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.

POETRY FRIDAY/CYBILS NONFICTION PICTURE BOOK NOMINEES

REVIEW COPY PROVIDED BY PUBLISHER

SONIA SOTOMAYOR: SUPREME COURT JUSTICE (by Carmen T. Bernier-Grand) is a 2010 nominee for the CYBILS nonfiction picture book. I opened it expecting a biography. And it is a biography, but it's a biography told in verse. Twenty-seven free verse poems tell the stories of key events and memories from Sonia Sotomayor's life--her birth in New York City, ordinary events such as playing bingo with her younger brother, her diagnosis of diabetes in third grade, the loss of her beloved papi, learning to read, fighting for civil rights as a student at Princeton, negotiating the baseball strike in 199and finally, her appointment as a Supreme Court Justice. So you can get the feel of the book:

From "As American as Mango Pie"
…Sonia Sotomayor is a Nuyorican,
as American as mango pie."

From "Reading in English"
Sonia's fingertips trace each word.
Maybe her teacher won't call on her…
Sonia's shameful secret:
Words in English have no meaning.

And then a little later, "A Nuyorican Nancy Drew"
Sonia lends Junior her Casper and Archie comics.
She buries herself in Nancy Drew books,
dreams of becoming a detective like Nancy.

From the final poem in the book, "Who Am I?"
"'Who am I? I am a Nuyorican,
a born and bred New Yorker
raised by Puerto Rican parents.'
On August 6, 2009, the Senate votes.
Sonia Sotomayor,
as American as mango pie,
is the first Latina Justice
to be elected to the Supreme Court
of the United States.

In addition to the poems, this book has several great appendices- a more "traditional" prose biography, a glossary of the Spanish words, a timeline, and a bibliography.

This is a book I would love to have in any intermediate grade/YA collection. First, it contains great information about a VIW (very important woman) in American history. The childhood events chosen by Bernier-Grand are engaging and would provide kids with places to connect with Sotomayor's life. Her childhood was difficult- she grew up poor, she was diagnosed with diabetes, her father died, she had to go to work at a young age-- this sounds a lot like the kids I teach.

I could also see using this very unique format as a mentor text during a multi-genre autobiography or biography unit. At the beginning of the year, kids could identify key events from their own lives and write free verse poems, then create a time line, and maybe write a prose piece. Later in the year, they could research other people and develop a time line. From there, they could select key events and write short free verse poems. The time line and poems would give kids more experience and familiarity with the topic, and then they might be ready to write the prose pieces with more voice and originality than the "copying from books/cut and paste Wikipedia" report that often wanders into tweenish research projects.

There is nothing better than a little poetry and nonfiction mixed!

POETRY FRIDAY is here today.

THE WONDER OF CHARLIE ANNE- Kimberly Newton Fusco

Most of what I am reading right now is nonfiction, and more specifically CYBILS nonfiction picture book nominees. Every once in a while, though, I feel the need to escape into a great story. And boy, oh boy, did I find a great one today!

Charlie Anne a tween-ish age girl, whose mother has just died in childbirth. The family, like many others, is struggling to survive during the Great Depression, and her father and an older brother, leave the family home and head north to work on a road-building crew. Charlie Anne, as well as her older sister Ivy, her younger sister Birdie, and her brother Peter are left in the care of Cousin Mirabel, who carries around The Charm of Fine Manners in her pocket and reads it to Charlie Anne several times each day. Charlie Anne's best friends are the family cows; but then Old Mr. Jolley, the widower across the street gets married. His new wife, Rosalyn, is raising Phoebe, an African American girl, who is about Charlie Anne's age. Much to the displeasure of their small town, Charlie Anne and Phoebe become friends…

This is a book that works on a million different levels for me. First, it's a really nice piece of historical fiction. Charlie Anne's town is probably not unlike a million others of that era-- almost all of the men have gone north to find work, the women are at home struggling to maintain family farms and feed and clothe their families on almost nothing. Charlie Anne has two dresses- one that she wore to her mother's funeral, and the other out of an old feedsack. Her underwear is also made out of feedsacks. Mirabel feeds the family mostly from the garden. Vinegar pie is a huge delicacy. It's also a book about Civil Rights and race relations. Phoebe is the first black person that Charlie Anne has ever known. Many of the townspeople, sadly even at church, react very strongly to the young girl.


Second, THE WONDER OF CHARLIE ANNE is a book about learning to read (a book about reading- can it get any better??!!?). Charlie Anne seems to have some kind of learning disability. Miss Moran, the town's previous teacher, has traumatized the young girl over her reading difficulties, making her do things like sit under the teacher's desk with spiders, stand in a trash can, and wait in a woodshed for the superintendent to beat her. Charlie Anne is terrified of school, but under Rosalyn's patient tutelage, things start to change.

Third, Charlie Anne is a great character, plucky and tough. She would much rather be outside milking cows or measuring the corn than inside doing the million household chores that Cousin Mirabel has in mind. She's fascinated by Rosalyn and Phoebe, who are the first women that she has ever seen in pants. In Phoebe, Charlie Anne finds a kindred spirit and blood sister. At one point, Charlie Anne is gutsy enough to defend her friend in front of the entire congregation.

