Book post: Frog and Toad are Friends

Book cover from HarperCollins

Lobel, A. (1970). Frog and Toad are friends. New York, NY: Harper and Row.

*Winner of a 1971 Caldecott Honor*

This series of stories revolves around the lives of two loyal friends, a laidback frog and an uptight toad.  It contains five stories that introduce the reader to these characters who care greatly for each other. As an I Can Read title, this book is great for young readers because it has short stories (less than 15 pages each) with short words. Because of these features, it can be encouraging for new readers who will feel accomplishment at being able to read a whole story by themselves. I remember this being a favorite book when I was just learning to read for this reason. For early elementary teachers, it would make a great practice book for new readers to judge their reading progress. I like that the book's illustrations are colored simply, in greens, browns, and grays, but also have interesting textures and values within the limited color palette. 

Book review: Dave the Potter

Book cover from Bryan Collier

Hill, L.C. (2010). Dave the potter: Artist, poet, slave. New York, NY: Little, Brown, and Company.

*Winner of the 2011 Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award (Bryan Collier)*

Dave the Potter: Artist, Poet, Slave is a wonderful historical account of Dave, a slave who was an unlikely artisan.  Most slaves were not allowed to do skilled labor, so Dave's work is that much more impressive. Written in verse, the book takes the reader through the process of Dave’s work, showcasing his strength, attention to detail, and devotion to his work. The poem compares our modern-day perspective—“To us/it is just dirt”—to Dave’s—“But to Dave/it was clay.” This gives the reader a stronger insight into how important his work was to him.  He had a vision in his art that he was able to share with the world. Pottery is a practical art, but Dave even inscribed his with short poems that he wrote. Bryan Collier’s watercolor and collage illustrations are created in natural colors, and the detail of each scene is breathtaking. I often felt like I was looking at a photograph until I looked closer at the collaged pictures. 

There are many important things to be learned from this book.  Lovers of history and lovers of art will both love the story it tells. It is a great discussion starter about American slavery, and a way to learn about the life of a slave. It is also an introduction into earlier methods of making pottery. Yet another draw is studying the simple poetic lines that Dave added to his work. Dave the Potter is a must read for everyone.

Recommended Grade Level: 3-5

Recommendation: Recommended

New avatar from Bitstrips

I officially have an avatar! I created this through Bitstrips.  You have to have a Facebook account for this site, which can be limiting for some.  It is fun because you can create comics of yourself with friends who also have a Bitstrips avatar.  It even showed me my friends who are already on Bitstrips and what their avatars look like.  It would be fun to have students create their own avatars for when they post to a class website or blog, to keep a bit of anonymity on the web. I know most kids don't care about that, but as a teacher, it is reassuring to know that I am not making students be too exposed when they participate in online activities. Overall, I give this tool a thumbs up!

Book post: The Snowy Day

Book cover from Ezra Jack Keats

Keats, E.J. (1962). The snowy day. New York, NY: Viking Press.

*Winner of the 1963 Caldecott Medal*

Peter is a young boy who wakes up to find his city covered in snow.  He spends his day exploring all the fun experiences he can have in the snow.  The collage style of illustrations in this book are simple and beautiful. The simplicity of the pages fits perfectly with that of Peter's day. The colors of the city are vibrant and the snow looks marbled with hints of pink, purple, and blue throughout.  This book would be a fun introduction to creating pictures with collage; students could make their own snowy day scenes or choose another favorite time of year to depict in collage. This book was one of my favorites when I was young because of Peter's wonderment at the snow and the way snow is shown as something magical and fun for kids.  I have always felt this way, and that's why I still love reading it today.

Book post: Kitten's First Full Moon

Book cover from Kevin Henkes

Henkes, K. (2004). Kitten's first full moon. New York, NY: Greenwillow Books.

*Winner of the 2005 Caldecott Medal*

This curious kitten thinks the moon is a bowl of milk, and she is determined to get a drink. The beautiful illustrations are all in black and white, which adds to their depth: the night scenes are intensified by their lack of color.  After reading the book, children would benefit from sharing their own experiences of being confused or being determined about something. It is a great way to teach empathy, with its refrain of "Poor kitten!" My daughter loves this book, and we have now read it so many times that she has memorized sections.  She loves when the kitten falls in the water, and will recite with me, in a sad voice: "Poor kitten! She was wet and sad and tired and hungry."  

