Compare/Contrast – Page 26 – Unleashing Readers

King Ben and Sir Rhino by Eric Sailer

September 13, 2018 by Ricki

King Ben and Sir Rhino
Author and Illustrator: Eric Sailer
Published: August 7, 2018 by Two Lions

GoodReads Summary: Ben is king of the jungle. He does exactly what he pleases, as a king should. And he has everything a king could want: noble steeds, castles, and servants. What Ben doesn’t have is a loyal subject. Then he meets Rhino…and finds out what being a good king is all about.

Our Review: This adorable story offers teachers and parents opportunities to talk about bossiness! King Ben gets everything he pleases, and he decides he will make Rhino he loyal subjects. I feel like all children effort to make their parents their loyal subjects. I know that my own children have me wrapped around their fingers. This book offers opportunities to discuss why being King Ben might not always be the best approach. This makes for a very fun read-aloud.

Teachers’ Tools for Navigation: Students might have fun comparing and contrasting the King Bens and Sir Rhinos in popular culture and across history. For younger children, comparing and contrasting the good and bad things about being bossy would make for a fruitful discussion.

Discussion Questions: What are some of the things that King Ben makes Sir Rhino do?; Is King Ben being kind?; What could Sir Rhino do?; What might the characters learn from their relationship?

Flagged Passage:

Read This If You Loved: Duck and Hippo series by Jonathan London; Elephant and Piggie series by Mo Willems; The Frog and Toad series by Arnold Lobel; Pug Meets Pig by Sue Lowell Gallion

Recommended For:

**Thank you to Kristin at Two Lions for providing a copy for review!**

What If EVERYBODY Said That? by Ellen Javernick

September 12, 2018 by Kellee

What If EVERYBODY Said That?
Author: Ellen Javernick
Illustrator: Colleen Madden
Published August 1st, 2018 by Two Lions

Summary: What if everybody chose to be kind?

If you tell someone that they can’t play with you, there’s no harm done, right? But what if everybody said that? What if everybody forgot to be kind…and made fun of other kids’ artwork at school, or told a fib, or refused to share with a person in need? The world wouldn’t be a very nice place to live. But what if everybody thought before they spoke, so the world would be a kinder place?

With clear prose and lighthearted artwork, this companion book to the bestseller What If Everybody Did That? explores the power of words and shows kids that the things we say matter.

About the Creators:

Ellen Javernick has taught 1-3 grade classes for over 20 years. Her B.A. is from DePauw University. Her M.A. in Early Childhood Education is from the University of Northern Colorado. She has completed classes with Barbara Wise and is Lindamood-Bell trained. In addition to being a teacher, Ellen has written more than 20 books for children. She currently teaches second grade in Loveland, CO.

The weird fourth kid in a family of 8, Colleen Madden made it through childhood pretending to be a wookie and doodling in her cardboard box art studio. Colleen spent some time acting and training at The Second City in Chicago, then went on to graduate from a small liberal arts school on the East coast. Colleen eats and works and runs around in the Philadelphia area.

Praise: “A reminder to be aware of what one says, as well as a discussion starter about actions and consequences.” —Kirkus Reviews

Review: Empathy and kindness are both things that I truly believe need to be directly taught to children. Kids are born thinking only of their own needs and maybe of the needs of their family, but they have to learn how to care about those around them. This teaching can start at a very young age but then needs to be reinforced for years to come. Anyone who teaches knows this is true. We may have some of the best students but even they make a mistake sometimes that is hurtful to someone else. What If Everybody Said That? is a testament of thinking about others. Though a bit didactical, the different scenarios put on each page truly do show a cause and effect of the words we say to others.

Teachers’ Tools for Navigation: This text is a perfect book to add to any community building, kindness, empathy, or anti-bullying text set.

Discussion Questions:

How does each spread show the cause and effect of what she said?
What finally made the young girl realize she needed to apologize?
What if everybody said that? (Pick a page and discuss)
- Look at the cause and effect from everybody saying what the girl said.
- Compare and contrast the two pages.
What is something you can think of that you said before that may not have been the best choice?

