Founding Mothers

Founding Mothers: Remembering the Ladies
by Cokie Roberts
illustrated by Diane Goode
Harper, 2014
review copy provided by the publisher

In 2005, NPR political commentator Cokie Roberts wrote a 384 page adult book, Founding Mothers: The Women Who Raised Our Nation This picture book version of her work gives ten famous (and not so famous) women a double-page spread, and highlights Women Writers and Women Warriors with paragraph-length blurbs. The ten ladies are Eliza Lucas Pinckney, who at 19, while running three large plantations while her father fought for England against Spain, succeeded in raising indigo for the first time; Deborah Read Franklin, Ben's wife, who ran all his businesses in the States while he was in England; Mercy Otis Warren, an influential writer; Phillis Wheatley, a poet and a slave; Abigail Adams, letter-writing wife of John; Martha Washington, who spent every winter of the eight years of the Revolutionary War in military camps with husband George; Esther DeBerdt Reed, writer and fundraiser for the Revolutionary War effort; Sarah Livingston Jay, wife of John Jay; Catharine Littlefield Greene, wife of General Nathaniel Greene who, when running the plantation after his death, helped Eli Whitney with his cotton gin invention; and Dolley Madison, brave wife of James.

As the review in the New York Times points out, this book would be a whole lot more useful with a table of contents and a more discernible organization.

That criticism aside, this book provides some nice short texts about historic women. I can imagine students being charged with placing each woman on a continuum of influence, based on the information given by Roberts in the text, and arguing for their placements. I can imagine students choosing a woman to research in more detail, and then debating with another student about whose woman was the most influential. Even just the conversation about what makes a person influential would be fascinating, as would a discussion of the problem of how to know historic women deeply when they often did not leave a trail of primary source material for historians to study.

This book would also be fascinating to use in a study of the art of calligraphy. Diane Goode's pen and sepia ink illustrations in the style of the period, and her reproductions of each woman's signature made me want to get out my pen nibs and resurrect the skill I learned in high school art class.

The Poetry Friday Anthology for Science!!

218 poems by 78 poets!

The same wonderful format as the K-5 and 6-8 editions, with a poem a day for each grade level AND a "Take Five" instructional focus with connections to the new Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS).

PLUS...NEW FOR THIS EDITION...

Illustrated student editions by grade level, without the Take 5 teacher notes, and WITH bonus poems!

Order yours now at Pomelo Books or on Amazon.

Yes, you can find my poems in this edition...SIX of them this time! 3 in first grade and 3 in third grade!

World Read Aloud Day

World Read Aloud Day is tomorrow! If you don't know about World Read Aloud Day or its sponsoring organization LitWorld, you should check out their website asap.  (In December, I posted information on how to register for the event.)  This is one of those amazing events that you can participate in in so many ways. You can make it a huge event or a little celebration.

I am celebrating with my students tomorrow by beginning the conversation of Reading as a Gift/The Gift of Reading.  I'll kick off the day reading Reading Makes You Feel Good by Todd Parr .  Even though it is a simple book, it should start lots of great conversations. Then I'll share a few videos --one from the LitWorld site and one from Kobo Books that was a Mother's Day video.

I'll also share a few videos that were shared on the WRAD blog--where authors gave their time to read aloud.  I think these 3 videos will help kids understand the idea of this being a global celebration. They will also hopefully begin to think of reading as a gift.

We are giving the gift of reading and receiving the gift of reading on World Read Aloud Day.  We'll spend a bit of time in the morning reading to our Kindergarten students.  Then we'll have a short Skype visit with author Barbara O'Connor who is giving her time to classrooms in celebration of World Read Aloud Day.

I think these few things will begin a larger conversation that will hopefully continue throughout the year--the rights of all people to read and the idea of reading as a gift (to give and to receive).  I am hopeful that kids will come up with ways to give back to our own school community with the gift of reading in some way.   I'm not sure exactly where the conversation will go but I am anxious to celebrate and see where the conversations take us!

Thank you LitWorld for inventing such a wonderful day!

A Melissa Stewart Week

One of my goals this year was to find more nonfiction authors and series that I knew and loved.  I realized that there were so many fiction series and authors I knew and loved, but that was not true of nonfiction. I tend to talk to my students about nonfiction differently than I talk about fiction. I tend to talk topic and rarely know the author. I also hadn't realized how important nonfiction series books could be for upper elementary readers.  So I knew I needed to find more of those.

