#DubLit13

It's almost time for the Dublin Literacy Conference!

Hope to see you there!

Watch for tweets all day Saturday at #DubLit13.

Like Bug Juice on a Burger

Like Bug Juice on a Burger
by Julie Sternberg
illustrated by Matthew Cordell
Abrams, on shelves April 2013

This sweet little novel in verse is the sequel to Like Pickle Juice on a Cookie.

In this book, the main character, Eleanor, is going to go to summer sleep-over camp. Her grandmother gives it to her as a gift, remembering that Eleanor's mother loved it when she was Eleanor's age.

Eleanor does NOT like camp -- the food is bad, she's the only one who can't swim, and she misses her parents and New York City.

Luckily, she makes a new friend. Joplin is VERY tall and VERY different from Eleanor, but she winds up making ALL the difference to Eleanor.

Poetry Friday -- Take a Deep Breath and Count to Ten

Flickr Creative Commons Photo by Claudio Vaccaro

SOME DAYS ARE LIKE THAT

My teacher’s sitting in her chair,

her head between her hands.

She’s mumbling and muttering…

I think she just said SAND!

This really isn’t like her.

I know she lives to teach.

But that was unmistakable…

my teacher just said BEACH!

© Mary Lee Hahn, 2013

It's been a rough week. Sometimes the only thing that kept me sane was my poetry writing goal. 

Linda has the roundup today at TeacherDance.

Happy Valentine's Day! I Haiku You!

I Haiku You
by (Ohio author) Betsy E. Snyder
Random House Books for Young Readers, 2012
review copy from my classroom library

What (or who) do you love? Betsy Snyder's twenty haiku love poems will definitely make you want to write a few of your own.

Here are some my students came up with to share with you today -- Happy Valentine's Day!

cute little faces
hopping around behind me --
look, it's the bunnies!

I love chocolate!
It melts on my tongue so slow.
Chocolate is the best!

Delicious, sweetness!
I share my cookies with friends!
Cookies are my world!

I love monster trucks.
They do front flips and back flips.
They go really high.

They're with you always --
annoying you, comforting...
but they're still family.

Buzzer beater: SWISH!
I really like basketball --
the best game ever.

Pizza, I love you.
Pizza, pizza, you're so good.
Pizza, so good and juicy.

Dance, dance, I love it!
Every day my body moves.
I cannot stop it!

Japan is the best!
Japan has yummy food, so...
Japan is the best!

Dark carmel chocolate
with a little bitterness --
it's really creamy.

Your chocolately taste
is really really yummy.
Brownies are awesome!

Your music is the best.
You guys are so funny.
Oh, One Direction!!

I love oatmeal,
brown sugar especially.
It smells really good.

I so love bacon!
So yummy in my tummy!
So, so delicious!

The Goodreads Playground

I mentioned in a post last month that some of the Columbus Dispatch Kid Readers (with the help/supervision/blessing of their parents) have joined Goodreads.

Let's back up a minute and just talk about the ways we adults keep track of what we've read. My mom has a little notebook where she writes down titles and authors. She's a voracious mystery series reader, and she needs to keep track of which books in which series she's already read. My friend Lisa is the keeper of our book club's history of reading. She's got a list that goes all the way back to our club's first book together, Lucy Calkins' THE ART OF TEACHING WRITING, which we read when it was new. I was inspired by a fellow writer for the (now defunct) OSU publication THE W.E.B. to read a children's book a week (or if not a book every week, then at least 52 children's books a year). That was back in the mid-1980's. I have a whole shelf full of notebooks listing all of the books I read for about 25 years. Then, in 2007, Goodreads came on the scene. For a few years, I kept both my notebook and my Goodreads listing, but my reading record is now completely digital.

Okay. So we keep track of what we read.

But what if we'd been doing that since we were 10 or 11 years old?

