Ricki – Page 63 – Unleashing Readers

Dear Dragon by Josh Funk

September 3, 2017August 25, 2016 by Ricki

Dear Dragon
Author: Josh Funk
Illustrator: Rodolfo Montalvo
Anticipated Publication: September 6, 2016 by Viking Books for Young Readers

Goodreads Summary: A sweet and clever friendship story in rhyme, about looking past physical differences to appreciate the person (or dragon) underneath.

George and Blaise are pen pals, and they write letters to each other about everything: their pets, birthdays, favorite sports, and science fair projects. There’s just one thing that the two friends don’t know: George is a human, while Blaise is a dragon! What will happen when these pen pals finally meet face-to-face?

Ricki’s Review: I simply adored this book. It was quite clever and imaginative! I imagine it took a lot of thought to try to show how different George and Blaise’s lives might be and how they might misinterpret the descriptions of simple daily life events. I am a huge fan of Josh Funk’s writing and recommend all of his books. They all are witty and humorous, and my son and I always giggle while we read them. Each of his books teaches a life lesson that has been very useful for me as a mom, and I know they are equally useful for elementary school teachers. For Lady Pancake & Sir French Toast, I have been able to constantly refer to the variety of foods in the text in order to help my son with his picky eating habits. With this book, Dear Dragon, I have been able to talk with my son about differences and how we might work to understand how others might lead different daily lives than ours. I am really looking forward to Josh’s next book, Pirasaurs!. Based on his other books, I know it will be a good one!

Kellee’s Review: The books I find myself gravitating towards and recommending the most are the books that I not only love as a mother but can also definitely see the application of the book in all levels of classrooms. Dear Dragon fits into this category because it is such an amusing and fun book that is just a blast to read and discuss; however, it also has so many ways that I can see myself and other teachers using it in the classroom: for a mentor text, for a pen pal unit, for a read aloud. Dear Dragon also is an amazing set up to discuss first impressions and differences between people in safe place (since, you know, Blaise is a dragon). I also loved the quirky, colorful, detailed illustrations that accompany George and Blaise’s letters. The silly conversations just from these will make for a wonderful conversation.

Teachers’ Tools for Navigation: Ricki fondly remembers her elementary school experiences with pen pals. Her fourth class wrote to a class in Germany. It was so interesting to learn about all of the differences between our lives. This book would make for a great jumpstart to a pen pal project. It would be neat to connect to a class in another country or even across our own country. Students would learn a lot about how we are both similar and different from others—and how this is a good thing, indeed!

In addition to being a ton of fun, Dear Dragon will also be a perfect mentor text for a variety of reading skills and standards. The letters are a perfect opportunity to discuss point of view, voice, letter writing, and rhyming. The book also has a wonderful theme, the illustrations and letters could be compared/contrasted, and the entire text structure could be analyzed.

Discussion Questions: What are the similarities and differences between George and Blaise? How do they build their friendship across letters?; How do they each misinterpret the other’s letters in ways that are funny and enlightening? How do the illustrations reflect these misinterpretations?; This book is a fantasy, but how might you compare this book to real life?

Flagged Spread:

Read This If You Loved: Lady Pancake & Sir French Toast by Josh Funk; Same, Same but Different by Jenny Sue Kostecki-Shaw; Whose Story is This, Anyway? by Mike Flaherty; Dragons Love Tacos by Adam Rubin; Have You Seen my Dragon? by Steve Light; Tony Baloney: Pen Pal by Pam Muñoz Ryan; Dear Mrs. Larue series by Mark Teague

Recommended For:

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Top Ten Tuesday: Books That Have Been On Our Shelves From Before We Started Blogging That We STILL Haven’t Read Yet

August 23, 2016 by Ricki

Top Ten Tuesday is an original feature/weekly meme created at The Broke and the Bookish. The feature was created because The Broke and Bookish are particularly fond of lists (as are we!). Each week a new Top Ten list topic is given and bloggers can participate.

