THANK YOU, LUCKY STARS- Beverly Donofrio

Ally is a fifth grade girl who wakes up on the first day of school, and excitedly dons the leggings, butterfly t-shirt, and rhinestone hair clip that she and Betsy, her best friend since kindergarten, have agreed to wear. When she arrives at the bus stop, however, she discovers that Betsy is wearing a matching outfit,  but it doesn't match Ally's. Instead, Betsy is wearing the same jeans skirt as Mona, another girl that lives on their block. Ally's dreams of singing a duet of "Bridge Over Troubled Water" at the annual talent show,   along with her hopes for a fun fifth grade year quickly go down the tubes. 

Because she has no one else, Ally becomes friends with Tina, a quirky new girl that moves into their class. Tina wears plaid leggings and a Princess Leia bun, asks for Hershey kisses from the principal's candy dishes when she is sent to the office, and seems determined to totally embarrass herself (and Ally) in the talent show.  She also tells great stories, loves disco (Ally's favorite genre), can make an interesting experience out of anything (e.g. she rides Ally's bus route one day simply because she has never seen that side of town), and makes some unusual friends, such as George, a virtuoso violinist who associates with almost none of his other fifth grade peers. 

THANK YOU LUCKY STARS would be a nice book to have around for times when the fifth grade meanies strike. It's a story about surviving the ending of one friendship, and beginning new ones. It's a story about loyalty. It's a story about accepting and enjoying people who are a little different than you. A great fifth grade girl book.

Poetry Friday

I am in Wichita for a basketball tournament this weekend. Shortly after I adopted the boys, we went to register for basketball. At registration, we ran into K's football coach. He said he had a basketball team, and invited K to play with him. Coach Lance is an amazing man. The boys are now in eighth grade, and over half of this little neighborhood team has been together since first grade, the newest member joined three years ago. Because of Lance's coaching, they are ranked #1 in the state of Colorado. Every year, we travel to two or three out-of-state tournaments- where we usually play elite/club teams, where parents pay tons of money, or where all of the best players in a city are recruited to play on one team. Our boys don't win those tournaments, but they definitely show up.  The boys will all go to different high schools this fall, so this tournament, and one in Las Vegas next month, are kind of their last hurrah.  We will miss our Red Shield friends! This poem is for "ten souls that have played as one" and for the coach that is the heart of the team…

High School Glory (A Tribute to Basketball)

Derrick Lamar Wesley

the blood, the sweat, the tears

the laughter, cries, and cheers,

fast break, shake and bake,

pump fake, love and hate

five souls united as one

Read the rest of the poem here.

POETRY FRIDAY IS HERE.

A FRIENDSHIP FOR TODAY- Patricia McKissack

The year is 1955. The Supreme Court has ruled against segregation and twelve-year-old Rosemary Patterson is about to start sixth grade at T. Thomas Robertson Elementary School. Rosemary's best friend, James Jonson Stenson (or JJ for short) is supposed to attend with her, but then he gets polio, and ends up spending the year in a rehab hospital instead. Rosemary is the only black girl in her class, and she must face the stares and unkindesses  of many of her peers. 

Things are not so great at home either- Rosemary's mom and dad are fighting a lot, eventually, her father moves out, and her parents divorce. Rosemary's main source of solace is a Rags, a half-dead stray cat she finds run over on the railroad tracks and nurses back to health. 

Gradually, Rosemary becomes friends with Grace, a white girl whose very southern father is not at all in favor of integration. It is an unlikely friendship, formed by two girls who desperately need someone to hang onto. 

In a note at the end of the book, McKissack tells readers that although the book fiction, it is loosely based on events from her own life. She really was the only African American girl in her elementary school. Her mom and dad break up. And the book is dedicated to her cat, Rags, that kept her going through this very difficult time.

This is not the best book I have read on this time period, but it's definitely a good story and a relatively fast read. I could see putting it in a text set with books like YANKEE GIRL, NEW BOY, and WATSONS GO TO BIRMINGHAM. 

TWO CRAZY CHICKENS

LOUISE, THE ADVENTURES OF A CHICKEN is one of Kate DiCamillo's newest picture books. Louise is a chicken who gets bored at home, and regularly sets out to see the world. In her first adventure, Louise boards a ship, which is captured by pirates. As the pirates debate whether to friccase her, stew her, or serve her with dumplings, Louise jumps overboard, battles her way through a terrible storm, and eventually makes her way home to her safe, warm chicken coop. Next, Louise joins the circus, where she is very happy walking across a tightrope with a pink umbrella. A new adventure unfolds the day a lion escapes from his cage. In her third adventure, Louise travels to a bazaar in a faraway land, where she must rescue herself, and several other chicken friends, from a locked cage. This is a delightful story, with a kooky but oh so loveable main character, and a very sweet message about home and friendship. 

CORIANDER, THE CONTRARY CHICKEN- Dori Chaconas

Coriander is a very contrary chicken. While the other chickens are content to sit on their ruffled bottoms in their soft nests in the henhouse, Coriander sets out to see the world. She builds a nest right smack in the middle of a road, and settles in for a nice long rest. This, of course, causes a horrible traffic jam. Farmer Bucket, then Mrs. Bucket, attempt to convince Coriander to move out of the road, to no avail. Finally, little Fanny  Bucket is able to use a little reverse psychology to get Coriander to move. This is a really fun read, a kind of cumulative tale. I could also see myself spending some time talking about the interesting vocabulary- words like flippant and contrary. 

