CYBILS NOMINEES- TWO BY DAVID ADLER

According to his website, David Adler has written over 200 books. It's not surprising, then, that several of them, at least three that I can count, would end up as CYBILS nominees. Two are related to math

I could have used FRACTIONS, DECIMALS, AND PERCENTS on Friday. I had gone into a sixth grade classroom and was waiting for the teacher to finish a math lesson so we could start writing. Most of the kids have at least some understanding of money-- they visit the neighborhood convenience store on a fairly regular basis. Many of these same students, however, were more than a little confused during Friday's lesson on converting fractions into decimals, and FRACTIONS, DECIMALS, AND PERCENTS would have been a nice segue. Adler uses the prices and signs at a county fair to demonstrate how fractions, decimals, and percentages are related to each other, then review place value and demonstrates how to convert fractions to decimals. He also devotes several pages to explaining when people might use each term, e.g. "If the man at the pie eating contest ate four full pies and half of another pie, he would probably say, 'I ate four and 1/2 pies…he would probably not say 'I ate four pies and 50% of a fifth pie.'" The book would be a terrific math lesson for any intermediate grade teacher, especially if he/she had a document camera so that kids could have some time to examine the illustrations.

Adler's other math-related CYBILS nominee is TIME ZONES. If you have ever had the experience of explaining of trying to explain time zones to a group of eyebrow raising, incredulous/doubtful/non-believing children (and I have, several times) you will definitely appreciate TIME ZONES. Adler opens the book explaining what children in various places around the world would be doing when it is 6 am in Los Angeles. He then covers such topics as how time zones came to be, why time zone lines aren't straight (so they don't go divide major cities), and the International Date Line. The illustrations are clever collage combinations of an astronaut flying children around the world, aliens, clocks, maps, and even a photograph of the International Meridian Conference in 1884. Appendices in the back include a map of U.S. time zones, an explanation of Daylight Savings Time, and an experiment for kids to try.

Another great read aloud for math time.

P.S. I apologize for the way the images are appearing. Not quite sure what I am doing wrong today but everything is going all over the page.

1+1=5 AND OTHER UNLIKELY ADDITIONS- David LaRochelle

OK, today marks the start of my official CYBILS review. It seems impossible to me that out of the 111 picture books nominated for the best nonfiction picture book, I have only read four! Yes, that's right! Four! That's all! I'm excited, then, about the 107 books I'm going to come to know (and probably love, at least for a lot of them)! So let's get reading…

At the top of the stack is 1+1=5 AND OTHER UNLIKELY ADDITIONS by David LaRochelle. This book kind of reminds me of an old, old friend, the ABC book, Q IS FOR DUCK, except it's focused on math. Each right hand page has the 1+1 math "fact," but each answer is different e.g. 1 +1 =3, or 1+1= 110 or 1+1=0. It's up to the reader to use the clues in Brenda Sexton's bright, digitally produced illustrations, to figure out the meaning of the equation, which is revealed on the next page. 1 +1 =3 (1 unicorn + 1 goat =3 horns), 1+1=hundreds (1 pumpkin +1 watermelon= hundreds of seeds), 1 +1 =0(1 snake +1 worm = 0 legs).

A really clever book that I think kids of all ages are going to absolutely love!

POETRY FRIDAY

This picture has absolutely nothing to do with the post
(aside from the fact that this is one of the babies that I pray for every day).
Son#2 at homecoming last week.

I've been a teacher in urban schools for about 25 years. I've heard lots of hard stories. This year, though, has been exceptionally difficult. Story after story after story after story. Every. single. day. The kind that take your breath away- kids being hospitalized in psych wards, drive by shootings, pregnant teenagers, incarcerated parents, kids moving from foster home to foster home to foster home- with no sense of belonging or being loved, family members dying. Kids coming to school every day and needing to be rocked and loved and put back together before they can even begin to think about learning. This morning, when I was thinking about Poetry Friday, I remembered this poem/prayer by one of my heroes, Marion Wright Edelman. And it kinda seemed to fit.

A Prayer for Children

By MARIAN WRIGHT EDELMAN

We pray for children
Who sneak popsicles before supper,
Who erase holes in math workbooks,
Who can never find their shoes.