Finally, THE WONDER OF CHARLIE ANNE is a book about loss. Charlie Anne has lost her mom, her dad and brother are gone, and then her other brother is sent to Boston to live with an aunt. She seeks solace in talking to the cows and also to her mother. Phoebe has also lost her mom. I can think of at least three girls I know that could use this book, just to know that they are not alone…

A really, really, really good read on a snowy school holiday…

SKIT-SCAT RAGGEDY CAT: ELLA FITZGERALD by Roxanne Orgill

Ella Fitzgerald did not have an easy childhood.
She lived with her mother, Tempie, and stepfather, Joe, until she was fourteen, then Tempie died suddenly, and Ella was sent to live with her Aunt Virgina, who "offered meals and a roof, and nothing more."

Ella started skipping school and getting into trouble, and was sent upstate to a reform school where they "it was a regular routine to leave a girl in the basement, in chains, with nothing but bread and water." After two years, she ran away from the school, and ended up back in Harlem, where "people took her in and gave her a meal and a bed, or didn't…At the Baptist church, Ella got a pair of men's boots to keep the cold off her dancing feet."

But Ella persevered. She won a spot at Amateur Night at the Apollo Theater. Heer voice cracked during her first few notes, and a kind emcee stepped to the microphone and said, "This young lady's got a gift she'd like to share with us tonight. She's just having a little trouble getting it out of the wrapper. Let's give her a second chance." Ella won first prize at that contest, but did not win the usual week with the band because of her raggedy appearance. Later, Ella won another amateur night at the Harlem Opera House. Soon, she found herself being introduced to Chick Webb. One of Webb's trombone players gave her a bar of soap, and told her to wash herself good. The costume mistress took a comb to her tangled hair every night. Soon, Webb and Fitzgerald's song, "A-Tisket, A-Tasket," was a number one hit on the radio. And after that, it was "so long, Skit-Skat Raggedy Cat. It's Rowdy-Dowdy High Hat Baby now."

This picture book biography, with its colorful, predominantly red and blue illustrations by Sean Qualls, has much to say about persevering and overcoming odds. The text is a little long, so it's probably a better read for intermediate grades, or middle or high school. And it would probably be even more meaningful if kids could see this link to Ella Fitzgerald singing A-Tisket, A-Tasket, or check out Fitzgerald's official website here.

HENRY AARON'S DREAM- Matt Tavares

REVIEW COPY PROVIDED BY PUBLISHER

"Henry Aaron had a dream.
He wanted to be a big-league baseball player.

He didn't have a bat,
so he'd swing a broom handle
or a stick
or whatever he could find.

Henry didn't have a baseball, either,
so he'd hit bottle caps
or tie a few old rags together
or crumple up a tin can…

Henry Aaron grew up in Mobile, Alabama, where blacks didn't even have a ball park until Henry was 12. He was a skinny kid who held his bat the wrong way. Even after he made it to the minor leagues, Henry faced tremendous adversity. White fans booed him and called him n------. Pitchers threw fastballs at his head. When his team won the pennant, Henry's team had a party at a restaurant in Savannah, Georgia. Henry and two other black teammates spent the evening in the kitchen playing cards.

Despite these odds, Henry pursued his big dream…

A terrific read about pursuing dreams, working hard, persevering, and overcoming adversity. And Matt Tavares' illustrations are drop dead gorgeous- rich and detailed. For some really interesting information about Matt Tavares' research and illustration process for HENRY AARON'S DREAM, check this page from his website.

Pair HENRY AARON'S DREAM with Kadir Nelson's WE ARE THE SHIP, then TEAMMATES.

Appendices include a page of author's notes, also a chart of Aaron's baseball statistics.

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.

KINGDOM: SAVAGE SAFARI by Nam Nguyen

SAVAGE SAFARI is a visual smorgasboard that I think kids are going to love. Each two page spread features a different African animal. There's a large photograph, labelled with the animal's salient features and a paragraph of information. Then there's a silhouette drawing with length, height and weight. And a scale that rates the animal on characteristics such as intelligence, speed, agility, and evasion techniques. A small map shows where in Africa the animal lives. There's a "card" that features the animal's allies and enemies. Another area on the page features the animal's superpowers (a hippo, for example, can bite with one ton of pressure), its equipment (the hippo not only has large size, but also has aqua-adapted skin, ears, and feet), its weaknesses (that same hippo has thin skin that dries out, so it has to stay close to water), and an interesting fact (the hippo can stay underwater for up to five minutes). As an added feature, two pages in the back combine the features of various animals to create the "Ultimate Predator" and "Ultimate Defender." And there's an extensive glossary. Hand this gem to one of your video game loving, book hating kiddos- it's a sure winner!

A story from today: I threw SAVAGE SAFARI into my teacher bag this morning. The fourth grade is doing a unit on nonfiction, and I wanted to share this book, with all of its interesting text features, with them. I also thought of a couple of kids that are having trouble engaging during independent reading time and thought this book would hold their interest for a little while.

I shared the book during the mini-lesson, then watched as it made the rounds during class. At the end of our literacy block, one of our ELL students approached me. This little guy is one of the kids that keeps me awake at night. His English isn't progressing as quickly as I would like it to, he isn't particularly engaged with school, and seems to be out sick pretty regularly.

"Where did you get that book?" he asked. I showed him the library sticker on the front of the book and told him that I had gotten it at the library in my neighborhood (which is not very far from the school). Thirty seconds later he was back. "Can you write down where that is?" he asked. By this time, we were standing in the hall as the kids headed off to specials.

"Sure," I replied. "As soon as I get back to my office, I'll write it down and bring it to you."

Soon, he was back again. This time he held a slightly rumpled piece of notebook paper and a stubby pencil. "Can you write it down now?" with more than a little urgency in his voice.

And that is why I became a teacher…