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Woo hoo! It's Friday!
And you know what that means...
Perfect Picture Books! :)
As you know, I'm trying to switch my blog over to Wordpress... http://susannahill.com/blog/ ...but there are (possibly insurmountable) issues, including the fact that I can't get a link list to appear over there. So for today at least, I'm posting here as well so you can all add your links, and I'm going to try to add them manually to my post over there... I just won't get it done until late in the day or evening... and I wanted you to have visitors before that!
It will all work out eventually... :)
Meanwhile, I have the perfect picture book for a winter day :) I especially love it because it reminds of when my kids did a very similar thing - set up a lemonade stand on the corner of a completely untraveled country road, certain they would make their fortune and with no inkling that they had no hope of a single customer. (Of course, I couldn't bear for them to be out there waiting so hopefully only to get crushed with disappointment, so I made some phone calls to make sure at least a few cars came along full of thirsty passengers :)
: Lemonade In Winter: A Book About Two Kids Counting Money
Written By: Emily Jenkins
Illustrated By: G. Brian Karas
Schwartz & Wade, September 2012, Fiction
Suitable For Ages: 3-7
Themes/Topics: math/money, cooperation, hope, entrepreneurship
Opening: "
An empty street.Outside, a mean wind blows.Icicles hang from the windowsills.Inside, Pauline presses her nose to the frosted glass."I know!" she says."Let's have a lemonade stand.""
Brief Synopsis: Undeterred by the wintry weather, Pauline and her little brother John-John gather up all their quarters, buy supplies, and set up a lemonade stand. Alas, customers are few and far between, forcing Pauline and John-John to be creative to try to increase sales. In spite of their best efforts, they spend more than they earn... but they earn enough for something that pleases them both.
Links To Resources: the book itself is a resource in terms of showing creative business management :) - Pauline and John-John try advertising, sales, decorations, and entertainment. It also shows money and math in action, and there is back matter in which "Pauline Explains Money To John-John." Ask your child or students to think up their own business ideas. What would they sell? How would they go about it? What supplies would they need? How much would they need to charge and how much would they need to earn to make their business a success?
Why I Like This Book: This book is so cute, and so completely believably child-like! Only kids, full of hope and belief in themselves and their abilities, would set up a lemonade stand in a howling snowstorm on a mostly deserted street :) In spite of the poor odds, they're determined to make their business a success and come up with all kinds of creative ideas. Unfortunately in the end they learn a hard lesson about business... but at least something good comes of it (which I hate to give away, but it's so cute I have to tell you - they lose money, but have enough for two popsicles - the perfect treat in a snowstorm, apparently :))
For the complete list of books with resources, please visit
Perfect Picture Books.
PPBF bloggers please be sure to leave your post-specific link in the list below so we can all come visit you!
Have a wonderful weekend, everyone!
(And at some point tomorrow, Sunday or Monday, I will post the promised new writing contest guidelines! I'm trying desperately to scrounge up some prizes for you! :))
In early October, over on Twitter, Jillian asked me if I'd seen As An Oak Tree Grows, by G. Brian Karas. She noted the wigwam in it, and that a "big stopping point" for her and her students was the page where the text says that the little boy "grew up and moved away."
As An Oak Tree Grows was published in September of this year (2014) by Nancy Paulsen Books (an imprint of Penguin Young Readers).
Below are photos (apologies for them being kind of blurry) of the first three double-paged spreads of As An Oak Tree Grows.
First, we see "a young boy" planting an acorn on a late summer day. See him in the middle of the double-paged spread? At the bottom left corner of the next page (see second photo), we'll see a year (1775) and we'll read "later that year" the tree sprouts. So, the time when the boy plants the acorn is meant to be summer, 1775. Notice there's nobody there except for the boy and someone on the water, in a canoe. They're obviously meant to be Native. Karas includes a wigwam, so he must know a little about the people he is showing us on this page. But! Karas doesn't say anything about the boy's tribal nation. That omission matters to a Native reader, and it ought to matter to every reader. Without that information, readers are kept ignorant of who Native peoples were/are in terms of our distinct identities as nations. And, the omission obscures the fact that European and Native leaders engaged in diplomatic negotiations (treaties!) about the land and its use.