Book post: A Ball for Daisy

Book cover from Random House

Raschka, C. (2011). A ball for Daisy. New York, NY: Schwartz and Wade Books.

*Winner of the 2012 Caldecott Medal*

Daisy is a playful puppy who loves her red ball.  An accident happens when she is playing with friends, which makes Daisy sad until her friends come through for her.  This is a great book for teaching inferences because it is completely wordless.  Children can infer Daisy's feelings as she experiences a day with and without her red ball.  My two-year-old daughter loved reading this book together, and then telling me the story herself.  It is a heartwarming story of dealing with loss and having supportive friends from a puppy's point of view.

Book post: Love That Dog

Book cover from Sharon Creech

Creech, S. (2001). Love that dog. New York, NY: HarperCollins.

*ALA Notable Children's Book*

Love That Dog is about a young boy, Jack, learning to develop his voice through writing poetry.  He begins his class journal stating that poetry is for girls, but then realizes through the encouragement of his teacher that he is actually good at writing poetry.  The book is written entirely in poems, which means the reader is reading poetry and a novel at the same time.  This would be a great book for teaching format and line breaks for poems, as well as how to emulate types of poems.  Jack writes a poem inspired by his favorite poem, Walter Dean Myers' "Love That Boy," which I loved because I am a fan of Myers as well.  Jack is a wonderful character who shares and learns a lot about himself through his poetry.

Book post: The Graveyard Book

Book cover from Mouse Circus

Gaiman, N. (2008). The graveyard book. New York, NY: HarperCollins.

*Winner of the 2009 Newbery Medal*

The Graveyard Book follows the childhood of Nobody Owens, nicknamed Bod, from the time his family is murdered when he is a toddler to his adolescence.  As a baby, he crawls away and escapes the murder of his entire family, and is raised by the ghosts in the nearby graveyard.  Because of the strong ties to The Jungle Book, this book could be taught in conjunction with some of Rudyard Kipling's stories, to discuss the concept of nature vs. nurture with students.  Is Bod more like the ghosts who raise him or like the family who was killed when he was younger?  Bod's story is compelling, as are his relationships with his graveyard family/caretakers, Silas and Mr. and Mrs. Owens.  I like that the story is told in chapters that feel like short stories, and can be read on their own if desired; this feature makes the story go by quickly, and made me feel as if I was only seeing the most integral parts of Bod's young life.

Boy reading sketch created at SnapsTouch

Lost by Tim Pierce (CC BY)
Modified

Here is the same boy reading, but for this one I turned it into a sketch.  I had originally tried using dumpr.com, which looked promising, but kept getting server errors when I tried to upload.  Maybe their servers are having a bad day.  I really wanted to create a sketch type of picture though, so I found snapstouch.com, and it worked perfectly.  It has several options, but I used the Sketch effect, and changed it to the darker option.  I think this would be a fun website to use for art class, because students could sketch-ify any photo they want, print, and then color it!  I could even print out copies for them to work on shading and value.  

Boy reading photo edited on Tuxpi

Lost by Tim Pierce (CC BY)
Modified

I love this picture of a little boy reading by himself in a bookstore, and then when I looked at more information about it, I found out it was taken at Brookline Booksmith, which was one of the bookstores I frequented when I lived in Boston.  It is an amazing independent bookstore that offers lots of awesome events.

I modified the photo to make the boy the focus of the picture, and the bookstore stretching out around him.  I used the tuxpi.com online photo editor.  This site is a way to add fun effects to photos.  This could be fun for a scrapbooking type of assignment or to add interest to photos in presentations.

Reading Poster created at Big Huge Labs

On the platform, reading by Mo Riza (CC BY)
Modified

Movie-style poster created at bighugelabs.com

Creating movie-style posters for books is already one of the options I give students for reading projects.  Using this online tool would make it even more fun for students to put their ideas together.  They would need to be careful with the images they find, or (even better) take their own pictures to upload for the poster.  

This could be a poster I could actually hang up at school, so I like how it turned out, but I wish the site allowed cropping of the uploaded photos.

John Green for Mental Floss shares 47 Charming Facts about Children's Books

Book review: Look Up! Bird-Watching in Your Own Backyard

Book cover from Candlewick Press

Cate, A.L. (2013). Look up! Bird-watching in your own backyard. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press.

