Books are great all year round no matter the season or the weather. No one month owns books. March, however, is one of my favorite times to celebrate books. That’s all thanks to my professor for one of my core literacy instruction classes and middle school instructional strategies when I was an undergraduate. He was the first one who ever mentioned Read Across America to me. He took a number of us down to the Milwaukee middle school where he had taught until the previous school year to do some readers’ theater. One of the things read was the riddle game from the Hobbit when Bilbo first meets Gollum and encounters The Ring. Guess who got to read Gollum? It was fantastic fun though eighth graders do eye you a bit oddly for hissing out ‘My Precious’. (I’m not one to equate standing in front of large groups of people with fantastic fun).

I ran into Read Across America again at my first school where I worked in several first grade classrooms. Read Across America was creating word families on Cat-in-the-Hat Hats. It was lists of the kids’ favorite books posted all around the school. It was teachers switching rooms at the start of the morning to be guest readers. It was opening the walls between two of the first grade rooms and running Seuss themed literacy centers. It was the first graders making the principal read with my stuffed Lorax next to him because The Lorax was his favorite Seuss book. It was also creating different wockets with a class. I made a quick sample for them and my ‘hocket’ is still up on a wall. It’s a hockey playing wocket.

Last year I had classes sign up to come up to the library to be read to for Read Across America. I loved getting to see other grade levels as I predominantly work with third and fourth grade. It was also a fun time to share some of my favorite newer books. This year we’re going to do things a little bit differently. We are expanding our reading celebrations throughout the month.

On March 2, I will be one of three guest readers available to read to different classrooms throughout the day. I’m planning on reading from the Bippolo Seed. On March 5 we will be starting a school wide graph of feet (in honor of the Foot Book) for the books that we read throughout the month. They’ll start going up by the office and I’m hoping they’ll get to wrap around the school by the time we are done.

For my monthly newsletter to the elementary staff I looked for some great resources about Dr. Seuss for Read Across America. Here are some of them:

Seussville – Home to video clips about the books, author information, games, activities and more. The biography includes an interactive timeline. There is a teacher’s section too.

Teachingbooks.net (Subscription. In WI, your public library provides this for you if you have a library card)

Read Across America – You can see the cast of the Lorax rhyming about reading.

Read Across America resources from Apple4theteacher

The Cat in the Hat Knows A Lot

Scholastic Read Across America article and resources – http://www.scholastic.com/teachers/top-teaching/2011/02/preparing-read-across-america-day

BrainPOP Jr – (Subscription site) Celebrate authors Jon Scieszka and Cynthia Ryland with their BrainPOP Jr. movies as well

What are some of your favorite Dr. Suess/Read Across America Resources?

Read Across America isn’t the only reason March is a great month for books. There’s also World Read Aloud Day. More on that tomorrow!

Abby is desperate for a pet. Her parents insist on living in a tiny and calm house. Most pets are definitely not tidy-dogs chew to many things, cats claw too many things. Even goldfish are turned down because of how they stare when they swim (or so Abby’s mother says). The only way Abby ever gets a pet is when it’s temporary like last year when the class rabbit spent the night. The rabbit didn’t like Abby’s trampoline at all, but it was still better than no pet at all.

Mrs. Melvino, Abby’s new teacher, has a class pet too. It’s one Abby would love to take home. Max looks like a lot more fun than something that needs things to be nice and quiet. He roams around during class, sometimes tugging on a shoelace or sitting on the kids’ feet. He looks like the perfect temporary pet even if he doesn’t come when he is called. Max isn’t a hamster, a rabbit or a guinea pig. He’s not a dog or a cat either. Max is a duck.

When Abby’s classmate asks if students can take Max home, Mrs. Melvino explains there won’t be a class rotation. For Max to go home with a student that student has to meet the duck’s demands. He can’t go anywhere cats live or where there are ferrets. The yard must be secure and there has to be an aquatic environment for Max.

Abby and her classmates start planning. They offer plan after to plan to their teacher only to have them turned down. Swimming pools are definitely out. A bathtub won’t work for overnight. Abby changes her plan again and again, trying to earn a chance to take Max home while her neighbor Noah is also fighting to get Max to his home.

This is a funny early chapter book with great comic relief provided by Max, the duck with the brown speckled feathers and smooth orange beak. Abby and Noah’s antagonism as they compete to earn Max feels very real and I liked how they had to come to work together in this book. The sketches throughout the book are lighthearted. Duck for a Day would be an entertaining addition to any children’s collection.

This book was originally published in Australia and will be released in the U.S. on Febraury 28, 2012. I read a copy of this book through NetGalley.

View all my reviews

Miss Annie’s not much more than a kitten. Energetic and easily distracted, Miss Annie narrates her everyday life. From fighting with slippery pens on off limits desks to taking on enemy leaves, there’s plenty to do while guarding the house. Yet Miss Annie longs to go outside even if her owners think she is too young.

