I am so thankful for a recent opportunity that rolled around for our school book room! Each year, the Williamsburg Regional Library buys numerous copies of the Battle of the Books texts so that many copies of the books can be in circulation during the busy prep months for 4th and 5th grade students. After the competition, the library has more copies than it needs to keep in circulation of the texts.
The children's services department allowed local schools to come out and obtain sets of books so that they may be given a second life in an instructional way. The library gave away the titles as whole sets, ranging from 8-15 books in each set. Fellow teachers at our school graciously came out on their own time to help pick up books for our school, too! :) I am very grateful to them for their support!
MW teachers, I will be shelving books as complete sets over the next couple of weeks. (I put two sets on the fourth grade shelf today! :) They will either be a part of the 3rd, 4th, or 5th grade collections, depending upon the difficulty of the text. Although a few are titles we do own, they will serve as much needed replacement copies of worn texts, or help beef up the size of a set. Here are the titles that we were able to acquire. You can click on the titles to learn more about the books. Enjoy!
Are you looking for
some multicultural book selections that you can pull up on your computer
in just a couple of clicks? You do want to add a little spice to read aloud time up by
showing an electronic version of a trade book text on your computer
projection screen? I have found some gems for you!
This true story is about a boy named William who is fourteen
years old and lives in Malawi. At the time, the people of his village
were struggling with a drought and losing their crops. William overcomes
great challenges by going to the library and studying how he could
recycle materials that he had access to in order to create a windmill.
This windmill brought electricity to William's village and became a hero to his community. This book is based on the adult version of the book with the same name, which was a New York Times bestseller.
Here is a video "sneak peek" about The Hallelujah Flight that
was constructed as a project by fourth and fifth grade students at Caldwell Heights Elementary School in Round Rock, Texas. Here's the YouTube clip:
Tumblebooks - This site is a subscription site. However, if you go to Williamsburg Regional Library website (in Virginia), they have a subscription to the site, and you can enter the site by clicking on the library's name here.
Here are a just a few samples of the various titles that you can find on Tumblebooks:
This rhyming text shares a visit to a grocery store between a toddler
and his mother. If you visit Harcourt Brace's official page for Bebe Goes Shopping, you will be able to see and share a bilingual dictionary
based on language from the text. For those of you who love to share how
authors and illustrators draft and plan their real work, there are draft illustrations that you can share with the children as well. Tumblebooks also has a games page to go with this text. You can play Spell Hop and Word Search in addition to watching and listening to the book.
Suki's Kimono Written by: Chieri Uegaki and Illustrated by: Stephanie Jorish (Kids Can Press, 2005) Suki's favorite thing to wear is her kimono, and she is proud to share her love of her culture and memories she shared with her obachan (grandmother.) Her enthusiasm leads her to share about a special dance with her classmates. Suki's has the best first day of school ever because of her pride of sharing her culture. You can look at the book through Google Books as well.
The granddaughter in this book is surrounded by the love of both sets
of her grandparents on the weekends. On Saturdays, she visits with her
grandparents on one side of the family, and on Domingos (Sundays), she
visits the grandparents on the other side of her family who speak
Spanish. Alma Flor Ada has written numerous children's books that
celebrate Hispanic culture. Be sure to check out more of her titles at her website and the library!
Here is a bonus! One of my favorite sites about early literacy, Reading
Rockets, which is from WETA, the PBS station in Washington D.C. This
video is an interview posted by Reading Rockets and it is a little over
13 minutes long. It gives great insight into how she learned English and
became an author. Be sure to explore her many other texts for a great
author's study of her style of crafting writing.
Reading Rockets also has an excellent section to celebrate Black History Month, which you can explore by clicking here.
There are additional video interviews with authors, book lists,
activity suggestions, and sources of background information. Be sure to
bookmark and explore the bounty of information here. :)
Our school division is embracing the 6 +1 Traits of Writing. The traits were developed by author Ruth Culham. Currently, our school is focusing on learning more about highlighting the trait of voice. Voice is the way writing comes alive! It sounds like the writer or the main character is sharing his or her story right in person. There's nothing dull or plain about it, and it grabs your interest. It's clear what the author's purpose is with the writing as well. Writing has a great voice when an author adds descriptive vocabulary, gives a story a unique spin, and brings a heartbeat to the writing!
