This holiday season, any child’s life would be made richer if they were given a present of one of the wonderful books by Katherine Paterson. Books that speak to the small, yet powerful, emotional moments in the life of any child, anywhere in the world. — Nancy Bo Flood
The first Katherine Paterson book I ever read was THE MASTER PUPPETEER published over thirty years ago. I was transported to 18th Century Japan and didn’t want to leave the world of puppetry and intrigue, even after I’d read the last page. What power to open the window to another world, another culture, another time and offer insight and compassion.
As a mother and teacher, I read BRIDGE TO TERABITHIA to my children, my college students (teachers in training) and to myself. With each reading, I discovered a new understanding of what it meant to be lonely, to have a friend, and to lose a friend.
Katherine Paterson is our country’s National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. Her message is simple and important: “Read for your life.”
In the October/ November 2010 issue of Reading Today (an International Reading Association publication) she offers these thoughts to those who guide and encourage young readers:
Never stop reading to your students.
Share your love – let them see that you love reading.
Read what you love – not what you think you should read.
Have students read books they’ll like.
Give students permission not to finish a book if they don’t like it.
Tell them it’s okay to read books they won’t be tested on. (28)
Katherine continues to write contemporary stories that present issues important to today’s readers. War affects families in many ways. DAY OF THE PELICAN is a book about a refugee family who must leave their home country, Albania, and begin again in the United States.
Katherine Paterson’s books are a gift, “a reciprocal gift between writer and reader: one heart in hiding reaching out to another” – her own words from her essay “Heart in Hiding.”
Debbie Gonzales here, proud ReaderKidZ contributor, with a list of four great books that I’ve given away as gifts this year, all very well received.
Desire to buy a book for the active, energetic young man in your life? A book that will both engage his full interest while tickling his funny bone? Looking for a book written by authors who know what a boy really likes? ThenGuys Read: Funny Business edited by Jon Scieszka is just the book for you.
Guy’s Read: Funny Business is a collection of ten short stories written by some of today’s best kid-lit writers, each loaded with laughs, surprises, and a whisper of a life’s lesson to be learned.
Funny, yet profound, Fiona Finkelstein, Big Time Ballerina will suit your delightful dancing diva to a T. Shawn Stout’s Fiona must overcome the strangle of stage fright to pursue her dream of dancing in The Nutcracker. In her quest to do so, Fiona encounters the ridicule of three girls in her dance class, discovers creative techniques to overcome self-doubt, and in the end becomes a television star!
Eventually, Fiona learns that constant focus on her problems only makes things worse. To quote Madame Vallee, Fiona’s ballet teacher, “Worry gives the small things a big shadow…It’s best to stay in the sun, Fiona dear .”(6)
On a more somber and sublime note, The Underneathwritten by Kathi Appelt is a marvelous choice for a mature reader. Any child who has known a dog’s soulful, unconditional love will fall in love with lonesome Ranger, you just can’t help but to do so.
The Underneath is a masterful tale of an unconventional family comprised of a soulful hound dog and two orphan kittens, as well an oppressive master named Gar Face, ancient shape-shifters Hawk Man and Night Song, a hungry alligator, and a mother’s love that runs as deep as eternity.
Compellingly written, this is a book that will stay with a reader long after the last page is turned. Keep a box of tissues nearby. They just might come in handy.
In it, Scanlon’s poetics ribbon through Frazee’s illustrations creating an illusion of strolling through life’s peaceful pleasures. Families at play. Vividly colored sunrises and sunsets. Stormy weather surrendering to the triumph of sunshine. Babies and children, mamas and daddies…a world of different types of people marvelously laced together with love.
This holiday season all of us at ReaderKidZ hope you will consider books such as these as gifts for the young readers in your life. Whatever book you choose, we hope that, amidst the busyness of the season, you will find the time to sit with a child and share in the delight of a great story.
GUYS READ: FUNNY BUSINESS is a special feature on Scieszka’s informative-yet-oh-so-wacky website Guys Read.
Take some time to peruse this fantastic website, particularly if you desire to find the perfect book for that delightfully energetic, intuitive boy in your life. For listings of great guy-friendly books categorized in groupings such as “Ghosts”, “Dragons”, “Robots”, “Scary”, “People Being Transformed into Animals,” and much more CLICK HERE.
In the post Johnson states, “In creating book trailers, the components of reading are also addressed. Creating trailers requires the effective use of story elements. In addition, students have to be able to read the book and effectively capture the tone and mood of it through a nominal amount of images, text, and music – all the while being mindful of not telling the whole story.”