You could just enjoy these two terrific chiekn stories. You could also use them, however, to talk about character development, because both books have really strong, interesting, main characters. You could do great comparisons of Coriander and Louise (I'd probably start with Coriander, because I usually move from silly to more serious). If you wanted to add a third book to the mix, you could use the MINERVA LOUISE series by Janet Morgan Stoeke.

MOONPIE AND IVY

As some of you know, this year, I got hooked on Barbara O'Connor. I started with HOW TO STEAL A DOG, which I think is still my favorite. Over this year, I've read through five others- GREETINGS FROM NOWHERE, FAME AND GLORY IN FREEDOM, GEORGIA, TAKING CARE OF MOSES, and most recently, BEETHOVEN IN PARADISE. 

On Friday, while I was working through the twelve-hour-waiting-for-teenage-sons in a variety of different places challenge, I read MOONPIE AND IVY. The book opens with Pearl, a tweenish kind of kid, sitting on the front porch at her Aunt Ivy's house. Pearl's mom, Ruby, has dropped her off at Ivy's house in the middle of the night, then disappeared with no explanation. Pearl is left, for almost an entire summer, in a little tiny town, in the middle of nowhere, with her Aunt Ivy, who she had never met before. Ivy's closest friend is Moonpie, a neighbor boy who lives in a shack, just over the hill, with his elderly, and very ill grandmother. 

I love Barbara O'Connor's novels. Her main characters are the kids I know- kids whose families don't have money, kids who don't have new clothes and dance lessons and dads that come home every night. They are kids who do the best they can in these tough situations. Sometimes they make poor choices, then have to deal with the consequences. Usually, they are kids who find friends in unlikely places and end up surviving in spite of all of the hard stuff in their lives. 

I have to tell you, I didn't love MOONPIE AND IVY. It's not because it doesn't have great characters or a terrific story, because it does. It's a typical Barbara O'Connor- beautifully crafted, quirky and likeable characters, terrific dialogue, a book you don't want to put down until you get to the last page. It's a great read, and one that I will definitely share with kids when we go back to school in the fall.

I didn't love this book because it made me really, really sad. Pearl has a really hard life. The dropoff at her mom's house appears to be only the latest in a series of maternal missteps. Ivy is kind and caring, but she is very invested in taking care of Moonpie and his grandmother, not to mention a boyfriend that becomes a fiance over the course of the book. She sees the situation with Pearl as very temporary. At the end of the book, Pearl is with her mom and they are supposedly headed to a new life in Arizona, but it's not clear that that life will be any better than their previous situations. Ivy has given Pearl sunflower seeds to plant wherever she ends up (and also her phone number). Pearl bites into one of the sunflower seeds, deciding that her best hope is within herself.

That's what makes me so sad. All week I have been thinking of the kids I know and teach. For many of them, the best place in their lives, their happiest moments, the times when they feel safest and most secure, are at school. I wonder who is feeding them this summer, who is taking care of them, who is reading them stories. I don't want kids to have to be their only source of strength or hope…

POETRY FRIDAY (OK, almost Saturday!)

Lucky gal that I am, I won Ann Whitford Paul's ALL BY HERSELF in a Miss Rumphius Effect book give away (thanks so much!) about six weeks ago. It's been sitting on the top of the pile, and today I finally got to give it a good read. 

ALL BY HERSELF consists of fourteen biographical poems about women. Some are women you know well- Amelia Earhart, Rachel Carson, Sacajawea, Wilma Rudolph, Pocahontas, author Wanda Gag, and politician Golda Meirs. Others, however, are much less familiar- Harriet Hanson, who worked in the fabric mills of Lowell, Massachusetts; Maria Mitchell, a professor of astronomy at Vassar College; and Violet Sheehy, Ida Lewis,  Kate Shelley, and Frances Ward, who all helped lead families, neighbors, and friends, out of dangerous situations. Each poem is presented on the left side of a two page spread, while the righthand side is devoted to a beautiful oil color painting by illustrator Michael Steirnagle.

I could see using this book in several different ways. First, I'd love to use the poems as mentor texts for kids during a multi-genre biography unit. Some of the poems rhyme, and those would probably be hard for kids to emulate, but lots of the poems would be really approachable for kids. Second, I'd love to use these poems as examples of character traits like curiosity, leadership, perseverance, and courage.  I'm always looking for real life heroes for kids to follow.

This is not a new book (it's actually about ten years old), but it is definitely worth checking out.

POETRY FRIDAY is at READ WRITE BELIEVE by Sara Lewis Holmes. Go check out her amazing original poem! 

MY BABIES

I have been a horrible blogger this month. End of school, three graduations, football camp, football camp injuries, two basketball teams… YIKES! I'll be done with school on Friday, then I will be back to blogging more faithfully. In the meantime, here are my two handsome guys on the night of Son #2's eighth grade continuation.