Flagged Passages:

Read This If You Love: Each Kindness by Jacqueline Woodson, Eraser by Anna Kang, I Walk with Vanessa by Kerascoët, and other books helping students think about the words and choices they make

Recommended For:

**Thank you to Two Lions for providing a copy for review!**

Picture Book Science Series: Physical Science for Kids by Andi Diehn

August 22, 2018 by Kellee

Picture Book Science: Physical Science for Kids
Author: Andi Diehn
Illustrator: Shululu
Published March 1st, 2018 by Nomad Press

Series Summary: By combining children’s natural curiosity with prompts for keen observations and quick experiments, Physical Science for Kids provides a fun introduction for kids to the physical science that rules our world! Great for beginner readers or as a read aloud for younger children. Children are introduced to physical science through detailed illustrations paired with a nonfiction narrative that uses fun language to convey familiar examples of real-world connections.

Encourages the development of important skills, including observing, connecting, problem solving, and model testing.
Explores vocabulary, encouraging readers to make language arts connections and conclusions.
Visually stimulating, detailed illustrations make this an excellent choice as a read aloud for younger children.

Waves Summary: You can find waves just about everywhere you look! Take a tour of the world of waves in this fun, illustrated introduction to the concept of waves and energy and their presence in our world. This installment in Picture Book Science encourages readers to observe lots of different kinds of waves, including those found in water, wheat, a baseball stadium, and even invisible waves!

Forces Summary: Our world operates the way it does because of forces. Gravity, magnetism, pulling and pushing, and friction are some of the many forces that affect the way we move on Earth. They even affect the Earth itself-without gravity, the world would eventually fly apart! In Forces: Physical Science for Kids, readers observe different types of forces, including gravity, magnetism, pulling, pushing, and friction.

Energy Summary: When you feel like running, leaping, and singing, people might say you have a lot of energy. And you’re not the only one! Energy is the stuff that makes everything live and move. People, animals, plants-we all need energy to live! In Energy: Physical Science for Kids, readers discover different forms of energy, including heat, light, and chemical energy, that keep the world working and moving.

Matter Summary: Everything you can touch and hold is made up of matter-including you, your dog, and this book! Matter is stuff that you can weigh and that takes up space, which means pretty much everything in the world is made of matter! In Matter: Physical Science for Kids, readers discover the basic building block of most of the material they come in contact with every day, including themselves-matter!

About the Creators:

Andi Diehn is a writer, editor, and book critic with a BA in English and an MFA in Creative Writing from Vermont College. She has published dozens of articles, stories, and essays and spent many hours volunteering in her son’s classrooms. She lives in Enfield, New Hampshire, with her family.

Website: andidiehn.com
Facebook: facebook.com/andi.diehn
Twitter: twitter.com/lostinthree
Instagram: instagram.com/andiwritesbooks

Shululu (Hui Li) has always been driven by curiosity. She received a PhD in computational chemistry from the University of Chicago. Her research has been published in the world’s most influential science journals, including Science and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. She is devoted to bringing joy and science to young readers through fun illustrations! She lives with her husband in New York, NY.

Website: shulululee.com
Twitter: twitter.com/shululustudio
Instagram: instagram.com/shulululee

Review: Young children have so many questions about the world and how everything works. Curiousity runs wild in their brains, but more than anything they just want to learn and absorb. This series is a must get for parents, classrooms, and libraries because it addresses many of the questions that kids have.

Each book begins with a poem that introduces the topic then is followed by lyrical text going through scientific information about the topic of the book. Mixed in with the text are “TRY THIS” sidebars with fun experiments for kids to take the text into the real world.

Teachers’ Tools for Navigation: Each of the books has a classroom guide!! The guides have Essential Questions for Before, During, and After Reading; Key Vocabulary; and Common Core Connections:

Classroom Guide for Waves

Classroom Guide for Forces

Classroom Guide for Energy

Classroom Guide for Matter

Discussion Questions: Example questions from the classroom guides:

How do we know something exists if we cannot see it?
What would the world be like if there was no energy?
How are forces created?
How are magnets and gravity related to each other?
How is energy related to waves?
How do science activities help you learn about energy?
The word “matter” can mean lots of different things. Can you think of other words that are the same but have different meanings?
How might we weigh things that are too large to hold in our hands or put on a scale?

