Waking Beauty

Title:   Waking Beauty

Author: Leah Wilcox

Illustrator: Lydia Monk

Genre: Fantasy

Subgenre: General Fiction

Theme: Prince Charming

Book Award: Maryland Black Eyed Susan Picture Book Award, and Arkansas Diamond Primary Book Award

Primary Characters: Prince Charming

Secondary Characters: Fairies, and Beauty

Date of Publication: 2008

Publishing Company: G.P. Putnam’s Sons

Summary of the book: This book is about Prince Charming who is a horrible listener. Sleeping Beauty’s fairies try to tell him how to wake Sleeping Beauty up. The Prince tries all kinds of silly ways to wake her up. He is not listening to what the fairies are saying. Will he ever understand that she won’t have ever-after bliss until he wakes her with a KISS!

How can the book be used with students in the classroom: I would use this book to teach listening skills to my students. It is a fun book to read to the whole class, and to teach the children how to be good listeners.

It Looked Like Spilt Milk

Title: It Looked Like Spilled Milk                                                    

Author: Charles G. Shaw

Illustrator: Charles G. Shaw

Genre: Juvenile fiction

Subgenre:  picture book

Theme: puffy clouds

Primary Characters: none

Secondary: none

Date of Publication: 1988

Publishing Company: Harper Collins

Summary of the book: This book is about the different shapes clouds could be. It is a very simple book and easy to read to young children. It keeps children guessing what the shape could be. Could it be spilled milk, a rabbit, bird or is it just spilled milk?

How can the book be used with students in the classroom: After reading the story I would have the children take a white piece of paper and tear it anyway they like. After doing that I would have them glue there torn paper onto a blue piece of construction paper and tell the class what they think there paper could be. The different shapes of paper show that clouds are in many different shapes.

A Remainder of One

Title: A Remainder of One                                                    

Author: Elinor J. Princzes

Illustrator: Bonnie Mackain

Genre: Children’s Picture Book

Subgenre: fiction

Theme: Understanding Multiplication

Primary Characters: Soldier Joe (a bug)

Secondary: insects

Date of Publication: 2002

Publishing Company: Sandpiper

Summary of the book: The books tell the story of Soldier Joe, a loveable bug who always seems to find himself labeled as the “remainder of one” by the other insects in the bug squadron. In this story, Joe is a member of the twenty-fifth squadron, a group of twenty-five bugs that is marching in parade before the queen. When the bugs divide themselves into two lines, Joe becomes the odd bug out. Joe is a determined little bug and tries to find a way to divide the members of the bug squadron into even rows with no remainders, so that he can participate in the parade.

How can the book are used with students in the classroom: This is a great book to use for a Math lesson on division with remainders.  I would read the story to the class and after reading it to the class I would ask the students what they knew about the word remainder. This is a great way to start a discussion on division.

The Kissing Hand

Title: The Kissing Hand                                                        

Author: Audrey Penn

Illustrator: Ruth E. Harper and Nancy M. Leak

Genre:  Fiction/Picture Book

Subgenre: family/parents

Theme: A mother’s love

Primary Characters: Chester the Raccoon and his mother

Secondary Characters:

Awards: Caldecott Medal, Ed Press

Date of Publication: 2006

Publishing Company: Tangle Wood Press

Summary of the book: This book is about a mother’s love for her child. It is about a raccoon who doesn’t want to go to school. His mother explains that he will love school, because he will meet new friends; play with new toys and new books. To make Chester feel better she tells him a little secret about the Kissing Hand. She said it will make you feel all warm and cozy at school. She takes his hand and tells him to spread his fingers and she kisses his hand and tells him to close it tightly and when you feel scared and lonely take your hand to your cheek and that will be my kiss to you.

How can the book be used with students in the classroom: I taught preschool for years and I loved using this book for the first day of school. I would use a puppet raccoon to tell the story and the kids loved that. If children are feeling scared on the first day this book can help with making them feel more comfortable. You can also do activities to go a long with the book. Making handprints of each student and putting a heart sticker inside the hand is a great art project.

Free Baseball

Title: Free Baseball                                                    

Author: Sue Corbett

Illustrator: None

Genre: Fiction

Subgenre: Realism: Families/Sports

Theme: The Love for baseball

Primary Characters: Felix, and his mother

Secondary Characters: The Miracle baseball team, Felix’s friends, and Homer

Awards: None

Date of Publication: 2006

Publishing Company: The Penguin Group

Summary of the book: Free Baseball is a book about a little boy named Felix whose number one dream is to play baseball like his famous father that he has never met.  In his eyes, nothing is more important than baseball. He shows this when he sneaks out of town while hiding on The Miracle baseball team’s bus after a game one night.  Although doing this caused his mother to worry and be very angry, it ended up bringing them close and to a new and better life in the end.

How can the book be used with students in the classroom: I believe this would be a great book to read to the class for a few minutes a day. It could be tied into Father’s Day or read just for enjoyment. Felix is a young boy who has big goals that he ends up achieving at the end of this book. The moral of this story is to set your heart to something and never give up. I believe it is a great “life-lesson” book and will teach students about fighting through family issues and reaching their dreams.

