POSTCARDS FROM CAMP by Simms Taback

I am a huge Simms Taback fan.  I love so many of his books-his art always draws me in.  JOSEPH HAD A LITTLE OVERCOAT is the one that seems most loved by children and I can see why.



So, I was thrilled to see a new book by Simms Taback this is a little different from his others--POSTCARDS FROM CAMP.

This is a book told in postcards between a father and a son.  The son, Michael, is at camp and is not quite enjoying himself (he HATES it!) and the father is providing the encouragement he needs to stick it out.  The book is hysterical and I think this is one that older elementary students will enjoy.  The postcards (and a few letters enclosed in envelopes) get more complex as the book goes on. The actual front of the postcards are hysterical in themselves (a few Michael has created himself) and they each tell their own story.  Michael's father's postcards seem to give different messages to his son.  The letters from Michael are often pleading, often relaying terrible camp stories while the letters from his father often look naively on the bright side.

This book has so much potential. Ever since THE JOLLY POSTMAN was published years ago, there have been lots of books filled with letters. But they never quite meet my expectations.  Until this one.  The storyline is fun. The text and illustrations definitely work together and I can see kids spending lots of time reading and rereading these postcards.  In terms of minilesson work, this would be a great book to use with strategy work--so much reading between the lines is needed to understand what is really happening!

This may be my new favorite Simms Taback book!

GRIN AND BEAR IT by Leo Landry

When I saw reviews of GRIN AND BEAR IT by Leo Landry on GoodReads, I was expecting a picture book. So, when it arrived, I was excited to see that it was an early chapter book instead. It is a short chapter book--48 pages and 7 chapters.  Each page has a colorful illustration and most of the illustrations provide good picture support for the text.  Most pages have about 1/2 page or less of text.

Bear is the main character in the book and he is a comedian. He writes great jokes.  But he is a little shy. He so wants to tell jokes and make his friends laugh, and the jokes are pretty amusing. Bear practices and practices but when he finally has the chance to be on stage with his friends in the audience, he gets stage fright.  He is very upset and runs off but things turn out in the end in a happy and surprising way.

I can see 7 and 8 year-olds LOVING this book.  Bear writes and practices new jokes throughout the book, so those jokes that crack 7 and 8 year-olds up, are woven throughout the story. Bear's jokes seem to have nailed that second grade humor so well!

This seems to be a great fit for students moving beyond Henry and Mudge--there are lots more words per page, the phrasing support is not there in the way the text is set up on the page and the storyline and vocabulary are more complex.  I see this as a book for kids who are ready to get started on chapter books that take more than one day to read, but who do not yet have the stamina to stick with longer series books.  This one is appropriate for younger readers who are ready for chapter books. It would also make a fun read aloud!

Playing With Words--A Picture Book With Fun Plurals!

I was determined not to buy a book last week when I popped into a bookstore before meeting a friend for dinner. But I could not resist adding one more book to my Word Play collection.  One Foot, Two Feet:  An EXCEPTIONal Counting Book by Peter Maloney and Felicia Zekauskas is a counting book that celebrates irregular plural nouns.

Each number is introduced with a single object--such as "One Foot".   The illustration of a single foot shows through a cut-out frame in the page.  When the reader turns the page, he/she realizes that only part of the illustration has been visible and the one object turns into a group of objects--such as "Two Feet".  The book works its way from 1-10 (and then a billion:-) starting back at one for each new object.

Readers are introduced to words like mouse and mice, ox and oxen, octopus and octopi and more.

This book can be enjoyed in so many ways.  Without even thinking about the irregular plurals, this is a fun counting book for young children.  The numbers, the groups, and the illustrations make it a great concept book.  But the irregular plurals make it very unique.  I think this one will be a hit for so many reasons:-)

BAD ISLAND

Bad Island

by Doug TenNapel

Graphix/Scholastic, 2011

review copy provided by the publisher

In the same way that it's hard to find stand-alone novels for the die-hard series reader, it's hard to find stand-alone graphic novels for the graphic novel series reader. In my 4th grade classroom, I work with series readers of all kinds to venture into non-series books. One is not better than the other, it's just that they each take some very different reading strategies.

Kids will be drawn to Bad Island by the monsters and the fight scenes and the sight gags, but it's a pretty complicated story that I will want to make sure I conference with readers about when they've read it or are reading it.

