Archive for Fiction

Celebrating Florida

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Written by Marion Dane Bauer

Illustrated by C. B. Canga

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Now young travelers in second grade or above do not need an airplane, train, or even a car to explore the enchanting state of Florida. They simply open the book, Celebrating Florida, to read aloud and learn about the wild life, including alligators and crocodiles and a fact that people may not know. They find out how people travel in swamps and where they must go to find sponges. This adventure even takes them to the beaches to make a sand sculpture or learn what a sand dollar looks like as they improve their reading skills. Don’t stop here! In the back of the book, they discover more facts like the state capital and important dates in history.

Colorful, and sometimes dramatic, illustrations provide a more in depth approach to seeing what someone can behold. For instance most people know about the orange trees, but what about grapefruits and strawberries. The state flower, orange blossoms, smells sweet, while the state animal, the panther, can be terrifying. Skip over to page 34 and find reading activities that extend the facts so they can be shared with others. Even though it has a glossary in the back, it would have helped to add accent marks to help sound out the unusual vocabulary words such as Seminole or Tobocaga. Due to the target 2nd grade reading level, the character, Mr. Geo may have been more effective as someone closer to their age instead of someone closer to their parent’s age. The book is part of the “50 States to Celebrate” series.

  • Celebrating FloridaTitle: Celebrating Florida
  • Author: Marion Dane Bauer
  • Illustrator: C. B. Canga
  • Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  • Reviewer: Julia Beiker
  • Edition: Paperback
  • ISBN 978-0-547-89699-1
  • Genre: Nonfiction, geography

 

Posted in 2012, Fiction, Geography tagged with ,

The Meanest Birthday Girl

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Written by Josh Schneider

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In Josh Schneider’s book, The Meanest Birthday Girl, Dana, the main character, celebrates her birthday “doing what she likes to do,” because, after all, it’s her special day.  Doing what she likes includes wearing her favorite birthday dress and eating her favorite breakfast. But, it also means calling Anthony names at the bus stop, pinching him, and stealing his dessert at lunchtime.

After school, Dana continues her celebration with a birthday party that includes all her friends. Later, just before bedtime, Anthony arrives at her door with a gift, leaving the reader to ponder if Anthony was not invited to the party.

His gift? A large, white elephant with bright tusks and toenails that just happen to be painted with Dana’s favorite color. Dana is elated with her wonderful gift and surprised that Anthony would present her with such a nice present after she’d treated him the way she did earlier in the day.

Though Dana enjoys showing off her pet in the neighborhood, her excitement is fleeting. Her pet elephant eats Dana’s breakfast, causing her stomach to rumble on the school bus. That noisy moment invites name-calling from Gertrude, who calls Dana “Grumble-Guts.” Dana’s white elephant pet sleeps in her bed, requires much exercise, eats too much, and even crushes Dana’s bike. And, meanwhile, Gertrude continues to taunt Dana with name-calling, mud ball throwing, and dessert stealing.

Remorsefully, Dana apologizes to Anthony for her actions. When Anthony reminds Dana that Gertrude is celebrating her birthday today, Dana, seemingly uninvited to Gertrude’s party, hatches a plan. Dana gives the white elephant a bath, paints its toenails Gertrude’s favorite color, shows up at Gertrude’s door, and presents her with the white elephant, admonishing her to “Take good care of it.”

Schneider’s humorous and a bit preposterous story about a white elephant gift read aloud to a second grade class opens the door for a discussion about bullying. Many children can relate to name calling and possibly, pinching or pushing and shoving, and maybe even snatching food or toys. Children might also relate to being excluded from a party or other play activity.

After reading the book aloud, the teacher could continue in a humorous bent, allowing the kids to come up with silly, ridiculous ways to end bullying. After a fun time of creativity, the teacher could direct the conversation to a serious one about bullying, encouraging the students to talk about bullying with a trusted adult, if the need arises. The teacher could also utilize teaching time to point out behaviors that might be considered “bullying.”

For an extension of the story, the teacher could incorporate a creative writing experience and have the students write and illustrate a story called, “The Best Birthday Present I Ever Received.”