I've listed a few of my favorite examples to highlight voice in a variety of ways. Please click on the book titles or author names for links to more information about them. :)
Enemy Pie by Derek Munson Told in a first person voice, the story is expressive and there is a honest voice present that kids can identify with. The book has its own website at: http://enemypie.com/blog1/. One of my favorite websites for writing instruction inspiration, Writing Fix, has a lesson where Enemy Pie is used with other traits that are focused on: ideas and organization. You can view it through Williamsburg Regional Library's subscription to Tumblebooks storybooks online. Also, you can watch it being read aloud on the Storyline website: http://www.storylineonline.net/
Alice the Fairyby David Shannon Scholastic, who publishes many of Culham's professional resources, has an example voice lesson posted on its website that you can access by clicking here. You can go directly to a three page PDF of mini-charts from Scholastic through this lesson as well. You can show the charts under the document camera, paraphrase them on a larger chart intermingled with class comments about the book, or keep as a growing anchor collection of mini-charts for the classroom.
This book is told in a game show format, "hosted" by Bob Beetle. Miller writes in the voice of Bob, and the author creates a clear, distinctive character that sounds just like you are sitting in the audience. It grabs the attention of the reader and they stay tuned for the whole "episode!" Great texts to connect this story to are Harry Bliss's Diary of a Worm/Spider/Fly trio.
The Night I Followed the DogBy Nina Laden This is a first person narrative of an evening of a boy investigating a night in his dog's life, which leads to many surprises! You can read the entire text online through Tumblebooks courtesy of Williamsburg Regional Library.
Thank-You, Mr. Falker by Patricia Polacco - This is a memoir from Polacco's childhood. Her voice of worry, being upset, and relief as a student who struggled as a reader come out clearly in the word choice throughout the story. Polocco is a master storyteller because her voice is authentic and knowing. I highly recommend doing an author study on Patricia Polacco. Her texts that are written as memoirs show how everyone has a story to tell and a voice to share. As I say, she "makes the ordinary extraordinary just by writing it down!"
One Green Apple by Eve Bunting Bunting wrote this story as an internal conversation spoken by the main character who is trying to find her words and confidence in English. It's an interesting way to look at a book where the main character is literally seeking to find her own voice. Eve Bunting, who is one of my favorite authors to do an author study with students, writes in a distinct style that helps the reader understand this character's perspective in a wonderful way. When she does indeed find her voice, it is clear that she is empowered and has unlocked the power of sharing your own voice.
Nothing Ever Happens on 90th Street by Roni Schotter
In this book, a girl named Eva searches for ideas for writing. The voices of characters are distinct throughout the book as each gives their advice for Eva about writing. The advice includes ideas such as to watch around yourself carefully, don't neglect the details, "try to find the poetry in your pudding" (use words in a new way), stretch the truth when needed, and make something happen rather than waiting for it. You can also tie in discussing character traits as each character is distinct in this text. Check out a great guide for a lesson on one of my favorite sources of inspiration for writing lessons. This site is called Writing Fix, and the lesson also features two more traits of discussing ideas and word choice. Scholastic also features a lesson on their teacher resources section of their website.
I will post about more texts that are great for voice and various traits throughout the year, so stay tuned! :)
I am sharing some posts which help to illustrate various ways to look at the author's voice and how the art of writer's craft is studied in an author's study. I originally posted this on my prior blog called Under the Tree and Reading. I was a second grade classroom teacher when I wrote this post. The book Here We All Are (or the first book in the series 26 Fairmont Avenue) by Tomie dePaola can be used with 2-4 graders.
DePaola, T. (2000). Here We All Are. G.P. Putnam's Sons. Tomie
DePaola is always one of the first featured authors I delved into
studying with my second graders each fall. My personal favorites of his
are the ones that are auto-biographical in nature, perhaps partially or
fully inspired by the truth. His distinctive drawing style is
recognizable in any of his books, whether it's a story relating to his
childhood or to series such as Strega Nona, the Barkers, or Bill and
Pete. In his "26 Fairmont Avenue" series of memoirs, he writes the
collection in beginning chapter book style, with illustrations that are
in printed in black and white (except on the cover.) Here We All
Are is the second in the series. This follows the book that launched the series, 26 Fairmont Avenue, which was a
Newbery Honor winner.
