Kellee – Page 107 – Unleashing Readers

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? #IMWAYR 9/9/19

September 10, 2019September 9, 2019 by Kellee

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? From Picture Books to YA!

It’s Monday! What are you Reading? is a meme started by Sheila at Book Journeys and now hosted by Kathryn at The Book Date. It is a great way to recap what you read and/or reviewed the previous week and to plan out your reading and reviews for the upcoming week. It’s also a great chance to see what others are reading right now…you just might discover the next “must-read” book!

Kellee and Jen, of Teach Mentor Texts, decided to give It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? a kidlit focus. If you read and review books in children’s literature – picture books, chapter books, middle grade novels, young adult novels, anything in the world of kidlit – join us! We love this meme and think you will, too.

We encourage everyone who participates to support the blogging community by visiting at least three of the other book bloggers that link up and leave comments for them.

Tuesday: Weird But True: Class Collaborative Research Activity

Friday: Teachers’ Guide for Charlie & Mouse updated with Charlie & Mouse Even Better by Laurel Snyder

Sunday: Author Guest Post: “The Picture Book That Started As An Assignment” by Stephanie Ward, Author of Arabella and the Magic Pencil

**Click on any picture/link to view the post**

Kellee

Superbuns!: Kindness is her SuperPower by Diane Krednesor: What a wonderful book! It would fit wonderfully with my kindness yearly beginning of the year activity where students and I talk about what kindness is and how it can change lives–Superbuns and her sister, Blossom, emulate the message!
The Adventures of SuperHero Girl by Faith Erin Hicks: I really love Friends with Boys and Nameless City, so when I saw that my library had this title as an ebook, I grabbed it, and I loved this story of
Salem Hyde: Frozen Fiasco by Frank Cammuso: This series is so much fun and so cute–I can’t wait to read it with Trent!
Star Scouts: The Invasion of Scuttlebots by Mike Lawrence: Seems like the final Star Scouts book, and it has a great story and message.
Harry Potter: A Pop-Up Guide to Hogwarts: BEAUTIFUL! Find this and enjoy, Potter fans!
Chick and Brain: Smell My Foot! by Cece Bell: As I’d assumed after Cece Bell talked about this book at ALA Annual, Trent thought it was hilarious!!!
Disney Read Alongs!: Love that we can fill our car time with listening and reading along to books.
Narwhal by Katie Marsico: Trent LOVES Narwhals, so at the Natural History Museum where there was a Narwhal exhibit, Trent and I got this nonfiction book. Very informative!
Spencer’s New Pet by Jessie Sima: Wow–what an ending!
I’m Worried by Michael Ian Black: This one became a Trent favorite as soon as we read it!

Ricki

I haven’t finished any books this week, but I’ve read a few dozen journal articles. 🙂

Kellee

Listening but paused: Let’s Go Swimming on Doomsday by Natalie C. Anderson
Now Listening to (my library hold is in while the other I own): Sal & Gabi Break the Universe by Carlos Hernandez
Reading: Compass South by Hope Larson

Ricki

This week, I am reading The Teacher Wars: A History of America’s Most Embattled Profession by Dana Goldstein. It is very good!

Wednesday: Creative Writing Prompts for Tomorrow Most Likely by Dave Eggers

Sunday: Author Guest Post: “Bonding a Classroom Over Books: Read Aloud as a Community Builder” by Kristin Thorsness, Author of The Wicked Tree

Link up below and go check out what everyone else is reading. Please support other bloggers by viewing and commenting on at least 3 other blogs. If you tweet about your Monday post, tag the tweet with #IMWAYR!

and

Author Guest Post: “The Picture Book That Started As An Assignment” by Stephanie Ward, Author of Arabella and the Magic Pencil

September 8, 2019September 8, 2019 by Kellee

“The Picture Book That Started As An Assignment”

I still remember sitting at my school desk wondering what to write about. It was eighth grade and my teacher, Ms. Ribar, had asked her English class at All Saints Middle School to write a creative story. My classmates were scribbling away, but I was stuck. What should I write?

Every writer at every stage deals with the problem of coming up with ideas. Where do ideas come from? It’s very likely the most common question an author gets. Looking back, I can see that the idea for my story came from a combination of luck, life, and imagination.