This week, I realized just how much I love Melissa Stewart.  I knew that I liked her and her name was one I knew as a nonfiction writer, but until this week I had no idea just how many amazing nonfiction books she has written for upper elementary students.

Here is how it happened.  I have a student who loves sharks, dolphins and ocean creatures. I am always looking for new books for him and I happened upon Shark or Dolphin?: How Do You Know? (Which Animal Is Which?) I am trying to add books that are meant to be read cover to cover and this one looked perfect.  I noticed that it was by Melissa Stewart so I figured it must be good. I ordered the book and noticed there were lots of other books in the series. I decided I'd check it out before I ordered the others. Well, the book arrived and it is amazing.  Each page compares a feature of sharks and dolphins and tells how they are different. The text is accessible and the book is packed with information. Even for readers who know lots about sharks and dolphins, my bet is that there is something new in this book! This is definitely a series that belongs in elementary classrooms so I ordered a few more.

A few days later, the book Feathers: Not Just for Flying arrived from Amazon. I forgot that I had preordered it when I read a review for it online.  (I don't often preorder books but this one sounded too good to miss and I was afraid I would forget about it.)  WOW! What an amazing read. Again, Melissa Stewart organizes the information in a way that is accessible, yet packed with information. The book goes through the many uses for feathers--who knew? She gives specific examples for each way feathers are used and the illustrations by Sarah S. Brannen are a perfect match.   I hadn't paid attention to the author when I preordered the book, so when I saw that it was Melissa Stewart, I noticed a little pattern.

The next day, my Scholastic Book Club order arrived. My students didn't order this month but there were a few things I wanted for the classroom. One item I purchased was a set National Geographic Readers set with books like National Geographic Readers: Dolphins. They seemed like a good addition in terms of topic and accessibility and I've been so impressed with everything National Geographic lately that I added them to my order.  What a surprise that every book in the pack was by Melissa Stewart? (and that I noticed!)

Finally, my kids have been reading lots of books in our "Birds" basket.  We have a bird watching area at our school that we are starting to help out with so they've been very interested in anything birds. I have a decent collection of books in this category as it goes well with our science too.  As I was straightening up the basket, I noticed A Place for Birds, a newer book in the basket and noticed that it was again by Melissa Stewart!  Browsing online this week, I realized that this too is part of a series--the A Place For series.  I will definitely have to check more of these books out.

And today, as I was writing, I popped online to see if there were possibly any more great titles I was missing by Melissa Stewart and it seems there is a Good Question Series (How Does a Seed Sprout?: And Other Questions About Plants (Good Question!) that looks like another perfect series for this age.

Finally, I visited Melissa Stewart's website today so that I could link it for this post and again I was floored. Not only does she have a great website with great information. But she has videos that share her revision timeline, video minilesson and more. Her website is a treat in itself. I am trying so hard to do a better job of nonfiction craft minilessons in writing and I am so happy to have discovered these videos!

Really, Melissa Stewart's work is amazing and even though I knew it before, I didn't realize how many things she had that are incredible. Because she has different illustrators and because some of her books use photos while others use illustrations, it isn't obvious to a reader like me that she is the author. I am so glad that these Melissa Stewart events happened so I could finally see her entire body of work and make the connections. This experience made me realize again how little attention I've paid to nonfiction authors' names as I read and share nonfiction with my students.  So glad to see that is changing. Melissa Stewart is definitely one of my favorite authors for nonfiction in elementary classrooms!

Celebrating The Nerdy Book Club with a Donation to LitWorld!

We love that even though our blog birthday was on January 1, we are celebrating it all year!  On our 8th Birthday, we decided to celebrate 2014 by celebrating others who inspire us every day. Each month, on the 1st (or so) of the month, we will celebrate a fellow blogger whose work has inspired us recently. We feel so lucky to be part of the blog world that we want to celebrate all that everyone gives us each day.

This month, we are celebrating the team at the Nerdy Book Club: Donalyn Miller, Colby Sharp and Cindy Minnich.

The Nerdy Book Club is the most democratic club on the planet. "If you love books, especially those written for children and young adults, then you are an honorary member of The Nerdy Book Club."

The Nerdy Book Club blog is the most democratic group blog on the planet. Want to write a guest post? Go on -- submit one! FIVE HUNDRED FIFTEEN other writers have written for The Nerdy Book Club blog! Join them/us!

