Dolphins At Daybreak (Magic Tree House Series #9)-By: Mary Pope Osborne; Illustrated By: Salvatore Murdocca

I read this novel with my child study little boy. He loves the series and I had never read it before but see all the books in the Scholastic book orders. It was all that he could talk about for the first few weeks of child study and then I finally brought a book in and he got so excited. We read it. It was a quick, easy read but it was action packed. The chapters were cliff hangers and it was realistic at least to the second grader. What he really likes about the book is that the characters stay consistent through all the books and there are TONS of them and they all start the same way for the most part, so it is actually a series, rather than the Star Wars books that have a wide variety of different authors and different things going on that don't really connect. There is a lot of dialogue and easy for kids to get in to. I would definitely read them as a read a loud or have them as free read books. It was about an 80 or 90 page novel, so it was easy to get through and the little boy reads pretty well and gets through them pretty fast if he sticks with it. By giving kids fun books like this to read I think it is easy for them to get wrapped up in and relate it to interests in there like and making connecting. I know a big thing we talk about in block A about reading for meaning and making connections is a big part of that. I think it is awesome when children are making connects to text and they are enjoying it, rather then being forced to read and forced to make connections or asked low level comprehension questions guided by the teacher.

And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street-By:Dr. Seuss

This Dr. Seuss book build off of each page. A boy walks to school everyday and his imagination takes him away. He notices a horse and a wagon on his way to school and each page more things are added, so at the end it's pretty much a parade on Mulberry Street. I have never read this book before either but it wasn't one of my favorites. The book was taken over by a lot of text and there wasn't many detailed illustrations. I like when there are a lot of details in his books because they are so abstract that it's cool to see whats in his imagination. There wasn't really a moral or lesson that was trying to be taught but showing how children's imagination run wild and how parents or adults just don't understand what is going on in kids heads. I picked two Dr. Seuss books for the poetry collection because I haven't read any other Dr. Seuss books this semester and all his books are so poetic or the first thing I think of when I think of a poem. In my classroom I want a whole collection of Dr. Seuss books because I think they are up for so much interpretation and kids just love them. It's amazing that 30 or 40 years after they were published they are still as popular as they were many years ago and still used a lot in classrooms. This wasn't my favorite Dr. Seuss book but I'm definitely not going to stop reading his books. It was still a good book but not compared to his others in his collection.

Hooray for Diffendoofer Day!-By: Dr. Seuss; With Help From: Jack Prelutsky & Lane Smith

I really enjoy Dr. Seuss books and I just became familiar with this book early this year when my science methods teacher mentioned it in one of his lectures during class. I finally just got around to reading it. This was a book that was published in 1998, but Dr. Seuss died in 1991. It was good that that had found sitting in a drawer or something. The words were done, but the illustrations weren't, So Jack and Lane decided to help get it published. I really love the books because they are so abstract by using made up words or things but the point of the story is so strong and important. He really has a message that he wants to send out to the people reading the books that he does in a fun, captivating way. This book really applies to us. It is about students attending Diffendoofer School and talking about how great their school is and all the teachers. No detail about the school is left out and it is so positive. The narrator just loves it. But than they have to take an assessment "much take a special test to see who's learning such and such-to see which school's the best." And everyone freaks out because because if the school doesn't do well they will go to flobbertown where everyone does everything the same. It really reminded me a lot of where we are now in education and Dr. Seuss had to have written this in the late 1980's. It's sad still so much is the same. Moral of the story is that everyone passes and they keep the school. The pictures were very fun and colorful and creatures that you see in Dr. Seuss books but with more bright, bold colors. It was a very fun read and I think that it would be a great book to read to students when it comes time to take a standardize test to help them understand what the purpose is and take some stress out of it.