Author Josh Schneider has written other books for children, including the 2012 Theodor Seuss Geisel Award Medal Winner, Tales for Very Picky Eaters. Interestingly, Josh is married to Dana, but says on the back flap of the book’s cover, that his wife is “much less terrible than the Dana in this book.”

  • Meanest Birthday GirlTITLE: The Meanest Birthday Girl
  • AUTHOR: Josh Schneider
  • PUBLISHER: Clarion Books-Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  • REVIEWER: Julie Lavender
  • EDITION: Hard Cover, 48 p.
  • ISBN: 978-0547838144
  • GENRE: Contemporary
Posted in 2012, Contemporary, Fiction tagged with ,

Gooney Bird on the Map

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Written by Lois Lowry

Illustrated by Middy Thomas

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Mrs. Pidgeon’s second grade class is counting the days until February vacation. With just ten days until the school vacation begins, Mrs. Pidgeon’s class celebrates  Valentine’s Day, a couple of Presidents’ birthdays, practices math facts, studies geography, and tromps around in the snow during recess.

Some of the students in Gooney Bird’s class are taking exciting vacations – to Vermont, Hawaii, and Florida. But most of the classmates will be staying home in Watertower.

When the vacationers begin to brag constantly about their vacations, Gooney Bird hatches a plan to show them just how it feels when others gloat, and it involves a very large “frozen” map of the United States that the class, with the help of the school custodian, Mr. Furillo, outlines in the snow-covered playground.

By the end of the story, everyone is happy about the map project, and the gloaters tone down their vacation bragging. The book culminates with Mrs. Pidgeon’s class presenting a program to the entire school about the various states they’ve studied, using their outdoor map in the snow.

Author Lois Lowry uses this story of Gooney Bird, which is one of several Gooney Bird installations, to teach geography concepts in an interesting, yet subtle way. She makes Mrs. Pidgeon’s classroom seem like a happy place to be, where much learning – and fun – takes place.

A fun reading activity to continue the geography concepts introduced or taught by author Lowry might be to place a large United States map on the wall and encourage the children to place sticker-flags on the states they have visited.

  • Gooney BirdTITLE: Gooney Bird on the Map
  • AUTHOR: Lois Lowry
  • ILLUSTRATIOR: Middy Thomas
  • PUBLISHER: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  • REVIEWER: Julie Lavender
  • EDITION: Paperback, 125 p.
  • ISBN: 978-0-547-85088-7
  • GENRE: Contemporary
Posted in 2012, Contemporary, Fiction, Geography tagged with ,

Prairie Chicken Little

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Written by Jackie Mims Hopkins
Illustrated by Henry Cole

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A delightful spin on a classic story, Prairie Chicken Little provides a fresh look at how panic starts on the wide open spaces of the grasslands when a nervous prairie chicken spreads rumor of a stampede. With no trees around, there are no acorns falling, but these animals fear a stampede more than the sky falling, so “a rumbling and a grumbling and a tumbling” is enough to cause quite a stir. When Mary McBlicken runs to tell her friends on the prairie about the imminent stampede, they are all aflutter until Cowboy Stan and Red Dog Dan come along to calm them down.

This brightly illustrated book would fit nicely in a unit about different ecosystems of North America or a unit about wild animals. There are also several nice lessons about how prepositions like, “over,” “through,” “around,” and “down” guide our imagination and the storyline. Students may even write and illustrate their own colorful story told with a dozen different prepositions. To test the readers’ comprehension after reading this story aloud, students may describe the problem, what Mary wanted to do about it, and how it was finally resolved.

With such a common story line, there are loads of extension activities for the classroom. For a generous collection of activities, visit http://www.myfreshplans.com/2010-09/chicken-little-lesson-plans/. This site offers activities for the language arts, science, character development, and critical thinking. It also links visitors to several audio versions of the classic tale of Chicken Little. Many may easily be adapted to use with Prairie Chicken Little. After reading this updated story, students may also be encouraged to write their own twist on a different classic tale.

