FRIDA KAHLO AND HER ANIMALITOS by Monica Brown

Several years ago, Monica Brown visited our school. The visit came as a surprise-- I got a phone call asking if we would be interested in having a bilingual children's author read aloud to our second graders. Of course we would! And that's how I became acquainted with Monica Brown, author of MARISOL MCDONALD DOESN'T MATCH/MARISOL McDONALD NO COMBINA. Monica is the author of many books, including WAITING FOR BIBLIOBURRO, TITO PUENTO: MAMBO KING, and PELE: EL REY DE FÚTBOL. I will always remember her, though, for how kind and inspiring she was with our second graders. My school's population is about 65% English Language Learners, and Brown talked about her own childhood, and about going to college, and becoming a university professor and then a children's author. At the end, she signed a book for each child. It was a magical time.

Brown's most recent picture book biography, FRIDA KAHLO AND HER ANIMALITOS was nominated for this year's CYBILS. In an author's note, Monica Brown says, "I've always been intrigued by Frida's relationships to her animal companions. Although she didn't get her most famous pets until she was an adult, I chose to write about Frida's animalitos as a way of highlighting Frida's magical creativity-- her strength, her sense of adventure, her indomitable spirit- throughout her life. What insights do her beloved animals tell us about the young Frida? It was an hour to use lo real maravilloso (the marvelous real) to imagine just that."

Kahlo owned many pets, including monkeys, dogs, turkeys, an eagle, a black cat, and a fawn, and Monica Brown uses those pets to tell Kahlo's story.

Frida had a parrot named Bonito. Like her parrot, Frida was colorful. She liked to wear bold shades that celebrated indigenous Mexico and her own heritage. She lived in a house the color of a bright blue feather- La Casa Azul- where she grew up with her mom, dad, and sisters. 

Brown's use of animals makes a really complex artist much more accessible to young children. The book could also be a mentor text for students who are interested in biography.

And you can't really talk about a picture book without mentioning the illustrator. Maybe it's enough to say that earlier this week,  ANIMALITOS won a Pura Belpre Honor award for illustrations.

BILLIE HOLIDAY AND LENA HORNE

Today, on Martin Luther King Day, it seems appropriate to review two picture book biographies. These women are well-known entertainers, but perhaps they should  more famous for their roles in the Civil Rights movement. 

"Somebody once said
we never know what is enough
until we know what's 
more than enough."

Gary Golio's picture book, STRANGE FRUIT: BILLIE HOLIDAY AND THE POWER OF A PROTEST SONG is definitely a picture book for older readers. Billie Holiday lived a sad, sad life. As a baby, she was left with an older half sister for years. At ten, she ended up in a reform school because something was done to her. When she was 14, she moved to NYC to live with her mother, and they both ended up in jail. Billie  knew she wanted to be a singer. She sang at small clubs around New York, and then was booked for larger engagements. She endured much protest, not being able to walk around in the clubs, having to use the service elevators, having to sleep on the tour bus.

Billie finally ended up at the Cafe Society, a club created especially for blacks by Barney Josephson. At the Cafe Society, Barney was contacted by Abel Meeropol, a Jewish teacher from the Bronx. Meeropol, outraged by a photo of a lynching, wrote the song "Strange Fruit. Barney Josephson thought that the song was important, and asked Billie to sing it. Here is a link to a recording of Billie Holiday singing "Strange Fruits."

End matter includes "What Happened Next" as well as a biography of Billie Holiday. Charlotte Riley-Webb's oil illustrations are colorful and strong and vibrant.

LEGENDARY MISS LENA HORNE by Carole Boston Weatherford

collage illustrations by Elizabeth Zunon

As an African American entertainer, Lena Horne was:
not allowed to eat or sleep at the places where she was the headline entertainer

• banned from bandstand between numbers
• refused service by restaurants
• refused rooms by hotels
• forced to sleep on the tour bus
• introduced as Cuban rather than African American.
• Blacklisted by the house Un-American Activities Committee

During World War II, Lena paid her own way to sing for black troops. At that event, the German POW's were seated in front of the African American soldiers

MGM offered her the first ever contract as a black actress, but the NAACP wanted her to take a stand, and Lena refused to play the role of maids or mammies. Ultimately, she was cast mostly in singing roles that could be easily edited out in the South.