As luck would have it, there was a pencil lying on my desk. When I glanced around the room for inspiration, the pencil caught my eye. It could have been a binder or a paperclip, but it wasn’t. No surprise then that a pencil features prominently in my story.

At the time, I was 13 and my life had been turned upside down by the arrival of a new brother. He was two then and I’m sure that he was disrupting my ever-so-important teenage world. So, it’s not surprising that a little brother was a key character (or should I say antagonist?).

Most importantly, the freedom to imagine and create in that classroom let me consider a range of possibilities. What if the pencil was magic? What if everything it drew became real? What if everything it erased was gone forever?

That idea and the inspiration of my eighth grade teacher stayed with me for a long time. When I was finally ready to commit to writing creatively, the story resurfaced. After weeks of rebuilding the story from memory and revising it to work as a picture book, it finally found a home. Fast forward to today, that story I wrote in English class all those years ago has become my debut picture book, Arabella and the Magic Pencil, illustrated by Shaney Hyde and published worldwide by EK Books in September 2019.

Now, as a new author, I get to bring my story full circle – back to the classroom. I like to think that Arabella and the Magic Pencil belongs there. Hopefully, it offers young readers a sense of endless possibility. Students can imagine their own stories about a magic pencil and the class can problem solve together figuring out how to get your brother back if you’ve erased him. (Yes, Arabella really does erase her brother.)

I reconnected with Ms. Ribar to acknowledge that this book began in her classroom. As always, she was encouraging and supportive. I hope that young learners appreciate the teachers who are there every day helping them discover their talents before they even know what they are.

Arabella and the Magic Pencil
Author: Stephanie Ward
Illustrator: Shaney Hyde
Published September 10th, 2019 by EK Books

About the Book: Arabella is a beloved only child who has everything a little girl could want. That is, until her brother, Avery, the master of mayhem, comes along. While she certainly loves him, she finds that it’s sometimes very hard to like him. So she spends her days creating marvelous, magnificent things with her magic pencil, and trying to ignore him. But when he spoils her perfectly proper tea party, she decides drastic action is required and she erases him from her life. Oops! But things aren’t the same without him — can she get him back?

Arabella and the Magic Pencil is a charming story, which will appeal to any child coming to terms with a new sibling and to caregivers who are supporting changing family dynamics, as well as those who love fantasy and engaging, alliterative language.

“A magical story with luscious language, whimsical illustrations and strong emotional core that will surprise and delight young readers.”
– Debra Tidball, award-winning author of The Scared Book and When I See Grandma

About the Author: Stephanie Ward is an award‐winning children’s author and reviewer who splits her time between London, Seattle and Sydney. She spent 15 years in public relations before deciding to dedicate herself to what she loves – writing stories for children. Stephanie has five award‐winning picture book manuscripts.

About the Illustrator: Shaney Hyde is an Early Childhood Teacher from Melbourne who runs art workshops for children and draws inspiration from her own playful childhood. Arabella and the Magic Pencil is the first book Shaney has illustrated, fulfilling a long‐held dream.

Thank you so much for this guest post looking at how one assignment can change everything!

Teachers’ Guide for Charlie & Mouse updated with Charlie & Mouse Even Better by Laurel Snyder

September 8, 2019September 6, 2019 by Kellee

Charlie & Mouse Even Better
Author: Laurel Snyder
Illustrator: Emily Hughes
Published: April 2nd, 2019 by Chronicle Books

Summary: It is Mom’s birthday, and Charlie and Mouse and their Dad want everything to be perfect–so when the cake gets burnt the boys have to come up with a new plan, pronto.

View my post about Charlie & Mouse and Charlie & Mouse & Grumpy to learn about the first two books in the series.

Teachers’ Tools for Navigation and Discussion Questions:

Please view and enjoy the teachers’ guide I created for the Charlie & Mouse series:

You can also access the teaching guide here.

You can learn more about Charlie and Mouse on Chronicle Book’s Charlie & Mouse Even Better page.