Stuck inside, Miss Annie begins to befriend a small mouse she names Keshia. One day the cat discovers a new scent on the air–fresh air. A window was left open and Miss Annie rushes out onto a tree branch in spite of the warnings Keshia gives her. An older cat directs Annie to climb higher. While this didn’t worry Annie at all, it made me a bit nervous as I wondered who that cat was and what he wanted.

The illustrations do a great job of capturing Miss Annie’s playful spirit in this short graphic novel. I think this would be a good story to read with younger elementary students and would be a better independent read for third-fourth grade. I read an electronic review copy of this book from NetGalley.

View all my reviews

Golden Archer Primary

Winner: Here Comes The Big, Mean Dust Bunny by Jan Thomas

Runner Up: Knuffle Bunny Free by Mo Willems

Golden Archer Intermediate

Winner: Framed by Gordon Korman

Runner Up:   Last Olympian by Rick Riordan

I’m looking forward to the end of March when we’ll find out the Golden Archer winners at the state level.

Jen and Kellee from Teach Mentor Texts started a weekly meme about what people are reading and reviewing in children’s and young adult literature. It’s a great way to see what others are reading.

Last Week’s Reading Adventures

Two things were a big influence on my reading this week. One was the latest arrival of Junior Library Guild books in my library. The other was the Anderson’s Children’s Literature Breakfast. The breakfast event was amazing. Katherine Applegate, Gordon Korman, Jane O’Conner, David Small and Augusta Scattergood were delightful presenters. I’ll hopefully have more to share on that wonderful event later this week. I ended up with nine new books, most of which are going to school.

Picture Books:

A Boy Called Dickens by Deborah Hopkinson is an imaginative retelling of what Charles Dickens’s life may have been like as a child based on the few details known today of his early life.

Ellen’s Broom by Kelly Starling Lyons is the story of how a family became married by law during reconstruction instead of just having been commonly married by jumping over a broom when they were slaves.

George Washington’s Birthday: A Mostly True Tale by Margaret McNamara provides a fun glimpse at the myths and facts of Washington’s childhood. I liked his first person afterward at the end. I hope to find a class to share this with tomorrow.

Nothing Like a Puffin by Sue Soltis. This clever, funny book of comparisons had me taking it down the hallway to offer to teachers to use in their classes as soon as I finished it.

Mustache by Mac Barneet. This is the ridiculous story of a king who thought putting up pictures of himself was more important than repairing roads.

Otto the Book Bear by Katie Clemenson appeals to the librarian and writer in me. A bear comes out of the pages of his book to find the real world to be a hazardous place until he finds the library.

The Really Awful Musicians by John Manders. There are musicians. There’s the decree of the king banning them. There’s a horse who draws out music and there’s a sackbut. Need I say more?

I Don’t Want to Be a Pea by Ann Bonwill is a light-hearted look at friendship trouble between two unlikely friends getting ready for a party.

Penny and Her Song by Kevin Henkes is a charmingly illustrated reader. I can’t wait to see Henkes at a bookstore event in March.

The Big Fat Cow That Goes Kapow by Andy Griffiths made me laugh. I enjoyed the Seussian feel of some of the illustrations.

Just as Good by Chris Crowe is a great civil rights and baseball picture book relating Larry Doby joining the Cleveland Indians and what that meant for major league baseball.

Graphic Novels:

Nursery Rhyme Comics: 50 Timeless Rhymes by 50 celebrated cartoonists. This is a brilliant anthology. Love the Nick Bruel, Patrick McDonnel and Raina Telgemeier pieces (and too many others to properly count).

Fiction:

Wonder by R. J. Palacio. Wow. This is a superb novel with its intertwining first person perspectives. Just Wow.

Nonfiction:

Reviews: I posted reviews for The One and Only Ivan and A Leaf Can Be.

This Week’s Reading Adventures

:

I’ve started this week off by blogging about Wonder. I feel like I could go on and on about this wonderful book. I’m so thankful I heeded the advice of all the teachers and librarians I’ve seen reading it and read this book.

I need to finish up A Diamond in the Desert this week. I also want to start on Stella Batts and Blood & Flowers, two of the other books I picked up from the Anderson’s Children’s Literature Breakfast. I want to read Kindred Souls this week as well as The Might Miss Malone, which was postponed from last week. Taking a peek at my NetGalley account, I still need to blog about Freedom, a graphic novel about a cat.. I also need to read Duck for a Day this week.

R.J. Palacio has created an amazing, heart-wrenching book in Wonder that will leave you cheering in the end for Auggie and the family he forms around him. Told in eight voices ranging from Auggie to his sister’s first high school boyfriend, Wonder is the story of one boy’s first year of middle school. This is a book that must be shared.

