A Basket of Picture Books to Invite Exploration of Refugee and Immigrant Experiences

We are reading aloud Refugee by Alan Gratz in our classroom right now. There is so much about this book that makes it an incredible read aloud for 5th graders.  For some students this is the first historical fiction book they've read. And many are unfamiliar with some of the time historical periods and issues in the book. There has been lots of great conversation with lots of questions as the stories in the book unfold. This week I put together a basket of books for students who wanted to read more or think more about refugee and immigrant experiences. I believe that it takes both fiction and nonfiction when trying to understand an issue so this basket is a combination of both. I also think that there are some books that are about many things but that help us think about these real-world issues. The basket will grow-and we'll include video and digital resources as well-- as the year goes on but these are the first books we've included.

Stormy Seas by Mary Beth Leatherdale

Two White Rabbits by Jairo Buitrago

Their Great Gift: Courage, Sacrifice and Hope in a New Land by John Coy

Her Right Foot by Dave Eggers

Where Will I Live by Rosemary McCarney

The Arrival by Shaun Tan

The Keeping Quilt by Patricia Polacco

My Two Blankets by Irene Kobald

I'm New Here by Anne Sibley O'Brien

Grandfather's Journey by Alan say

Shelter by Celine Claire

A Refugee's Journey from Syria (and a few others from this series)

Poetry Friday -- Charlotte Zolotow

Last week, I wrote about the closing of Acorn Bookshop, and one of the treasures I purchased. (Sorry I didn't make it around the roundup. Life happened last week. Big time.)

In close second place to the first edition Joyce Kilmer is this AUTOGRAPHED book by the one, the only, THE Charlotte Zolotow!

Besides being a poet and prolific picture book author, Charlotte Zolotow was a children's book editor for 38 years. The award bearing her name is given to the best picture book (writing, rather than the Caldecott's illustrating) of the year.

Here's a favorite from the book:

So Will I

My grandfather remembers long ago
the white Queen Anne's lace that grew wild.
He remembers the buttercups and goldenrod
from when he was a child.

He remembers long ago
the white snow falling falling.
He remembers the bluebird and thrush
at twilight
calling calling.

He remembers long ago
the new moon in the summer sky.
He remembers the wind in the trees
and its long, rising sigh.
And so will I
                    so will I.

Love the illustrations, too!

Carol has this week's Poetry Friday roundup at Beyond LiteracyLink.

The Just Ten Challenge

Unsplash photo by Krissia Cruz

This morning, Franki texted me a link to Aliza Werner's post on the Classroom Communities blog, "Halfway Here: The Just Ten Challenge" with the message, "We should do this on the blog."

Aliza got this time of year SO right. So. Very. Right.

I'm down, I'm swamped, I'm behind, I'm frustrated. But all it took was Aliza's reminder that the good in a day isn't so hard to find if you just look for it. Here is my Ten:

1.  It started with one, but by the time we got finished, Sam* had been nominated six times for student of the month. Six friends honored him for his sense of humor, for being a partner, for improving from the beginning of the year. Beaming bright enough to light the room, he accepted our nomination.

Sam is not the kind of student I would ever nominate to be student of the month. Through the teacher lens, he doesn't look like student of the month material -- off task, negative, talking when he's supposed to be quiet, rarely giving strong effort. That's the student. What I'd failed to look at, what my students taught me, was to see the person.

2.  Fred, my student who is a complicated puzzle I haven't yet begun to try to figure out, had a better day today. If only I could figure out how to replicate and amplify that...

3.  A dozen students who wanted to improve their math test scores (some from good to great, others from the dumper into the passing zone) stayed in from only the second outdoor recess we've had in recent memory.  A few of those who most needed to improve made stunning gains.

4.  We are studying the motions of the earth in science -- rotation for night/day and orbit for year/seasons. Learning about the way the observable world around them works has awakened their curiosity. So fun.

5.  Today's job in writing workshop was BIC, no talking, write an introduction to your informational piece that signals the reader what structure you've chosen. And they ALL knocked it out of the ballpark!

6.  Indoor recess creations with wooden blocks and MarbleWorks.

Two story school house.

7.  One of our middle schools created 700 (!!!) cute take-out-box snowmen with positive messages, bookmarks and mints inside. One for EVERY student in our building. Wow.

