The lazy days of summer are rapidly approaching. What better time for children to immerse themselves in books? Series can stretch over days and weeks. New genres can be explored. Books can be tucked into bags for vacations, camp, a trip to the beach, or to stay with grandparents.
This month, ReaderKidZ enlisted the help of some young reading friends around the country to come up with a list of great books. We have some suggestions of our own, but what better way to find a good book than to hear about it out of the mouths of the children who read them?
If you know young readers, tell them to come visit us here throughout May for some exciting book ideas from kids just like them. Feel free to add some great K-5 recommendations of your own!
Like her previously published, Comprehension Connections (Heinemann, 2007), Genre Connections: Lessons to Launch Literary and Nonfiction Texts by Tanny McGregor (Heinemann, 2013) is a great go-to resource for teachers looking for concrete, hands-on lessons that introduce students to “Big Idea” concepts. I particularly love Tanny’s idea of launching a unit of study on poetry by asking, “How is a poem like a jar?” She writes, “Some kids understand the metaphor right away, while others listen in and learn from their peers. No surprise here: their responses correlate directly with the kind of exposure and experience they’ve had with poetry in the past.”
As students move through the lesson sequence, they’re encouraged to explore a small collection of unrelated poems and uncover common attributes. Tanny calls this process, “Noticing and Naming the Genre.” Collective observations recorded by students might be phrases such as: Poetry can… be short or long, be written in any shape or form, surprise us, have lots of white space, may break the rules of capitalization and/or punctuation, and be written with or without rhyme.
The lesson then moves into what Tanny calls “Sensory Exercises” – listening to music (she recommends Ella Fitzgerald) and sharing art (her suggestion, Robert Rauschenberg). Students discuss ways in which poetry is similar to Ella’s musical style and Rouschenberg’s reshaping and redefining of found objects.
She then offers a read-aloud suggestion – Love That Dog, by Sharon Creech to further discussion, and finally, a return to consider and chart students’ evolved poetry schema.
This multiple lesson series is just one, very strong way to allow students extended time to explore what poetry is and can be for them. All this, as one among other ways teachers already use to open up the Big Idea – “What is Poetry?”
Tanny offers a short list of additional resources for guiding students to write and share poetry. There are, of course, many others than those listed, but what I like about this book is that it serves as one additional tool a teacher can add to her poetry toolbox, mixing and matching lesson ideas with others she’s already found successful.
Poetry is only one of the genres offered in the books. Others are: Drama, Biography, Historical Fiction, Informational Text, etc. The book is short and to the point – important for busy teachers.
If you haven’t explored Marilyn Nelson’s poetry and narratives, you are in for a literary feast. Her new picture book reads soft and soothing – with surprises and delights with phrasing that is part poetry, part narrative. SNOOK ALONE tells the story of a faithful little rat-terrier dog, Snook, who dutifully catches the mice and varmints for his best friend, Abba Jacob, a hermit of a monk who lives alone on a small island. The book is illustrated in colors of sweeping sea breezes by Timothy Basil Ering.
Tragedy happens. A storm separates Snook from his one and only friend, and Snook is “all alone in the world of fierceness and wonder.” With subtlety we follow Snook and observe the power of faith. The book includes a beginning quote from Ingmar Bergman: “Faith is…like loving someone who is out there in the darkness but never appears no matter how loudly you call.” This book is very different from the powerful but darker poetry found in other books by Marilyn Nelson. The power in SNOOK is soft, bright and comforting. A beautiful book, published by Candlewick, 2010.
Fans of Valerie Worth’s all the small poems and fourteen morewill enjoy her second posthumous collection. I have many favorites, each with Worth’s striking observations. Here’s a snippet – from “Toads”:
Kids are fascinated with bugs and what child or adult hasn’t stopped to marvel at the interesting faces of these fascinating creatures? J. Patrick Lewis’ kid-friendly sensibilities choose just the right features, focusing, for example on the stingbug’s “uncommon scents” – “Yes, you’re the clever creature/That everybody thinks/Is quite a thing of beauty,/But sometimes beauty stinks.” Paired with Siskind’s bug face close-ups, and Murphy’s additional illustrated narrative, this is a book children will want to linger over.