In Here We All Are, Tomie is 5
years old in this selection that picks up where the first memoir left
off, and he writes in the voice and perspective of a young child, which
makes his writing so accessible to children who love
to “reflect on the good old days of when they were young.”
(Kindergarten was so long ago to them, you know!) The voice DePaola
writes in as Tomie is fresh and casual, nothing stuffy or all knowing at
all, and that’s what my kids like. It’s like hearing him on the tape
where he is talking to them, not at them. With the prior knowledge of
our autobiographical picture books, the students and I viewed a DePaola video clip. The students loved
the first 26 Fairmount Avenue so much, I picked up the second
one which I didn’t have. They felt like they were getting to sit and
"visit" with him again. One of the things the kids laughed at was when
Tomie said that his mom told him his furniture was “genuine maple” and
“When no one was looking, I liked the bedpost to see if it tasted like
maple syrup or the maple candies we got sometimes. It didn’t.” You can
hear his disappointment punctuated with the two word sentence at the
end, but the kids think it’s cool that he shared that goofy,
embarrassing thing he did as a child with them. Just as when I read the
first book in the series, the students were able to make text-to-text
connections to some of his picture books, such as when he discusses how
his Kindergarten teacher mixed powder paints and how awful they were (as
in The Art Lesson.) He also explains things in a simple,
concise way if he feels the reader may not understand, such as what a
lavatory is or a “monitor top” refrigerator, so to introduce a few
things from the past without going overboard. The kids get to “visit”
with Tom and his Nana again, just like in the picture book Tom,
and hear about Nana Fall River visiting to take care of him when his
new baby sister is born. Overall, this edition is a light, fresh read of
DePaola reminiscing with the reader at a very readable, identifiable
level.
One quote that I have printed up that DePaola said I
extract from his website is when he says that his job as an illustrator is to “make the
invisible visible.” Three more that I highlight with my students comes
from his video tape which we have at our school media center. One quote
is: “Be willing to practice over and over again. Be willing to fix your
writing.” The second is: “If you read books, you can read everything
about anything and anything about everything.” The last one is: “If you
want to be a writer, you have to read, because that’s how you learn
about writing.” I think those three quotes are particularly powerful
because my students hear Tomie talking to them as near equals, and I
always try to set that tone with my students. They are being told they
are not just writers, but authors. With DePaola’s role modeling of fun
fantasy stories as well as his memoirs straight from everyday
memories from growing up where he remembers what it’s like to be a kid,
my students seem to have a special respect for him. DePaola is a mentor author to these apprenticing students who are finding their own voice as authors!
What child doesn't find some animal interesting? Do you remember the true story about an unusual relationship between a gorilla named Koko and a pet kitty? It was featured in the book
Koko's Kitten (Reading Rainbow Book)by Dr. Francine Patterson and Ronald H. Cohn(Scholastic, 1987). Well, there's so many great books that have come out about animal relationships over the past five years that sharing one for a read aloud is easy to do! These texts make for a great way to incorporate comparing and contrasting, as well as great writing springboards. Even the most reluctant readers are intrigued at these unusual relationships. Here are a few of the great titles that you can feature with elementary age students. Whether in K or 5th grade, there's a selection that you can use. These true stories full of real photos act as a great venue for describing acceptance, resiliency, and being adaptable. Your children will be entranced!
This is a story of a runt pig named Pink who is brought indoors to be taken care of. The mother dachshund of the house, Tink, adopts Pink into her litter. This is great for Kindergarten and first graders. Here's a bonus! You can read it online for FREE via the great website We Give Books. Click here to go directly to that link, and you can share it with your students up on the computer screen or enjoy it at home with your family. :)
Tarra is a elephant resident at a sanctuary in Tennessee. She came there because she is a former circus animal. Bella, a stray yellow lab, sneaks in and Tarra and Bella form a loyal bond that's unbreakable. Their dedication to one another is certainly proven after Bella suffered a serious spinal injury. Tarra doesn't leave Bella's side throughout it all! :) Now that's loyalty! Here's a video where you can learn more about Tarra and Bella.