The Adventures of Simple Simon-By: Chris Conover

This book was very abstract and so were the illustrations. It's about the adventures of this pumpkin Simon and he just ends up failing and getting hurt over everything he does. It's a book written as a poem but it incorporates nursery rhymes. The illustrations are very detailed. There is a side bar and an illustration on the opposite page, showing what is happening in the story and the side bar shows how Simon feels or shows him doing what he is trying to accomplish. The pictures show diversity very well. There are no people in the book but all different animals and they are all getting along and working together. There are bears, elephants, tigers, birds, pigs, camels, and many more. There is also writing in different languages, saying "the end" or "bye". I thought it was a cute book and would be good for younger children because it had a great rhyme scheme, so it would be good to talk about rhyming words with and there are a very of nursery rhymes introduced into the text so it would be good for the children to recognize and use text to text connections. I didn't think the book flowed together very well, the text didn't connect to make a story well and it was hard to follow but as I read it again it came together a little better but still was in a dream world and hard to follow. The illustrations were fun to look at because there was so much detail included in each picture on the page.

Birds On A Wire- By: J.Patrick Lewis & Paul B. Janeczko; Illustrated By: Gary Lippincott

This book was different from anything I have ever read or even seen. The introduction at the front of the book introduced the format of the book. The book is written as a "renga" which is an ancient Japanese version form in which poets take turns adding verses. The renga is written by two or more poets. The first poet writes three lines and the other poet follows with two lines. So it's kind of like a game or a puzzle by connecting the verses to make some sort of sense. It was really interesting to read but yet kind of challenging too. It really didn't flow together very well. On each page was three lines of text and it was followed by two italicized lines written by the other poet. It was kind of hard for me to understand and I had to read it a few times to get the just. But the description the poets used was amazing. It was written beautifully. I think this would be great to do with a class when teaching poetry, to partner up and construct a poem together. It really incorporates two different points of view into one to construct one big piece at the end. However, I don't know if I would read this to little kids. I think it is for probably fifth grade and up because of the complex set up and word usage of the story, but I think anyone is capable of the poetry pattern. The illustrations are also very detailed and beautiful and really reflect was is going on in the poem so that is another way to understand the story, to take the picture clues that are given to the reader.

Love That Dog-By: Sharon Creech

What a quick and easy read (I think it took me less than 30 minutes to read), but yet there was so much to take from the text and get out of it. It was actually kind of inspiring to me. I really hate writing poetry and have never enjoyed it. I feel like I am doing it wrong (if that is even possible) and this little boy was just throwing word and feelings on a page and created something awesome. His confidence in writing went from zero to 100% so quickly and his teachers encouragement and response really helped in to continue to try. I think a very important part to teaching is to encourage your students to believe in themselves and this book is a prime example. Without encouragement this student would still be at page 1. I thought it was cool that the poetry still constructed a story and had a beginning, middle and end in poetic form and the boy had no idea that he was doing such a thing. Sharon Creech sounded like a familiar author and after reading her biography, I realized I had read many of her books growing up (Walk Two Moons and Bloomability really ring a bell). I really liked Jack's poem, My Sky, because it was so emotional and you could tell that he was really passionate about it and really loved his dog. I also liked how the writing stayed consistent and didn't change from poetic style to a normal journal entry. I would definitely read this as a read aloud but I would make sure that everyone had a copy of the book so they could see the format and I think it would be a good book to talk about the format of poetry and how it works and the freedoms you have with it to write.

So Far From The Bamboo Grove-By:Yoko Kawashima Watkins

I liked this book a little bit more than The Year of Impossible Goodbyes, just because it was a little bit faster paced and easier to get right into. I thought it was wonderful to read the two books side by side and see the similarities and differences of the same situation, just opposite sides. I thought I would have more harsh feelings toward "the bad guys" but I didn't. I was actually really sympathetic at times because those people were kind of thrown into the situation if the believed in the cause or not. I thought it was really hard to not feel sympathetic to both sides. I think these books would be very powerful to students in a classroom, because I think war is such a powerful topic to talk about. We are currently in war but we don't see the first hand effects of it on people or the area because it's not happening at home but rather in a far away place. Some student might not even know that a war is going on. Scary but true. I also liked how both of the books were about family because I think that is very important especially in the time of war when everything is falling apart. I really shows a lot about what is really important in the long run in life. They both talked a lot about courage and bravery also. I don't think either one of the characters in the books would have survived if they didn't have courage and bravery. These books are so powerful to even adults reading them, in class we had such a powerful discussion and I think young students also have the ability with a little guidance that can also be very powerful.

