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Stories can help children to develop into responsible, caring and contributing citizens.

Use the activities for each book below to teach good character traits like kindness, self-control and perseverance to your students.

To view all the books chosen and to see all the tips and activities suggested for each book, visit the Reading Into Character Section on the First Book Marketplace.

Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse written and illustrated by Kevin Henkes

This story models self-control: being able to deny your short-term impulses in order to stay focused and pursue what is really important

Lilly loved school, until her teacher took away her fabulous movie star sunglasses, her three shiny quarters and her brand new purple plastic purse.

Ask these questions after reading the story:

• Lilly wants to show off her new things, even though she knows it’s not the right time. Why do you think is it so hard to wait when you’re excited?
• Even though Lilly loves Mr. Slinger, she is furious with him for taking away her things. Why is she so angry? Should she be angry?

Wilma Unlimited: How Wilma Rudolph Became the World’s Fastest Woman written by Kathleen Krull, illustrated by David Diaz

This story models resilience and perseverance: honoring your word and your intentions by working hard toward an important goal, despite setbacks and challenges

A small and sickly child, Wilma Rudolph wore a heavy brace on her leg when she was a little girl, but she grew up to win three Olympic gold medals for running.

Try this activity to learn more about resilient athletes:

Who are today’s women’s sports stars? Ask your students to choose their favorite female champions in track, basketball, tennis, soccer, and more. Research their lives. Create a Women’s Sports Hall of Fame for your classroom.

Those Shoes written by Maribeth Boelts, illustrated by Noah Z. Jones

This story models kindness and compassion: valuing others so much that you show them respect and offer help to them as a way of honoring their value

Like all the other boys in school, Jeremy wants black high tops with two white stripes. But when he finally gets a pair, he realizes that he needs to give them away.

Try this activity to practice kindness and compassion:

Investigate local charities that welcome donations of good-as-new clothing, toys, books, or other useful items. Be sure to play close attention to their donation guidelines. If feasible, organize a class- or school-wide donation drive.

Developed as a joint project with Character.org and with generous support from Disney, each hand-picked book in the Reading Into Character section is paired with a FREE downloadable tip sheet.

The post Teaching Good Character with Books appeared first on First Book Blog.

It's a buddy comedy with a pickle and a peanut.

Candlewick Press has formed a partnership with Jumpstart. Every year, the executives behind this education nonprofit selects a book for a campaign to inspire communities to get together and read.

This year marks the 10th anniversary of Jumpstart’s Read for the Record campaign; it will be launched on October 22nd. Bibliophiles around the world will crack open a special edition of Not Norman: A Goldfish Story written by Kelly Bennett and illustrated by Noah Z. Jones.

Here’s more from the press release: “Special edition copies of Not Norman: A Goldfish Story will be available through the Jumpstart website at readfortherecord.org. Each special edition features reading tips, vocabulary words, and extension activities provided by Jumpstart’s team of early education experts. Not Norman: A Goldfish Story will be available in both English and Spanish and pre-orders of the special edition are available now.”

It's getting harder and harder to tell the difference between YouTube cartoons dreamt up by teens in their bedrooms and big-budget TV studio productions created by professionally-trained artists. Today, Disney Television Animation announced the beginning of production on "Pickle & Peanut," a "buddy comedy series about two unlikely friends—an emotional pickle and a freewheeling peanut...two underdogs who dream up plans to be anything but ordinary."

Have you ever wondered what Disney’s Seven Dwarfs would look like if the characters were designed by an artist who had no fundamental understanding of drawing, color theory or appeal? Wonder no more. The designs above, which look more like an animation student’s first pass in a character design class than functional designs for a TV series, will be used in a new Disney TV production called 7D, that will premiere on Disney Junior in 2014.

A bunch of Tiny Toons and Animaniacs alumni are involved: Tom Ruegger exec produces, Alfred Gimeno directs and Sherri Stoner story edits. Fish Hooks creator Noah Z. Jones designed the characters. He’s made it impossible to differentiate between the dwarfs, but I can only assume that turning them into generic icons was a directive from above.

According to Deadline:

Described as a comedic take on the world of Seven Dwarfs in a contemporary storybook world, 7D takes place in Jollywood where Queen Delightful relies on the 7D — Happy, Bashful, Sleepy, Sneezy, Dopey, Grumpy and Doc — to keep the kingdom in order. Standing in their way are two laughably evil villains, Grim and Hildy Gloom, who plot to take over the kingdom by stealing the magical jewels in the 7D’s mine.

Man, what I wouldn’t give for a couple of solid, well-constructed drawings just about now….

Aah…that’s better.

Cartoon Brew | Permalink | One comment | Post tags: 7D, Alfred Gimeno, Disney Jr., Noah Z. Jones, Sherri Stoner, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Tom Ruegger

I realize I’m a bit late to the “Those Shoes Party,” which is a touching text written by Maribeth Boelts and illustrated by Noah Z. Jones. Those Shoes was published in 2007 and is the story of a little boy who desperately wants the shoes that nearly everyone else in school has. The [...]

Author: Kelly Bennett
Illustrator: Noah Z. Jones
Published: 2008 Candlewick Press (on JOMB)
ISBN: 0763627631

Sunny stylized digital images and giggle-inducing grins, grimaces and gestures make a disgruntled pet-owner’s gradual shift in perspective an entertaining example of rejection, reflection and imagination.

Chapters.ca Amazon.com

by Lindsay Kaplan, Associate Publicist

The New York Times Book Review is the bible, but you wouldn’t know it. On any given Sunday, New York and its most intellectual denizens clutch the publishing industry’s holy text and systematically choose their next subway fashion statement. Sam Tanenhaus may or may not have brought the Bestseller List from Sinai, but he certainly leads his chosen people to the Holy Land better bookstores everywhere. (more…)

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