Claudia Mills is the author of many chapter and middle-grade books, including 7 x 9=Trouble!; How Oliver Olson Changed the World; Kelsey Green, Reading Queen; and, most recently, Zero Tolerance. Mills shares a wonderful list of her family's favorite books that feature girl protagonists—she encourages you to share them with both boys and girls, alike.
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Blog: The Children's Book Review (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Best Kids Stories, Ages 4-8, Ages 9-12, Chapter Books, Laura Ingalls Wilder, Carol Ryrie Brink, featured, Eleanor Estes, Books for Girls, Claudia Mills, Maud Hart Lovelace, Add a tag
Blog: The Children's Book Review (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Helena Estes, Jon Davis, Social Graces, Emotions & Behavior, Clothes and Fashion, Deborah Melmon, General, Ages 4-8, Friendship, Classics, School, Picture Books, Book Lists, Louis Slobodkin, Eleanor Estes, Award Winners, Add a tag
How do we teach compassion?
By Luisa LaFleur, The Children’s Book Review
Published: February , 2012
Kids can be mean. Sometimes our kids are on the receiving end of the taunts and name-calling and that’s hard to deal with. But other times our kids are on the giving end and that’s even harder to deal with. Teaching children to be compassionate—to understand someone else’s suffering and to try and alleviate that suffering—is not easy. A key first step is to get children to understand that mean actions—teasing, name-calling and the like—can be hurtful. Here are a few books that can help impart the message that being kind to one another is essential and that the golden rule is paramount.
The Hundred Dresses
By Eleanor Estes; Illustrated by Helena Estes and Louis Slobodkin
Reading level: Ages 5 and up
Paperback: 80 pages
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing
What to expect: Lessons about friendship; allusions to poverty and immigration; harships
In The Hundred Dresses, which takes place around the time of World War I, Wanda wears the same faded blue dress to school every day. One day, in the midst of playful banter, Wanda tells her classmates that she has one hundred beautiful dresses at home, all lined up and that she wears the dresses on special occasions. The other girls don’t believe her and begin to tease her about it daily. One girl, Maddie, feels bad about the teasing but doesn’t speak up for fear the teasing will turn to her. But as time passes, she comes to see the error of her ways and learns how important it is to stand up for your friends.
This is an intricate story that offers many opportunities for discussion. Wanda is poor. She’s an immigrant from another country at a time when there were no social networks to provide support. She speaks with an accent that automatically sets her apart from the other girls. But in essence, she’s just a little girl who wants to fit in and have friends.
Add this book to your collection: The Hundred Dresses
Watch Your Tongue, Cecily Beasley
By Lane Fredrickson; Illustrated by Jon Davis
Reading level: Ages 5 and up
Hardcover: 22 pages
Publisher: Sterling Children’s Books
What to expect: Rude behavior and its aftermath
Cecily is a ghastly child. She’s rude, impertinent, ungrateful and can be downright mean. She doesn’t say please or thank you, she doesn’t share, and she sticks her tongue out at her classmates and teachers. But one day, her tongue gets stuck and she can’t put it back in her mouth. She has a hard lesson to learn about kindness and it takes some time but eventually Cecily realizes that she’s not been very nice to anybody.
This simple story has a strong message—sometimes we don’t realize how hurtful we c
Add a CommentBlog: A Fuse #8 Production (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Uncategorized, Dr. Seuss, recipes, NYPL, Winnie-the-Pooh, Eleanor Estes, Kathi Appelt, Christoph Niemann, James and the Giant Peach, Palestine, Hilary McKay, Julia Denos, Lyle Lovett, Fusenews, book jacket nattering, Best Books of 2010, stage adaptations, cover lovin', Matthew Broderick, my library, smackerels, Add a tag
When you work with the real Winnie-the-Pooh you have a tendency to get complacent. “Oh sure,” you think. ” I know everything about that bear. Absolutely everything.” So it’s nice when the universe gives you a swift kick in the pants to remind you that you are not always up on your Pooh knowledge. Or at least not as up on it as you might think. For example, I completely missed the fact that they just reissued The Winnie-the-Pooh Cookbook by Virginia H. Ellison (amusingly my library’s gift shop has known for quite some time has stocked several copies accordingly). I found this out when a reporter from the Associated Press wanted to interview me (or anyone else who worked with the silly old bear) about Pooh and food. The final piece, Counting pots of honey? Pooh’s recipes for them consists of me desperately trying to think of ways to describe Pooh and food. You will probably enjoy it more for the cute honey gingerbread cookie recipe at the end.