Anticipation Set: The Year of Impossible GoodByes

Take 1 minute to reflect on the title. Predict comparisons and contradictions to So Far From The Bamboo Grove.

"One's life is short, but the life of the spirit is long"--How might this quote relate to the book?

Be prepared for the emotional discomfort and horrible innuendos that are connected with the "Sock Girls".

• Take a moment to reflect about how Buddhist meditation and how it would affect someone to be completely taken away from them.
  
  
  

Think about how families were torn apart from each other and the emotions that are involved that you could potentially never be reunited.

Think about what role HOPE would play in your heart.

Twelve Terrible Things-By: Marty Kelley

This book was so cute. By the cover you think the book is going to be very scary and when you open the cover of the book, the opening page is a warning page about how you shouldn't turn the page about all the terrible things in the upcoming pages. When I looked at the cover I thought it was going to be about scary, terrible things but in actuality, it is about things that just make you angry or upset. In this book the illustrations tell the story and the word or words are just captions or feelings. The first page is a picture of ice cream that has fallen and the word on the page is "ooopsie!" So it's very humorous but very true feelings. The illustrations are done from the angle of the eyes of the person so you see what they are seeing. It's very creative and I think it's what makes it humorous and really feel the disappointment. The first illustration you see both of the persons hands, his two tennis shoes and the ice cream on the ground with the cone in one of his hands and then his shadow is in the background. The one I can really relate to is the dentist picture and the caption is "Say AHHHH..." I don't really like going to the dentist so it's really relatable. I think it would be a good book to use with young students in your classroom to share their fears or "terrible" things. I think it would be an easy thing to create into a classroom book. Some of the things are seen as funny to some but others they can totally relate and there is no wrong answer. It would be a good writing and reading activity.

Willie And The All-Stars-By: Floyd Cooper

This book was about a true event but wasn't a true story. It had made up characters. This book was about a young black boy living in Chicago He enjoys listening to Cubs games. He dreams of becoming a Major Leaguer but that dream is still impossible in 1942 when there was still a color barrier. He learns a lot about his world and where he stands in it. But he still never loses hope. He ends up getting tickets to a baseball game at Wrigley Field and watches the Negro Leaguers play. The illustrations are very good. They really help tell the story. There is a lot of emotion drawn in like on the faces of the characters and in the town in general. The text also had a lot of emotion in it. There was a lot of description and adjectives to make you feel like you were there following Willie around. It made it really dramatic. It incorporates a lot of diversity. His best friend is white and the neighborhood that he lives in is very mixed, but they still had to use different drinking fountains and bathrooms. I think this book would be very good to read and have in your classroom. It tells a good story and baseball is a huge American past time. It also shows how far we have come in this country from complete segregation to inclusion (even though it still isn't great.) If would be great to use in a segregation unit to bring the point home that segregation happened everywhere. Very emotionally touching book.

Pele: King of Soccer (El rey del futbol)-By: Monica Brown; Illustrated By: Rudy Gutierrez

This book was about Edson Arantes do Nascimento. He was a famous soccer player in Brazil, South America from the mid 1950s to shortly before 1980. I had never heard about him before but I'm not a big fan of soccer. Soccer doesn't seem to be a big thing in the United States as it is every where else in the world, however, so many little kids play soccer as their first sport, so it surprises me that it isn't more popular in the United States. My child study talks about it all the time. The book was written and illustrated beautifully. On each page, there was English text and it was then translated into Spanish. The book could be read cover to cover by either and English reader or a Spanish reader. Even the author and illustrator information is written in both languages. Just the general story is heartwarming and the author really develops the main character Pele, very well. The reader feels bad for him for his living situation but the author makes the reader believes so much in him and what he can do. The illustrations were also awesome! The colors were bright and really made the page really stand out to the reader. There were all kinds of hidden things inside the pictures too. The book took twice as long to read because all the time I took looking at the illustrations. The book was about believing in yourself even when you the underdog, so I think it's a great book to read to students. It's really a confidence booster. There is also a lot of diversity in it. Pele is poor and black. So it's not about the average white male. The text is also in Spanish which would be good for Spanish ELL students. Good book.

