Miracle on 49th Street

Miracle on

49^th Street

By Mike Lupica

Miracle on

49^th Street

is a feel good story about a little girl who needed peace and the chance to meet her dad, after the passing of her mother.  Young Molly Parker lost her mother to cancer and has learned the identity of her basketball star father.  While living with her mom’s college friend, Barbara and her family, Molly sets out to let Josh Cameron know that she was his daughter.  Her buddy Sam helps her along the way , as does her new found friend Mattie, of self discovery and what it means to have a family again.  Molly is an independent young girl on a path of no return, but will she be able to convince Barbara and more, Josh, to let her seize her opportunity to feel wanted again and the chance she desperately needs to connect to her father? 

I loved this sweet little story!!  I loved the strength and independence in the characters. I can see this book being a wonderful tool for kid feeling lost or abandoned and the discussions the students could have with one another would be incredible!

Chains

Chains

Laurie Halse

A book that focuses on a time in our history that was so horrific and tumultuous for so many, the Revolutionary War.  The writing was so clear that at times, I truly felt like I was there. As I read,  I often had a hard time believing that it was written for children.  The story of young Isabel took place in less than a year, which seems so crazy given the amount of obstacles, heartbreaks and change that she had to endure. I liked the book talk in the back of the book for student lead discussions. This story was heartbreaking.

I will not read the second book, I was hanging on my seat until the very end, hoping that Isabel would somehow be freed or even reunited with her baby sister Ruth.  The book contained pieces of historical fiction, and the writing was poetic, I found it difficult and sad to read. We did have a nice discussion about it.

OK GO!

OK GO!

Carin Berger

This was a picture book that showed pictures of Recycled materials to drive a point home.  “In a world of GO! GO! GO! GO! GO!  It’s time to STOP! And find a new way.” 

The dedication in the book states  “……….and to all of those who work to make it a better, fairer, and more hopeful place. ….”     The author has used these recycled materials to create collages showing car travel, and greener options by walking or riding bikes.  It is almost wordless, but the pictures are so incredible. 

Kerri Wenger handed me this book for my unit, and I wasn’t crazy about it at first.  But I read it and reread it and a third time.  I read every little caption and summary…the book ends the text within the pictures, the dedications and the fine print.  I can appreciate where the author Carin Berger was going with this book and the impact it had on my students. This was a book I left back on our table after we read it, so that they could take the time with the pictures and gather their own appreciation for it as well! 

Where the Sidewalk Ends

Where the Sidewalk Ends

By Shel Silverstein

A collection of beloved poems and short stories by a treasured author, Shel Silverstein guides us through a whimsical “sidewalk” of verses about Band-Aids and a Boa Constrictor and characters like Chester and Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout who simply would not take the garbage out!  This is a book I grabbed for my unit so I could read about Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout Would Not Take the Garbage Out….but I kept it handy for those brief breaks in the day, hand washing time, bus line up, or clean-up time that I could share a brief excerpt with the kids.  Shel Silverstein’s writing brilliance accompanied with he vivid imagination and illustrations has created a masterpiece in “Where the Sidewalk Ends’!

This will be a book that will one day find its way to my classroom library. It may also sit on the corner of my desk for sharing!  I thought I would initially use it for my unit, however, it became something that the kids enjoyed having me read aloud.  The book lends itself to the use of voice and emotion while reading,  I love it!! 

Wangari’s Trees of Peace, A True Story from Africa

Wangari’s Trees of Peace, A True Story from Africa

Jeanette Winter

Wangari was only a girl when she was awarded a  scholarship to study in the United States, so she left her beautiful home in Kenya, Africa only to return six short years later to barren land and devastation to her once rich, green community.  Wangari received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004 for world peace through the Green Belt Movement she began in 1977 on World Environment Day.  Wangari’s struggles to repopulate the once red, rich soil of her homeland with the green, lush trees that provided for so many became her quest and it began with 6 seedlings planted in her own back yard.  Soon after, women all over Kenya began planting “Symbols of Peace” together, which became known as the green belt. 