And we pray for those
Who stare at photographers from behind barbed wire,
Who can't bound down the street in a new pair of sneakers,
Who never "counted potatoes,"
Who are born in places we wouldn't be caught dead,
Who never go to the circus,
Who live in an X-rated world.

We pray for children
Who bring us sticky kisses and fistfuls of dandelions,
Who hug us in a hurry and forget their lunch money.
And we pray for those
Who never get dessert,
Who have no safe blanket to drag behind them,
Who watch their parents watch them die,
Who can't find any bread to steal,
Who don't have any rooms to clean up,
Whose pictures aren't on anybody's dresser,
Whose monsters are real.

We pray for children
Who spend all their allowance before Tuesday,
Who throw tantrums in the grocery store and pick at their food,
Who like ghost stories,
Who shove dirty clothes under the bed and never rinse out the tub,
Who get visits from the tooth fairy,
Who don't like to be kissed in front of the carpool,
Who squirm in church or temple and scream in the phone,
Whose tears we sometimes laugh at and whose smiles can make us cry.

And we pray for those
Whose nightmares come in the daytime,
Who will eat anything,
Who have never seen a dentist,
Who aren't spoiled by anybody,
Who go to bed hungry and cry themselves to sleep,
Who live and move, but have no being.

We pray for children who want to be carried and for those who must,
For those we never give up on and for those who don't get a second chance.
For those we smother ... and for those who will grab the hand of anybody kind enough to offer it.

We pray for children.

POETRY FRIDAY is at A WRUNG SPONGE.

SONGS FOR A TEENAGE NOMAD- Kim Culbertso

Review copy provided by publisher.

Yesterday I posted a review of TUTUS AREN'T MY STYLE. Today's review features another main character trying to find her place in a world that doesn't quite fit her, but this time it's a YA novel, SONGS FOR A TEENAGE NOMAD.

Fourteen year old Calle (pronounced Callie) and her mother live a nomadic life. Calle's father left when she was very small, and she has spent most of her life moving from one California town to the next. Each time another relationship ends, Calle's mom, gets out a map, and tosses a coin, then they pack the car and move to wherever the coin has landed. Calle doesn't bother to make friends or put down roots, because she knows she won't be staying anywhere for very long. The one constant in her life is her song journal, where she records vignettes or memories inspired by different songs. Each chapter begins with one of these memories.

At the beginning of this book, Calle and her mom land in San Andreas Bay, one of the prettiest places they have ever lived. Contrary to her usual pattern, Calle become part of the drama crowd at school, and also becomes friends with Sam, a football player who is dealing with his own struggles at home. She also discovers a wooden box, then a drawer containing artifacts about her father and begins to piece together the pieces of that mystery.

This is one of those books where all of the pieces just work. The teenager living on the edge of high school piece. The absent father piece. The song journal. And it reads a little like a mystery, where you can wait to read the next chapter to see how all of the pieces fit together. But the ending, unlike most puzzles but true to most real lives, is more than a little messy. A great read that I will share with our sixth graders tomorrow.

TUTUS AREN'T MY STYLE- Linda Skeers

I stumbled onto TUTUS AREN'T MY STYLE on Thursday afternoon. I was visiting a first/second grade class and arrived just in time for read aloud. One of the children had chosen TUTUS AREN'T MY STYLE from a rack of new books that Mrs. J had checked out from her public library. I glanced at the cover, and then at my audience of very wiggly boys and thought, "Uh-oh." I scanned the shelf for other options, and picked up a couple, only to have the class inform me that they had already heard those. Giving a little mental sigh, I sat down in the chair, preparing for a read aloud disaster (ok, so to those of you who are still reading, and are making judgments about pseudo administrators who sigh when they have to read to kids- I love, love, love, love, love reading aloud. If someone told me that I could spend my life traveling from venue to venue reading, I would be a happy woman. And I'm generally pretty good at picking out perfect books for different audiences. I rarely read aloud books that I have not already read myself. Or books that I don't like. And yes, I know that books can be read and enjoyed more than one time).

