Fiction For Those Just Getting Into Longer Books

I struggled with the title of this post. Giving grade guidelines for good reading is more than a little tricky. Some first graders will find much to enjoy in the books on this list but so will many people in grades five or six. Clearly, I enjoyed reading them and sixth grade is only a vague memory for me. Nonetheless, they are aimed at those people who have reading abilities that are blossoming and life experiences that do not need to be colored by more mature works.

The first on my list appears to be a picture book but its story is one that needs more maturity to appreciate than is required by Goodnight, Moon or Babar. The Junkyard Wonders by Patricia Polocco, like many of her stories, is autobiographical. It talks about the experience of moving to a new school where she dreams of now longer being in a special class. She has a new friend and a new teacher who tells all the students in her class that they fit the definition of "genius". Alas, the other classes soon make this group of interesting children aware that they are the "junkyard" and Trisha learns that she is again in a special class. She does not realize how special it is until the teacher challenges them to bring out their genius in a way that will surprise, amuse and amaze.

Doreen Cronin is already a beloved picture book author for titles like Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type and The Diary of a Fly so it should be easy to get readers to try her new novel The Trouble with Chickens: A J. J. Tully Mystery. No one will be disappointed. Here is a classic detective story featuring a dog Private Investigator, a family of confused chickens, lots of twists, and plenty of puns. It is the start of a series so we can look forward to investigating and laughing with J. J. Tully in many more tales.

Jon Scieszka has proven over and over again that he can write for kids whether in picture books like The True Story of the Three Little Pigs, The Stinky Cheese Man, and Math Curse, series like The Time Warp Trio, collections of stories like Guys Read, or his memoir Knucklehead. Now he has a hilarious new series about space aliens in the classroom. Spaceheadz (SPHDZ, Book #1) introduces Michael on his first day at a new school. Things don't look good when he is in a group with two weird kids who claim they are Spaceheadz from another planet and talk in TV jingles. These kids expect him to save the world. Not far away, in a tiny one-room apartment, Agent Umber is put on alert by his employer, the Anti Alien Agency. Umber will remind adults of Maxwell Smart but the Spaceheadz defy comparison. The slapstick humor is matched with interesting graphics and pages of odd facts.

Strong characters are popular for readers at this level so I will leave you with lists of authors and titles that are somewhat similar. If you like one of these strong and mostly humorous books the odds are you will enjoy the others. Remember, the main character does not have to be of the same gender as the reader for the story to be enjoyed.

Books and series with boys as the central character:
Justin Case: School, Drool and Other Daily Disasters by Rachel Vail
The Strange Case of Origami Yoda by Tom Angleberger
Big Nate (series) by Lincoln Peirce
Diary of a Wimpy Kid (series) by Jeff Kinney
Marvin K. Redpost (series) by Louis Sachar
Shredderman (series) by Wendelin Van Draanen
Stink (series) by Megan McDonald Stink is the little brother of Judy Moody.
Alvin Ho: Allergic to Girls, School and other Scary Things by Leonore Look

Books with girls as the central character:
Clementine (series) by Sara Penny Packer
Allie Finkle (series) by Meg Cabot
Ramona Quimby (series) by Beverly Cleary
Judy Moody (series) by Megan McDonald
Amber Brown (series) by Paula Danziger
Ruby Lu, Brace and True by Leonore Look
Ellie McDoodle (series) by Ruth McNally Barshaw
Ivy and Bean (series) by Annie Barrows and Sophie Blackall
Bink and Gollie by Kate DiCamillo and Alison McGhee
Year of the Dog and Year of the Rat by Grace Lin

Happy reading.

Non-Fiction Not to be Missed

Non-fiction for young readers becomes more interesting and and eye-catching every day. The books on this list are not so much designed for research as for enjoyment. They tell interesting stories that just happen to be true. To add to the pleasure, they are full of fabulous illustrations or, in a couple of the titles, amazing photographs. These are a great way to get younger readers to realize that there is much to enjoy in non-fiction and an ever better way to spark interests that may well lead to deeper investigations.