One question you could ask about the boy (as Jillian did), is where are the rest of his people? This "empty land" image is a big part of the justification for colonization. Unused land! There for the taking! Wrong.
On the second page we see the boy taking his dad to see the little tree (question for botanists: I think the time sequence for the acorn sprouting is off a bit). See what has changed on the shoreline? Karas shows us that someone (Europeans) have established themselves and, as the two ships in the water show, more are coming. The page suggests a rather idyllic life with two cultures co-existing, but it was far from that! Tribal nations along the northeastern coast had, by 1775, been fighting to protect their homelands for over 100 years.
The third double-paged spread (below) is the one that tells us "The boy grew up and moved away. Farmers now lived here." That page was the "stopping point" for Jillian and her class. She and her students know, I think, that it was more than simply a boy growing up and moving away. An uncritical reader likely wouldn't notice the problems in those two sentences, but there are, in fact, many things to note. The boy and his nation were likely forced off the land that they had been farming. Yes--they were probably farmers, too, but the pervasive image of "primitive Indians" usually pushes that fact off to the side.
With the Indians conveniently out of sight and therefore, out of mind, Karas can show us what happens to the tree and the lands around it as time passes. That is the purpose of the book, and I'm certain lot of people are going to love this book, but...
When will we see an end to stories where Indians just go away? We didn't go away.
Boy, don't they! Fractions and I have never been friends. So I can completely identify with the hero of this appealing chapter book, a sequel to
7 x 9 = Trouble! Wilson never met a fraction he liked. He'd much rather play with his new pet hamster Pip (short for Pipsqueak). Instead, his parents inform him he'll have to start seeing a math tutor. Wilson is determined to keep his secret a secret--from his classmates and especially from his best friend, Josh, who's great at math. A subplot concerns the two boys' attempts at devising a winning science project. Josh wants to know if pickles can be made to explode. Wilson only knows that hamsters will figure in his.
Wilson is a believable third-grader with third-grade-size problems.
Claudia Mills takes these problems seriously but still manages to let the fun shine through.
G. Brian Karas's black-and-white cartoon-style illustrations add to the book's charm. Fans of Johanna Hurwitz's Monty series and Barbara Seuling's Robert books will enjoy reading about Wilson.
And as we learn from an author's note at the end of the book, Mills was also bad at math. And she ended up more than okay. Her books will bring hope to all of us who tremble at the sight of a numerator and denominator. Now which is which again?
Fractions = Trouble!
by Claudia Mills
illustrations by G. Brian Karas
Farrar Straus Giroux, 128 pages
Published: June, 2011
By: James Preller,
on 4/28/2011
Blog:
James Preller's Blog
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This is amazing good news. Great news, in fact. I’m happy and proud to say that my book, Bystander, is included on the ballot for the 2012 New York State Reading Association Charlotte Award.
To learn more about the award, and to download a ballot or bookmark, please click here.
The voting is broken down into four categories and includes forty books. Bystander is in the “Grades 6-8/Middle School” category. Really, it’s staggering. There are ten books in this category out of literally an infinity of titles published each year. You do the math, people.
For more background stories on Bystander — that cool inside info you can only find on the interwebs! — please click here (bully memory) and here (my brother John) and here (Nixon’s dog, Checkers) and here (the tyranny of silence).
Below please find all the books on the ballot — congratulations, authors & illustrators! I’m honored to be in your company.