Anthologies with large themes such as “Animals” are a thrilling find for a classroom teacher, and this collection is no exception. With categories such as, “the big ones”, “the little ones”,”the strange ones”, and “the quiet ones” this book has everything. Robert Frost, Christina Georgina Rossetti, Alice Schertle, Kristine O’Connell George, and Rebecca Kai Dotlich are just of few of the stunning poets of over 200 children’s poems about the animal kingdom. Photographs from National Geographic add to the magic.
Inside his cozy home, a boy works at a desk, a dog hides, two mice play together on the floor. Through the window (a die-cut), the reader watches two snowmen. What are they doing? Turn the page…outside, the puppy helps the boy roll a big snowball, birds track across the snow, all join in on the fun.
This delightful wordless book invites readers to explore, look long, savor each page. Can you find the two mice playing throughout? A cat? The turtle?
It’s really charming. I can easily see a K-1 teacher using this book as an entrée to shared writing and storytelling.
Shapes are all around us. The round circle moon, square letters on a board game, crunchy chips in the shape of triangles: “Round are tortillas and tacos, too./Round is a pot of abuela’s stew. /I can name more round things. Can you?” Spanish is seamlessly sprinkled throughout and Latino-themed objects add an additional layer of meaning to these universal concepts. Enjoy this book with a kindergartener or 1st grader.
This book is really for the youngest ReaderKidZ – those who aren’t quite old enough to grace the doors of a Kindergarten class. But what I like about it, is the way it very simply introduces a child to the busy world of the airport. Taking a trip with young ones this Spring? You should check out this book. With few words, and clean, crisp illustrations, this book will escort readers through the airport – from the front door, to the check-in desk, through security, the gate, and beyond!
Juanito is bewildered by his new country, his new neighborhood, and especially, his new school. Everything feels upside down. His father reassures him:
“Don’t worry, Chico… Everything changes. A new place has new leaves on the trees and blows fresh air into your body.”
Juanito is not convinced: “I don’t speak English… Will my tongue turn into a rock?” For Juanito, it feels like his tongue does turn into a very heavy rock.
A caring teacher and his loving family help Juanito regain his voice through poetry, art, and music. Juan Felipe Herrera’s delightful language and the colorful illustrations of Elizabeth Gómez capture every child’s experience of feeling scared, maybe cold as stone, when facing a new experience. Not only a wonderful picture book of poetry, The Upside Down Boy is a special opportunity to read in both English and Spanish.
Juan Felipe Herrera and The Most Incredible & Biggest Poem on Unity in The World
In March of 2012, Juan Felipe Herrera was appointed the Poet Laureate for the state of California. As poet laureate, Herrera reached out to the community to help him compile “the most incredible & biggest poem on unity in the world”. Herrera launched a Facebook page dedicated to compiling all contributions: “Put your Unity into Action – write a poem for unity – or a phrase or a line. All languages, bilingual too – to create one collective poem for all to see.” Everyone, help create the largest poetry project about unity that has ever been attempted. More information can be found HERE.
Herrera also gives tribute to the Newtown, Connecticut, shooting tragedy through another community poetry project. He is calling for contributions to a Newtown Poetry Wall in honor of those who were killed: “Let’s put our efforts into ending violence wherever it may rise.”
Add your voice to these unique projects and be a part of history. Mail your words to:
My Father’s Arms are a Boat, by Stein Erik Lunde, illustrated by Oyvind Torseter. A little boy, unable to sleep, crawls into his father’s arms on a quiet winter’s night. Will his mother come back? the boy asks. “No, not from where she is now,” his father says, and then the wise man carries the boy, warmly wrapped, outside to look at the starry, eternal night, while a red fox roams quietly through the towering, silent spruce. There is loss here, but there is tremendous love and, finally, great hope. Everything will be all right.
Lunde’s poetic, gentle picture book was awarded the Norwegian Ministry’s Culture Prize for the Best Book for Children and Youth and nominated for the 2011 German Children’s Literature Award. Torseter’s remarkable illustrations in cut paper and watercolor are spare and moving. One of Norway’s most acclaimed illustrators, Torseter has been nominated for the 2012 ALMA Award and the Hans Christian Andersen Award.
Mission Statement
To provide teachers, librarians, and parents with the resources and inspiration to foster a love of reading in kids, K-5.
