The Book Search

I really love fairy tales and it's such a pleasure to be able to introduce the bigger kids to chapter books that are fairy tales.  The kids are always surprised, thinking that fairy tales are picture books, but their big themes of honor and bravery and kindness make them excellent reading for anyone!  Here are two to look for... The first one is called "Grump: The Mostly True Story of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves".  It's by Liesl Shurtliff, who has written three other mostly true fairy tales- "Rump: The Mostly True Story of Rumpelstiltskin", "Jack: The Mostly True Story of Jack and the Beanstalk" and "Red: the Mostly True Story of Little Red Riding Hood".   The first three were terrific so I was really looking forward to this one and it did not disappoint.  Grump is a dwarf who doesn't fit in.  He really wants to go to the surface in spite of dire warnings of danger.  When he's sent out on his first work mission, he ends up

Sometimes people seem to be surprised at the weighty topics covered in middle grade fiction.  It turns out the kids are interested in how people solve problems that are similar or really different from their own.  My third graders are reading books with the theme of social issues this week and are really loving some of the titles like "Pink and Say" by Patricia Polacco (dealing with war) or "Gleam and Glow" by Eve Bunting (also dealing with war) or "Out of my mind" by Sharon Draper (dealing with a disability).  The two books I read this week could easily slide into this unit! The first one is called "Running on the Roof of the World" by Jess Butterworth.  It's about a girl named Tashi who lives with her parents in a small rural community in Tibet.  Tibet is occupied by Chinese soldiers and life is difficult for Tibetan citizens.  Tashi's dad is often mysterious about some of the things he's doing-he's a writer for the local news

I just got some new books that I ordered.  I just love getting a box of new books.  It's like Christmas!  Even if I had to order them and pay for them myself.  Still exciting!  Anyway, the kids are going to LOVE these new non-fiction books I just got. The first one is called "Snowy Owl Invasion: Tracking an Unusual Migration" by Sandra Markle.  I'm a big fan of Sandra Markle's work.  Her books are always thoroughly researched with lots of gorgeous pictures and super interesting text.  This one is no exception.  It's about what happened with snowy owls in the 2013-2014 season when suddenly people were spotting snowy owls in some pretty surprising places (like the Florida-Georgia border!) and in numbers not usually seen (like at the Boston Airport, where they typically remove 10-12 snowy owls per season, but that year, removed over 100).  She explains why scientists believe there was such a population explosion (no, I'm not going to tell you, you