Flagged Passages:

Read This If You Love: Sharing science with children

Recommended For:

**Thank you to Nomad Press for providing copies for review!**

Review and Giveaway!: Who Eats Orange? by Dianne White

August 9, 2018 by Ricki

Who Eats Orange?
Author: Dianne White; Illustrator: Robin Page
Published August 14, 2018 by Beach Lane Books

Goodreads Summary: Who eats orange—a chicken? A bunny? A bear? Find out in this unique exploration of colors and animals’ favorite foods.

Animals eat a rainbow of different foods. Gorillas in the mountains eat green, octopi in the ocean eat red, and toucans in the canopy eat purple. Young animal enthusiasts will love digging into this lively journey around the world to explore the colorful diets of many animals, from the familiar to the exotic.

Review and Teacher’s Tools for Navigation: These is a clever book! It teaches about animals, colors, and foods simultaneously. Each page offers a lead into the next page which makes it a great read-aloud. When I read this with my son, I loved pausing on each page and asking him to make predictions. There are also great opportunities for teaching complex vocabulary through this text. The animals the author selected aren’t the typical animals we see in picture books and board books, which caused my son to ask a lot of questions. It made reading the book all the more interesting. We spent some time, for example, looking up quetzals on the internet and exploring the food and habitats of this interesting bird. I found this book to be very inspiring. It made me want to write, write, write! It would be a great resource for teachers to have in their classrooms.

On a more personal note, this book is a great resource for me as a mom. It offered space for my kids and me to discuss the different colors of the foods that he enjoys and how he might try to eat more colors. Who Eats Orange? offers so much for caregivers seeking to diversify their children’s diets.

Also, isn’t the cover amazing? My toddler giggled when I pulled it out of my bag.

Check out fun activities for the book here.

Discussion Questions: Which color foods are your favorite to eat? How might you incorporate more colors into your diet?; Which animals were missing from the book? Can you think of one more animal for each color?; How do the illustrations add to your appreciation of the text? What did you learn from the backmatter?

Check Out a Few Spreads from the book!:

Read This If You Loved: Dragons Love Tacos by Adam Rubin; Green by Laura Vaccaro Seeger

Giveaway!:

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Recommended For:

About the Author and Illustrator:

Dianne White has written several picture books, including the celebrated Blue on Blue, illustrated by Beth Krommes. This summer she also released Goodbye Brings Hello: A Book of Firsts, illustrated by Daniel Wiseman. She lives in Gilbert, Arizona, with her family. For more information, and to download a free activity kit, visit diannewrites.com.

Twitter @diannewrites

Robin Page has written and illustrated several picture books, including the 2003 Caldecott Honor recipient What Do You Do with a Tail Like This?, which she created with her husband Steve Jenkins, and A Chicken Followed Me Home! and Seeds Move!, which she both wrote and illustrated. Robin and Steve live in Boulder, Colorado.

*Thank you for Barbara from Blue Slip Media for sending along this wonderful book!*

Maximillian Villainous by Margaret Chiu Greanias

August 3, 2018 by Kellee

Maximillian Villainous
Author: Margaret Chiu Greanias
Illustrator: Lesley Breen Withrow
Publication Date: August 28th, 2018 by Running Press Kids

Summary: A humorous and important book about learning to follow your heart and proving that kindness can outweigh villainy any day.

Maximillian Villainous is a monster who doesn’t have the heart to be a villain. His famous family pulls pranks on the likes of Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy, and Max spends his time undoing them. So when he brings home a bunny to be his sidekick, Max’s disapproving mother hatches a plan. She challenges Max and the bunny to become a devious duo; otherwise . . . the bunny hops. If they want to stay together, Max and the bunny have no choice but to go against their nature. They blunder into villainy with comical effect until Max discovers that embracing his good heart may just be the key to pulling off the most devious deed of all and winning his family’s acceptance.