She appeared with Medgar Evers and sang "This Little Light of Mine." He was killed just a few days later.

At the I HAVE a Dream Speech she spoke one word into the microphone- FREEDOM!

These women's fight for freedom is definitely one our students should know about!

ALL IN- GENE CHIZIK

I'm always on the lookout for books that might interest my football loving, book hating sons. In fact, I think I have probably read every football memoir and/or biography published in the last seven or eight years. If you aren't a sports fan, or a sports parent, you can probably stop reading right now. If you don't like when people link their professional lives, and particularly their professional sports lives with their Christianity, you can stop reading now. If you are looking for books to add to your elementary classroom, you can stop reading now.

ALL IN is the story of Auburn football coach Gene Chizik. For those of you who don't know much about football, Auburn, coached by Chizik, won they national championship in January, 2011. The team's quarterback was Cam Newton, who now plays for the Carolina Panthers and was recently named NFL rookie of the year. ALL IN traces Chizik's journey as a coach, including his very controversial decision to leave a head coaching position at Iowa State after only two years. Throughout the book, Chizik integrates his views on football, faith, and family.

I read ALL IN through lots of different lenses. First, I read it through the lens of a high school football player wanting to be successful at the college level. I think Chizik has lots to say to kids in this group-- mainly that there are lots of talented kids, that players need to work hard, and perhaps most importantly, that football is a TEAM and not an INDIVIDUAl sport. I wish I could get my boys to read this book because I think these are important messages.

I also read this book as a mom. On one hand, I wondered what it would like to be an Iowa State parent, who had entrusted your child to Chizik, only to have him leave a short time later. On the other hand, I would like to have my boys playing for a coach who seems to emphasize team over individual, and character over football. I also appreciated that Chizik talked about his role as a man working with a team of young men, more than half of whom have grown up without fathers. As a single mom, I'm so grateful for the role coaches have played in my boys' lives.

Finally, I read this book as a Christian. As a believer, I'm interested in other people's faith journeys, and this one was no exception. Chizik doesn't sugarcoat his faith. He doesn't say that all of his relationships are perfect. He doesn't believe that God "gave" him a national championship. Rather, he believes that it is his job to actively pursue his relationship with God, and to live that out with his own wife and kids, and in his job. That makes sense to me.

A typical sports biography for the football loving crowd…

TWO STORIES OF PERSEVERANCE

I've been struck, as I've read the CYBILS nonfiction nominees, by stories of perseverance. People's lives, for whatever reason, just aren't easy. It takes hard work. Not giving up. Trying again and again. Here are a couple of biographies that really illustrate that point.

ALL ABOARD: ELIJAH McCOY'S STEAM ENGINE
By Monica Kulling
Illustrated by Bill Slavin
REVIEW COPY PROVIDED BY PUBLISHER

Chances are, you've heard the expression "the real McCoy." But did you know that that expression came from a real person, an African American engineer that lived in the 1800's? Elijah McCoy was supposed to be a mechanical engineer. His parents, former slaves who had arrived in Canada, via the Underground Railroad, had saved every penny they could to send him to Scotland to complete his studies. But when he arrived back in Michigan, there was only one job available for a black man at the Michigan Central Railroad. Shoveling coal. McCoy needed work, so he took the job. But McCoy didn't let his circumstances define him.

Instead, McCoy invented. McCoy's job was to shovel coal as fast as he could. Another boy, called a grease monkey, crawled under the train and oiled the moving parts. The steam locomotive would work for about half an hour, then it would stop cold, until the grease monkey oiled the parts again. McCoy believed there had to be an easier and safer way to oil the engine, so over the course of several years, he invented a drip cup that oiled the engine while the train was running. And then went on to develop 57 more patents- more than any other black inventor. Put this book in a study of perseverance, or in your biography section, or in a study of inventors, or in an African American history unit.


DINOSAUR MOUNTAIN: DIGGING INTO THE JURASSIC AGE by Deborah Kogan Ray

REVIEW COPY FROM MY LOCAL LIBRARY

Earl Douglas was a geologist, botanist, and paleontologist working at the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Philadelphia. Andrew Carnegie, caught up in the "Bone Wars" of that era, wanted "something big" for his museum. Several previous discoveries had been made in Colorado and Wyoming, but Douglas believed that areas in northeastern Utah held possibly the greatest potential.

