The Book Search

 In digging into the children's literature buffet, I found two very different, but equally wonderful stories!  Check these out! The first is called "To the Front" written by Claudia Fridell and illustrated by Christopher Cyr.  It's a picture book biography about Clara Barton at the Battle of Antietam.  I thought I was pretty well versed in Clara Barton, having read dozens of books about her in my youth, but this book was such an interesting take on her life.  The story is told in two ways-one is poetic text  and the other is quotes from Clara Barton's papers, so you have this amazing juxtaposition of information about Clara right next to her own words.  For elementary students.  Genius!  The information is immediate and so clearly written, you almost feel like you're right next to her.  And then there's the art work.  Luminous, clearly rendered art work with the most amazing light sources.  It gives you the feeling that you're ...

 GAH!  I can't believe it's been almost four months since I last posted.  I'd like to tell you that I was busy doing something really amazing but it's really just living life!  Anyway, let me tell you about some of the amazing nonfiction I did manage to read. The first one is called Honey Bee Rescue by Loree Griffin Burns.  I'm a big fan of Burns other works like Tracking Trash or Hive Detectives.  She writes nonfiction books about things lots of people are interested in and tells them with lots of photographs and details that really brings her research into clear focus.  This one is no different. It's about two men, one a bee keeper and one a bee relocater.  Mr. Connery finds that some of his bees have set up housekeeping in his garage, which is not a safe place for the bees.  So he calls Mr. Nelson to come and relocate the bees.  Griffin and photographer Ellen Marasimowicz carefully document how Mr. Nelson gets the bees out of the gara...

It's sometimes hard to find a book that will get kids to think deeply about anything.  We seem to be firmly entrenched in a sound bite, 140 character limit, emoji laden world, so having something to consider thoughtfully is a real treat.  Here are two books that might make you go "hmmmm". The first one is a picture book.  It's called "Crocodile's Crossing: A Search for Home" by Yoeri Slegers.  The book opens with Crocodile already on his way somewhere new.  He's scared and hopeful because at home where he used to be happy, it's no longer safe.  He finds new places that are very different and not very welcoming to crocodiles.  He is about to give up, when he finds a community of mice who welcome him.  Things are not like they were at home, the food is different, but Crocodile tries and eventually makes a place for himself and is able to bring his family with him.  This is a marvelous story about immigration.  The art work surrounding the ...

My students love non-fiction books so I'm always on the look out for some great new non fiction.  We are a Montessori school, so books about the history of man are always a big hit.  This latest one is just terrific.  It's called "When We Became Humans" written by William Bright and illustrated by Hannah Bailey.  It's a picture book full of short pieces of text about how humans evolved from hominids.  The vocabulary is rich which may require some assistance for some kids, but over all the book is very accessible, especially to upper elementary students.  The pictures are terrific too-the soft water colors help with understanding some of the concepts.  The short pieces of text will provide a nice introduction to the concepts presented.  There's an excellent time line in the back of the book along with a map that shows human migration patterns.  I think the kids and the teachers are going to love this one. The second one, in my school, is...

I got to venture down the non-fiction path this week!  Here are two great new titles. The first one is a biography.  It's called "The Escape of Robert Smalls" by Jehan Jones Radgowski.  It's about Robert Smalls, a slave in South Carolina during Civil War times.  He is a good worker and at 12, he's sent by his owner to find work in Charleston.  He finds work as crew member on a ship and learns all the skills he needs to be an excellent seaman, including navigation.  When the Civil War starts, he continues to work on the ship and then comes up with a daring plan to run to freedom.  His plan is to try to pass as the captain of the ship, and basically sail the Confederate ship into Union waters.  This is a really exciting book to read, with the tension building as the story moves on.  The art work is modern enough to look appealing to students and the color palette adds to the suspense and drama.  It's also a really compelling story about ...