Delightfully fun and irreverent, Maximillian Villainous is an empowering story about embracing one’s true self and finding acceptance. Up and coming illustrator Lesley Breen Withrow brings the characters to life with bold and colorful illustrations in a style reminiscent of Richard Scarry.

About the Creators:

Margaret Greanias was inspired by her children’s love of the Despicable Me movies and all things Minion when writing Maximillian Villainous, her debut picture book. She lives with her husband, three children, and a fluffle of dust bunnies in the San Francisco Bay area.

Lesley Breen Withrow is the illustrator of several picture books, including You’re My Boo by Kate Dopirak and Bunny Bus by Ammi-Joan Paquette. Her artwork can also be seen on many products, including stationery collections and children’s games, toys, and apps. Lesley lives on beautiful Cape Cod with her family, a couple of crazy cats, and her daughters’ large and ever-growing collection of stuffed animals.

Review: Maximillian’s story primarily focuses on someone being different than their family and how expectations set by others in the family may not fit what another person excels at. As a teacher, I wish I could read this book to so many people because I really struggle with parents and educators expect a kid to be a certain way because they know a sibling or a family member. That isn’t how it always works. I think this same theme could be used to talk about how expectations have to be differentiated in general, so I could actually see this story being used to talk to evaluators, leaders, etc. to talk about why Maximillian needed a change of assessment instead of the same as everyone else. Underlying, the message is that we can’t expect anyone to be anyway. Let them show you who they are and accept and love them as they are.

And all of these deep messages are within a funny story with fun illustrations about a monster who loves his bunny even though he is expected to be a villain.

Teachers’ Tools for Navigation: Theme, theme, theme, theme!!! The author does a fabulous job writing a funny book that is just so perfect for talking about a lesson. The characterization of the Villainous family vs. Maximillian will allow for some fun compare/contrast and character trait activities as well. And this book definitely needs to join the empathy and community building read alouds–it will lead to some wonderful discussions and acceptance. Finally, I would love to see it used with teachers as a coaching tool to discuss the need to differentiate. Sometimes the directions we give need to be tweaked just a bit for certain kids, and we’ll get to see brilliance.

Discussion Questions:

How is Maximmillian different than the rest of his family?
How does his family react to his differences?
What does Maximillian prove by the end of the book?
How did Maximillian manipulate the situation to show his worth?
Have you ever been in a situation where you felt that something was unfairly expected of you?
What is the message of Maximillian’s story?

Flagged Passages:

Read This If You Love: Monsters vs. Kittens by Dani Jones, Normal Norman by Tara Lazar, Misunderstood Shark by Ame Dyckman

Recommended For:

**Thank you to Running Press for providing a copy for review!**

The Day You Begin by Jacqueline Woodson

July 25, 2018 by Kellee

The Day You Begin
Author: Jacqueline Woodson
Illustrator: Rafael López
Publication Date: August 28th, 2018 by Nancy Paulsen Books

Summary: National Book Award winner Jacqueline Woodson and two-time Pura Belpre Illustrator Award winner Rafael López have teamed up to create a poignant, yet heartening book about finding courage to connect, even when you feel scared and alone.

There will be times when you walk into a room
and no one there is quite like you.

There are many reasons to feel different. Maybe it’s how you look or talk, or where you’re from; maybe it’s what you eat, or something just as random. It’s not easy to take those first steps into a place where nobody really knows you yet, but somehow you do it.

Jacqueline Woodson’s lyrical text and Rafael López’s dazzling art reminds us that we all feel like outsiders sometimes-and how brave it is that we go forth anyway. And that sometimes, when we reach out and begin to share our stories, others will be happy to meet us halfway.

Kellee’s Review: A beautiful book about the power of differences while also acknowledging the challenges that feeling as if you don’t fit in cause. I loved that the story was not exactly narrative but instead of a snapshot into multiple kids’ lives to help show different examples of differences. We are all unique and that is what makes this book and our world beautiful!

