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Creativity, critical thinking, communication and collaboration are critical skills for children to learn so they can succeed in today’s world.

Lon Po Po: A Red-Riding Hood Story from China Translated and illustrated by Ed Young

When sisters Shang, Tao and Paotze get a surprise visitor while their mother is away, they have to figure out if it’s really their Po Po (grandmother) who is at the door.

Lon Po Po is about critical thinking and how you can use lots of clues to figure out a problem. Use these questions and ideas to get your child thinking and talking about the story:

• What clues did the sisters have to figure out
• The sisters tricked the wolf. Do you think it was right or wrong to trick the wolf? Why or why not? Have you ever tricked someone? What happened?

Home At Last written by Susan Middleton Elya, illustrated by Felipe Davalos

The Patiño family moves to the U.S. from Mexico and must learn to speak English and adapt to their new country. Despite some challenges, Ana’s family finds ways to support and encourage one another as they build a new life together.

Home at Last is about communicating and how being able to clearly share your thoughts and needs with others is important to feeling connected. Use these questions and ideas to get your child thinking and talking about the story.

• Ana and her family learn English when they move to America. Tell me about a time when you learned something new. What happened? How did you feel?
• Why do you think Mamá doesn’t want to learn English? How did she change her mind?

Balloons Over Broadway by Melissa Sweet

This real-life story shares the life of Tony Sarg, the talented puppet-maker who helped the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade come to life.

Balloons Over Broadway is about using CREATIVITY to build on existing ideas to make something new and different. Use these questions and ideas to get your child thinking and talking about the story.

• What are some different ways Tony uses his creativity in the story?
• Tony is always looking at his balloons and making changes so that they work better. Why was it important that he kept improving the balloons? How do you think about making something better?

Developed as a joint project with the Partnership for 21st Century Learning and with generous support from Disney, each hand-picked book in the Learn for Life section is paired with a FREE downloadable tip sheet. These tipsheets designed to help you equip the kids you serve with the key 21st century skills they need to thrive in school and in life.

The post Books that Teach Creativity, Critical Thinking, Communication and Collaboration appeared first on First Book Blog.

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This Thanksgiving Mark Fearing has a new book titled The Great Thanksgiving Escape.

Gavin thinks it is going to be another boring Thanksgiving at his grandma's house until he runs into his cousin Rhonda who reminds him, "sometimes you have to make your own fun."   So the pair tries to sneak out of the house to play outside.   They encounter some unexpected obstacles along the way.   First, two vicious guard dogs are blocking the front door, Then Rhonda gets trapped in the "Hall of Aunts".  However, there is no stopping these two.   They finally make it to the back door only to find a surprise.  And, it still does to stop them!


Also coming in the Spring is a new title by Carson Ellis called Home.   The Holiday time often brings thoughts of home so I taught I would share a sneak peak.   This book takes a simple look at the Home. The main question being, "This is my home, and this is me.   Where is your home?  Where are you?" It looks at various types of homes from many different angles, styles and cultures.   Here is a sneak peak-





Also I can never talk about Thanksgiving titles without looking back on a old post for Balloons over Broadway by Melissa Sweet.   The Balloons over Broadway activity kit at her site is just wonderful!


Plus, would just like to mention a new photography exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York
         
        Oct 15, 2014 - Feb 15, 2015

• Jeff Chien-Hsing Liao's New York

  Assembled Realities

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Page 19 from Dallas Clayton's Awesome Book of Thanks

It's Kids' Book Website Tuesday and it's two days before Thanksgiving so... Take a look at Dallas Clayton's The Awesome Book of Thanks.  It is pretty awesome.  To learn more about Clayton and his Awesome books, check this interview on Reading Rockets, one of my favorite reading sites.

Talking about awesomeness and books and Thanksgiving, my favorite new Thanksgiving book is Balloons over Broadway : the True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy's Parade by Melissa Sweet (who also drew the pictures).  Tony Sarg, a puppeteer and toy designer, made mechanical displays for Macy's windows.  He was the genius behind the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade.  This book describes how the parade evolved into one of America's favorite Thanksgiving traditions.  I love watching the parades - with the mute button on.  (That's how we watch football games in our house, too.  Don't those people ever stop talking to breathe??).  But I digress...

I hope to post before Thursday but if life intervenes - as it often does - have an AWESOME Thanksgiving!  Remember turkey has a soporific effect on humans so do NOT operate heavy machinery after eating Thanksgiving dinner. 

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When my daughter was growing up, we lived a hop, skip, and a jump from the Museum of Natural History. That was great just in itself, but it also meant that every Thanksgiving we were at the starting point for the Macy's parade. My daughter was less than a week old when I bundled her up and took her to the parade. She spent the entire time gazing at my face, but still I felt like a real parent for the first time. As she grew, we usually skipped the parade. It was soooo crowded that we watched it on TV. But we still had our traditions. On Wednesday night we'd go to the museum grounds, where workers would be blowing up the balloons for the big day. It was fun to wander up and down the streets and see our favorites as they filled with helium and magically came to life. Of course, eventually word got out and that too became soooo crowded.

Balloons Over Broadway takes me back to those days. This amazing picture book tells the story of how Tony Sarg, a puppeteer, came to invent the gigantic balloons that are the hallmark of the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade. Like many icons, the balloons just always seemed to exist, so kudos to Melissa Sweet for unearthing how they developed from blimp-like rubber balloons carried on wooden sticks to the soaring helium-filled wonders of today.

Melissa Sweet, a Caldecott Honor winner, obviously threw herself into this book. The artwork, a combination of watercolor illustrations and collages made from found objects, fabrics, and handmade puppets, exude the creativity and love of play that Sarg devoted his life to. In an authors note, Sweet tells us that she "played with all sorts of materials, not knowing exactly what the outcome would be." The end result shows that it was time well spent.

The book concludes with additional info about Tony Sarg, as well as a bibliography. The back end papers feature a 1933 advertisement from the New York Times, touting the upcoming parade. Among the "helium filled monsters" is one I would give anything to see: "The Colicky Kid: Listen to him squall!! He's mad. He's bad. He yowls bloody murder!"

And head on over to Sweet's website to view her Balloons Over Broadway activity kit. It has fun templates of puppets for kids (or anybody) to make.



Balloons Over Broadway: The True Story of the Puppeteer of Macy's Parade
by Melissa Sweet
Houghton Mifflin, 40 pages
Published: November 2011

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