Today’s Topic: Books That Have Been On Our Shelves From Before We Started Blogging That We STILL Haven’t Read Yet

Ricki

1. A Hope in the Unseen: An American Odyssey from the Inner City to the Ivy League by Ron Suskind

A friend told me that this book really hit him hard. I immediately bought it. I still haven’t read it, and I am disappointed in myself! Based on the topic, I know I will love reading it, so I need to get moving!

2. Stitches: A Memoir by David Small

This graphic novel memoir has been on the top of my list for about seven years. I just haven’t been able to nab it at the library, so it has remained on my TBR shelf!

3. Mockingbird by Kathryn Erskine

This is another book that I have intended to read for a long time, and I haven’t gotten around to reading it yet (ahh!).

4. Scars by Cheryl Rainfield

I’ve read about a dozen books that feature a character who cuts, and I have liked them all. But I’ve heard this book really hits readers hard. I think my anxiety that it won’t live up to the hype has kept me from reading it, but I need to just jump in!

5. Annie on My Mind by Nancy Garden

I’ve intended to read this foundational book for years and years. I think I will put it on my #mustread list next year to make sure I don’t miss it!

Kellee

I have thousands of books that I have wanted to read for years, so I didn’t know where to begin. These five books are all from the top 20 books on my Goodreads To Read list (back from 2009 when I joined).

1. The Schwa was Here by Neal Shusterman

I was a Shusterman fan before it was cool (Everlost and Bruiser, anyone?!?!), but this is one that I haven’t read yet. It has been on my TBR for years, and it has a sequel now–I really need to read it.

2. The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall

This book and all of its sequels are loved by so many people I admire. I love the comparison to nostalgic classics, and it was a National Book Award winner.

3. Skulduggery Pleasant by Derek Landy

This series has been described as witty, supposedly there is funny banter, and rip-roaring action (see Donalyn Miller’s, Katherine Sokolowski, and Sasha’s reviews on Goodreads), and these all make it sound like it is going to be a series I’d enjoy! Now I just need to pick it up

4. The Alchemyst by Michael Scott

Any book compared to The Maze Runner and Percy Jackson and has the premise of saving the world sounds like an adventure that’ll suck me in.

5. Snatched by Pete Hautman and Mary Logue

First, I’ve wanted to read something by Pete Hautman for years. Second, I added this because it was compared to Adam Canfield that I loved. Third, it is a mystery which I love!

Which books have lingered on your shelves for years and years?

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Selfies in the Wild by C. L. Murphy

August 18, 2016 by Ricki

Selfies in the Wild
Author: C. L. Murphy
Published: August 1, 2016 by Peanut Butter Prose

Goodreads Summary: Lobo and his sidekick raven find a trail camera in their neck of the woods, and it attracts the attention of forest friends. Images captured have never been sillier or more candid. Just as their wild dispositions are exposed, the photo shoot comes to an unexpected end and they’re all left wondering why. The reason may be obvious.

My Review: This book was so much fun to read! I loved the hysterical faces of each of the animals in the wild, and I think it would be a fantastic book to read to toddlers, preschoolers, and kindergartners, in particular. Each of the animals is trying to make a great impression on the camera, and their facial expressions made me giggle. I particularly enjoyed the end of the book—the author shares her own camera’s version of selfies in the wild—where she captured real animals.

Teachers’ Tools for Navigation: It would be so much fun for teachers to try to recreate this book with the students making the funny faces. They could bind their own version of the book and compare it with this one. There are a few researchers who have left cameras in the wild, and the animals have reacted in hysterical ways. It would be great for the teacher and students to explore these real-life images together. Downloadable Activity Kit

Discussion Questions: How does the author add humor to the book?; How does the text evolve in a way that engages readers?; How are the pages structured? How does this make it feel realistic?; Which animal is your favorite? Why?

