Día de los niños Books

The morning of conferences I went to school early. I decided to start listening to Jeff Wilhelm's webinar that I saw on My View From Here's blog. However, once I finished what I was doing, I could not move on to any of the other immediate items on my to-do list since I wanted to do something that did not require a lot of focus until the Webinar was over. I decided to pull out the books that I have been collecting throughout the year for Día de los niños to give to my 6th-8th grade students.

Of course, as soon as I had them spread all over my counter and table, the webinar was over. A couple of co-workers asked me throughout the day what all the books were for. I laughed with one co-worker about how no matter what, before I went home I was going to match the books to different students so that it would not have been a waste of time unpacking them all.

I always love this time of year - matching up books to students to give the gift of reading, a tradition that our school has that I absolutely embrace. Though we won't hand them out until the end of April, I was able to match each student with a book with the exception of a few students who I could not find just the right book for as the options dwindled down. Rather than giving them a book that did not seem quite right for them, I made myself a note and ordered books for them on my last book order. Next up, I need to put the labels in them to say: Día de los niños 2011. Then I will box them back up and wait for the big day!

The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain

One of the requirements for my undergraduate education students in my upcoming Children's Literature course is to read ten picture books suitable for older readers. While I was meeting with the professor who typically teaches the course to plan for next trimester, I noticed the book The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain by Peter Sís on her desk. It caught my attention because of remembering Peter Sís as the illustrator for Pam Muñoz Ryan's The Dreamer. I borrowed the book to read over the weekend and ended up loving the possibilities.

The book has a unique format. I was only a couple of pages in when I realized that I couldn't read the book as I am accustomed to - reading all of the words on one page before moving on to the next. It was breaking up the story line too much.

Instead, I realized that there were different levels of complexity. I ended up reading through with just the brief words, phrases, and sentences on the bottoms of the pages, seeing that it was one way to read the book. Then there was the other layers, where a reader could go back and re-read for the other details and descriptions available on the page.

I love that for younger students solely reading the bottoms of the pages is enough to tell a story, while older readers can dig deeper, especially with the overview from a first read of the one layer. The book has a fun range of layouts. While most pages are similar, there are other pages that have a big two-page spread picture with words scattered across the pages labeling certain components. Other two-page spreads have journal entries from the time frame.

This book lends itself well to many teaching points, including:

• Multi-genre texts
• Reaching multiple age ranges
• Different ways to tell a story
• Allowing for multiple readings to understand different layers of text
• Historical contexts

A Nation's Hope - Sifting Through Reader's Response

When I heard about A Nation's Hope: The Story of Boxing Legend Joe Louis mentioned on Matt de la Peña's blog, I was instantly intrigued. I had high hopes for the book since I really enjoyed Mexican Whiteboy.


Right when I pulled the book out of the box, I began reading it. Though I was not expecting it to be written in verse, it had a nice flow and my excitement continued to build, especially with the beautiful illustrations by Kadir Nelson.

I found myself feeling swept away by Joe Louis' story and loved the description of his personality, humility, and perseverance. Yet, somewhere along the way, I started to notice something that bothered me about the book. I realized that while Joe was typically mentioned by name, his opponent, Max Schmeling, was more often than not referred to as "The German" or "Hitler's German", rather than by name.

It made me wonder more about the back story of the matches between Louis and Schmeling. When I did a quick web search on Schmeling, the first site to come up was the Wikipedia reference. Albeit it is necessary to take Wikipedia sources with a grain of salt, and this particular one even has a notice that the article needs additional citations for verification, I knew that it would at least help to orient me a little bit more to get the context of the book. I also skimmed Louis' page.

In Schmeling's description, I noticed the explanation of how he was portrayed in the United States as well as in Germany, in contrast to who he really was as a person. I was most interested in the following sentences, that did not have any citations,

The clash of politics, ideals, and countries that often symbolically accompanied his biggest fights only took place within the perceptions of the audience; they had nothing to do with what happened in the ring. Instead of being respected for his multiple accomplishments in the ring, he spent much of his life derided in the USA as a Nazi and dismissed in Germany as a disappointment. It was only in his later life that his status as a fighter, apart from his cultural symbolism, could be clearly analyzed.

I am not sure if digging deeper and doing more research would support these claims or not, but these sentences made me wonder about the angle of the book. I also thought about how for me as a reader, the way it was described in some ways took away from what I otherwise would have enjoyed as Louis' story and his triumphs. By almost always referring to Schmeling as "The German," instead of treating him like an individual person, it created an aversion to the book. Yet, I wanted to like the book. I wanted it to be a celebration of Louis and who he was without the questions over Schmeling's portrayal. There was also so much more to love about the book's layout, such as the fun author/illustrator bios on the back flap with the boxing ticket.

