Alayna's Book Share

The Dot        

This is a wonderful story illustrated and written by Peter H. Reynolds.  This story is about a frustrated young child named Vashti who discovers how to express herself as an artist.   She is encouraged to be proud of herself and her work instead of negative and downhearted.  After the art teacher helps Vashti see herself as an artist, she is unstoppable!  This is a great story for children as well as adults.  It does a great job of illustrating how influential educators are to their students.  It also shows how the relationship between student and teacher impacts the life the child. 

Ish

This is another Peter H. Reynold book that I find fascinating and so do my students!  This is a story about a little boy named Ramon.  Ramon loves to draw anytime, anything, anywhere until one day when his older brother laughs at his artwork.  Although Ramon continues to draw he is so critical of everything and thinks everything he draws is not good because of the hurtful things his older brother said about his artwork.  Ramon discovers that his little sister had been collecting his artwork as he had been throwing it in the garbage.  Ramon’s little sister inspires him to look at his artwork differently and helps him regain the confidence he once had before.

All of my elementary students, regardless of grade level, fall in love with these two books.  The Peter Reynolds' books do a great job of relaying important messages regarding self worth and perseverance.  Also the artwork is amazing!  

Swimmy

Another favorite author of mine is Leo Lionni.  I have used many different Leo Lionni books to conduct an author study with my students.  Books like Little Blue, Little Yellow, It’s Mine, 

Fredrick and the Wind Up Mouse, Inch by Inch, and A Color of His Own display wonderful artwork.   The characters are engaging and my students enjoy discussing the messages in each of the stories.  One book my students seem to enjoy more than the other books is Swimmy.  Swimmy is about a young fish who is the lone survivor of his school who was eaten by a tuna fish.  He sets out to find his place in the world.  While on his adventure he sees magnificent things he had never seen before.  He later devises a plan to help a different school of fish, who are scared to swim in the ocean, venture out to see the world with him.  Swimmy’s experiences are somewhat dramatic and help him learn a great deal about relationships with others.  

The Paper Bag Princess

This is a story was written by Robert Munsch that takes a different spin on the format of original fairy tales.   This fairy tale disrupts the common story line of helpless princess being saved by a prince and reverses the roles of the victim and the hero.  

In this story, Prince Ronald is abducted by the fire-breathing dragon and thus forces Princess Elizabeth to become the heroine and save her prince.  Princess Elizabeth has to step out of her role as a prissy princess and becomes dirty and ragged while on her journey to save the prince.  The different spin on the fairy tale keeps students engaged and also creates lively discussions about gender roles and stereotypes that have been created and maintained by people.  In the end of the story Princess realizes that she does not want to become Ronald’s queen and decides not to marry him due to some differences they have experienced during the entire situation.  Both girls and boys enjoy this story and want to read it many times after I have used it as a read aloud.  I would recommend this book as a way to explore independence and the construction/disruption of stereotypical roles for boys and girls.  

Resources

Everything ESL - http://www.everythingesl.net/

This is a website dedicated to help teachers with English as a Second Language students.  ESL teachers and general education teachers can find ideas to use with second language learners.   I find this website be be helpful for offering ideas to use when developing lessons regarding differences in native and American cultures.  They have interesting ideas for books to use as well as great lessons to implement into a curriculum.  

Bebop Books - http://www.leeandlow.com/p/overview_bebop.mhtml

This a a wonderful website that is free to use.  This website provides leveled multicultural books for students.  They are able to listen and read along with the audio of the story.  This website is easy to navigate and the multicultural books are engaging for students.  

Scholastic - http://www2.scholastic.com/browse/index.jsp

The Scholastic website has a link specifically for teachers.  The link offers great suggestions for lessons as well as book ideas for teachers.  

   

Lindsey's Book Share

Books:

Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems is a hilarious book about a young child who goes to the laundromat with her father. During the trip she loses her stuffed animal. She's unable to speak yet and begins to cry. When they get home, her mother knows exactly why she's so upset and they set out to find her bunny. Once found, she say's, "Knuffle Bunny!" These were her first words. This is a great story for families with young children. The illustrations in the story are fantastic! This is also a Caldecott Honor book.




The Mitten by Jan Brett is one of my favorite and most memorable stories as a child. As I was doing my field experience last fall in a kindergarten room, the teacher read this story to the class. They all enjoyed it just as I had when I was younger. Jan Brett's illustrations are amazing in all of her children's books!



The Mitten is about a young boy named Nicki who unknowingly loses a mitten while walking through the woods. One by one, woodland animals investigate the mitten and climb inside to stay warm. As more and more animals climb in, the mitten begins to stretch and one tiny mouse pushes it's elasticity to it's limit.


The Rainbow Fish by Marcus Pfister is a story about a fish with the most beautiful scales. Rainbow Fish knows that his scales are much prettier than the rest of the fish and the other fish begin the resent him for it. One day, he gives a shiny scale to another fish so the fish would feel special too. Rainbow Fish begins to realize that being so self-centered is not making him happy, but sharing with other fish is. So, he shares is scales until they are all gone and learns that the best feeling is sharing with others and having friends to rely on.