Douglas' tale, however, is again not one of immediate success. In that first year, 1908, he found only a small collection of mammal and reptile bones, nothing big. Just before Douglas was set to break camp for the winter, his boss, William Holland, came for a visit. On a final fossil hunting expedition, they found a large diplodocus bone, in a gully with rock walls they identified as "Jurassic strata." The next spring, Douglas returned, but it took him until August to find his first large discovery- the tail bones of a seventy-foot Apatosaurus.

Douglas spent much of the rest of his life digging dinosaur skeletons in this area on the Colorado/Utah border, now known as Dinosaur National Monument, but the work was slow and hard. It took four years to dig out the apatosaurus. That first winter, he and his wife and one-year-old son lived in a canvas lean-to in temperatures as low as -40 degrees. Poachers tried to take some of the bones. Andrew Carnegie died in 1915 and there were no more funds for the excavation.

I loved this book. A perfect biography for a unit on perserverance, or dinosaur lovers, or Colorado kids who often visit Dinosaur National Monument. I also loved the book design. Deborah Kogan's large, water color illustrations are beautiful, but they are accompanied by diagrams and pencil sketches of other useful information, e.g. Jurassic Strata. Many pages also include a sidebar from Douglas' journal. Appendices include drawings and information about ten dinosaurs from the Jurassic Age, a map of the area, an author's note, information about Dinosaur National Monument, brief biographies of Earl Douglas and Andrew Carnegie, and a glossary.

For a really interesting interview with Deborah Kogan Ray, including preliminary sketches from this book, check out SEVEN IMPOSSIBLE THINGS.

DANCING WITH MAX- Emily Colson

This morning, I ran by the library to pick up some new CYBILS nominees. I noticed DANCING WITH MAX on the "New Books" shelf. And picked it up. And have not read many CYBILS books today.

DANCING WITH MAX is by Emily Colson, daughter of Chuck Colson. Emily has a son, Max, who has autism. DANCING WITH MAX is a story about their lives. Max is a little quirky. He has been known to take his swimming trunks off in the pool. He loves to go to convenience stores to look at the refrigerators and other appliances. He removed the seats from an old Audi and placed them in his living room.

But Max is also an incredibly pure hearted, loving, joyful soul. His mom, Emily, has done an amazing job capturing that joy, as well as some of the life/God lessons that she has learned in this book It's a really beautiful story- one that made me laugh and cry. It also really spoke to me about the nature of love and God and caring for each other. I want to buy it and read it again and underline parts that I loved.

DISCLAIMER: This book is written by an Evangelical Christian and has a decidedly Christian bent. If that is uncomfortable for you, you might not enjoy this book, but I loved it.

OPRAH- THE LITTLE SPEAKER by Carole Boston Weatherford

REVIEW COPY PROVIDED BY PUBLISHER

I've taught in urban schools for almost thirty years. And while I love, love, love what I do, and would never want to be anywhere else, some days are just down right hard. There are days, lots of them, when I think, "I do not want to hear another story about someone's mom going to jail. I do not want to look at another child and wonder whether we can find someone to donate a coat. I do not want to comfort another child who needs a mommy far more than they need a teacher."

Days like that, I need to surround myself with books that help me to believe and to hang on. Books about people who have made it in spite of seemingly insurmountable odds. OPRAH: THE LITTLE SPEAKER is one of those books. This picture book biography by noted children's author Carole Boston Weatherford details the life of Oprah Winfrey. But not her life as a talk show hostess. Or magazine editor. Or actress. Instead, it tells the story of Oprah's growing up years on her grandparents' pig farm. The family did not have indoor plumbing. Oprah did not have a bed of her own. She wore shoes only on Sundays. But she had a grandma who told her she could be anything she wanted to be. Who taught her to read and write. And prayed and believed that God had big plans for her.

My students need to read lots of books like this.