Dave the Potter: Artist, Poet, Slave by Laban Carrick Hill ( grades 2 and up) won both a Caldecott Honor award and the Coretta Scott King Artist Award this year for its amazing illustrations by Brian Collier. With little text, this magnificent work of art tells of an impressive artist who was also a slave known only as Dave the Potter. Dave crafted huge clay pots for the plantation owners but his special touch is obvious in their beauty. Additionally, he added a simple poem to each of his pieces which are still be uncovered today. Even if you don't feel the urge to rush out and make a pot, you will be moved by the stunning book.

Wonder Horse: The True Story of the World's Smartest Horse by Emily Arnold McCully (grades K-4) tells of another slave who did amazing things. Bill Key was born a slave in 1833 and grew up with a special affinity for animals. After Emancipation, he became a veterinarian who believed in the power of kindness which led him to raise an injured Arabian colt that he taught to recognize letters, identify the primary colors, tap out answers to simple arithmetic, make change, and dance. Key took his horse out on the road, billing it as an "Equine Wonder". When a newspaper questioned the horse's intelligence, Key brought in Harvard professors to confirm that his horse was no a hoax. Do not overlook the final notes that talk about discrimination that Key faced as well as the work of organizations like the SPCA.

Kakapo Rescue: Saving the World's Strangest Parrot by Sy Montgomery (grades 4-8) is the latest in the Scientist in the Field series. This one takes the reader to a small island off of New Zealand to meet the flightless, nocturnal Kakapo who, at about nine pounds, weighs in as the world's heaviest parrot. They have cat-like whiskers and a growl like a dog. Although they can live to be 100, there are only 87 of them left in the world, in large part because they have never thought of humans as a threat. Montgomery covers just one short part of the hatching season, showing the ups and downs that are all part of the hard work, scientific methods and pure luck that fill each day. The photos by Nic Bishop beautifully capture both the birds and the scientists who are working to save them.

Nic Bishop also publishes books of his own work. His latest is Nic Bishop's Lizards. If you have not seen Bishop's other books you will be rushing out to find them after seeing the brilliant, colorful, energy packed photos here. Each photo is accompanied by a brief essay filled with fascinating facts. Don't forget to read the author's note at the back of the book which describes the lengths to which Bishop will go to get the perfect picture. Other subjects that have been "shot" by Bishop include Butterflies and Moths, Frogs, Marsupials, and Spiders as well as many more critters in books with other authors.

A Butterfly is Patient by Dianna Hutts Aston (grades K-5) features beautiful soft illustrations by Sylvia Long. The illustrations are matched with descriptions and facts that are almost poetic as they lead to new appreciations of butterflies. Equally beautiful and informative are two other titles by the same author and illustrator--A Seed is Sleepy and An Egg is Quiet.

The bright colors of Biblioburro: A True Story from Columbia by Jeanette Winter (grades K-6) will catch your eyes but is the story that will capture your heart. Luis Soriano is a teacher in a remote area of Columbia who decided that people in the villages around him needed access to books. He loaded up his two donkeys, Alpha and Beta, with a small collection of books and set off with stories to tell and books to loan. That collection has grown since he began in 2000 and now even has a building in which it is stored. Students who have easy access to books and libraries can find new appreciation through this simple story that includes not just books and donkeys, but also bandits.

Chris Van Allsburg, a master illustrator best know for fantastic fantasy picture books like Jumanji, now offers us non-fiction that suits his black and white illustrations to a tee. Queen of the Falls (grades 1-5) is the story of Annie Edson Taylor who at 62 became the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel. She hoped for fame and fortune but found little of either. People were skeptical of an elderly woman claiming to be such a daredevil. Van Allsburg captures the magnitude of both her courage and her disappointment.