Roscoe, who is a blue tick hound, becomes friends with an orangutan named Suryia who comes to the wildlife preserve for endangered animals in South Carolina. The human like qualities displayed by the orangutan, such as trying to feed Roscoe or standing upright to walk him with a leash, is certainly eye catching to readers. Children feel a connection to the orangutan because of the human like behavior it displays. Check out the video clip to see more about Suryia and Roscoe. They are endearing!
Owen and Mzee: Language of Friendshipby Isabella Hatkoff, Craig Hatkoff, and Paula Kahumbu with photographs by Peter Greste (Scholastic Press, 2007)
These two trade books are about a baby hippo named Owen that was separated from his mother in a tsunami in 2004. Owen was adopted by Mzee, a male tortoise that is estimated to be 130 years old. They learned to adapt, communicate, and care for one another. Although their relationship is unconventional, it is amazing. (There are even some board books also from Scholastic to introduce the two creatures to the youngest of readers. :) Here's several bonuses for Owen and Mzee. Check out Owen and Mzee's wonderful website that is great for complementing the read aloud of these books. You can share the rebus stories with younger students or view the documentary with older students to extend the adventure of sharing these texts. The site features a video link from an episode of PBS's Between the Lions.
The text is short in this selection, so it's perfect for pre-K through first grade. Check out a little preview through this video clip:
Unlikely Friendships: 47 Remarkable Stories from the Animal Kingdom by Jennifer Holland (Workman, 2011) - This text may not be a cover to cover read aloud since it is written for adults. However, it is great for sharing some stories and the photos from the book. Older elementary students will enjoy this. I personally own this book and I've shared photos from it with students. Here's a bonus clip about the book:
Enjoy exploring these animal friendly texts with your children!
This is exciting news especially for my MW colleagues! I have been able to order some fabulous new biographies for the school reading room. I have started processing the sets of 12 books by labeling them for their A.R. reading level as well as stamping the covers and taping the spine. As I add the sets to respective grade level shelves, I am also adding the titles in the reading room's inventory notebook.
You will notice that I have been incorporating older biographies onto various grade level collections. I've also been rearranging grade level shelves a bit for grades 2-5 in order to make room for the biographies. I will be relabeling the updated shelves once I receive a new label maker. :)
These people are great examples of fascinating American citizens. Many of these figures are important people represented in our state's standardized testing. If they are not one of the important people listed in the Standards of Learning, they are a person who is a part of a historical time period that is studied. Some of the books are simply about fantastic people that are great to explore while reading biographical material and applying nonfiction reading skills with real texts.
Here is a preview of the titles courtesy of Google Books. Just click on a title to get a sneak peek at the new books. :) These will be something fresh and exciting to share with the students in January and February when biographies and nonfiction texts are genres that are highlighted!
From the On My Own Biographies Series from Lerner Publishing:
As a bonus for the upper grades, be sure to check out the website for Time for Kids to extend your real life application on expository reading skills. Keep your eyes peeled as I process sets in my spare time and continue to add them to the school collection. I hope you and the students enjoy them this school year!
Read for the Record day is coming this Thursday, October 6th. It is sponsored by an initiative from Pearson called We Give Books. It purpose is to promote early literacy by having readers read online or traditional books. Then, they ask readers to go to their website and choose a literacy campaign to support. It is as easy as clicking. Once to pick a group, the foundation adds another book to their donations which will be made to that cause. What a win-win situation! There is also a page on the website dedicated to educators, including a section devoted to Llama Llama.
One of the really neat things about the We Give Books site is there are many books that are available to read for free. They are easy to select. Classroom teachers can even include this website on their classroom webpage or newsletter, too. You can click here to read Llama Llama Red Pajama right on your computer!