Starting middle school is rough. New kids, new classes, new places to get lost, and new people to make fun of you. Auggie is taken to his new middle school weeks before the new year begins to meet Mr. Tushman, the principal of Beecher Prep. Once there, Auggie is upset to learn that he’s not only meeting the principal but that there are students there to show him around. Jack Will, Julian and Charlotte are all incoming fifth graders. They’re all supposed to be nice kids, at least according to their lower grade teachers and they’ve been at Beecher Prep since they were in kindergarten. Yet only Charlotte can meet Auggie’s eyes without looking down afterwards. Julian goes out of his way to avoid touching Auggie and keeps watching him out of the corner of his eyes.

The strange looks are nothing new, even though Auggie’s never been to school before. Twenty-seven surgeries, his size and other medical complications kept him homeschooled at home with his mother until the start of fifth grade. Now that the next surgery is a few years away, Auggie’s mother wants him to start attending school. Auggie’s worried how the other kids will react to him. On the inside, Auggie feels like an ordinary kid, but kids have run away at the sight of him before.

Auggie’s fifth grade journey has its dark moments filled with pain, such as Halloween when he overhears a friend say he only hangs out with Auggie because a teacher asked him or when the family dog becomes gravely ill. It has its brilliant moments, such as when Summer sits down beside August at lunch that very first day when no one else will.

I loved getting inside the head of so many people in Auggie’s life and seeing why they behaved the way they did. Jack Will’s chapters brought new light on what had happened earlier and brought home what it felt like to have a school turn on him after he stood up to Julian. Via’s chapters rang with love for her brother but also with her shamed desire to not be defined by him. One of my favorite sections in this book came from Justin, Via’s boyfriend. He didn’t even know about Auggie until the third date. Even though Olivia prepped him for the first meeting, Justin is surprised by what he sees in August. He’s determined to make things work out. That isn’t what endears Justin to me as a reader. Rather it is how Justin is accepted by Auggies family and how that acceptance eases his tics. It’s in how this awkward musical boy decides to help Jack and Auggie. One of the most surprising set of chapters came from Via’s former close friend Miranda because it showed how much one girl wanted a family like Via’s even with all it’s difficulties.

The characters laugh and cry their way off the pages in Wonder. The adults and children all have foibles. Some are terribly flawed. All of them are alive. The nature retreat at the end and its aftermath are riveting, an unforgettable emotional roller coaster in a wonder of a book.

View all my reviews

I first read this book as a digital galley from Net Galley.

A Leaf Can Be is imaginative nonfiction at its best. By exploring the different jobs a leaf could have from mouth filler to ground warmer, rain stopper to nest warmer this book is a great discussion starter to use with children to see if they can think of other jobs leafs play in nature or as an jumping to board to create fiction based on one of these jobs. This book also lends itself well to studying the seasons as all four seasons are represented in this book as well.

Violetta Dabija has created stunning illustrations for this book. Muted colors are used and layered to create an almost luminescent feel. The expressions on the animals and people throughout the book are charmingly expressive.

At the end of the book is a section called More About Leaves. Each leaf job is more fully explained here. These simple descriptions lend themselves to science connections and inquiry. A small glossary and bibliography of print resources about leaves complete this nonfiction offering that would be a great fit for any elementary school classroom or library.

View all my reviews

Picture a mall. Can you see shops? Food? Kids? A billboard? How about a gorilla? Ivan the silverback lives in a small domain inside the Exit 8 Big Top Mall. Ivan’s closest friends are Bob, a stray dog and Stella, an elephant. Ivan hasn’t seen another gorilla since his sister Tag died on their way to the United States from Africa.

Ivan loves art. He first discovered crayons thanks to Julia, the mall janitor’s daughter. Ivan always draws things that are real, things that he can see around him. Many of the pictures are of food or leftover bits of food. Bananas are one of his favorite subjects. When Mack, the Big Top Mall owner, discovers Ivan’s artistic habits, he begins selling the pictures.

The mall isn’t doing well when Mack brings in a new elephant, a baby named Ruby. Stella is very worried for the kind of life this youngester will face. When Stella falls ill and is dying she makes Ivan promise to care for Ruby, to see she makes it to a better place than the mall.

Ruby brings new life to Ivan. Watching Westerns and romances is no longer enough. Living in a day to day haze is no longer enough. Her questions lead Ivan to remember. For years, not remembering has been Ivan’s habit. He prefers not to think of his past, either with his family in Africa or as a young gorilla who didn’t have to stay confined to the mall. But soon he is telling what he does remember of the past to Ruby.

The young elephant also brings a new urgency to Ivan’s art. He paints picture after picture, each one a seeming blob of color when seen alone. He hides them around his domain, especially after Mack discovers Ivan can paint. All the little pictures lead toward one goal, but will anyone understand what Ivan is telling in his art?

