards these questions address already exist in our state standards...nothing new here...)

And she showed us how, by living with and climbing inside one poem a week, students would build knowledge about poems for their "music" and for their "meaning" toolboxes for reading and writing poetry.

Monday: read the poem aloud. Make sure students can see the poem. Read it again. Turn and talk. What do you notice? What's it about?

Tuesday--Thursday: illustrate it, act it out, read it chorally, do quick-writes about the poem/off of the poem.

Friday: now that you love and understand the poem, dig into the craft tools the poet used. Talk about how the poem's built, how the poet uses compressed language (not ALL of the words another writer might use on the same topic).

Georgia's final message:

Don't forget that literature is heart work.