There are some amazing new non-fiction picture books that have just been released.  What a great way to start your summer reading! The first one is called "Voices from the Underground Railroad" by Kay Winters.  It's poems about the experiences of two slaves running away from a master who is planning to sell them south to pay off his gambling debts.  What's great about this one is that it has ALL the voices-so there are poems from the point of view of the master's wife and the slave catchers and the people who are station masters on the Underground Railroad.  Larry Day's pictures are lovely pen and ink with water color and help the reader understand the urgency and the immediacy of the action of the story.  I thought this one was terrific. The second one is called "Girl Running" by Annette Bay Pimentel and illustrated by Micha Archer.  It's about a young woman named Bobbi Gibb who liked to run.  She lived in a time before Title Nine spo...

The summer is winding down!  The teachers at my school return on August 9.  This is always a time of year that feels so full of potential.  So many new ideas to try and so many new books to read!  I found some non fiction books that are going to be great for my library! The first one is the third one in a series about famous people as kids.  This one is called "Kid Artists" by David Stadler.  (the first two were "Kid Presidents" and "Kid Athletes").  The artist one is just as great as the first two were.  It follows the same format-short chapters about different famous artists as they were growing up.  The stories usually tell an interesting but kind of unusual story about the subject that gives you an idea of what kind of artist they would become without telling the entire life story.  There are funny little cartoony illustrations along the way that break up the text.  There is an interesting variety of artists too, from far back...

My students seem to love non-fiction so I'm always surprised when teachers and librarians say they can't talk their kids into non-fiction.  Maybe it's part of the Montessori mindset-the Montessorians tends to be reality and research based.  I do love some good fantasy fiction, but the non fiction always flies out the door of my library.  Here are some my kids are going to love. The first one is called "Orphan Trains" by Rebecca Langston-George.  I loved her last book about Malala Yousfazi called "For the Right to Learn" (so did my students!).  So I was excited to read this new one, which comes out in September.  It's profiles of kids who rode on the Orphan trains that took orphan kids from the big eastern cities like NY to rural places where people who farmed needed help and could feed the kids.  Most of the kids had suffered big traumatic losses, some in child birth but some of them in terrible accidents or from illness.  The ones who still had...

I read a really terrific blog post from Donalyn Miller about the importance of teachers reading so that they know what books to choose for their students. Here's a link to her post.   It reminded me WHY I spend so much time reading and how much I hope that the Booksearch (my database that lets you search for books based on the skill you want to teach) can help people find the right books. Here are some of the newest non fiction books that I think should find their way into YOUR library, or at the very least, on to your reading list.  The first one is called "Women in Black History" by Tricia Williams Jackson.  This is a compilation of several different biographies of notable African American women.  They are arranged chronologically and there's a nice array of women who have made an impact in lots of different ways.  What I really liked about this book was the style of writing.  The biographies are short but written in such a gentle way that you can rea...

When I talk with other elementary school librarians, they are often concerned about the amount of non fiction their students are reading.  The Common Core puts more emphasis on reading non fiction, which is what most adults read (like newspapers and professional documents) so it's important that kids learn to read non fiction as well.  The funny thing is, at my school, which is a public Montessori school, my shelf of books that needs to be put away is ALWAYS heavy on non fiction.  I like to think it's because the Montessori method encourages the teachers to teach from scientific concepts and tends to minimize fantasy, it's probably because it's more complicated to put the non fiction books away and with the amount of time I have to shelve books (the five minutes between classes doesn't allow for a lot of contemplation!) Anyway, I've been reading some really great non-fiction as advanced readers copies through a group called Netgalley.  It's been an awesome...

Yesterday, I looked at one of my favorite websites for finding kids books, The Non-Fiction Detectives. Louise and Cathy work really hard at reviewing great non fiction books for kids and they do an AWESOME job. Click here if you want to check out their blog. So I was looking for some of the books they suggested. Of course, it's never that easy to just go to the bookstore and find the exact 12 books you were looking for (they only had a few of the ones I wanted) and there were several that caught my eye that I didn't even know I should be looking for so here are the best ones I saw today. The first one was "Eye to Eye", by Steve Jenkins. Steve Jenkins is a great author. He wrote another book that I really liked called "What do you do with a tail like this?" "Eye to eye" is a similar kind of book that focuses just on animals eyes. You can find out a lot about different kinds of eyes and how eyes have evolved. The pictures are really beautiful too. ...