It's been amazing to watch these kids explore and play on Goodreads. First they entered just the book they were currently reading. But that soon expanded. One girl keeps a list of her 5th grade reads in her Take Home folder as well as in her Language Arts binder; she entered all 50+ books she's read this year. After that, I saw other lists expand all the way back to favorites from their early reading years. They've started creating bookshelves -- learning the power of tagging -- and they're marking books as "To Read" -- planning ahead for future reading.

I heard from a parent that sending messages is a popular facet of Goodreads -- the account was created through the mom's email, and her daughter is now getting more emails than she is -- many with the sole content being, "Hi!"

That might be a somewhat trivial part of the way the students are using Goodreads, but they are also following authors' reviews, becoming fans of authors, collecting quotes, setting reading goals, and creating book quizes. Not just taking quizes, creating them and inviting the other Columbus Dispatch Readers to take them!

Up until now, Goodreads has simply been a place for me to log the books I've read. These kid-readers have explored it like a playground, finding every interesting nook and cranny and trying it all out for themselves. I can't wait to watch their reading habits change and evolve as they move through middle school, high school, and beyond. (We'll just assume for the sake of argument that there will still be both an Internet and a site called Goodreads that will last that long as well...)

Columbus Dispatch Kid Readers blog is here.

Another Post on Book Purchases

I was at Cover to Cover last Saturday, too. Like Franki, I didn't so much have a shopping list of books I was hoping to find, as I had some readers in mind that I was hoping to steer in a new reading direction with my purchases.

Historical fiction is a book gap for me and for many of my students. The huge bag of historical fiction picture books I brought from the public library was pretty much of a bust for getting them to dig into more historical fiction, so I'm going to pull every historical fiction novel off my shelves and book talk them along with the four books from the I Survived series that I picked up. Navigating Early is also technically historical fiction, and I'm anxious for the Rubik's Cube Savant and his Sidekick to read this book. Watching them solve The Cube reminds me of the way Early thinks about Pi.

For my middle-of-the-road boy readers, I'm hoping that Gordon Korman's Island trilogy will a.) introduce them to a new author, and b.) get them going on some non-graphic novels. Gary Paulsen's new book with his son, Road Trip, will have to wait until I've read it. (How much school work can I delay so that I can get this book read?!?!)

Dragonbreath is a good hybrid series -- a little bit graphic novel, a little bit text novel -- and it's very funny. I haven't been able to keep up, but I've read at least four of them. Book #8 is Dragonbreath #8: Nightmare of the Iguana. I'm trying not to buy any more graphic novels this year because a significant chunk of my collection has gone missing, but I couldn't resist just this one.

Because of Karen, I bought The False Prince: Book 1 of the Ascendance Trilogy. (I also bought it for my Kindle app -- it was the Kindle Daily Deal last Saturday!) Looks like we won't have to wait too long for book two!

Like Franki, the minute I saw Follow Follow: A Book of Reverso Poems I had to have it, and Franki knew I wouldn't be able to resist I Haiku You (more on that one in a future post).

The new Elephant and Piggie (Let's Go for a Drive! (An Elephant and Piggie Book))...do I even need a reason to own more Mo Willems?!?

All I can say about this purchasing spree at Cover to Cover is -- GOOD THING I HAD A GIFT CERTIFICATE!!

Book Purchases

I made a trip to Cover to Cover this week and picked up a stack of books.  It is so different shopping as a classroom teacher than it was to shop as a librarian.  I understand the way kids are changing as readers. I know which books are being passed around.  And I can predict ways I can stretch a child from one type of book to another. Today's trip was one with few expectations. I didn't really need anything so I wasn't sure what I was looking for. But a few titles caught my eye because I knew they might move readers.  I left with a bag of a few new titles that I am excited about and a few not-so-new titles that I think might be perfect for a few students ready to grow in new directions as readers.

I am very excited about Follow Follow: A Book of Reverso Poems --I loved Singer and am excited about this new book of Reverso poems.

I read about Athlete vs. Mathlete on the blog Mary Lee's kids are keeping about 2013 books. Columbus Dispatch Kid Readers is a great resource for 2013 books and I think it will be an expensive blog for me to read.