HEART OF A STUDENT ATHLETE- Karl Mecklenberg

My boys are not avid readers, nor are they avid students. They like football, technology, their cell phones, video games, and girls; (the order depends on the day). Nevertheless, I will not give up. Every night, we have thirty minutes of family reading time (ok, I admit this moving thing has kind of thrown a wrench in the works). I buy way, way, way too many books and graphic novels and magazines hoping to find the one that will turn my guys into readers. I carefully position the newspaper, interesting photo up every morning, hoping that it will catch their attention.

This week, I bought a book I think middle and high school teachers should know about. Karl Mecklenberg was a Denver Bronco for 12 years. He played with John Elway. He was defensive player of the week/year, all conference, and all pro. He has been married to his high school sweetheart for more than 25 years. He has remained active in Denver charities since his retirement.

In the HEART OF A STUDENT ATHLETE, Mecklenberg identifies six qualities- teamwork, courage, honesty and forgiveness, dedication, desire and goal setting. Each chapter focuses on one of these traits. Mecklenberg shares lots of stories about his life on and off the field. He talks about game winning tackles, but he also talks about adversity- having to run a million hills for missing a makeup game in middle school, blowing out his knee after he made the starting lineup at the University of Minnesota, and being shot by a good friend on a hunting trip.

HEART OF A STUDENT ATHLETE is a book my boys might read. It's about football. The voice sounds like lots of the coaches my boys have played for. There are lots of stories. It's broken into short sections that could be read in any order. There are color photographs.

HEART OF A STUDENT ATHLETE is a book I would want in my classroom, if I was a middle or high school teacher. It's a book that guys like mine might actually pick up and read.

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! 

HOWARD THURMAN'S GREAT HOPE

Author: Kai Jackson Issa

Illustrator: Arthur L. Dawson

Publisher: Lee and Low (review copy provided by publisher)

I've spent my entire career in urban settings. Right now, I'm in a pretty rough neighborhood in north Denver. Many of our students have hard, hard, hard lives-  we have kids being raised by grandparents or foster parents, kids whose parents are working two and three jobs to support their families, and kids whose families are really struggling in our very difficult economy. Our students are regularly exposed to domestic violence and drug and alcohol abuse. Last year, a shopping center in the neighborhood was burned down in a gang-related turf war.

In the midst of all of this craziness, stands S*** Elementary. The teachers at my school do an amazing job, not only teaching kids, but also loving them; they buy shoes and coats and school supplies, take kids to movies and sporting events, organize after school tutoring and clubs, pump up bike tires, give hugs and pats on the back and kicks in the butt. Every single day, in a million different ways, my colleagues say to kids, "Hey, there's a big wide world out there waiting for you. You are somebody wonderful and important." 

As a teacher at this school, I want to contribute to that message. And so I work hard at finding books that will send message of hope to our students. Recently, I became familiar with HOWARD THURMAN'S GREAT HOPE, a new picture book biography. Howard Thurman, in case you have never heard of him (I hadn't, prior to reading this book), was a minister who served as a spiritual advisor to people like Martin Luther King, Jesse Jackson, and Marion Wright Edelman. He traveled to India to meet Mahatma Gandhi long before ML King Jr. made that journey. He wrote twenty books. 

And yet Howard Thurman came from very humble beginnings. His father was a field laborer, who died when Howard was very young. His mother and grandmother took in laundry and cleaned houses. Every morning, before he attended school, Howard walked for an hour to deliver the clean laundry, then picked up the dirty laundry after school. He held a variety of other odd jobs throughout his childhood. 

Howard attended segregated schools in Florida. By the time he got to eighth grade, he was the only student in his class, and the principal taught him.  He received a scholarship to prestigious high school one hundred miles away from his town, but had a suitcase that was held together with tape and rope. When he arrived at the train station, the conductor said he couldn't take his handle-less suitcase on the train and would have to pay $3 to send it as baggage. Howard didn't have the money and sat on the curb and wept. A kind stranger paid the freight charge, so that Howard could put his suitcase onto the train, and travel out into that big world. He was the first person in his family to attend college.

I loved this book on many levels. First, I love being able to say to my kids, "Look, here's a person who had a really hard start, and look what he did." I also loved the kind stranger who paid the freight charge. I loved being able to say to kids, "Look, you never know what your kindness might do for someone else." I love providing my kids with one more example of an African American scholar. 

A great book for a unit on Civil Rights, or African American history, or biography, or determination…