Pop! The Invention of Bubblegum by Meghan McCarthy ( grades K-4) is as bold and pink as a chunk of Double Bubble and as full of surprises as a bubble that pops just a minutes too soon. Walter Diemer was an accountant at the Fleer family candy factory who could not give up on a project in the next door office to find a gum that made bubbles. His boss had long given up hope, but Walter kept working until, in 1928, he found a recipe that worked. The rest, it could be said, is history, though if you want more history and trivia of gum and bubbles there is plenty of that here too.

Poetry for Readers Young and Old

This week I briefly listened in as poet and prose author Sarah Messer presented a poetry workshop for second grade students. One of the things that was immediately evident was that children enjoy poetry and many were able to jump right in to create some thoughtful, humorous, imaginative poems.

Often adults neglect to bring the joys of poetry to the children around them. My theory is that many of us had that natural appreciation of poetry chased from us through many long hours in English classes that asked us to delve into the hidden meanings of each and every word until we no longer heard the heart of the work. (I have seen reviews of a book called Readicide: How Schools are Killing Readings and What You Can Do About It by Kelly Gallagher. I have not read it, but it is a tempting title, isn't it?)

To counteract this feeling that poetry is deep and difficult, even painful, many people turn to humorous children's poets like Shel Silverstein and Jack Prelutsky. Both of these men have created poetry that kids love to memorize and share. My favorite Silverstein book is Runny Babbit and you won't want to overlook Prelutsky's Scranimals or the beautiful illustrations and haiku in If Not for the Cat.

Unfortunately, many people stop with those two stellar poets. This means that they may never learn about nature with Joyce Sidman in stellar collections like Ubiquitous, Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night, and Song of the Water Boatman and Other Pond Poems. Sidman has also made one of my favorite poetry book to read to cover-to-cover; This is Just to Say: Poems of Apology and Forgiveness which is filled with humor and a generous shot of heart-wrenching emotion. For concrete poetry at its best, Sidman gives us Meow Ruff: A Story in Concrete Poetry which appears to tell a simple story unless you take the time to read the free verse that is a part of every picture.

Speaking of concrete poetry--poetry that is in the form of a picture--be sure to look at A Poke in the Eye: A Collection of Concrete Poetry presented by Paul B. Janeczko. These poems pack a lot of punch. Then you can join Janeczko in other explorations of poetic forms in A Kick in the Head: An Everyday Guide to Poetic Form and A Foot in the Mouth: Poems to Speak, Sing and Shout.

Douglas Florian always presents beautiful illustrations along with his poems, many of which explore nature in new and interesting ways such as in Insectlopedia which introduces insects, Poetrees that talks of trees, Dinothesaurus: Prehistoric Poems and Paintings, and Lizards, Frogs, and Polliwogs. Look for the many more titles Florian has presented. They will amazes, delight, and inform you.

Naomi Shihab Nye visited Emerson School several years ago so I hold a special place in my heart for her. Her poetry is a little more challenging than some of those above but do not let that deter anyone over eight or ten from giving it a try. 19 Varieties of Gazelle: Poems of the Middle East speaks to Nye's connections to the Middle East and her concerns for its future with one of the poems telling of her experiences on September 11, 2001. Explore her other books, both of her own writings and collections of the works of others. You are sure to find words that will move and inspire you.

Humor is not out of the question for older poetry readers. Check out the concrete poetry arranged to tell a story in two by John Grandits. Blue Lipstick introduces fifteen year old Jessie as she tackles life with often humorous observations. I laughed out loud the first time I read through this book. Technically, It's Not My Fault offers a similar look at Jessie's eleven year old brother Robert.

Poetry offers many options--humor, pathos, description, excitement, heart, history, stories, and visual images. Enjoy it all in bites large and small.

8 Months of Interesting Reading

If it is spring, it must be time to thing back on what I have read this past school year.

Much like the Michigan spring weather this year, great adult reading was not readily evident for much of what should have been spring. Nonetheless, here are some of my recent reads that I enjoyed and think others might as well.