Recommended For:

Weird But True: Class Collaborative Research Activity

April 22, 2023September 3, 2019 by Kellee

My students love the Weird but True books by National Geographic, but one thing they don’t like about the books are the lack of information found in the books. Because of this, as we chatted in class, we decided to make a class “Weird But True” presentation with not only the weird and true facts but with extra information and sources!

All three of my classes all worked in the same Google Slides presentation and built this amazing document of fascinating facts:

Weird But True
Please view the Google Slides presentation to see the extra information in the Speaker Notes.

This was such a fun and interesting project! It made students check on facts, learn about reliable sources, and learn all sorts of interesting and fun facts!

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? #IMWAYR 9/2/19

September 2, 2019September 2, 2019 by Kellee

It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? From Picture Books to YA!

We encourage everyone who participates to support the blogging community by visiting at least three of the other book bloggers that link up and leave comments for them.

Wednesday: Review and Giveaway!: My Name is Wakawakaloch! by Chana Stiefel
**Giveaway open until Thursday!!**

Friday: Educators’ Guide for Lights! Camera! Alice!: The Thrilling True Adventures of the First Woman Filmmaker by Mara Rocklif

**Click on any picture/link to view the post**

Kellee

Stargazing by Jen Wang: I loved this graphic novel! How wonderful to have this representation in a book! Nerdy girls, under achieving girls, weird girls, loving friendships, hidden illnesses, artistic girls…
Strangers Assume My Girlfriend is my Nurse by Shane Burcaw: “With his signature acerbic wit and hilarious voice, twenty-something author, blogger, and entrepreneur Shane Burcaw is back with an essay collection about living a full life in a body that many people perceive as a tragedy.”
Rot, the Cutest in the World by Ben Clanton: Josh Funk and I chatted about the brilliance and humor of Ben Clanton and how much Trent loves Narwhal & Jelly, and he introduced us to Rot. Love him!
Books by Josh Funk: Josh came to visit Orlando and did a story time! We read It’s Not Hansel and Gretel as a prep then at story time he read all of the Lady Pancake and Sir French Toast books. It was so great!
Mr. Putter & Tabby by Cynthia Rylant: We’re trying out fun chapter books with Trent to see which one he likes, and Mr. Putter and Tabby are winners! We now have a bunch of them on my phone in Overdrive and Hoopla to read–he is a fan!
100 Days of Sun Light by Abbie Emmons: “When 16-year-old poetry blogger Tessa Dickinson is involved in a car accident and loses her eyesight for 100 days, she feels like her whole world has been turned upside-down.”
Fox + Chick: The Party and Other Stories by Sergio Ruzzier: “Mom, are there more of these?!” I’m so glad he loved this book as I did too. Now we need to get the second one to read!
Titch by Pat Huchins: We read this after Trent read it at school and wanted to talk about it, and I hadn’t read it!
Pinky and Rex by James Howe: Another chapter book that we tried out. He liked it but didn’t immediately ask for the next one.
Short Stories for Little Monsters by Marie-Louise Gay: What a weird yet good and still odd and interesting book!

Kellee

Listening: Let’s Go Swimming on Doomsday by Natalie C. Anderson
Haven’t started a new book yet.
And I don’t know what Trent and I are going to start tonight either.

Tuesday: Weird But True: Class Collaborative Research Activity

Friday: Teachers’ Guide for Charlie & Mouse updated with Charlie & Mouse Even Better by Laurel Snyder

Sunday: Author Guest Post: “The Picture Book That Started As An Assignment” by Stephanie Ward, Author of Arabella and the Magic Pencil

and

Educators’ Guide for Lights! Camera! Alice!: The Thrilling True Adventures of the First Woman Filmmaker by Mara Rockliff

August 30, 2019 by Kellee

Lights! Camera! Alice!: The Thrilling True Adventures of the First Woman Filmmaker
Author: Mara Rockliff
Illustrator: Simona Ciraolo
Published: September, 2018 by Chronicle Books

Summary: Meet Alice Guy-Blaché. She made movies—some of the very first movies, and some of the most exciting! Blow up a pirate ship? Why not? Crawl into a tiger’s cage? Of course! Leap off a bridge onto a real speeding train? It will be easy! Driven by her passion for storytelling, Alice saw a potential for film that others had not seen before, allowing her to develop new narratives, new camera angles, new techniques, and to surprise her audiences again and again. With daring and vision, Alice Guy-Blaché introduced the world to a thrilling frontier of imagination and adventure, and became one of filmmaking’s first and greatest innovators. Mara Rockliff tells the story of a girl who grew up loving stories and became an acclaimed storyteller and an inspiration in her own right.