I also picked up some new Goosebumps titles.  A few students have had their first Goosebumps experience with the graphic novel so I thought I'd share some of these with them.   I picked up some brand new ones as the one I have are old and tattered. Excited to see if these hook anyone.

One of my students, a Hunger Games fan, just decided to try the Gregor series because he loves Suzanne Collins. He read Gregor The Overlander (Underland Chronicles, Book 1) which is the only one I have in the room. So I thought I'd pick up #2 and #3 in case more kids start reading this.  Not many kids read it before Hunger Games but it seems to be more popular now.

I have a group of kids who has been reading We are the Ship by Kadir Nelson.  In January, they discovered Walter Dean Myers book The Journal of Biddy Owens, the Negro Leagues, Birmingham, Alabama, 1948 and loved it.  I realized that there are more historical fiction books in this journal form by Myers so thought I'd pick a few up. I think the kids who liked the other book may like them. I also think they might appeal to my I Survived fans.

And I am MOST excited about Lisa Graff's new book A Tangle of Knots. I love Lisa Graff and have yet to be disappointed by any of her books. This one looks fabulous and I hope to read it soon!

Poetry Friday -- Ummm...

Ode to the Word on the Tip of My Tongue

You're so...
(I'm speechless)

Whenever you...
(I'm mum)

The best thing...
(I'm silenced)

I love how you...
(struck dumb)


© Mary Lee Hahn, 2013

Tara has the Poetry Friday Roundup at A Teaching Life.

Navigating Early

Navigating Early
by Clare Vanderpool
Delacorte Press, 2013
review copy ARC provided by Cover to Cover Books for Young Readers

It's been a long time since a book has grabbed me by the collar and sat me down in a chair and refused to let me up until I finished it.

Navigating Early wiggled its way into my school bag and forced me to read during SSR time, as I ate lunch, and while my students were at art.

I fell in love with Jack, from flat, wide open Kansas, who pukes the first time he looks at the ocean. And I fell in love with Early, who listens to Billie Holiday when it rains. I fell in love with the stories within the story -- the travels of Pi that match both the digits of Pi as well as the adventure Jack and Early have in the backwoods of Maine.

I couldn't help myself -- I dogeared the page corner at Chapter 21 -- the first time I can ever remember encountering fly fishing in a children's book (not to mention a spirited argument about why Jesus could possibly have been "a likely candidate for fly-fishing").

Navigating Early is mysterious and magical, brimful of surprising characters, and with an ending that's a sigh of satisfaction.

Move Navigating Early to the top of your must-read list. You won't regret it.



Also reviewed by
Kevin at Kevin's Meandering Mind
Katherine at Read, Write, Reflect
Colby at Sharpread

Amelia Bedelia -- Celebrating 50 Years

Amelia Bedelia Fiftieth Anniversary Edition
by Peggy Parish
illustrated by Fritz Siebel
Greenwillow Books, 1963/2013
review copy provided by the publisher

Hard to believe that Amelia Bedelia has been blundering along taking life literally for fifty years. I bet she still makes a mean lemon meringue pie!

This Fiftieth Anniversary Edition of the original picture book comes with seven pages of backmatter, including original advertisements, The Story Behind the Story with information about both Peggy Parish and Fritz Siebel, and a timeline of the ways Amelia Bedelia has been portrayed in illustrations from 1963 to the present.

It doesn't seem fair that while all the rest of us have been aging these last 50 years, Amelia Bedelia has been getting younger -- she began as a somewhat grandmotherly housekeeper and now she's a skinny legged girl in polkadot tights!

Peggy Parish's died in 1988, but her nephew, Herman Parish, continued the series in 1995. Amelia Bedelia can now be found in I Can Read! books (levels 1 and 2) and in short chapter books.

Amelia Bedelia Collection (I Can Read Book 2)

Amelia Bedelia Hits the Trail (I Can Read Book 1)

Amelia Bedelia Chapter Book #1: Amelia Bedelia Means Business

For more anniversary fun, visit Amelia Bedelia's website at HarperCollins, and follow her on Twitter @AmeliaBedelia.