*2014 Robert F. Sibert Honor*

This is an informational book with a lot of attitude.  The author teaches how to identify and draw many types of birds just by looking around anywhere you are.  The book is jam-packed with cartoonish bird drawings who all have something to say.  The book is well planned with its arrangements of birds by color, feathers, habitats and more.  It teaches various concepts about birds, such as the variations in plumage in certain birds.  The combination of information and artwork help teach amateur birdwatchers how and where to spot the birds in the book, and makes it a great tool for bird lovers.  The speech bubbles, however, are very distracting at times, especially when the birds don’t seem to have any new information to add, just a quick one-liner joke or random thought.  While these additions can be funny, there are pages that are overloaded with speech bubbles and make the page hard to read.  This could be difficult for some lower-level readers who may need more support understanding the format.  The book teaches many concepts about birds, but probably shouldn’t be used as a definitive guide to bird-watching, and will only be appealing to a small age group of children.

Recommended Grade Level: 3-5

Recommendation: Additional Selection

Book post: Flotsam

Book cover from Houghton Mifflin Harcourt

Wiesner, David. (2006). Flotsam. New York, NY: Clarion Books.

*Winner of the 2007 Caldecott Medal*

Flotsam is about a boy's discovery of a mysterious underwater camera that washes up on the beach.  The photos that come from the camera shock him as he realizes he is seeing a secret side of sea life, known only by the few who have found the camera before him.  This book would be an excellent way to teach surrealism in the art classroom because the underwater illustrations are fantastical and meticulously detailed.  Surrealism must have unreal elements to realistic paintings, and this book does that wonderfully with its mechanical fish, reading octopus, and more.  The illustrations are all able to stand as artwork on their own because the book is also entirely wordless.  I loved that this meant I was able to experience the boy's wonder in examining the photos silently along with him.

Book post: The Lion and the Mouse

Book cover from Little, Brown, and Company

Pinkney, Jerry. (2009). The lion and the mouse. New York, NY: Little, Brown, and Company.

*Winner of the 2010 Caldecott Medal*

This beautifully illustrated book takes the reader through the fable of the king of the jungle and a lowly mouse.  The lion spares the mouse's life, only to be saved by the mouse later in the story.  With the extreme details of the paintings, and the natural color landscapes, the African savanna comes to life.  I love that the only words in the book are onomatopoeia.  This would be a great book to introduce young readers to the idea of onomatopoeia, or to discuss the benefits of being kind to others--even those who you may think don't deserve kindness.  For a nearly-wordless book, I spent an inordinate amount of time gazing at the artwork and contemplating the emotions of the animals, and it was well worth the time.

Book post: Flora and Ulysses

Book cover from Candlewick Press

DiCamillo, K. (2013). Flora and Ulysses: The illuminated adventures. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press.

 *Winner of the 2014 Newbery Medal*

 “Holy unanticipated occurrences!” A book about a girl and a superhero squirrel? Flora embraces the accusation that she is a “natural born cynic,” but when she sees a squirrel being vacuumed up outside her window, she rushes to save him. They become the best of friends as he learns about words and poetry, and she learns what love entails. This book is presented in both words and pictures, with quirky characters that always have something out of the ordinary to say. I must say I wanted more squirrel in the book, because Ulysses was adorable, smart, and entertaining. Flora and Ulysses would be a great book to use in the classroom to show the difference between necessary illustrations (when a whole chapter is in pictures) and supplementary illustrations. It would be fun to add illustrations to parts where there are none, as well as write out chapters that are presented only in pictures now, to try out DiCamillo’s fun writing style.

Answer my AnswerGarden question

What's your favorite book?... at AnswerGarden.ch.

AnswerGarden is a fun site for asking questions and having them answered by anyone who sees your AG.  You can even add an admin password to be able to delete unwanted or inappropriate answers.  This could be fun for a school survey.  I embedded this one onto my class site so that my students could participate in it.

Blog Design

This blog will be all about reading, including book reviews and literacy information.  I will be sharing books and ideas that will be useful for my students and fellow teachers and librarians.  For my blog design, I have chosen to make it fairly simple, as suggested by Garr Reynolds in Presentation Zen Design.  I have tried to keep everything to a minimum with only basic autobiographical information on the right and my main content on the left in a larger column.  I tend to like the look of typefaces with serifs, so I have chosen Georgia as my font.  It is a classic, formal but not overly formal, easy to read font.  I have selected colors that I find calming.  I hope this will make the blog look appealing and simple enough for anyone to navigate.  Thanks for checking out my blog, and let's read!