The Nerdy Book Club is huge -- when last I visited, I was greeted by the proclamation that "You and 2,781 others like Nerdy Book Club." There are nearly 70 Nerdy Book Club Bloggers in the blogroll

Have you been to a Nerdy Book Club meet-up at a national conference like NCTE recently? Readers and authors fill a room and spill out into the adjacent areas. It's such a happy gathering with lots of hugging and laughter and photos that go straight to FaceBook and Twitter. There is no need to be a wallflower at a Nerdy Book Club meet-up. Everyone has lots in common: books, reading and readers. 

We are honoring the Nerdy Book Club by making a donation to LitWorld in their name.  We love LitWorld and this month seemed the perfect month to donate to them as March 5 is World Read Aloud Day ! If you have no plans to celebrate World Read Aloud Day in your classroom, you might want to change your mind!   World Read Aloud Day is "about taking action to show the world that the right to read and write belongs to all people."  What an amazing cause. LitWorld has lots of other amazing projects too.  And we believe in all of them.

Here is a little glimpse of the vision and work of LitWorld:

Celebrate!

Join others who are celebrating this week at www.ruthayreswrites.com

I'm not just celebrating this week, I'm celebrating this MONTH.

Goodbye, February! Been nice to know you! We had some fun times...but mostly we had snow and cold. I know you can't help being who you are. It must be rough to be post-holiday and pre-Spring. You have to wait four long years to special in any way. But you know what? Even though it feels like a grueling effort to make it through your days, you actually help me to fine-tune my Signs-of-Spring Senses. Just the other day, for instance, when you gave us that glorious spring preview and we were able to have salmon on the grill for the first time since fall, I heard the robins singing in the dark.

In this mosaic, we begin with wing tracks in the deep snow that seemed to last forever. The rest of the first row: award winners in our classroom library, a message from the Universe that I have yet to decode, TED notes made with my...new pens... ROW 2: ...that bleed through but I don't care. Community band at Old Worthington Farmer's Market brings me joy every week (their tribute to Pete Seeger made me teary), another message from the Universe that couldn't be clearer (and it's just a tiny bit ironic that I took a PICTURE of it, eh?), the sky at Gene Barretta's airport vs. the sky in Columbus (he was the only author who didn't make it to #DubLit14). ROW 3: #DubLit14 -- student work, authors, celebrities. ROW 4: The last of the snow (or, based on the current forecast, should I say, the last of LAST MONTH'S snow) looks like a beached whale at our curb, auto tracks in a dusting of snow, (next 7) this is a visual rendition of That Silence I wrote about here (and I promise this is the last time I'll link to that review), LASTLY: a mosaic of the March Birthday Cake: "The Making." In the March Mosaic, you'll see March Birthday Cake: "The Icing and Eating."

A better view of the photos in this mosaic can be seen on Flickr.

Poetry Friday: Poems for a Book Character

Photo by Mary Lee Hahn. May be used with attribution.

I still haven't quite recovered from reading The Goldfinch. (My gobstopped review is here.)

This is a poem the main character, Theo, would appreciate. It fits with his world view. Mine, too, on the days when I choose not to think about the truth of our existence here.

Fire
by Wyatt Townley

It's only the body
It's only a hip joint
It's just a bulging disc
It's only weather
It's only your heart
It's a shoulder who needs it
This happens all the time
It's very common
It's unusual
For people your age
For people your age
You're in great shape
Remarkable shape
It's nothing you did
The main thing is
It's temporary
It's only a doll
In a house that's burning

But Theo would also like this one, knowing, as he did, the power of art to change our lives.

Archaic Torso of Apollo

by Rainer Maria Rilke
translated by Stephen Mitchell

We cannot know his legendary head 

with eyes like ripening fruit. And yet his torso 

is still suffused with brilliance from inside, 

like a lamp, in which his gaze, now turned to low, 

gleams in all its power. Otherwise 

the curved breast could not dazzle you so, nor could 

a smile run through the placid hips and thighs 

to that dark center where procreation flared. 

Otherwise this stone would seem defaced 

beneath the translucent cascade of the shoulders 

and would not glisten like a wild beast's fur: 

would not, from all the borders of itself, 

burst like a star: for here there is no place 

that does not see you. You must change your life.

Anastasia has the Poetry Friday Roundup this week via Poet! Poet!, but on Pinterest HERE.

Gobsmacked

The Goldfinch
by Donna Tartt
Little, Brown and Company, 2013

We have art in order not to die from the truth. 