Book Spread:

Book Trailer:

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Read This If You Loved: Other Books in the Adventures of Lovable Lobo series, Whose Story is This, Anyway? by Mike Flaherty; the Pete the Cat series (by Eric Litwin and James Dean); Interrupting Chicken by David Ezra Stein

Connect with C. L. Murphy and the Series:

Website: http://lovablelobo.com

Blog: http://lovablelobo.wordpress.com

Twitter: https://twitter.com/LovableLobo

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Lovable-Lobo/265661023552725

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/murphymess/

Google+: https://plus.google.com/+CLMurphyKidLit

Goodreads (author): https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6852948.C_L_Murphy

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/c.l._murphy/

Check Out the Other Stops on the Blog Tour:

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125 Wacky Roadside Attractions by National Geographic Kids

August 17, 2016 by Ricki

Nonfiction Wednesday

Nonfiction Picture Book Wednesday is hosted by Kid Lit Frenzy and was started to help promote the reading of nonfiction texts. Most Wednesdays, we will be participating and will review a nonfiction text (though it may not always be a picture book).
Be sure to visit Kid Lit Frenzy and see what other nonfiction books are shared this week!

125 Wacky Roadside Attractions: See All the Weird, Wonderful, and Downright Bizarre Landmarks from Around the World!
Published May 10, 2016 by National Geographic Children’s Books

Goodreads Summary: Going on a road trip? See the silly side of travel as you explore the wackiest landmarks from around the world — a place where you can walk in real dinosaur tracks, a hotel where you sleep in an igloo, a crazy beard festival, a UFO museum, and so much more. You won’t believe our world is full of so many bizarre and wonderful places!

My Review: I’ve become a huge fan of the National Geographic books. My toddler is obsessed with them, even though he is much younger than the intended audience. He loves telling us all about the things he learns in the books, and the pictures give us so much to talk about. For this book, we loved talking about all of the different places in the world and what we might see on a road trip. For older kids, this book is great to inspire them to want to travel and to visit all of these neat landmarks! I particularly liked the variety in this text. I can’t imagine that anyone could finish reading this text without adding places they want to visit to their bucket lists. There was a good balance between drivable places and also locations that are across the world. This book will keep a traveler quite busy!

Teachers’ Tools for Navigation: It would be so much fun to place these attractions on the map. Readers might examine how the authors balanced the locations. It also provides students with a good visual concept of where they want to travel next! Students might also be inspired to find a weird or wacky attraction that isn’t in the book. They can share these ideas with the class!

Discussion Questions: Which attraction was most interesting to you? Why?; Which of the closer attractions might you want to visit soon? Which is the farthest attraction that you are interested in visiting?; What neat themes did you see across different attractions?; What might inspire people to create weird and wacky attractions like these?

Read This If You Loved: National Geographic’s 100 Things to Know Before You Grow Up, Mastermind by National Geographic, Weird but T rue series by National Geographic, Animal Atlas, Almanacs, Travel Books

Recommended For:

**Thank you to Karen at Media Masters Publicity for providing a copy for review!**

Author Guest Post!: “The Pressure to Rhyme” by Tammi Sauer, Author of Mary Had a Little Glam

August 14, 2016August 14, 2016 by Ricki

“The Pressure to Rhyme”

I have been writing picture books for more than a decade. I’ve written about cowboys, chickens, and aliens. I’ve written about monsters, princesses, and sharks. Up until now, though, each and every book of mine was written in prose. I had no intentions of ever writing a rhyming picture book, and I was completely happy with that.

Then a title came to me. Mary Had a Little Glam. It was a title that was so irresistible, I knew I had to write that book. The potential for this character made my heart pound. I loved Mary before I even knew her story. But I had a problem. A doozy of a problem. I was scared to write in rhyme.