FICTION

Beautiful Creatures by Tracy Chevalier introduces readers to an under-appreciated woman of the 19th century, Mary Anning, who was the first woman to find and assemble skeletons of previously unknown prehistoric animals. Chevalier chooses not to dwell so much on the scientific importance of the work of Mary Anning as on the friendship between Mary, who was the Sunday school educated daughter of a carpenter in Lyme Regis, England, and the London born and raised, upper class Elizabeth Philpot. The result is a story of crossing usual social boundaries in ways that benefit and burden both women, while introducing and a woman and a field of study often overlooked in the literary world.

Room by Emma Donoghue got a great deal of hype this year. It is not a perfect book but it is an interesting imagining of what life would be like for a five year old raised without any contact with the outside world. It is a testament to the strength of a young woman, the boy's mother, who was kidnapped and, in one of those horror stories we hope to never hear about again, kept against her will by a man who keeps her for his personal use. She has her kidnapper's child and it is that child who, five years later, narrates this story. Ma has made the 11' x 11' room that is their home a world of its own. What is most upsetting for Jack is when he and his mother escape from the only home he has ever known. I am particularly impressed with the conclusion of this story. Too many books, like news coverage of these events, would end with the escape and let us assume that they all lived happily ever after.

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand by Helen Simonsen appealed to me with its very British feel and its look at racial and class conflicts. When a retired British major, a widower, begins to find the widowed proprietress of a local shop interesting, this breach of class standards is further complicated by the fact that she is Pakistani. There are some pithy insights when Major Pettigrew takes Mrs. Ali to his local golf club. The humor throughout the book is firmly grounded in a recognition of the absurdities of life.

NON-FICTION
How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming by Mike Brown presents some of the most fascinating and readable non-fiction I have encountered in years. I know little and generally care even less about astronomy, but Mike Brown has a knack for making it interesting, exciting, and even fun. While he did not actually kill Pluto, it is Brown's work that lead to the decision by those who make such decrees that Pluto did not merit being called a planet unless we wanted to suddenly have myriad new planets. I was most intrigued by the process of locating new celestial bodies and then the politics and protocols of naming them.

Homer's Odyssey: A Fearless Feline Tale or How I Learned About Love and Life with a Blind Wonder Cat by Gwen Cooper is a good read for a lazy afternoon. It is not profound but it is enjoyable to read about a young woman (the author) who adopts a blind cat and finds that he has changed her life. She could have bogged this down with life lessons, but she manages to primarily keep to the story of love and persistence for both Homer and herself.

Strength in What Remains: A Journey of Remembrance and Forgiveness by Tracy Kidder follows the pattern of many of Kidder's books of introducing a person who has faced a difficult past and/or is now giving back to the world in amazing ways. Deogratias, the subject of this book, was nearing completion of medical school in his homeland of Burundi when the genocide began. With much bravery and a generous dose of luck, he escapes with his life and eventually makes his way to New York City. The reader follows his paranoia driven attempts to find direction in his life. It is through chance meetings with some remarkable Americans that doors open for Deogratias, but it is personal drive that leads him back to Burundi to build clinics and spread medical care to those people who were not so lucky.

The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fates by Wes Moore is an interesting look at how just a few small events can change a life. Wes Moore, the author, discovered another Wes Moore whose life almost mirrored his own. Both men are African Americans who were born in Baltimore at approximately the same time, both were raised by single mothers, and both had ample opportunity to join gangs and deal drugs. What are the differences that made one a Rhodes Scholar, White House Fellow, and author with many more indicators of success while the other is currently in prison for shooting a police officer?

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks by Rebecca Skloot tells the story of Henrietta Lacks, a poor African American woman who in 1951 was in her twenties and dying of cervical cancer. It also tells the story of cells that were scraped from her body and encouraged to replicate themselves to be used in medical and scientific research for the past sixty years. Neither Henrietta nor her family understood what was happening; her surviving children did not even know of the existence of HeLa cells and their connection to their mother until decades later. Skloot interviewed Henrietta's family, primarily her daughter, to give voice to their story. While some people made millions of dollars from research with HeLa cells, the Lacks family can not afford medical care for themselves. On the other hand, the cells have helped to save millions of lives. Henrietta's family struggles to come to terms with this dichotomy. So do I.