Be sure to check out all of the FREE online trade books that you can share online in your class with a computer projector hookup. You can also simply share some of these books at home on the home computer with your child. There is a wide variety ranging from pourquoi stories to bestsellers to classics.
Jumpstart, a Pearson campaign for supporting early literacy in low-income neighborhoods, is a partner in this initiative. You can find out more about Jumpstart at:
Check out this engaging preview for Joyce Sidman's latest book Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature (Houghton Mifflin, 2011.) It is beautifully illustrated by Caldecott Award winner Beth Krommes. Sidman and Krommes previously collaborated on the picture book Butterfly Eyes and Other Secrets of the Meadow (Houghton Mifflin, 2006.) Swirl by Swirl will be released on October 4th, and I can't wait to use it as a fresh mentor text at my school! Not only will it be another book to add to my Sidman author study, it will be an additional example of one of my favorite niches for picture books referred to as hybrid nonfiction. Stay tuned for a blog post featuring how I used the text in a lesson within the next month! In the meantime, you can explore the Reader's Guide from Joyce Sidman's website. It's full of scientific tie-ins for lessons. I hope you are inspired and energized like I am to dig into a new mentor text!
September is "Roald Dahl Month!" At the website Follow That Peach, Puffin Books is celebrating the 50th anniversary of the classic James and the Giant Peach. In the spirit of the book's sense of adventure, you can send a Peach gram via e-mail or snail mail to a friend. A tally of how many miles Peach grams have traveled is updated at the top of the screen, and a there's a photo gallery from participants as well. A PDF poster of 50 ways you can celebrate Dahl's rich legacy is available, along with a "Teach the Peach" teacher's guide for using James and the Giant Peach in instructional and enriching ways. Something that is of particular interest in the full color PDF guide are photos of actual postcards sent by Dahl to his mother. Students love learning about authors as real people, especially when they were children themselves. A "Peach Party Pack" includes additional ways to enjoy the main character James Henry Trotter.
As an additional part of the fun of celebrating Roald Dahl Month, Puffin Books recently released Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Pop-Up Book(Puffin, 2011). Have a scrumdiddlyumptious time rediscovering James and the Giant Peach and more of Roald Dahl's lasting treasures through Dahl's official website!
I know everyone is starting to buzz with ideas and aspirations for the new school year! As part of my back to school mental preparations, I am joining the Ten for Ten Picture Book Roundup event this year. This event was dreamed up last year by Mandy Robek and Cathy Mere. Mandy is a Kindergarten teacher and blogger at Enjoy and Embrace Learning. Cathy keeps a blog called Reflect and Refine: Building a Learning Community and is the author of More Than Guided Reading: Finding the Right Instructional Mix (Stenhouse, 2005.) A special thanks also goes out to fellow participant Deb Frazier, who is the blogger of Primary Perspectives. Deb was the one who brought this to my attention on Twitter and encouraged me to participate this year!
This event involves kid lit bloggers who share a collection of ten favorite picture books that teachers shouldn't live without in their classrooms. Some blogs feature ten books that are all time favorites, while others take a slant such as mentor texts, books that are great for teaching story elements, texts that can help teach math concepts, or ones that are a just right fit for a particular age group. The common thread that fellow kid lit bloggers state is that it is a really hard task picking just ten books, and I wholeheartedly agree! Like some of the other bloggers, I decided that I would help myself narrow the playing field by picking ten of my new favorites to teach with that have been published since last August. Although I still couldn't squeeze in all my new discoveries with just ten choices, this certainly helps to give this blog post a narrower focus. I've included links to authors and information on the text, so just click on the names and titles. I've also tucked in a few extra links to things, so be sure to check those highlighted portions as well.
From the author of A Seed is Sleepy and An Egg is Quiet, Diana Aston pairs up once again with the wonderfully realistic illustrator Sylvia Long. This is a fabulous author/illustrator team that I like to use when focusing on nonfiction in model lessons in the classrooms. Something I like to ask students is why did the author choose the wording for the title. (Patience would certainly be needed as butterflies go through their life cycle!) Children write interesting facts down in their writer's notebook and I have them help jot the facts after a discussion on a class chart.