Many people write in rhyme, but few truly excel at it. Oftentimes, rhyme is forced, slanted, and just plain bad. I knew that if I wanted to write a rhymer, I had to make sure every syllable, word, and line was just right. Yikes.

As I worked, however, I grew to enjoy this challenge more and more. I studied books by Linda Ashman, Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen, Samantha Berger, Jill Esbaum, Kim Norman, and Corey Rosen Schwartz. I went on long walks and pounded out the meter of the nursery rhyme “Mary Had a Little Lamb” as I looped around and around my neighborhood. I shared drafts with many wonderful writers, asked for their feedback, and put it to good use.

I also had a secret weapon—Lane Fredrickson’s website, RhymeWeaver.com. In a clear and upbeat manner, Fredrickson offered everything I needed to know about rhyme, rhythm, and meter. She made it seem doable! I highly recommend RhymeWeaver.com to anyone who wants to write in rhyme as well as anyone who wants to teach rhyme in a way that is both easy-to-understand and fun.

About the Author: Tammi Sauer is a full time children’s book author who also presents at schools and conferences across the nation. She has sold 28 picture books to major publishing houses including Disney*Hyperion, HarperCollins, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Penguin Random House, Simon & Schuster, and Sterling. In addition to winning awards, Tammi’s books have gone on to do great things. Chicken Dance, The Musical is currently on a national tour, Nugget & Fang was a featured book at the 2015 Scholastic Book Fair, and Your Alien, an NPR Best Book of 2015, was recently released in Italian, Spanish, Korean, and French which makes her feel extra fancy.

You can learn more about Tammi and her books at tammisauer.com.

Mary Had a Little Glam

About the Book: This little Mary has STYLE! In this fun take on Mother Goose, fashion-forward Mary helps some of childhood’s most beloved characters go glam. From the kid who lives in a shoe (and dons some fab footwear, too) to Jack, who breaks his crown but gets a great new one, Mary’s school friends look fantastic in their finery. But are they now too well dressed for recess? Not to worry—Mary always shows her flair for what to wear!

Mary Had a Little Glam debuts in August. Kirkus recently gave it a starred review. My favorite part of the review states, “Pinkalicious + Fancy Nancy + Eloise = Mary, the diminutive, precocious, brown-skinned queen of glam.” I am also proud of these words: “Sauer’s rhythm never falters.” Ooh. La. La.

Thank you, Tammi, for this post, and thank you, Lauren, for connecting us with Tammi!

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The Memory of Things by Gae Polisner

August 11, 2016 by Ricki

The Memory of Things
Author: Gae Polisner
Published: September 6, 2016 by St. Martin’s Griffin

GoodReads Summary: The powerful story of two teenagers finding friendship, comfort, and first love in the days following 9/11 as their fractured city tries to put itself back together.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, sixteen-year-old Kyle Donohue watches the first twin tower come down from the window of Stuyvesant High School. Moments later, terrified and fleeing home to safety across the Brooklyn Bridge, he stumbles across a girl perched in the shadows. She is covered in ash and wearing a pair of costume wings. With his mother and sister in California and unable to reach his father, a New York City detective likely on his way to the disaster, Kyle makes the split-second decision to bring the girl home. What follows is their story, told in alternating points of view, as Kyle tries to unravel the mystery of the girl so he can return her to her family. But what if the girl has forgotten everything, even her own name? And what if the more Kyle gets to know her, the less he wants her to go home? The Memory of Things tells a stunning story of friendship and first love and of carrying on with our day-to-day living in the midst of world-changing tragedy and unforgettable pain—it tells a story of hope.

Review: I read this book several weeks ago, and I still can’t thinking about it. As a few other bloggers have said, this is a book about 9/11—but it isn’t a book about 9/11. It is more a book about friendship, about growing up, and about being human. There are so many topics in this book that are worthy of discussion, and I think teachers will really appreciate its beauty. The writing is quiet yet powerful, and the book has a sort of shattering impact on readers. I loved the connections that Kyle makes in this book, and I particularly enjoyed the ways each of the individuals he interacts with tells the reader more about him. He grows from everyone in this book, and I’d love to discuss this growth with students.