-Nietzsche

This book. It's why I do what I do. So that someday, maybe sooner, maybe later, every child in the wake of my teaching will come across at least one book that knocks them backward, sits them down hard. Changes the way they see the world.

I read this book through my ears. It's a huge book; we've been together through months of trips back and forth to school, and walks light enough to wear earbuds, and housework menial enough to listen while I worked.

It's not an easy book to read. Donna Tartt doesn't make anything easy for Theo for very long at all. But it's a beautiful book. Long passages were poetry -- love songs to antiques, cities, seasons, art, life.

Yesterday when I woke up, I had about two hours left to listen to, and (you know the feeling) there was nothing else I could do but listen. I took my early morning walk as laps around the basement so that I could listen. I listened while I ate breakfast. I listened while I made my lunch. I listened in the car on the way to school. I listened while I got the classroom ready for the day, before I went to my meeting.

After my students finished their word study task, one after another picked up a book and started to read. By the time I should have done the reading workshop mini lesson, the room was silent. That Kind of Silent. Spring in Fifth Grade Silent. This is a Community of Readers Silent.

I had 15 minutes left in the book. What else could I do? I grabbed my earphones and joined my community of readers. I finished the book, brushing away tears.

And what will I do next? I will buy a copy of the physical book, because it's one I want to hold in my hands and shelve next to the other landmark books of my adulthood. I want to read those last pages again. And find other favorite parts and savor them and sticky-note them.

And then? No, I won't be able to start another audiobook for awhile. I'll listen to Arvo Pärt on the drive to and from school, because Pippa listened to his music. I'll think about art and love and loss and chance and fate and right and wrong.

And I'll think about how lives are changed by the power of beauty in great art and in great books.

Midweek Meandering

by Hugh MacLeod, Gapingvoid.com

Do you agree or disagree?

Can you think of a time when you were invited onto the yacht? 

Did it make a difference in your life?

How about a time when you confidently paddled your own canoe? 

How did that experience change you?

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Head over to Teach Mentor Texts for the It's Monday! What Are You Reading? roundup!

I've been looking forward to Louise Borden's book Baseball Is . . . ...for a LONG TIME! Louise is a great friend of mine and I love every book she's written.   This one is EXTRA FABULOUS!  I loved it. My kids loved it. Even my husband loved it.  Just an amazing celebration of baseball. So much information with Louise's poetic style. A definite must-have for almost every age!

For some reason, I have not had much time to really dig in and read lately.  But with a 3 day weekend last week, I decided to spend much of Monday on the couch reading a book on my stack.  One of the books I'd been hearing lots about was A Snicker of Magic by Natalie Lloyd (@_natalielloyd).  WOW! WOW! WOW! I so loved this book. It was as good as everyone is saying it is.  A perfectly wonderful read.  The story is about Felicity Pickle, who moves into Midnight Gulch with her mother and her sister.   This is a magical town and Felicity falls in love with it immediately.  But her mother is a wanderer so she worries that they won't stay.  This book gave me the same feeling that Because of Winn-Dixie gave me the first time I read it.  There is something about the language and the characters and the feeling of the book that are all just right. I can't believe that this is Natalie Lloyd's first novel. She is one brilliant writer and I am already excited to see what she writes next.  A must read middle grade novel FOR SURE!

I am anxiously awaiting Meenoo Rami's (@meenoorami) upcoming professional book, Thrive: 5 Ways to (Re)Invigorate Your Teaching . Heinemann has posted a sample chapter for readers so I read that this week. The chapter they released is one on mentors and it is brilliant! Such a fresh look at mentors in our teaching.  I can't wait to read the rest of this book when it is released in March!

NCTE tweeted out this great Lego article with infographic this week.  Colby Sharp has me interested in the study of infographics with my students so I paid closer attention than usual. This is an amazing info graphic!

And after a great chat on Twitter with Tony Keefer (@tonykeefer) and Niki Barnes (@daydreamreader) about how little Adult Fiction I fit into my reading life,  I definitely need to include more Adult Fiction into my reading life. Of the 776 books I've marked read on Goodreads, only 8 are adult fiction. UGH! I decided to forget the rest of my TBR stack and read Adult Fiction.  I've had The Snow Child: A Novel on my list for months and figured I might as well read it while it is still snow and cold.  It does not seem like a spring/summer read. But the book is already sad so I think I'm going to put it back on my stack and try something else.