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GRADES pre K-2/PRIMARY
Bubble Trouble . . . Margaret Mahy/Polly Dunbar
City Dog, Country Frog . . . Mo Willems/Jon J Muth
Clever Jack Takes the Cake . . . Candace Fleming/G. Brian Karas
Lousy Rotten Stinkin’ Grapes . . . Margie Palatini/Barry Moser
Memoirs of a Goldfish . . . Devin Scillian/Tim Bower
Otis . . . Loren LongStars Above Us . . . Geoffrey Norman/E.B. Lewis
That Cat Can’t Stay . . . Thad Krasnesky/David Parkins
Turtle, Turtle, Watch Out! . . . April Pulley Sayre/Annie Patterson
We Planted a Tree . . . Diane Muldrow/Bob Staake
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GRADES 3-5/INTERMEDIATE
The Can Man . . . Laura E. Williams/Craig Orback L
Emily’s Fortune . . . Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
Family Reminders . . .
By Phoebe Vreeland, The Children’s Book Review
Published: January 6, 2010
Clever Jack Takes the Cake
By Candace Fleming (Author), G. Brian Karas (Illustrator)
Reading level: Ages 4-8
Hardcover: 40 pages
Publisher: Schwartz & Wade (August 24, 2010)
Source: Publisher
Children love to hear a good story. Conversely, some children are quite good at telling stories, often spinning a yarn not only to entertain but to get themselves out of a pickle. Author Candace Fleming apparently was one of those children. From a very young age she told great tales. Fortunately, Candace’s parents called her “imaginative” and encouraged her to write her stories down. In fifth grade, she wrote a ten page mystery so clever that it was “awarded” a Newbery. (She actually peeled it off the cover of the class copy of The Witch of Blackbird Pond.) A lover of history, language, and literature, today Fleming writes award-winning books for children of all ages.
Clever Jack Takes the Cake is her most recent collaboration with illustrator G. Brian Karas. Previously, the team had great success with Muncha! Muncha! Muncha! and its sequel Tippy-Tippy-Tippy, Hide! This new book is an original fairy tale replete with classic characters and a noble message. Karas is a prolific illustrator and children’s author who has received copious awards and honors. He typically renders his drawings in pencil and gouache in a style that has proven appealing to the child’s eye. Fairy tales aren’t new for Karas who has illustrated several of the fractured variety for Frances Minters. Sleepless Beauty, whose villain caught my eye thanks to a New York Times review, appealed to urban Manhattan-ites. But Fleming’s fairy tale takes place “long ago” and Karas’ pallet of sepia and gold establishes just the right “Once upon a time” feel.
The story begins when a poor boy named Jack receives an invitation to the princess’ tenth birthday celebration. His mother says, “What a shame you can’t go…we’ve nothing fine enough to give her and no money to buy a gift.” This doesn’t deter Jack. Jack is a resourceful, “glass half full” kind of lad—scrappy and creative. By the end of the day, after trading his few belongings and putting in a bit of hard work, he has made a beautiful birthday cake adorned with the reddest, juiciest, most succulent strawberry in the land. A cake so fine it puts a proud smile on his mother’s weary face.
Illustration
Young Zeus
By G. Brian Karas
Scholastic Press, 2010
$17.99, ages 4-8, 48 pages
Encyclopedia Mythologica: Gods & Heroes
By Matthew Reinhart and Robert Sabuda
Candlewick Press, 2010
$29.99, ages 9-12, 12 pages
Mythical gods may not rank up there with wizards and vampires as your child's favorite characters -- and not surprisingly. With so many duking it out for control over the universe, it's enough to make your child's head spin.
But when you think about how often myths pop up in children's books -- from Chris Van Allsburg's The Wreck of the Zephyr to Rick Riordan's Percy Jackson and the Olympians series -- it's hard not to want to nudge your child to learn the basics.
Just knowing a little about the gods, heroes and beasts of Greek, Roman and Nordic mythology can enrich your child's reading experience -- and ideally, give them insight into some of the books they already love to read.
The challenge, of course, is finding books about mythology that are interesting enough to draw young readers away from their usual selections long enough to brush up on who's who.
Fortunately there are some really great books that bring levity, clarity and a lot fun to the subject.
One of my new favorites is Karas's Young Zeus -- a perfect picture book to introduce young readers to the Greek gods' family tree. Karas retells the story of Zeus, the chief deity of the Greeks, in such a playful way it reads more like a fairy tale than an ancient legend.
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This sounds adorable!