This was a wonderful addition to our unit “Human Effects on Our Environment”. The students listened so intently to Wangari’s story and the peace that her efforts brought to her own community, and her country, and our world.  The illustrations are full of color, and vibrant hope! 

Energy Island

Energy Island

By Allan Drummond

Mr. Drummond wrote a beautiful tribute to the community of Samso in Denmark and their combined efforts the harness the wind to save energy.  Samso is an island in the middle of Denmark that had oil shipped over to them in large oil tankers and electricity sent to them from the mainland through underwater cables in the ocean.  The book beings reminding the reader that Samso is just an ordinary island, with ordinary people, and ordinary children and ordinary lives.  The island was incredibly windy, so an idea came to these ordinary folks about “harnessing the wind to change their world” and become energy independent.  Huge wind turbines were placed on the island and the energy became so abundant that the little island was able to send their excess to the mainland!!

This tribute is a tough picture book to read aloud.  It names the citizens of Samso that were instrumental in various ways on nearly every page.  The book becomes hard to read and the children can get lost in the process.  While I loved reading about the process and effort the small community had to go through, I found it a difficult book to share with third graders.

A Kid’s Guide to How to Save the Planet

A Kid’s Guide to How to Save the Planet

By Billy Goodman

The Glossary in the back of this chapter book focuses on the vocabulary kids need to have to understand the threats to our environment.  It has 8 chapters the focus on recycling, reusing and reducing.  It gives kids suggestions on ways to conserve earth’s resources and ways to protect the many gifts of our planet.

I particularly loved sharing this book with the kids in my practicum classroom, not only for the vocabulary rich text, or the incredible stories featuring our water, our soil and our air, but mostly for the “What can we do?” sections at the end of each chapter.  These sections gave kids some great everyday way that they can “Save the Planet”!! 

Heroes of our Environment: True Stories

Heroes of our Environment: True Stories

By Harriet Rohmer

A chapter book with photographs depicting people and stories that have had an impact on our environment and our world!  Most of the stories were from the United States, however the one I story I selected to read aloud to my 3^rd graders during our unit featured El Hijo Del Santo from Mexico City, Mexico.  Santo is a famous Champion Masked Wrestler, respect4d and loved by young and old, who vowed to “Fight the Enemies of Our Environment”.  Santos enlisted the help of local children in Tijuana to help clean up the pollution and waste floating in the river, which is the main water source of the city.   The children of this community were so excited to help their environment and partner with Santo that the results of their cleanup caught media coverage and community cleanups began all over Mexico, as well as some Southern California areas. 

This story captured our hearts and El Hijo Del Santo became a hero in our 3^rd grade class as well!!  We were inspired by the difference one man could make, and WE Vowed to make a difference in our own community as well!!  Yeah Santo!!

Jabberwocky

Jabberwocky (Original by Lewis Carroll)

Reimagined and Illustrated by Christopher Meyers

Christopher Meyers is able to give a colorful retell of Lewis Carroll’s poem.  The vibrant jacket on the book summons you to pick it up, and the vivid pictures throughout keep you entranced. ‘Twas Brillig, and the Sithy Toves did Gyre and Gimble in the Wabe…’ opens up with kids in the projects jumping rope.  The Jabberwock is portrayed as a large black man with orange eyes and a basketball.   ‘The Claws that Catch’ are his huge hands, with 7 fingers and illustrated in such a way that they nearly jump off the page of the book.  The presence of the new kids on the basketball court was signaled as ‘Beware of the Jub Jub Bird’.  The Jub Jub Bird challenged the Jabberwock to a game of street basketball, “One, Two! One, Two!”…hoops scored, game won, “Jabberwocky Slain by the Beamish Boy”!

I not only loved the Picasso-like Cubism style of art of this book, but I loved the idea of taking a poem known to us as children and spinning the words into a relatable story for today’s children.