Stout’s guide contains the analysis of a story arc using manipulative plot point cards based on the story of Cinderella. Following this fairy tale’s analysis, the reader is guided to do the same with Fiona’s story. What’s to stop a reader to then take the analysis a step further and create their very own book trailer like Johnson suggests?
Excerpt from “Picture Books in Winter,” A Child’s Garden of Verses by Robert Louis Stevenson
This month, we share some of our best book gift ideas. They may be our favorite books as children. Or new books we think any child will be richer for having discovered.
Give a book this year, and start (or keep) a child on a lifetime of reading discovery!
The holiday of lights is here
Good friends and happiness to share
Sweets with honey for us to eat
Candles to light and friends to greet
excerpt from ” Ocho Candelikas,” a Hanukkah song of the Sephardic Jewish tradition
In honor of Hanukkah, which begins in just a few days, the ReaderKidZ have collected a few favorites to add to your holiday reading list. Some are light-hearted, others, more serious. We hope you’ll find a new treasure among them. Enjoy.
Hanukkah Haiku is stunning, not only for the bright colorful art and overall book design, but also for the beautiful text, one poem to celebrate each new evening’s lit candle. The final double-page spread features some of the Hebrew and English blessings recited while lighting the candles.
As 97-year old Bubba Brayna prepares the last potato latke for her soon-to-arrive guests, a surprise visitor knocks – or rather, thumps – on her door. Because she’s getting on in years and her eyes and ears are not as sharp as they used to be, Bubba Brayna doesn’t realize that the guest who lumbers into her home grumbling and rrrumphing is not the rabbi she expected, but instead Old Bear, who’d followed the delicious smells to Bubba Brayna’s cozy home.
This book, published over ten years ago, is still a favorite classroom read-aloud each year.
A tender story about an older man, Morris, who rediscovers the blessing of friendship when two children, Ilana and Jonathan, invite him to spend the second evening of Hanukkah with their family.
While there, Morris begins to think back to the Hanukkahs he celebrated as a small boy in Poland. When he returns home later that evening, Morris searches his closet for the old box that holds a few items from his childhood: a metal cup, a torn shirt, a child’s hat, and an old menorah. He recalls an earlier time, years previous, when a “small yellow flower, a daffodil” bloomed just outside his barracks. Under the circumstances in which Morris lived at that time, the daffodil became for him a symbol of hope.
Ilana and Jonathan’s invitation to celebrate Hanukkah with their family sparks, as the daffodil had so many years before, a glimmer of hope as Morris, once again, rekindles some of the fond memories of his childhood.
“It is the evening before the twenty-fifth day of the Hebrew month of Kislev. It is time for the eight-day Jewish holiday of Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights.” So begins the account of one family’s Hanukkah celebration.
Seamlessly weaving historical background into the narrative, Fishman leaves readers feeling very much a part of this family’s celebrations. The warmth of the holiday, the joy of being together, and the inspirational significance of this historic event will resonate with readers.
From the Author’s Note: “This story of George Washington and Hanukkah is based on facts…It is know that in December 1778, Washington had lunch at the home of Michael Hart, a Jewish merchant in Easton, Pennsylvania… when Hart began to explain the holiday to the general, Washington… told the merchant and his family of meeting the Polish soldier at Valley Forge the year before.
HANUKKAH AT VALLEY FORGE is the story of this seemingly small historical anecdote, imagined and fictionalized by author, Stephen Krensky, into events as they might have taken place. Powerfully told, it presents the story of the Maccabees and the candles that blazed for eight days in a new and engaging way.
While the Mr. Silman lifts the shammes, says the prayers, and lights the first candle of Hanukkah, a family of kind mice watch and wait nearby. As young Rachel Silman admires her first Hanukkah gift, the mice share her excitement – the dollhouse is just their size!
Each day of Hanukkah brings Rachel another small treasure for the dollhouse – a wingback chair with a matching stool, little plates just right for tiny latkes, and more. As Rachel opens each new gift, the mice family delights to find that they, too, are mysteriously being included in the Hanukkah festivities.
Younger readers will especially enjoy the bright, lively illustrations and the delightful story that accompany them.
Mission Statement
To provide teachers, librarians, and parents with the resources and inspiration to foster a love of reading in kids, K-5.
PUPPETEER published over thirty years ago. I was transported to 18th Century Japan and didn’t want to leave the world of puppetry and intrigue, even after I’d read the last page. What power to open the window to another world, another culture, another time and offer insight and compassion.
Katherine continues to write contemporary stories that present issues important to today’s readers. War affects families in many ways. DAY OF THE PELICAN is a book about a refugee family who must leave their home country, Albania, and begin again in the United States.