This is a great story to read young readers because it teaches a valuable life lesson.

Sources:

http://http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/alsc/awardsgrants/childrensnotable/notablechibooks/index.cfm

The Association for Library Service to Children is a committee that meets every year and picks the best children's books for that year, based on specific criteria. At this site you can find numerous award-winning books to use in the elementary classroom. The site also offers a variety of other links such as grants and awards, how to become a member, and possibly nominate a book.

http://http://www.bankstreet.edu/bookcom/

The Children's Book Committe at Bank Street College of Education reviews over 4,000 books every year and chooses the best 600 books that they feel will impact children the most. At this site you can view their top picks which are listed by category and age. You can view publications, their favorite picks, and see what young reviewers have to say about the books on their lists.

The Monroe County Public Library

During my first semester of graduate school, my cohort and I took a trip to the Monroe County Public Library. At the library, we were taken on a tour and shown exactly where we could find a variety of children's books. The librarians there were extremely helpful and expressed that if we ever need any help finding books, we should contact them and they would help us. I know your probably saying, "Well that's what they're supposed to do." However, they shared with us that often people are afraid to get to know their local librarians because of existing stereotypes, but that they were more than willing to reach out and help teachers in the community. They were so wonderful to be around and would be happy to show any up and coming teachers around the library.

Holly's Book Share

Books I Love:

Leonardo the Terrible Monster by Mo Willems

Mo Willems is one of my favorite authors for children. He is most famous for his Pigeon books, but has also written several other silly books. My favorite is Leonardo the Terrible Monster. It is about a monster that feels unhappy because he can't seem to scare anyone. He searches for a child to scare, but ends up finding much more. My kindergarten students love this book so much and asked me to read it over and over. I would recommend this and any of his other books.

His website is: http://www.mowillems.com/.

Hooway for Wodney Wat by Helen Lester

I love to use this book in my classroom at the beginning of the year. It introduces the idea of differences among students and shows that each person contributes something to the class. In this story, Rodney has a speech impairment and the other students laugh at him until he shows what he can do. This is a really special story and a great way to bring social issues into the classroom.

The Crayon Box That Talked by Shane DeRolf

Along similar lines as Hooway..., this book also is a great way to start conversations with your students about differences among members of the class. The crayons do not get along because they do not all look alike, but they soon discover what happens when they work together. This story uses objects young readers are familiar with to teach a valuable lesson.

The Gift of Nothing by Patrick McDonnell

Another of my favorite authors, McDonnell's The Gift... is a touching story of one animals quest to find the perfect gift for his friend. He finally decides the perfect gift is nothing but spending time together. My students enjoyed the simple illustrations in this story and even though they were young, they understood the message of friendship.

Helpful Resources:

www.childrensliteraturenetwork.org/index.php

This website is wonderful for teachers to find reading lists about multiple topic areas such as farms, bullying, or poetry. It also offers lists of links of other resources and lesson plans for teachers to use in various classrooms.

http://www.readwritethink.org/

This website offers great lesson plans for use in all different grade levels from k-12. Many of the lesson plans focus on writing, but they include lists of books to use to accompany the writing assignments. There is also a link to a website with a list of the 100 Best Books for Kids which I found very interesting.

Anne's Book Share

A Book I Recommend:

Guys Write for Guys Read: Boys' Favorite Authors Write About Being Boys
by Jon Scieszka (Editor)

This book is filled with amusing and engaging stories written by male writers and illustrators about the pains and joys of growing up. Many of the stories are autobiographical, some are fiction, most are unbelievable whether they really happened or not. As a teacher, I use these as short read alouds and to model comprehension strategies. My students love when they see we are reading a story from this book. Even adults can’t put this book down. (Be warned that some of the stories include some more mature materials for older readers.) This book has a website that helps readers, teachers, and parents locate books students will like: http://www.guysread.com/

Web Resources I recommend:

http://www.colorincolorado.org/read/forkids
This site describes itself as a “bilingual site for families and educators of English language learners.” It provides several very useful book lists including lists of bilingual books, wordless picture books, and books specific to cultural groups. It also shares resources for parents and teachers, including academic articles and advice for supporting the reading needs of English Language Learners.

http://planetesme.blogspot.com/
Here is a blog devoted to children’s literature by Esme Raji Codell. Esme was a classroom teacher who wrote Educating Esme, which shared her diary from her first year teaching and is more recently writing popular children’s books (check out Sahara Special). This blog is FILLED with suggestions of inviting texts for children of many genres. I also really enjoy the section on the bottom right corner entitled “Where I Lurk Lately” which lists many other really useful blogs also about children’s literature.

http://kidspoint.org/good_reading/
This site is so resourceful in helping young readers find ‘unputdownable’ books it’s overwhelming! The site has a ‘BookMatch’ service where a reader can submit a list of their favorite books and a list of similar books they might also like to read will be emailed to them. There are booklists geared towards each school grade. A series of Booktalks is provided from librarians who go out to schools with collections of books students enjoy reading. Young readers themselves can use this site to watch storytelling videos, keep an online reading log, and write book reviews. (This site also has a young adult version at http://www.teenspoint.org/)