There are specific labels for each varied species of butterfly represented in the book, which makes it an example of labeling as an important nonfiction text feature. I love using the document camera when I teach, and sometimes revisiting a book under the camera to enlarge illustrations and text features helps to bring attention to the detail and impact of the pictures. This book is fabulous inspiration for nonfiction writers creating their own research project.
What can I say! I love the creative work of Mo Willems. His writing infuses humor not only for a young child, but for the caregiver who may be sharing in the reading experience with the child. He knows how to get the bang for his buck with a limited amount of text. Willems refers to writing "easy readers" as "hard writers" because of the limited amount of words he has to work with. Because he is both the author and illustrator, he can help translate his story with the support of his simple but very funny illustrations
I bought this book, We Are In a Book, at a book signing at Williamsburg Regional Library in Virginia last October. I was getting close to being a new bride, so I had him sign the book to me using my married name. That was a fun little first for me! In this particular installment of the Elephant and Piggie series, Elephant and Piggie virtually interact with the physical book pages when they realize that they are indeed in a book! Piggie wonders if they ARE in a book, can they get the reader who is staring at them to say a word. He chooses the word "banana" and when they "hear" the reader say it, they fall out in hysterical laughter. (That was a real crowd pleaser with the kids in attendance at Mo's book signing that night! BANANA!!!! HAHAHA!!! Mo knows how to read aloud with a lot of zest!) When Elephant and Piggie ask the reader to read the book again at the end, this must certainly lead to rereading with many real life bedtime stories! This text is a great example of the character's displaying their voice as characters, and Willems has a distinct way of writing that his storytelling voice as an author comes through, too.
Here's a bonus! You can read more about my experience with Mo's visit to my town of Williamsburg last October in this previous blog post! Mo has an extensive amount of material on the web. His websites are really divided into separate chunks, so be sure to check out both MoWilliems as well as GoMo. The Pigeon from the series also "Tweets" (excuse the pun), so check out the Pigeon on Twitter. One word of wisdom the Pigeon shared on Twitter awhile ago was that "Writing is asking why and why not simultaneously." That is one insightful bird!
Actual SizeWritten By Steve Jenkins (Sandpiper, 2011 Reprint)
As part of our school literacy team, we decided on a nonfiction focus for our staff development last year. I tied this into some of my literacy coaching lessons. Steve Jenkins was one of the mentor authors that I left with my third grade teachers so they could use his work in an author study to continue the learning that we did during my visits. I just discovered this reprint of the 2004 book that came out in paperback during this school year. I was so happy to add this text to my Steve Jenkins collection that I enjoy lending out to classroom teachers. Jenkins has such a fresh take on his nonfiction texts and he is always appealing to children! This makes for a great launching point for not only a nonfiction author study, but for exciting formats for student nonfiction writing. This text can be a partner text with his 2005 release Prehistoric Actual Size (Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 2005.)
How Rocket Learned to Read Written and Illustrated By Tad Hills (Schwartz & Wade, 2010)
Although I'm stretching my own criteria a bit here since it was published July 27, 2010, this book is a certainly a fun new favorite! As a reading specialist, how can I not love a puppy who wants to read! :) It's a great book to share during the first week of school to talk about being determined with work and being rewarded with success! This YouTube clip is a sweet way to see children enjoying the story all on their own!
I am such as huge fan of Sidman's work! I enjoy using her various books as intriguing examples of hybrid nonfiction texts. Sidman really knows how to "explode a moment" and bring magic to the most average things. When you read other works by Sidman, her distinct style of writing shines. It is as if Joyce Sidman herself is there sharing her work with the reader. I devoted a previous blog post to how I incorporated this text by Sidman into a literacy coaching lesson. You can check out the detailed post and photo of the chart created during the lesson by clicking here. At this previous post, you'll get to see how magical the third graders are trained to think at our school!
Children can really identify with the little red chicken in this story from their younger years. His endurance for listening to a story just isn't ripe yet, and he impatiently interrupts Papa during the bed time reading. Children's prior knowledge of the original versions of the interrupted classics like Little Red Riding Hood help to make the humor pop while reading this book. The author clearly let the little red chicken's voice as a character shine! For ways that the book can be explored with children, Candlewick Press put out a story hour kit for inspiration.