- The article in Tablet Magazine (“A New Read on Jewish Life”) is entitled The Others: Several new books for children and young adults ask us to see the world through Palestinian kids’ eyes. Its author is Marjorie Ingall, one of my favorite children’s book reviewers, most recently seen heaping praise upon A Tale Dark & Grimm in the last New York Times children’s book supplement, as is right. The article in Tablet gives great insight into books like Where the Streets Had a Name (which I reviewed myself) as well as Sarah Glidden’s How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less, which I have on order with my library. For this article, Marjorie is lambasted in her comment section. Some of the comments are thoughtful, but a great many show why this issue is so rarely discussed in children’s literature today.
- I suppose it’s old news, but more Best Book lists of 2010 are up and running! First you have the Kirkus list, which contain more than a couple non-fiction titles that I would like to get my hands on. It also features my beloved Departure Time, a fact that makes me inordinately happy. Another list that came out last week was the School Library Journal picks. Split into different parts, you can read the somewhat truncated non-fiction list here, the picture book list here ( 10 Comments on Fusenews: A small smackerel of news, last added: 11/23/2010
Blog: Bugs and Bunnies (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: memories, Author Spotlight, children's author, Eleanor Estes, Newberry, librarian, children's books, writing, Add a tag
Eleanor Estes was an award-winning children's author. She first began writing during her recovery from tuberculosis, when, bedridden, she wrote down her own childhood memories as a series of stories for young readers. Before her death in 1988 at the age of 82, Mrs. Estes had written 19 books for children, as well as one novel for adults.
"I am holding up a mirror, and the scene reflected in the mirror is a true image of childhood, and the mirror, besides reflecting, also speaks and echoes the clear, profound, unpremeditated utterances, thoughts and imageries of children. I like to make children laugh or cry, to be moved in some way by my writing."
Blog: Deliciously Clean Reads (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: family, humor, tween, The Moffats, review by Becky L., Eleanor Estes, Add a tag
Becky's Christian Reviews: http://stand-firm-then.blogspot.com/
Young Readers: http://zero-to-eight.blogspot.com/
Reading With Becky: http://readingwithbecky.blogspot.com/
Blog: Through the Studio Door (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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Blog: Through the Studio Door (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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At this point I've concentrated on finishing up everything on Mary. Next, I'll be making some adjustments to the reflections and moving on to the wood for the window frame. I should be able to post the finish on Monday.
Blog: Through the Studio Door (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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Blog: Through the Studio Door (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Mary, work-in-progress, work-in-progress, Mary, Add a tag
Blog: Through the Studio Door (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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Now that I have a large-format scanner, I will be able to scan in one piece, hopefully, the final color drawing of Mary. If you don't remember, or didn't see it before, I did a work-in-progress of the B&W underpainting of Mary. Since I'm having some issues with the software on the new scanner and am waiting to hear back from tech support, I'll post the color in stages each day this week. So stay tuned!
Blog: Through the Studio Door (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
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Blog: OUPblog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: History, oxford, A-Featured, World History, henry, tudor, queen, boleyn, viii, aragon, bloody, mary, elizabeth, i, Add a tag
Kate OUP-US
It’s King Henry VIII’s birthday on June 23 and I have a confession to make: I’m a huge Tudor nerd. I think it’s the most interesting period in history, so much drama and intrigue, it’s the ultimate soap opera. (more…)
Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate — water and OJ. Get as much sleep as you can. And find a great book to re-read. (I am a firm believer in self-medicating with doses of carefully chosen literature. Something funny/happy/uplifting. As the old saying goes, “It’ll do you good and help you, too.”
Feel better, Betsy! Thanks for the link.
And I give up — WHICH That 70s Show star is in Molly’s Pilgrim???
Oh, boo! Shoo that cold away. Hope you feel better.
Answer: Mila Kunis, of course! She looks exactly the same at 10 as she does today. The true irony is that the actress was born in Kiev and yet plays a part where she mocks a girl for being Russian. Sweet irony.
The Hundred Dresses has also been performed at Imagination Stage in Bethesda, MD, a few years back.
I loved Departure Time too! Thanks for the recommendation. What a great read!
How strange–I loved all the Casson books but never really got into the Penderwicks. It just felt too much like Elizabeth Enright’s work for me to really love it.
Maybe it’s an either/or proposition. Either you like one or another. Interesting.
I enjoyed reading the news today. Hope you feel better. And don’t forget that you and I became friendly due to a critical yet astute observation of my picture book (even if I still disagree). Good things grow from honesty.
Thank you so much for the news that The Winnie-the-Pooh cookbook is back in print! Now if only I can get my hand on those adorable cookie cutters . . .