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.