There are so many good books waiting to be read. I hope we all find them and the time to read scads of them this summer.

Stimulating My Thinking

My school is searching for the perfect books to suggest for faculty and staff to read over the summer so I have been frantically trying to read things to suggest for everyone. Let me list some of them here and hope that other ideas will come our way.

Crossing Over to Canaan: The Journey of New Teachers in Diverse Classrooms by Gloria Ladson-Billings was suggested by my daughter who is a mathematics teacher in a California high school. She was wise to suggest it for me. While talking more about inner city "at risk" classes than those of a private school in the mid-West, Ladson makes many valid points for every teacher. My favorite quote, "Apathy is not an option," sums up much of what she is suggesting we should all do to get to know each student as an individual, including the role of various cultures in our teaching and learning processes.

The Hardest Questions Aren't on the Test: Lessons from an Innovative Urban School by Linda F. Nathan may at first seem to have little to do with an elementary school in a mid-sized college town, but that misconception is quickly dispelled. Nathan speaks eloquently of what all schools can do and need to do to serve all students. She talks of three areas of focus:

• Structuring a school to give guidelines for establishing a unifying framework and shared values.


• Supporting teachers to help foster good teachers and the good administrators who support them.


• Addressing inequality through how we and why we need to discuss racial issues.

Fires in the Mind: What Kids Can Tell Us About Motivation and Mastery by Kathleen Cushman found its way to me shortly after I read The Element: How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything by Sir Ken Robinson. This proved to be great timing for Cushman shares many of the same ideas as Robinson but applies them to how we reach students in ways that help to put those young learners into their element. I like the idea of finding ways to apply the concepts in real life situations.

Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other by Sherry Turkle keeps appearing in my thoughts these days, perhaps because the new technologies are so ubiquitous in our lives today. This book deals first with the social and psychological impact of using interactive "caring" robots to replace human caregivers or to offer solace to people who are otherwise disengaged. Then it goes into the uses of our social networking capabilities from text messages to Facebook and more. Turkle is quite convincing in her arguments that we need to look carefully at where we are allowing these new technologies to take us.

Unequal Childhoods: Class, Race, and Family Life by Annette Lareau is old enough that there will be an update from ten years later coming out later this year. Lareau presents a sociological study of home life and school success of upper elementary students of varied socio-economic and racial groups. It is important to teachers to think about how one's culture, especially, it appears, one's socio-economic status, affects their approach to working with teachers and the educational system. All parents want the best for their children, they simply have different backgrounds that define both what is wanted and how to seek it. Lareau does a good job of pointing out both the positive and negative effects of each differing approach to child rearing. This is a book that helps one remember that a child is more than the person who a teacher sees for six hours a day.

Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness by Richard H. Thaler and Cass Sunstein looks at both the economic and behavioral side of how it is possible to shape decisions without taking away any of the choices. They dub this "libertarian paternalism", a term which took me awhile to understand enough to embrace or reject. While their topics of discussion range from Medicare benefit selection to same sex marriage, they also have much to offer that could be applied to life and helping students to make improved decisions. At the very least, it makes one more aware of the nudges that we encounter daily as well as how many things could be changed to offer more positive or productive nudging.

Whistling Vivaldi: And Other Clues to How Stereotypes Affect Us by Claude M. Steele is what I am reading right now. At the mid-point of the book, I am totally fascinated by the social psychological findings of how stereotypes affect student performance. Steele is quick to note that all of us are affected by stereotypes and that often those stereotypes can have negative effects on our performance. Does the stereotype that women are not as good at math as men make women more likely to do poorly at math? The studies suggest that it does. Similarly, race, age, class, and much more affect our self-perceptions and thus how we perform. I am optimistic that Steel will provide not only more insight into these differences in the second half of the book as well as some ways that teachers and society can help to counteract this stereotype threat.