The Girl In The Castle Inside The Museum-By: Kate Bernheimer & Nicoletta Ceccoli

This was another one of my favorite books that I have read so far this semester. I found it on the new shelf of the library. I wasn't sure what to make of it because the cover looks so peaceful, that it looks a little bit scary.The illustrations are just amazing. The objects in the book like toys and other made up things are drawn so clearly but the people are drawn so softly and faded. They look so innocent. The faces remind me of porcelain dolls, so pale, soft and white. There is so much imagination put into each picture, that you question what it is. The book is also set up like a fairy tale. It begins once upon a time and elaborates on this magical world. It takes place inside a castle which is in a museum, where many children go to visit. Inside the castle there lives a girl. The girl just wants to play and she enjoys watching the children come in and discover her inside. I would definitely read this book to my class because it really sparks imagination. However, there is no diversity within the characters. They are all white and mostly female. But the characters aren't the main focus of the story though. The castle and the magic are what the author wants you to notice, so I think by having every character a white female, it doesn't draw attention to them but rather all the other details in the illustrations.

Big Bigger, and Biggest Trucks and Diggers- By: Erin Golden

I needed a book for my child study. He is a little boy and really into trucks and trains. We are starting our writing unit and he seems to not like writing, so I'm going to try to come at it from a different way using nonfiction books. It has really cool pictures of each of the trucks and giving a good description of what each on is used for, in a kid friendly way. All the machines were things that are used in construction and farming, among other things so they are all familiar. It gives multiple interesting facts about the equipment and describes what each part (tires, bucket, how to drive it, and all the other amenities) and how it works. Weight is an important factor to the machines, how much it can lift, how much it can push, etc. It breaks it into pounds but pounds don't mean much to a little kid, so it breaks it down into something common, such as three cows or 46 elephants. I think this would be a great free reading book, where kids could pull it off the shelf and grab a buddy and talk about it and make personal connections. The book also comes with a DVD, so it is very interactive. I feel that my little child study would have a blast with it. There were things in the book that I didn't even know. I think that's the cool thing about kid's nonfiction books is that people from any age can learn something from them.

The Year of Impossible Goodbyes-By: Sook Nyul Choi

I thought there was a lot of things going on in this book. There were a lot of characters, but they were all so developed. I feel like I had a good grasp of every ones personality and characteristics. The book was very detailed. I don't know anything about the event but I feel like I am much more informed about it now. I think the author did a very good job portraying the events and using great description. The Japanese taking over Korea reminds me a lot of the Nazi's and Hitler with the Jews, but a little less extreme. I thought it was encouraging to read that even though the police were so brutal to the people that the family still stayed strong and nothing could break that down. I think there were a lot of strong feelings and emotions in the story. The book said that it was based for kids age 10-14, however, 10 year olds might still have a little trouble grasping the depth of the issue. I think more advanced 10 year olds could understand it but the topic is just so complex. There were also so many problems and conflicts though the story. It just kept rising and when you thought it was going to get better, the action kept rising. I am excited to read the other one and be able to compare them. I think it's cool how the two books are about the same thing but from two completely different perspectives. It will be interesting comparing them to each other but also noticing the complete differences. I think it is a good thing to do with kids to practice comparing and contrasting by using different literature that has a lot of similarities but yet so many differences. I think this was the "good" version, where the "innocent" people were being pushed aroung, so it will be interesting to see where the other book is aimed and how the "bad guys" are seen.