About the Creators:

Mara Rockliff has authored many books for children, including: Anything But Ordinary Addie: The True Story of Adelaide Herrmann, Queen of Magic; Around America to Win the Vote; and Mesmerized: How Ben Franklin Solved a Mystery that Baffled All of France. She lives in Pennsylvania.

Simona Ciraolo is a children’s book author and illustrator. She grew up in Italy where she received a degree in animation from the National Film School. She also earned an MA in children’s book illustration at Cambridge. She lives in London.

Teachers’ Tools for Navigation and Discussion Questions:

Please view and enjoy the teachers’ and discussion guide I created for Lights! Camera! Alice!:

You can also access the teaching guide here.

You can learn more about the book on Chronicle Book’s Lights! Camera! Alice! page.

Recommended For:

Review and Giveaway!: My Name is Wakawakaloch! by Chana Stiefel

August 28, 2019 by Kellee

My Name is Wakawakaloch!
Author: Chana Stiefel
Illustrator: Mary Sullivan
Published August 27th, 2019 by HMH Books for Young Readers

Summary: In this lighthearted picture book, the intrepid, determined, and savvy Wakawakaloch learns to embrace what makes her special while lifting up her neanderthal community.

No one can pronounce Wakawakaloch’s name. Why couldn’t she be called something simple . . . like Gloop? That’s a name you can find on a T-shirt! But after a visit with her tribe’s elder, Wakawakaloch discovers what her name means, and how powerful names can be. Gloop may be easy to say, but the girl who helps her friends embrace differences and wear their names proudly? Her name is Wakawakaloch!

Praise: “Wakawakaloch’s frustrations surrounding the mispronunciation of her name will resonate with many. . . .This bombastic main character allows the story to shine.” —Kirkus

About the Author: CHANA STIEFEL is the author of more than 25 books for kids about exploding volcanoes, stinky castles, and other fun stuff. In addition to My Name Is Wakawakaloch! she is the author of Daddy Depot, illustrated by Andy Snair (Feiwel & Friends, 2017). Recent nonfiction titles include Animals Zombies . . . . & Other Real-Life Monsters (National Geographic Kids, 2018), which was selected as a Top Ten YALSA Quick Pick for Reluctant YA Readers in 2019. Check out the fun book trailer and more at her website: chanastiefel.com.

Twitter: @chanastiefel
Instagram: @chanastiefel

Review: This is such a timely books for classrooms, well for society in general! Pronouncing and remembering students’ names correctly is so important and not can have a lasting effect:

How We Pronounce Student Names, and Why it Matters

http://neatoday.org/2016/09/01/pronouncing-students-names/
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/education/a-teacher-mispronouncing-a-students-name-can-have-a-lasting-impact

Wakawakaloch starts this conversation at a young age, not only for teachers but for other students. Name is part of our identity and Wakawakaloch should be mad that others aren’t trying!

Not only is the concept important, it is really well done! Done in a way that doesn’t feel preachy, is funny, but also still gets its message across clearly.

Teachers’ Tools for Navigation: If I was reading this aloud in my classroom, I would focus on the theme then complete activities about names. Every name has a story, either a personal one or a historical one.

(Please be careful about asking about history of names with all students as this may be a tough subject for anyone who doesn’t have access to a stable family environment to discuss why they were named their name. Make sure to have alternate assignments for this situation.)

Discussion Questions:

Why is it so important to know peoples’ names?
Why is Wakawakaloch’s name so important?
What does not learning someone’s name say to them?

Flagged Passages:

Read This If You Love: What if We Were All the Same? by C.M. Harris, The Name Jar by Yangsook Choi, My Name is Elizabeth! by Annika Dunklee, Alma and How She Got Her Name by Juana Martinez-Neal, My Name is Yoon by Helen Recorvits

Recommended For:

Giveaway!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

**Thank you Blue Slip Media for providing copies for review and giveaway!**