I will want to know what they think of the characters and the way they change or don't change. This is the story of a dysfunctional family that goes on a sailing trip that only the dad wants to do. They get shipwrecked in a storm on an island that turns out to be a monster that was exiled from another world long ago. The dad and the brother in this story change and grow in satisfying ways, but the mother's character is pretty flat, and the little sister is just plain annoying and weird all the way through.

Readers need to know how to attend to the back-story of the monster and how he came to be an island in a different world. This other story is told on pages with a tan background, so readers of BabyMouse who know that the dream sequences are always in pink should be able to make that connection. But readers also need to be able to put together the clues from the back-story with clues from the family's story to figure out how the two connect.

As always, reading a graphic novel is way more than just looking at pictures. If you don't often read graphic novels, but your students do, you need to make a point read some and think about the strategies you are using as a reader, and the ways you can teach into the reading your students (sometimes/often) love best.

Check out Adventures in Graphica by Terry Thompson for more ways to use graphic novels in your reading workshop.

Fuse #8's review here.
Review from HighLow Comics here.

Poetry Friday -- Seeing Instead of Just Looking

To His Piano

by Howard Nemerov

Old friend, patient of error as of accuracy,
Ready to think the fingerings of thought,
You but a scant year older than I am
.

.

.

To see you standing there for six decades
Containing chopsticks, Fur Elise, and
The Art of Fugue in your burnished rosewood box,
As well as all those years of silence and
The stumbling beginnings the children made

.

.

.

(the whole poem is at The Writer's Almanac)

Men Throwing Bricks
by Michael Chitwood

The one on the ground lofts two at a time
with just the right lift for them to finish
their rise as the one on the scaffold turns
to accept them like a gift and place them
on the growing stack. They chime slightly
on the catch. You'd have to do this daily,
morning and afternoon, not to marvel.

(this poem can be found at The Writer's Almanac)

There is such a beauty in the ordinariness of life -- the things around us that we sometimes look at without seeing, but which hold so much meaning inside our memories -- watching others do hard work with ease and grace (or finding those moments of ease and grace in one's own work).

Ordinary: the screen door to the back yard of my childhood home. And yet, when I look at that picture, I hear the sound of the door handle, and feel the lush grass on my bare feet, the heat of the morning sun on the patio.

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

Detective Blue

Detective Blue
by Steve Metzger
illustrated by Ted Arnold
Orchard Books/Scholastic, July 2011
review copy provided by the publisher

You be the detective! There are 24 Mother Goose rhymes hidden in the story and pictures of this hard-boiled detective story (which comes in the form of a graphic novel/picture book mash up).

Detective Blue, whose horn-blowing and cow-tending have been left in his past, makes short work of the crimes that come his way -- the dish running away with the spoon, Mary's lamb trying to sneak into school wearing a disguise. Then Jack Sprat comes running down the street yelling (not because someone offered him a fatty sandwich), "Miss Muffet is missing! Miss Muffet is missing!" and Detective Blue is on the case. He follows clues that take him from Little Bo Peep to Humpty Dumpty to Jack's Corner Pie Shop. Never fear, there's a fairy tale ending. (Literally.)

I can't wait to share this book with kids! It's a fun story with kid-sized literary allusions. It's got Ted Arnold's Fly Guy-style illustrations. It's a great (quick) model of the conventions of the mystery genre. It's a great (big-enough-to-share-with-a-group) model of the conventions of graphic novels. And there's that checklist of 24 Mother Goose rhymes that will pull kids back into the story until they find them all.

If you buy one book this summer/week, this should be the one.

THE NEIGHBORHOOD SING-ALONG by Nina Crews

I love having a large poetry and song book collection and I am always looking for poetry/song books that span grade levels.  I think THE NEIGHBORHOOD SING-ALONG by Nina Crews will be one of those books that kids of all ages will love.

This book is filled with classic songs such as "Take Me Out to the Ball Game!", "Do Your Ears Hang Low?", and "John Jacob Jingleheimer Schmidt".  Each is place on a page with photos of small children out and about in the neighborhood.  The children in the photos are young--which will invite young children into this book.  But I don't think the young children will keep older kids from enjoying sharing these songs together.  Although there is no accompanying CD or site for the songs, I think most of the songs will be readily available to kids in some format.

I have lots of song books in my library and classroom collections. Many are new versions of old songs. It is nice to have a book that might give kids access to the original words/versions to many songs they may be familiar with.  I can't wait to share this one with kids.

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.