  • Prairie Chicken LittleTitle: Prairie Chicken Little
  • Authors: Jackie Mims Hopkins
  • Illustrators: Henry Cole
  • Publisher: Peachtree
  • Reviewer: Sharon Schulte
  • 
Hardback, 38 pages
  • ISBN: 978-1-56145-694-9
  • Genre: fiction/folk tale/Chicken Little
Posted in 2013, Fiction, Folk Tale tagged with , , ,

The Matchbox Diary

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Written by Paul Fleischman
Illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline

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Candlewick picture books never disappoint! The Matchbox Diary, written by Paul Fleischman and illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline, offers second grade readers and up a synergistic blend of old world charm and contemporary youthful innocence and curiosity through an immigration tale with illustrations that will appeal across generations. The Matchbox Diary reminds me of another classic picture book called One Thousand Tracings: Healing the Wounds of World War II written and illustrated by Lita Judge.

Ibatoulline’s illustrations are so realistic they look like they could walk off the pages on which they are printed. Through his illustrations Ibatoulline not only captures the heart of the relationship between the little girl and her great grandfather in present day, but he also conveys the challenges and hardships that most immigrants faced when leaving their home country to enter a new one. Each spread consists of an illustration of the object on one side and on the other side is an illustration of an old photo that tells the story behind the object.

Fleischman utilizes a diary of objects versus a writing journal since his young protagonist (great grandfather) can not read or write in English or Italian when he first arrives into the United States. Because he wants to remember every detail of his journey, he collects small objects that represent his experiences and places them in a matchbox for safe-keeping and sharing with future generations.

Fleischman got the idea for The Matchbox Diary from New Hampshire artist, Gary Hamel who exhibited a matchbox diary of a recent trip he had made to Italy. Fleischman was so intrigued by the idea, he got Hamel’s blessing to borrow and reinvent his matchbox concept.

I see endless uses for The Matchbox Diary in the classroom where second grade teachers and up can tap into core subjects like language arts using this book as an aid. Parents and grandparents can use this book to open up a dialogue on their own immigration story. We all come from somewhere, right?

  • Matchbox DiaryTitle: The Matchbox Diary
  • Author: Paul Fleischman
  • Illustrator: Bagram Ibatoulline
  • Publisher: Candlewick Press
  • Reviewer: Annemarie O’Brien
  • Hard cover: 40 pages
  • ISBN: 978-0-7636-4601-1
  • Genre: picture book
Posted in 2013, Fiction, Picture book tagged with

Mr. Putter and Tabby Ring The Bell

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By Cynthia Rylant

Illustrated by Arthur Howard

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This book is about an old man, Mr. Putter, and his cat, Tabby.  They are great companions and do everything together.  They especially like eating their next door neighbor, Mrs. Teaberry’s, rhubarb trifle, along with her dog, Zeke.

One day, while enjoying fall activities, Mr. Putter hears the ring of a school bell and decides that he misses school, pencils, and books.  He decides to go back to school just for a day.  He asks the first grade teacher at school if he can come to show and tell with Mrs. Teaberry, Tabby, and Zeke.  The teacher tells Mr. Putter that her class loves animals and she is led to believe that both Mr. Putter’s cat and Mrs. Teaberry’s dog, Zeke, can do tricks.  The story continues with lots of funny antics that second graders will love!

Students will love the illustrations depicting the moods of the animals and characters in the book, along with their funny behavior.

What a great story for teachers to use as a read aloud for second graders at the beginning of the year to introduce show and tell time to the class!  It would also be a great book to introduce new readers to chapter book formats.

This book is written by Cynthia Rylant and is one of numerous in a series of Mr. Putter and Tabby books.  The author also writes the popular Henry and Mudge books that most young readers are familiar with and love.

The illustrator is Arthur Howard, who also illustrates the rest of the Mr. Putter and Tabby books.

  • Mr. PutterTitle:  Mr. Putter and Tabby Ring the Bell
  • Author:  Cynthia Rylant
  • Illustrator:  Arthur Howard
  • Publisher:  Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  • Reviewer:  Rebecca L. Wagner
  • Paperback:  43 pages
  • ISBN:  978-0-547-85075-7
  • Genre:  Fiction/Animals/Old age/Autumn
Posted in Animals, Fiction, Old age, Seasons tagged with ,
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