Wednesday, December 11, 2019

Imagine That!


Here are two books that will inspire children to use their imaginations.


What's Your Favorite Food?
by Eric Carle and Friends
Henry Holt and Co., 2019
library copy

Each illustrator chose a favorite food, wrote a little about it, and illustrated it in his/her own unique way. Not only is it fun to see which of OUR favorite foods are THEIR favorite foods, we get to see (in the illustrator bios in the back) each of the illustrators as a child! Yes, their bio photos are of themselves as children. Lookie there! Kids that look like YOU who grew up to become famous illustrators! Imagine that!



It Began With a Page: How Gyo Fujikawa Drew the Way
by Kyo Maclear
illustrated by Julie Morstad
HarperCollins, 2019
library copy

Gyo Fujikawa's life as an artist intersected with historical events that shaped who she was and what she believed about her art. In this picture book biography, we see her drawing from a very young age, then, after high school, attending art school in the mid-1920's on scholarship. She worked for Disney in the early 1940's, saw her family sent to internment camps during the war, witnessed the beginnings of the Civil Rights Movement. In the early 1060s, she submitted her groundbreaking book illustrated with multiracial characters and didn't back down when the publisher said children of different races should not be in the same book. It is thanks to her (and other bookmakers such as Ezra Jack Keats) that all kinds of kids can see characters who look like them in more picture books than ever. Imagine that!


Saturday, December 07, 2019

Poetry Friday -- Advice


Unsplash photo by Joel Muniz


Be kind to yourself. 
Empty your bucket and then... 
be kind to yourself.

©Mary Lee Hahn, 2019


"Never be afraid 
of showing someone you love 
a draft of yourself."

(from the author's note in EVERYONE BRAVE IS FORGIVEN by Chris Cleave)


I'm sure I'm not the only one whose bucket is or has been empty. These #haikuforkindness are a reminder that we need to take care of ourselves. There can be no #haikuforjustice if we don't put the oxygen mask on ourselves first.

 
Tanita has the Poetry Friday roundup at [fiction, instead of lies].


Thursday, November 28, 2019

Giving Thanks for Poetry Friday!



Thanku: Poems of Gratitude inspired my Thanku/Haiku-a-Day this month. I managed to get November 1-15 onto Twitter, and I'm back on Twitter with November 26-30. Here are the ones that were written, but never made it to Twitter!

11/16
Deer in the headlights.
Same spot: hawk swoops low with prey.
Blessings from the wild.

11/17
Step, step...mind elsewhere...
suddenly...no step...PANIC!
Floor, meet hands and knees.

11/18
Irresponsible.
Antiques Roadshow was a splurge
and I'll pay for it.

11/19
Final Prep Thanku
two days of sub plans
hours and hours and hours of work
then just walk away

11/20
Travel Day Thanku
For the traffic jam
NOT on our side of the road --
relieved gratitude.

11/21
Award Selection Day Thanku
A day of hard work:
laughter, talk, perspectives shared.
Not just the books won.

11/22
Presentation Day Thanku
Bad sleep, up early,
back-to-back schedule ready.
Right now--calm. Quiet.

11/23
Almost the End of Conference Thanku
complete exhaustion
sleep wraps you in its blanket
cradles you gently

11/24
Driving Home Thanku
Ridge top silhouette--
bare November trees, silo.
Evening sky--one star.

11/25
Words Spoken Upon Releasing Into the Garden the Spider I Captured on My Office Wall
Dear Tiny Spider,
Life has infinite value.
For yours, I give thanks.


Bridget Magee at Wee Words For Wee Ones has the Poetry Friday Roundup all the way from Switzerland this week! I'm EXTRA glad to be back after my longest absence ever.

The call for roundup hosts for Poetry Fridays January 2020-June 2020 is also ready for dates to be claimed!




Poetry Friday -- Call for Hosts



It's that time again. Six months have passed since last we queued up to host the Poetry Friday roundups.

If you'd like to host a roundup between January and June 2020, leave your choice(s) of date(s) in the comments. I'll update regularly to make it easier to see which dates have been claimed.

What is the Poetry Friday roundup? A gathering of links to posts featuring original or shared poems, or reviews of poetry books. A carnival of poetry posts. Here is an explanation that Rene LaTulippe shared on her blog, No Water River, and here is an article Susan Thomsen wrote for the Poetry Foundation.

Who can do the Poetry Friday roundup? Anyone who is willing to gather the links in some way, shape, or form (Mr. Linky, "old school" in the comments-->annotated in the post, or ???) on the Friday of your choice. If you are new to the Poetry Friday community, jump right in, but perhaps choose a date later on so that we can spend some time getting to know each other.

How do you do a Poetry Friday roundup? If you're not sure, stick around for a couple of weeks and watch...and learn! One thing we're finding out is that folks who schedule their posts, or who live in a different time zone than you, appreciate it when the roundup post goes live sometime on Thursday.