8.  Seeing my students begin to really stretch themselves as readers.

9.  The cheery "Good Morning!" EVERY morning from Donte.

10. The picture of "Ms. Hahn Super Teacher" on the back of Michelle's word study quiz.


What's your ten? Post on your blog or in the comments. Drop your link in our comments AND over on Aliza's post.


*All names have been changed.

Shaking Things Up: 14 Young Women Who Changed the World by Susan Hood

I love Susan Hood and am a huge fan of her book Ada's Violin.  When I heard about the book Shaking Things Up and noticed that Susan Hood was the author, I could not wait to get a copy.  Well I finally got a copy and LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE LOVE this book! Every detail is perfect. One of my new favorite books for sure.

There is so much about this book to love that I need to make a list!

The Cover- is amazing. I can't stop looking at it.  Illustrator Oge Mora created a purely brilliant and beautiful cover.

The Women--The 14 women profiled in this book are definitely extraordinary.  What I loved about the selection of women included was the variety. There were some women I knew and some whose impact I did not know. There were women who made an impact at different ages (as children and as adults) and they made a difference in a variety of ways.

The Illustrations--The fact that 13 women illustrators created this book together with Susan Hood made me happy. Some of my already favorite illustrators (Melissa Sweet, Sophie Blackall, LeUyen Pham) along with some new-to-me illustrators whose art captivated me (Oge Mora, Julie Morstad)

The Table of Contents--The introduction to this book starting with,  "Women and girls have been shaking thins up for a Lon time, resisting those would would box them in..." was perfection. This fabulous introductory paragraph is followed by a beautiful Table of Contents. You don't often find a TOC that is this beautifully designed.

The Timeline--Following the Table of Contents, the author gives us a timeline (another beautiful piece of this book) that gives us information about the women in the book.  A timeline that shows women have been chasing the world since the early 1780s!

The Poetry--Susan Hood has written an original poem about each on of the women. She uses a variety of forms and I am amazed at how much we learn about each woman from these poems. The poems are followed by a short blurb with some incredible info about the woman.

Quotes--Each illustration includes a quote by or about the woman illustrated. These are fabulous extras details.

Author's Note-- I loved this peek into the Susan Hood's thinking.

Sources--At the end of the book, Susan Hood gives us a list of resources for readers.  She gives us some fabulous books and websites for each of the women she wrote about.  It is a fabulous list (and it is also beautiful).

The Cover Under the Jacket--You'll have to get your own copy to look at this!

This book is truly incredible. It is a must-read, must-have, must-revisit kind of book.  It is perfection!


(Shaking Things Up was one of the books that Olivia of @Livbits recommended for our blog booklist in December. You can hear more about why she loves this book in her new video!)

Shaking Things Up by Susan Hood Will Give You Heartbeeps ❤️ from TheLivBits on Vimeo.

Poetry Friday -- Sorrow and Joy

After 25 years of business, our favorite local independent (secondhand and antiquarian) bookstore, Acorn Bookshop, is succumbing to the pressures of bookstore chains and Amazon. To give you a sense of the loss that many in the community are feeling, here's a poem (not by me) that George shared on the Acorn Facebook page:

The following poem was written by one of the Acorn family of friends/customers.

NOT AN ACORN FALLETH

Not an acorn falleth, but our God doth know,
Even when e-commerce lays a bookstore low;
Seeds are scattered ‘round the earth, bookstore-ies are set free.
What once was just a mortal nut is now immortal tree.
Far more precious surely than the books that fly
Off the shelves are people who all came in to buy,
Or chat with George or Christine or other Acorn kind
‘Bout every sort of history or author on their mind.
Then off they’d go to browse around; such treasures to behold.
A myst’ry why there’s any left; so many you have sold!
Remember all your book fans as you turn the page;
for memories grow more precious as they come of age.
Though pages now are numbered; dust each off and see,
How many hearts you’ve gladdened; The acorn’s now a tree.

An Acornista

(with apologies to Louisa May Alcott)

Last summer when I did a fairly massive clean-and-purge, I sold a bunch of books to Acorn and so we had a sizable amount of store credit. I was looking forward to working with George and Jack to build my collection of signed editions by U.S. Poets Laureate. When they announced the closing, they didn't have any such editions on their shelves, but I bought four gems I'll be sharing in the next couple of weeks.