In this short book, a girl named Grace bakes a pie. Her dog, Georgie, is so captivated by the smells that he ends up getting into some trouble just to taste the delicious treat. The sparse text incorporates a letter of the alphabet in ABC order to express how the action plays out. Between the few words and the word that begins with the alphabet letter, the main thought ends up being punctuated for impact. Some examples include, "ogle it" and "pine for it" to spice up the vocabulary and serve as teaching moments to use inference to figure out their meaning. A fun writing spin off for young kids could be creating a class version of this style of an ABC book where a story plays out in the course of the alphabet.
This book is a companion text to the preceding book entitled The Quiet Book (Houghton Mifflin Books for Children, 2010.) This is a fantastic bedtime book just as much as it would be great for a mini-lesson for writing and about thinking of all the possibilities with an idea. Underwood shares all the many ways things can be loud and HOW they can be loud. Both texts are easily identified with by children, but it makes them pause and think about a topic in a way they probably had not before. It is both a short text, but can provoke big possibilities for other topics, too.
Click here for a preview of the text through Houghton Mifflin. You can check out photos of the illustrator Renata Liwska illustrating and using a light box for sketching on their Amazon page for the book. It's a neat little extension to show these photos after reading the book with children.
As the title implies, Scaredy does indeed prepare for his birthday in this story. In classic Scaredy fashion, he tries to be prepared for everything about his party, but as you can guess, disaster strikes! Children love revisiting with this character once they learn about his quirky but loveable personality by reading the first book in the series. Melanie Watt applies her distinct humorous voice to this newest story in the series. Children love the predictability of Watt's story structure and voice as the narrator.
Here's a bonus link to aprevious blog post about Scaredy Squirrel. You can see one of the ways I use books by Melanie Watt for teaching. I love teaching this particular lesson in September to first graders. It's a great way to start cultivating that big thinking we come to use during the school year with books. Scaredy might be scared and overprepared, but he's got a Facebook fan page to stay in touch with his followers. It's silly and just for fun, but you do get updates that will put a smile on your face! Here's a little preview for Scaredy Squirrel Has a Birthday Party from YouTube and Kids Can Press:
First of all, this book is simply a belly laugh kind of story that will put a smile on a child's face. It's about a bear named Lucy who brings home a little boy that she dubs "Squeaker." Instead of a human child begging to keep an unexpected pet animal, it's an animal bringing home a human. For teaching, you can talk about how Lucy has many reasons why she should keep the little boy she dubs "Squeaker." There's a fun way to talk about how to list ideas for a persuasive argument. (Kids are already experts in this area more than they know!) When a character is trying to be persuasive and give reasons for why he or she should get or do something, that's a great way to show how the character's voice is present. It's also an entertaining way to talk about different character's points of view and how this is a new take on a familiar scenario of "Please Mom, PLEASE!"
I look forward to reading all of the other 10 for 10 blog posts via Twitter! Happy virtual picture book party! (Twitter hashtag: #pb10for10) You can also check out this collected list of blogs from the creators on Jog the Web.
I am so thankful for a recent opportunity that rolled around for our school book room! Each year, the Williamsburg Regional Library buys numerous copies of the Battle of the Books texts so that many copies of the books can be in circulation during the busy prep months for 4th and 5th grade students. After the competition, the library has more copies than it needs to keep in circulation of the texts. 
The children's services department allowed local schools to come out and obtain sets of books so that they may be given a second life in an instructional way. The library gave away the titles as whole sets, ranging from 8-15 books in each set. Fellow teachers at our school graciously came out on their own time to help pick up books for our school, too! :) I am very grateful to them for their support! 
MW teachers, I will be shelving books as complete sets over the next couple of weeks. (I put two sets on the fourth grade shelf today! :) They will either be a part of the 3rd, 4th, or 5th grade collections, depending upon the difficulty of the text. Although a few are titles we do own, they will serve as much needed replacement copies of worn texts, or help beef up the size of a set. Here are the titles that we were able to acquire. You can click on the titles to learn more about the books. Enjoy!