How do I get the code for the PF Roundup Schedule for the sidebar of my blog? You can grab the list from the sidebar here at A Year of Reading, or I'd be happy to send it to you if you leave me your email address. You can always find the schedule on the Kidlitosphere Central webpage.

Why would I do a Poetry Friday Roundup? Community, community, community. It's like hosting a poetry party on your blog!

And now for the where and when:

January
3    Carol at Carol's Corner
10  Sally at Sally Murphy
17  Catherine at Reading to the Core
24  Kat at Kathryn Apel
31  Jone at Deowriter

February
7    Laura at Writing the World for Kids
14  Linda B. at TeacherDance
21  Cheriee at Library Matters
28  Karen at Karen Edmisten*

March
6    Rebecca at Sloth Reads
13  Matt at Radio, Rhythm & Rhyme
20  Michelle at Michelle Kogan
27  Tabatha at The Opposite of Indifference

April
3    Heidi at my juicy little universe
10  Amy at The Poem Farm
17  Molly at Nix the Comfort Zone
24  Christie at Wondering and Wandering

May
1   Liz at Elizabeth Steinglass
8   Michelle at Today's Little Ditty
15 Jama at Jama's Alphabet Soup
22 Linda at A Word Edgewise
29 Mary Lee at A Year of Reading

June
5   Margaret at Reflections on the Teche
12 Irene at Live Your Poem
19 Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect
26 Karen at Karen's Got a Blog!


Disrupting the Myth of Thanksgiving




Our current read aloud, INDIAN NO MORE, has given us lots to think about and discuss. INDIAN NO MORE is historical fiction. It tells about how, in 1954, the US government stripped the tribal status from the Umpqua people, proclaiming them to no longer be Indians. Our conversations are centering around the stereotypes we have about Native people, empathy for what it would be like to have an important part of your identity taken from you, and appropriate responses in a democracy to laws that are unfair. 

Looking at Thanksgiving from the perspective of Native people has disrupted the commonly told story of the Pilgrims and Indians. Along with our read aloud, we have watched several videos in which Native girls address stereotypes about Natives and about Thanksgiving, and one of our teachers brought all the conversations to life (literally) when she came and talked to us about her perspective on Thanksgiving and American History as a registered member of the Sioux tribe. 

One of the things I love most about teaching fifth grade is that 10-11 year-olds are developmentally ready to consider multiple points of view. It is my greatest desire that my students will leave my class questioning "truths" that they are taught from a single point of view, and that they will constantly ask, "Whose voice is not being heard? Which perspective is not being included?"

With that, I will wish you an informed Happy Thanksgiving -- not one that honors the story of the colonization of our country, but rather one that traces further back to the greater human history of giving thanks for food and family.


by Charlene Willing McManis and Traci Sorrell
Tu Books, 2019


Wednesday, November 27, 2019

2020 NCTE Charlotte Huck and Orbis Pictus Award Winners!


2020 Huck Award Winner

Click Here to view the Huck Honor and Recommended books. My review of Room on Our Rock is here.


2020 Orbis Pictus Award Winner

Click Here to view the Orbis Pictus Honor and Recommended books.


Thursday, October 31, 2019

Wildfire


Unsplash photo by Benjamin Lizardo

WILDFIRE

It's hot.
It's dry.
A spark:
a fire.

A flame
a burn
a blaze:
a pyre.

It threatens,
spreads,
consumes,
gets hotter.

The only thing
it fears
is
water.


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2019


I'm in under the wire for Rebecca Herzog's challenge on Today's Little Ditty to write a poem about what a monster fears.

As the rain pours (and belts and BUCKETS) down here in Ohio, my heart has been heavy watching the news of Southern California going up in flames.

Tabatha has this week's Poetry Friday roundup at The Opposite of Indifference.

Thursday, October 24, 2019

Poetry Friday -- Typewriter Rodeo































A couple of weeks ago, Liz Garton Scanlon alerted me that the Austin-based on-demand poetry writing group known as Typewriter Rodeo would be in Dublin, sponsored by the Dublin Arts Council.

We found out the hard way that you couldn't just turn into the Dublin Arts Center to attend this event. We had to park all the way down the road and around the corner at Scioto High School and we couldn't even make a left turn out of the DAC to head directly to Scioto. We had to turn right, go through Old Dublin (good excuse to oggle the new library), go around the monster roundabout, and then, once we got to Scioto, take a shuttle bus back to the DAC...which seemed a little ridiculous since there were about 5 other people at the event.

Fewer people gave us more time to get our poem written (I gave Sean the topic of "roundabout" in honor of all it took to get there), chat with the poets, and admire their manual clackity-clack typewriters.