Anyway, back to TUTUS--
Emma, clad in red cowboy boots, is hunting for bugs and pirate treasure in the front yard, when when the mailman delivers a package from her favorite uncle. She opens it to discover a frilly pink ballet costume. Emma has never really viewed herself as a ballerina, but wants to please Uncle Leo, so with a little advice from the mailman, as well as a neighbor walking her dogs, she takes on this new challenge. With an Emma-ish twist.

The results are predictable. First Emma, accompanied by the family cat, tries dancing outside, but crashes into a flowerbed. Ballet is supposed to be accompanied by music, so Emma gets out her kazoo, which unfortunately (though much to the delight of my seven and eight-year-old audience) sounds a little like burping. When Uncle Leo arrives, Emma is less than prepared to put on a performance…But, as you might expect, there's a really fun twist to the ending…

When we are done with the read aloud, Mrs. J asks if I will review story elements. We use "superstar comprehension" to run through the basics- character, setting, problem, and solution, and then because I am always curious about what children take away from books (and I'm totally fine if all they take away is a great story), I ask kids about the theme or life lesson. "You get what you get, and you don't throw a fit!" suggests the burly, football playing E-man. "When someone gives you a present, even if it isn't what you wanted, you are supposed to be grateful," says A., who is supposedly one of the lowest readers in the class. "Everybody doesn't have to dance the same or be the same," declared the spectacled, serious Miss C.

A really fun read with some pretty great life lessons!

Poetry Friday

This is one of those times when I am totally wishing I could be in two places at once. On one hand, I know these two absolutely gorgeous guys who will be playing football on Friday night, then dressing up, and heading off to homecoming with their honeys on Saturday night, and I want to be here to take pictures and admire what amazing young men they are becoming.

But then on the other hand, I would really love to be getting on a plane tomorrow and heading for Portland, Maine, to honor my dear friend, Don Graves, and his wife, Betty, at a memorial service on Saturday morning…

I'm staying in Colorado, but a big chunk of my heart will be in Portland, Maine at 10:00 on Saturday morning.

Gone From My Sight
by Henry Van Dyke

I am standing upon the seashore. A ship, at my side,
spreads her white sails to the moving breeze and starts
for the blue ocean. She is an object of beauty and strength.
I stand and watch her until, at length, she hangs like a speck
of white cloud just where the sea and sky come to mingle with each other.

Then, someone at my side says, "There, she is gone"

Gone where?

Gone from my sight. That is all. She is just as large in mast,
hull and spar as she was when she left my side.
And, she is just as able to bear her load of living freight to her destined port.

Her diminished size is in me -- not in her.
And, just at the moment when someone says, "There, she is gone,"
there are other eyes watching her coming, and other voices
ready to take up the glad shout, "Here she comes!"

And that is dying...

SEEDS OF CHANGE- JEN CULLERTON JOHNSON

"Those trees you are cutting down today were not planted by you but by those who came before. You must plant trees that will benefit the community to come, like a seedling with sun, good soil, and abundant rain, the roots of our future will bury themselves in the ground and a canopy of hope will reach the sky."

SEEDS OF CHANGE is the biography of Nobel Peace Prize winner Wangari Maathai. Maathai grew up in Kenya and attended college in the United States. When she returned to Kenya, Matthai was deeply saddened by the deforestation of her country. She started the Greenbelt Movement, a group which restored the Kenyan countryside by planting over thirty million trees. Matthai was a groundbreaker many times over-- when she was growing up, not many girls went to school, or continued on to college, or became university professors. At one point, she was even jailed by corrupt politicians more concerned about profits than reforestation. This is a well-told story with gorgeous, vibrant, richly illustrations (by artist Sonia Lynn Sadler) that beg to be closely examined.

I could use this book in a hundred ways. Our second graders are doing a science unit on trees and plants right now. Almost every day, a very serious seven-year-old reminds me that I should not cut down any trees because they give oxygen to the earth. I'll start by giving the book to them this morning. Our third graders are working on ecosystems and this book would be perfect for that unit. It's also a great biography. Or would be perfect in a unit on courage. Or change. Or the power of the individual. Or it might be fun to look for other books about Nobel Peace Prize winners and string them together. And then there are those illustrations, that just beg to be studied and imitated…