These are a good start. I would love to hear what others are reading in these areas.

LOC @ MACUL

Thursday, March 17, found me at the Annual Conference of the Michigan Association of Computer Users in Learning (MACUL). Cobo Hall in Detroit was hopping with approximately 4,000 educators from around the state. All of them were interested in the hows and whys of using the latest technology in the classroom. There were lectures and workshops and a room full of vendors all eager to share what is exciting to them.

Of all the things that I heard and saw, the most exciting was a talk by two Michigan school librarians who last summer had the kind of experience that makes any librarian green with envy. They spent a week with other librarians from around the country training and sharing at the Library of Congress (LOC) in Washington, D.C. Their primary goal was to help the LOC improve its website and its outreach to teachers. This site is listed as My LOC and is slightly different from the main LOC site. Both sites are well worth visiting.

They began with some basic facts about the nation's library which contains some 147,000,000 items on 838 miles of shelves. LOC resources also include 15 million digitized works with more coming on line all the time. The smallest book in the Library of Congress is Old King Cole fit onto pages measuring just 1/25th of an inch square. The pages must be turned with a needle. More interesting facts rotate on the LOC sites so visit them often if you like trivia.

Teachers perked up their ears when we were presented with examples of the vast array of primary sources available on-line at the LOC. We saw the rough draft of the Gettysburg Address, copies of period sheet music, pictures of great Americans along with copies of their speeches, and just touched the tip of the iceberg.

I encourage everyone who has any interest in American history, to search these sites often, whether for research or just for the fun of it.

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to tell you that I have found the perfect book or books to read for St. Patrick's Day? Alas, that will not be the case today. There is not much to get excited about in terms of books for good St. Paddy. There are few stories that directly name the day and none of those that I have seen are good to read aloud.

So, we go to books of leprechauns and Irish lore. Both Tomie DePaola and Gerald McDermott have retold Irish folk lore. Depaola has two tales of Jamie O'Rourke who is said to be the laziest man in all of Ireland. These stories are good for a laugh but are long for the youngest listeners. McDermott's books can also be wordy but it is worth taking a look at Tim O'Toole and the Wee Folk or Daniel O'Rourke. If you like telling stories rather than reading, any of these would be a good choice to fit to your own style.

Clever Tom and the Leprechauns by Linda Shute is better suited to reading to younger groups (kindergarten or first grade) who are excited about leprechauns. Our first grades are visited by leprechauns at this time of the year, so I leave this book for them to share. After all, they are the ones who introduced it to me.

For older students, there is the option of looking at Irish history. While there are many lengthy informational books about Ireland and its history, the best one I can think of for reading aloud in one sitting is The Long March: The Choctaw's Gift to Irish Famine Relief by Marie-Louise Fitzpatrick. This is an illustrated telling of a little known story of American aid to victims of the Irish the Potato Famine. The Choctaw Indians themselves suffered much loss and hardship in 1847, yet the group empathized with the the Irish enough to collect $170 (equivalent to about $5000 today) to send across the seas to help. It is a moving tale of giving even when times are hard.

What will I be doing with classes this St. Patrick's Day? I will pick and choose between facts about Ireland and Irish tales. A to Z Ireland by Justine and Ron Fontes offers colorful pictures and 26 interesting snippets about the Emerald Isle which is a good, quick introduction.
Then we will talk about snakes, which were supposedly driven from Ireland by St. Patrick. (Of course, most people agree that there never were snakes on the island and that the snake is symbolic of evil, but we will not let that stop me from spreading the old legend to the youngest classes.) Older students will learn about the Blarney Stone and we will play a game we call "Blarney" which is loosely based on that great old game show, "To Tell the Truth". Since our school teaches students to prepare for all kinds of careers, I figure knowing how to tell half truths convincingly may someday prove valuable for someone.

I am sad to report that I won't be wearing my giant shamrock earrings this year. I will be a conference on March 17 and my substitute will get the joy of working with the super excited children. I hope she remembers to wear green.