Teacher’s Tools for Navigation: Teachers might ask students to research the many themes of this book to provide background information. They might look at disability/caregivers, PTSD, suicide, and 9/11—just to name a few. They could also look at the different stages of trauma to learn more about how each of the characters reacts differently to the tragic events that occurred on 9/11.

Discussion Questions: Is Kyle helping the girl, or is she helping him?; What do we learn from Kyle’s uncle? What does he teach us about disability and humanity?; In what ways does Kyle show strength, and in what ways does he show weakness? How does he grow from each experience of the text?

We Flagged: “So now I get it. Now I fully understand. Tuesday, and those planes, they’ve broken something. Permanently. And in the process, they’ve changed everything. And everyone.”

This is a quote from an advanced reader’s copy. Some quotes may change before publication.

Read This If You Loved: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer; The Impossible Knife of Memory by Laurie Halse Anderson; Personal Effects by E.M. Kokie, The Things a Brother Knows by Dana Reinhardt, If I Lie by Corrine Jackson, Purple Heart by Patricia McCormick

Recommended For:

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What a Beautiful Morning by Arthur A. Levine

August 9, 2016 by Ricki

What a Beautiful Morning
Author: Arthur A. Levine; Illustrator: Katie Kath
Published TODAY!: August 9, 2016 by Running Press Kids

Goodreads Summary: Every morning is beautiful when Noah visits his Grandparents. When Grandpa and Noah wake up, they take off singing and hardly stop: walking the dog, splashing through puddles, and eating French toast with cinnamon. But one summer Grandpa seems to have forgotten how to do the things they love. Does he even know who Noah is? Grandma steps in energetically, filling in as best she can. But it is Noah who finds the way back to something he can share with Grandpa. Something musical. Something that makes the morning beautiful again. This is a story about how love helps us find even what we think is lost.

My Review and Teachers’ Tools for Navigation: This is a beautiful story—from cover to cover. I was enveloped by the watercolor images and words that took me inside Noah and Grandpa’s story. My toddler sat beside me and pointed to the images as I read aloud to him. While he may not have understood the story, he most certainly understood the love between Noah and his grandfather. Elementary school children will develop knowledge of the scary truths of Alzheimer’s disease. While it may feel more comfortable to shield children from these truths, the disease is very much a reality for millions of families, and this book will bring them comfort as they discuss the development of this disease in our loved ones.

Teachers might consider teaching a unit about diseases or disabilities. Texts such as these are very important for students to learn from, and this book is no exception. This might lead into a research unit where students explore and learn more about the diseases or disabilities they find within the books the teacher discusses. However, I most appreciated that this isn’t a book about Alzheimer’s Disease. This is a book is truly about the love between a child and his grandfather.

Discussion Questions: When does Noah first notice that Grandpa is having trouble remembering things? How does he react? How does Grandma react?; How does the illustrator use color to help readers better understand the story?; How does the book end? Did you like the ending? How does it connect to the beginning of the story and the overall message?

Flagged Spread:

Read This If You Loved: Forget Me Not by Nancy Van Laan; The Memory Box by Mary Bahr, Still My Grandma by Veronique Van Den Abeele, Really and Truly by Emilie Rivard, Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge, written by Mem Fox, What’s Happening to Grandpa? by Maria Shriver

Check Out the Other Stops on the Blog Tour:

8/2 Flowering Minds

8/3 MomReadIt

8/4 Unpacking the POWER of Picture Books

8/5 Stacking Books

8/6 #Kidlit Book of the Day

8/8 Enjoy Embrace Learning

8/9 Unleashing Readers

8/10 Two Writing Teachers

8/11 Bildebok

8/12 Geo Librarian

8/13 Randomly Reading