Trying to sort through my conflicting feelings about the book, I reread it, as well as the jacket flap information, and part of a sentence stood out to me, "[...] for much of America their fight came to represent the country's war with Germany". That is when I started to think about the angle of the book as showing it through the perception of many at the time, rather than today looking back. I was able to set aside some of my aversions to the references of "the German". It also made me consider the teaching points to discuss, such as perspective, a curiosity to uncover multiple sides to a story, the power of words, and reliability of narrators.

On Amazon, the recommended age range is 4-8; though, I can see it as being appealing to older readers. Because of the illustrations and the various avenues for analysis, the book is lending to thorough discussions and debate. Aside from learning more about Joe Louis, students can talk about perceptions, representations, and shades of truth.

Pathways to Early Literacy Series: Discoveries in Writing and Reading

Following along with my curiosity into early childhood and primary literacy development, Marie Clay's new series, Pathways to Early Literacy Series: Discoveries in Writing and Reading, including How Very Young Children Explore Writing, What Changes in Writing Can I See?, and The Puzzling Code caught my attention. Once I received them, I read through them quickly as they are brief, each only 52 pages or less. Though there is some cross-over, such as having the same first pages to give the series overview and introduction, each book has its own specific focus.

One aspect that was emphasized throughout all books and that closely aligns with my philosophy was the image of parents and teachers as close observers - setting up the stage for children to be curious about reading and writing, helping children build a strong desire to explore, celebrating new attempts, and gently introducing new avenues for continual growth. While reading, I was often thinking back to my own daughter and how much her literacy has taken off this year, about how glad I am that I resisted having her switch into a special education pull-out model where she would have received scripted instruction, about how she just needed more time and space to develop at her own pace, in this frantic, data-driven educational context.

Lately my daughters have been fascinating me - two distinct individuals, at two different stages (almost four and almost eight). Earlier this year I started to officially document their literacy growth and what I am noticing in a writer's notebook. I have been reflecting on what I notice and how my experiences with them and my teaching experiences are reciprocal, both supporting each other. I was thrilled to see Clay encouraging parents to do what I had just barely started - dating and collecting writing and noticing growth and new explorations, as well as observations about their awareness of print.

I wish that every child had a caring adult noticing, observing, celebrating, and encouraging as Clay recommends. In the spirit of parents' role in literacy development I just read a post for the Slice of Life Challenge that goes along so perfectly with the intent of this series with Kevin explaining his son presenting him with his first comic. I love how well he captured his son's mannerisms.

I appreciate that the series of books are short and to the point, while providing many examples of student explorations at various stages. Each one can be read as a stand-alone or as a group of three. Through reading the book I received affirmations of what I am already doing, as well as additional suggestions to support my daughters' literacy development.

Because the intended audience is parents, caregivers and teachers of preschoolers and new entrants, I know that not all readers would have an education/literacy background. I think the length and format of the texts is ideal for the audience as an overview and foundation of literacy philosophies. My sister has a kindergartner and an almost three year old, so I would like to share the books with her and see what she thinks.

I am excited to continue learning alongside them. Soon I will be reviewing more books focusing on early literacy, including another book that I just received from Heinemann, which is much more detailed and comprehensive, Literacy Beginnings, as well as some Stenhouse titles.

Mentoring Teachers - Reading Priorities

When I met with my supervising teacher the spring before my fall of student teaching, she recommended that one of the best ways that I could prepare for working with her in a 7/8 language arts classroom was to start reading middle grades/young adult literature. I remember going into the local bookstore in my community and looking through all the beautiful covers and reading about the intriguing range of topics. Throughout the summer and into the fall in her classroom, I discovered the joys of reading MG/YA books.

Reading Donalyn Miller's post about her priorities as a mentor teacher to create space to inspire a love of reading made me think back to my own supervising teacher and how valuable that advice has been throughout my whole career. Buying various books, book talking, participating in book clubs with my students - I absolutely love teaching in a reading workshop environment.

Right now I am gearing up to teach a spring trimester children's lit course for my alma mater's local branch campus, and this summer I will be co-teaching a YA Lit course for the university where I am getting my Ed.D. I am excited about the possibilities of being able to share my love of reading and to teach a topic that I love so much.