I also bought a copy of their book, which I am anxious to dig into, once the must-reads are all read (with my two new crystal-clear eyeballs and my coolio reading glasses).


Andrews McMeel Publishing, 2018


Karen Edmisten has this week's Poetry Friday Roundup at The Blog With the Shockingly Clever Title. I'm sure there will be lots of must-reads there, too.


Friday, October 18, 2019

Poetry Friday -- The Day After Cataract Surgery


Unsplash photo by Janelle Hayes

yes, I see the hawk
there, on the power line
feathers fluttering


©Mary Lee Hahn, 2019



Not just the hawk, but the FEATHERS! My new right lens is nothing less than a miracle. Next Wednesday, my left eye joins the party. I am truly seeing the world anew. It's flat-out amazing.

Jama has the Poetry Friday Roundup this week at Jama's Alphabet Soup.


Sunday, October 13, 2019

Welcome, Liesl Shurtliff!


Liesl Shurtliff is a favorite author here at A Year of Reading. Franki has reviewed Rump, Jack, and Grump. Liesl has a new series, Time Castaways, and the second book has its book birthday on Tuesday!


by Liesl Shurtliff
Katherine Tegen Books, September 17, 2019


by Liesl Shurtliff
Katherine Tegen Books, October 15, 2019

Liesl has graciously shared her thoughts on The Importance of Reading Wisely. We couldn't agree more!

The Importance of Reading Widely
By Liesl Shurtliff

“You are what you read.” It’s a sentiment many people have tossed around over the years, right along with “You are what you eat.” And if both of these things are true then I challenge anyone to define who I am. I read too widely, and I eat absolutely everything. I’m a person with many tastes and interests. I think we all should be.

I see many initiatives to get people to read more, and I like them, but what I’d liked to see a little more of is encouragement for people to read more widely, move outside their comfort zones, pick up a book you wouldn’t normally choose. Here are my suggestions:

Read both fiction and non-fiction

Statistics show that women tend to read more fiction, and men gravitate toward non-fiction. This is fascinating to me, and I could delve into all kind of psychoanalytic theories about why this is and what it means, but that would be (mostly) beside the point of the post. Suffice it to say, I think we should tip the scales in both cases. Men should read more fiction. Women should read more non-fiction. Both are good for you.

I personally used to think non-fiction was code for BORING. I’ve since learned that non-fiction can be some of the most engrossing books out there. It’s one thing to get lost in a good story. It’s another to get lost in a good story that is completely REAL. Malcolm Gladwell, Erik Larson, and Elizabeth Gilbert have been a few of my favorites.


Read outside your usual genre.

Whenever someone asks what genre is my favorite I say “Good writing.” Perhaps the definition of what makes a good book is subjective, but I’ve found my own tastes have become more refined the more widely I read. Yes, I read a lot of fantasy as that is what I write, but I’ve read plenty of poorly written fantasy, and I’ve found that it helps my own writing to read a wide variety of genres and styles. I feel like I’m in a rut when I read too much of one genre. It can start to feel stale and boring, sort of like eating only one kind of food. No matter how good those tacos are, eventually I’m going to want some salad. Mix up your reading diet with a mixture of genres.

Read books and authors outside your own race, culture, religion, country, experience and world view.

Reading has been touted as an activity that develops empathy, but for whom are we developing empathy? People like us? People whose experience and world view is not so different from our own? That will not develop empathy, only self-assurance. Challenge yourself and your world view. Pick up a book that makes you a little uncomfortable. Or a lot. And please, read books written by authors who are intimately acquainted with the experience being written about (aka #OwnVoices.) It matters.

Read children’s books!

Okay, I am slightly biased here, seeing as I’m a children’s book author, but please believe me when I say there is some incredibly good literature being produced in the children’s book world. Don’t stick your nose up at it. Pick up a picture book, a middle-grade or young adult novel, or a graphic novel, and remember what it was like to be a kid. Or pick up a book you remember reading and loving as a kid and see what you think of it now. I’ve done this and usually find I love it just as much, even though I’m reading it with a completely different perspective. It’s a nostalgic experience.

Reading is good. Reading a lot is better. Reading widely is best, just like eating a varied diet. Take stock of your reading choices. See if you can mix things up every now and then.   Get recommendations for friends or co-workers. If there’s one thing I know it’s that people love to talk about what they’re reading. And if they don’t read, well then, we should all be ready to share our own reading recommendations and feed the famished. Best to have a variety on hand.


Liesl Shurtliff is the New York Times bestselling author of the (Fairly) True Tales series and the Time Castaways trilogy. The second book is available October 15th! Her books have been named to over two dozen state award lists and have won many awards including a Children’s Book Award from the International Literacy Association. Liesl lives in Chicago with her husband and four children. Lieslshurtliff.com @lieslshurtliff



Thanks for visiting, Liesl! We can't wait to read your new series!