 First up, a 1914 first edition of Joyce Kilmer, containing his (yes, HIS!) most famous poem, "Trees."

There aren't many other poems in the book that I particularly care for, except this one:

Lots of folks in this snow-covered coldcoldcold land are looking forward to spring!

The page after this Easter poem contained the biggest surprise in the book: evidence of the previous reader/owner, who marked up a poem with directions for reading it aloud! AND...tucked in at that spot was a magazine clipping with poems by Aline Kilmer, who, come to find out, was Joyce Kilmer's wife!

As I was poking around learning about the Kilmers, I discovered that the University of Delaware has a collection of 50+ letters that Sara Teasdale wrote to the two of them. Fascinating. I'd love to poke through that collection some day!

My students are astonished by my lack of knowledge about current popular culture -- movies, video games, sports, YouTubers, etc. Who has time for all that when you can get lost in literary rabbit holes?!?

Kay has today's Poetry Friday Roundup at A Journey Through the Pages.

Ban This Book

Ban This Book
by Alan Gratz
Starscape, 2017

"...for all the amazing things books can do, they can't make you into a bad person." p.232

Nope. They open our minds, make us think, introduce us to new worlds and different ways of living and being, entertain us, and call us to action. But they don't make us into bad people, or good people, or any kind of people at all. It's up to us to take action and be the person we want to be.

And that's precisely what Amy Anne learns in this book. She has always been the quiet mouse of a reader, chewing on the ends of her braids, having conversations in her head but not standing up for herself out loud...until her favorite book in the world is banned from the school library. The book is not banned through the formal board-approved process of review. Rather, it is banned because one powerful mother goes straight to the board, bypassing all the rules, and gets what she wants.

Not only does Amy Anne learn to say what's on her mind, she also learns the importance of empathy. It's not until she looks at the situation from the point of view of the book-banning mom is she able to provide the school board with the argument that wins her case -- you can't ban books because a single reader finds fault with them. If you did that, you might as well ban all the books in the library.

Hooray for the teachers in this book and their study of the Bill of Rights. Hooray for Amy Anne's friend Rebecca who wants to become a lawyer and who knows all about Robert's Rules of Order (and wears a suit and carries a briefcase to the school board meeting at the end of the book). Hooray for Alan Gratz for giving book-loving kids a book where the reader is the hero, and a story where the misuse of power is defeated by democracy.

I'm going to add Mrs. Jones to our list of 100 Cool Teachers in Children's Literature even though she's a librarian. She gets fired because of Amy Anne's BBLL (Banned Books Locker Library), but she doesn't hold it agains Amy Anne. She tells her, "Well-behaved women seldom make history. Consider this your first taste of behaving badly in the name of what's right." p.223

I'll end with this: "All the book challenges, the real ones, were because one person saw a book in a very different way than somebody else. Which was fine. Everbody had the right to interpret any book any way they wanted to. What they couldn't do then was tell everybody else their interpretation was the only interpretation." p.195.

Amen.

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

One of my 2019 goals is to balance my reading life a bit. This week felt balance and I read some great books.  Thanks to Jen and Kellee for hosting this weekly event!

I know Mary Lee already wrote about LOVE here on the blog but if you have not read this book, buy it now--and buy one for everyone you know. This is an amazing book. I keep picking it up and reading it, seeing new things in the incredible illustrations. Matt de la Pena and Loren Long--WOW!


I am so happy I am making some time for more young adult reading in my life. I heard about Moxie by Jennifer Mathieu from Pernille Ripp and Donalyn Miller and I am so glad I read this one. What a great book--so many great characters and teen girls starting a feminist revolution, questioning things the way they've always been done in their high school.


Don't Forget Dexter by Lindsay Ward is a fun picture book for young readers. Dexter is a fun new character that loses his friend in the doctor's office. This is a fun story of Dexter looking for Jack. This book is filled with talking bubbles and humor and of course has a happy ending. I think Dexter is a new character that we'll be seeing more of. A great book for primary kids and I am keeping this one in mind for baby/toddler gifts too.