Woodson’s lyrical language with Lopez’s collage and colorful illustration makes this book a piece of art that is going to bridge gaps, help students think about others, give readers a mirror and a window, and build empathy in all that read it.

Ricki’s Review: A great many kids and adults will find solace in the text. The writing and illustrations are stunning. Every once in a while, a book comes around like this one. It is simply magical. I don’t often purchase bound copies of my F&Gs, but I knew I needed to pre-order this one after I read it. It is a great book for teachers to read on the first day. The emotional impact is powerful. Everyone has felt excluded at some time or another, and this book digs deeply into that emotion and pushes readers to analyze that feeling and push through it to find strength and resolve. I am having a difficult time conveying the power of this book. I promise you will love it.

Teachers’ Tools for Navigation: Building classroom community around kindness and empathy is essential in building a safe, trusting environment for our students, and this text will be a perfect addition to any text set you have that focuses on these topics. In addition to these social-emotional impacts, the text allows for talks of theme, mood, and author’s intent.

Discussion Questions:

What is one way that you feel very different than most people around you? How could people support you? How could you support others who feel different?
What examples of people’s differences did Woodson highlight in the story?
What was the mood for the first large portion of the text?
What is the theme of the book?
Why do you think the author felt compelled to write this book?
Why are differences important in our community? Nation? Classroom?

Flagged Passages:

Read This If You Love: Each Kindness by Jacqueline Woodson, I Walk With Vanessa by Kerascoët, Normal Norman by Tara Lazar, Adrian Simcox Does Not Have a Horse by Marcy Campbell, What Can a Citizen Do? by Dave Eggers, Pink is for Boys by Rob Pearlman, Come with Me by Holly McGhee, We’re All Wonders by R.J. Palacio

Recommended For:

and

You Choose: A New Story Every Time–What Will YOU CHOOSE? by Nick Sharratt and Pippa Goodhart

July 16, 2018July 12, 2018 by Ricki

You Choose: A New Story Every Time–What Will YOU CHOOSE?
Author: Pippa Goodhart
Illustrator: Nick Sharratt
Published: January 1, 2012 by Kane Miller Books

Goodreads Summary: A book with a different ending—every time!

If you could do anything, what would you choose? Imagine you could go anywhere, with anyone and do anything. Where would you live? Where would you sleep? Who would be your friends? What games would you play? Go on . . . You choose! With the help of witty illustrations, and a whole range of scenarios to choose from, this highly original book has a different ending every time and makes choosing, and reading, fun.

My Review: About a year ago, I received the book Just Imagine for review. At least once a week, my son has asked me to read this book. There is so much to look at, and he gets so excited each time he reads it. I emailed the publisher (a year later) to thank her again for sending this book for review. We donate many of the books that I receive for review, but I simply cannot let this one go. Fast forward a few weeks, and I was thrilled to see that she sent You Choose as a thank you for my email. This book has received a bit more positive press, and I suspect many readers have it in their collections, but if you don’t own it, I recommend it highly.

We took You Choose on vacation with us a couple of weeks ago, and we read it every night. My four-year-old holds up the book, and my husband, my younger son, and I select our jobs, houses, outfits, hats, etc. from each spread. I can’t get enough of this book. It makes reading incredibly fun, and it’s started a wonderful tradition in our house.

Teachers’ Tools for Navigation: Just Imagine and You Choose would make wonderful texts for creative writing units and courses. Students often struggle to get started, and paging through these books is would make for wonderful story starters. I intend to use these books in my Teaching Composition course.

Discussion Questions:

What did you choose? Why?
What did you NOT choose? Why?
Which page was your favorite? Why was the spread most interesting to you?
Did you notice any trends or patterns with your choices?

My family reading the book:

Read This If You Loved: Just Imagine by Nick Sharratt and Pippa Goodhart; Choose Your Own Journey by Susie Brooks and Tracy Cottingham; Story Path: Choose a Path, Tell a Story by Madalena Matoso; Where’s Will? by Tilly; I Want to Be… books by Ruby Brown

Recommended For:

**Thank you to Lynn for sending me this book!**