As a reader, I have cried at perhaps a handful of titles in my life. The One and Only Ivan is one of them. Katherine Applegate’s novel so compelled me that I finished it up in one sentence. It is a beautiful book about friendship and endurance. Ivan, Stella, Bob and Ruby fall into their readers’ hearts. Filled with pain, this is also a book of hope and the bonds between those who care about each other.

Told in a sequence of short chapters, this book could make a great read aloud for upper elementary school students. The One and Only Ivan is a truly remarkable book that begs to be shared. Possible classroom connections include animal rights and activism. Students could also learn about the real Ivan the book was based upon and how animals acclimate to new surroundings after a rescue.

View all my reviews

Jen and Kellee from Teach Mentor Texts started a weekly meme about what people are reading and reviewing in children’s and young adult literature. It’s a great way to see what others are reading.

Previous Reading Adventures: The Highlights

I’ve missed a few weeks of this for family reasons. I’ll give a few highlights to get things caught up.

Picture Books:

Petunia Goes Wild by Paul Schmid – A girl who’d rather be an animal proposes she become her parents’ pet, much to their horror.

Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett – A girl brightens her town and everyone in it with colorful knitting that attracts the attention of a greedy outsider. Readers of I Want My Hat Back will love a few cameos in the illustrations.

Mr. Prickles: A Quill-Fated Love Story by Kara LaReau – The other animals don’t include Mr. Prickles and he is all alone until he meets Miss Pointypants.

Dinosaur Mardi Gras by Dianne de las Casas – Mardi Gras is a stomping good time with this book.

Snowmen All Year by Caralyn Buehner – What would a boy do with his snowman if he could stay all year without melting?

Graphic Novels:

Giants Beware by Jorge Aguirre – It isn’t good enough that a giant was chased out of town. Claudette vows to slay the creature while aided by her brother, the pastry chef and sword-maker to be, and her friend, a princess in training.

The Flying Beaver Brothers and the Fishy Business by Maxwell Eaton III – A volcano has popped up overnight on Beaver Island and there’s something sinister about the Fish Stix business.

Fangbone by Michael Rex – Sent to Earth from his faraway home, Fangbone must survive third grade to create an army to depend the Big Toe of Drool.

Squish the Power of the Parasite by Jennifer and Matt Holm – What seems like Super Awesome Fun may not be so fun after all for Squish.

Fiction:

Bink and Gollie, Two for One by Kate DiCamillo – This second in the series is wonderful, giving both girls a chance to shine (and make me laugh).

39 Clues: Legacy by Clifford Riley – This is part of the Rapid Fire arc of stories. It takes place before Maze of Bones and I found the backstory interesting.

The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate – This is absolutely, unbelievably awesome.

Nonfiction:

Basketball Belles by Sue Macy – the story of the first collegiate women’s basketball game.

A Butterfly is Patient by Dianna Hutts Aston – a gentle and beautiful nonfiction picture book.

The Case of the Vanishing Golden Frogs by Sandra Markle – an interesting scientific mystery and search for answers for upper elementary school.

How the Dinosaurs Got to the Museum by Jessie Hartland – this would be great for an elementary dinosaur or fossil unit.

Zooborns: Zoo Babies from Around the World by Andrew Bleiman – This adorable book is perfect for a sad day.

Audiobooks:

Joe Sherlock: The Haunted Toolshed by Dave Keane – a mystery series that is a bit on the slapstick side.

Stink and the Great Guinea Pig Express by Megan Macdonald – This is an entertaining story though the children’s voices were a bit grating.

White Cat by Holly Black (relisten) – I love, love, love Jesse Eisenberg’s performance as Cassel Sharpe.

This Week’s Reading Adventures

:

This week I’m hoping to read either Wonder or The Mighty Miss Malone. I need to blog about A Leaf Can Be and Freedom this week after reading their Netgalley arcs. I hope to write a review for the One and Only Ivan as well.

I’m looking forward to listening to some great authors and meeting some fantastic librarians and teachers at the Anderson’s Bookshop Children’s Literature Breakfast this next weekend.

Laura (@LibLaur5) and Anna (@a_to_z_library) are co-hosting the Caldecott Challenge. If you’d like to join this stress free challenge to read the Caldecott winners and honor books, visit the initial sign up post.

Challenge Titles read so far: 31
Oldest in this group: Marshmallow (1943 Award)
Newest in this group: My Mother is the Most Beautiful in the World (1946 Honor)
My favorite of this group: Marshmallow
Books with a library: 0
Books with a lion: 1
Titles in this group: 5

Here are the covers and favorite illustrations from this batch of reads. It was a small group this time because I was carried away with the One and Only Ivan yesterday.