I am so glad to have received a copy of Festival of Colors by Surishtha Sehgal. This is a great addition to any classroom library.  This book is a celebration of Holi, the Indian festival of colors. It is simple story but the gorgeous illustrations and Author's Note make it a great one for any age.

A Refugee's Journey from Syria is another I read this week.  I learned about this series from Aliza Werner. So glad to know about it. This is the first book in the series that I read.  A few of my students have read it already too.  This is an incredible series that is well-written for middle grade students--packed with information and stories of refugees. I purchased a few more from the series for my classroom this week.

I also read two newish picture books about Malala. I am always looking for books that share important topics and issues with middle grade students.  These are two very different book about the important work of Malala and I am happy to add both of them to our classroom library.  Malala's Pencil and Malala: Activist for Girls' Education

Poetry Friday -- Love

Unsplash photo by Myur Gala

LOVE IS A PLACE
by e.e. cummings

love is a place
& through this place of
love move
(with brightness of peace)
all places

yes is a world
& in this world of
yes live
(skilfully curled)
all worlds

If you haven't seen Love by Matt de la Pena (illustrated by Loren Long), grab a copy (and a hanky) as soon as possible. This is an example of true picture book magic -- the words and the pictures are perfectly paired.

Before you watch the trailer, you might want to read Matt's article in TIME, "Why We Shouldn't Shield Children From Darkness."

And then read Kate Di Camillo's response, "Why Children's Books Should Be a Little Sad." (another hanky alert for this one)



Another new picture book you should not miss is Be A King by Carole Boston Weatherford.


For this week's not-to-miss poetry, Jan has the Poetry Friday roundup at Book Seed Studio.

Be A King

Be A King: Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s Dream and You
by Carole Boston Weatherford
illustrated by James E. Ransome
Bloomsbury, 2018

Next Monday, the nation will pause to remember the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This new book by Carole Boston Weatherford encourages us not to simply remember Dr. King, but to live every day in a way that honors his life and work. We can each "be a King" by standing up to bullies, admitting we're wrong and apologizing, finding ways to include everyone, and by breaking "the chains of ignorance. Learn  as much as you can."

James Ransome's illustrations complement the simple text by telling the story of the children on the cover who are creating a Wall of Justice, and with historical allusions to King's life (Morehouse College, the Edmund Pettus Bridge from the March to Montgomery, a bus like the one on which Ruby Bridges refused to give up her seat.)

The epigraph says it best,

"Everybody can be great, because everybody can serve. You don't have to have a college degree to serve You don't have to make your subject and your verb agree to serve. You don't have to know about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don't have to know Einstein's theory of relativity  to serve. You don't have to know the second theory of thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need a heart full of grace, a soul generated by love." -- Martin Luther King, Jr.

Fairy Tales and Princesses

I read two great books this week. There are several fairy tale readers in our class this year and I think there are probably lots of fairy tale readers in all middle grade classrooms who will love these two books.

I was lucky enough to get an arc of Liesl Shurtliff's newest fairy tale at NCTE. Grump: The (Fairly) True Tale of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. I love this series and so many students love it. I finally got ahold of this book after it being passed around the classroom since I brought it back from NCTE! Everyone loved it and many said it was their favorite in the series.

This is a great retelling of Snow White. Really I don't know how Leisl Shurtliff does this over and over again--reimagining these fairy tales in ways that can't help us think about them in new ways.  I love this series and really enjoyed this newest book.  Grump is a great character as is Snow White.  I love the humor and the few surprise nods to other fairy tales woven into the story. This was a fun read and a great addition to the series. I can't wait to see which one comes next.

I also read and loved  Who Wants To Be a Princess? by Bridget Heos. With all the princess craze this is a fun informational book that straightens up a few misconceptions about princesses. I think princess fans as well as fans of all the middle grade fractured fairy tales will enjoy this book. The book is nonfiction and takes a look at the things we THINK about princesses based on fairy tale movies/books and compares those things to the REAL things about princesses.  For example, a real castle didn't look quite like the one we know as Cinderella's castle.  Each two page spread takes on an idea about princess and tells the truer thing. This is a simple book and a quick read but does take away some of the ways our students may be thinking about princesses in general.  I imagine all of the students in my class who love Leisl Shurtliff's books will also like this picture book. A fun informational compare/contrast book.