Giraffes Can't Dance

Title: Giraffes Can’t Dance                                                               

Author: Giles Andreae

Illustrator: Guy Parker- Rees

Genre: Children’s Picture Book

Subgenre: fiction

Theme: Never Giving Up

Primary Characters: Gerald the Giraffe

Secondary Characters: the warthogs, rhinos, lions, chimps, baboons, and the cricket

Awards: None

Date of Publication: 1999

Publishing Company: Orchard Books

Summary of the book: This is a story about a giraffe named Gerald who would love to dance, but his legs are too skinny and neck is too long. Every time Gerald tries to dance his knees buckle and he is unable to do the moves. The other animals who can dance begin to tease Gerald because he looks so silly. At one point he hears from the animals that “giraffes can’t dance.” Gerald becomes very sad when he hears this and thinks he will never be able to dance like the other animals. Gerald runs into a small cricket who believes in him. The tiny cricket explains to Gerald that all he has to do is put his mind to it and he can dance. The cricket explains to him that everything thing makes music. After Gerald’s take with the cricket he begins to sway and dance and all the other animals watch in amazement.

How can the book be used with students in the classroom: I would have the children listen to the story, after reading I would have the children discuss how they felt about the story. I would ask them, “How do you think Giraffe felt when he couldn’t dance”, and see if any of the children have ever felt this way. I would explain to them that sometimes things can be hard to do, but we should try them anyway. I would have the draw pictures and share a time that they felt they couldn’t do something but try anyway. I would make a class book out of the pictures they create.

Otis

Title: Otis                                                                   

Author: Loren Long

Illustrator: Loren Long

Genre: Children’s Book

Subgenre: fiction

Theme: friendship

Primary Characters: Otis and baby calf

Secondary Characters: yellow tractor and farmer

Awards: None

Date of Publication: 2009

Publishing Company: The Penguin Group

Summary of the book: This is a story about a tractor named Otis that becomes friends with a little calf. They become inseparable, they do everything together. One day the farmer needs a new tractor and they put a yellow tractor in place of Otis. The baby calf is very sad, and misses Otis and realizes how much he needs his friend.

How can the book be used with students in the classroom: I would use this book to show the class how we can depend on our friends and explain they we can also meet new friends. Great story to read for the first day of class.

Almost Astronauts

 Title:   Almost Astronauts                                                     

Author: Tanya Lee Stone

Illustrator: Tanya Lee Stone

Genre: Historical Fiction 

Subgenre: Nonfiction

Theme: You can achieve anything you set your mind to

Primary Characters: Jerri Cobb

Secondary Characters: 13 Women

Awards: Robert f. Sibert

Date of Publication: 2009

Publishing Company: Candlewick Press

Summary of the book: In 1960, pilot Jerri Cobb underwent testing to show women could go up in space. She hoped scientific evidence would prevail against the era’s gender discrimination. As Cobb and the other ‘Mercury 13” women discovered, they were ahead of their time by nearly forty years. The pictures are black-and-white with personal anecdotes.  Almost Astronauts weaves biographies of the female pilots into larger history of the 1960’s and changing gender roles.

How can the book be used with students in the classroom: This is a great book to teach a lesson on how we can accomplish anything we set our minds to. I could incorporate it into a History lesson as well.

Love That Dog

Title: Love That Dog                                                 

Author: Sharon Creech

Illustrator: Alicia Mikles

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Subgenre: Novel

Theme: Realistic Fiction

Primary Characters: Jack

Secondary Characters: teacher,dog

Awards: Newbery Medal

Date of Publication: 2001

Publishing Company: Scholastic Inc.

Summary of the book: This is a story written in poetry form, which the young boy Jack does not like to write. He thinks poetry is weird and only for girls. His teacher will not let him escape writing poetry because she keeps giving him assignments that require him to read and write poetry. After he writes some poetry his teacher wants to share it with the class, but he wants to be hidden about it. When he sees his own poetry displayed by the way the teacher posts his work with letters on yellow paper and typed up neatly, he likes what he sees.  He reads other poetry by poets that he really likes and begins to think that poetry is not so bad.

How can the book be used with students in the classroom: This would be a great group activity for the class to learn about how poetry is written. I would have the class read the novel and discuss questions about the book. I would have them get in there groups and identify the poetic elements in the novel. I would have the class to write a poem about a poem. This book brings out great qualities in a young boy that thought he could not write poetry and realized that he could.

Who is Amelia Earhart?

Title: Who Was Amelia Earhart?                                                        

Author: Kate Boehm Jerome

Illustrator: Nancy Harrison and David Cain

Genre: Biography

Subgenre: juvenile literature

Theme: Biography

Primary Characters: Amelia Earhart

Secondary Characters:

Awards: None

Date of Publication: 2002

Publishing Company: Grosset and Dunlap

Summary of the book: This is a great book about Amelia Earhart’s life; it contains important information and facts about Amelia Earhart from childhood and up. It tells about how Amelia became a woman pilot. This book gives a lot of historical information. There were also numerous sketches and maps which would keep a youngster engaged throughout the book.

How can the book be used with students in the classroom: I would use this book in my classroom to have the children read the book as a class and talk about how to write a biography.

Lois Lowry Number the Stars

Title:   Number the Stars                                                       

Author:  Lois Lowry

Illustrator: Lois Lowry

Genre: historical fiction

Subgenre: historical

Theme: heroism                                                               

Primary Characters: Annemarie Johansen and Ellen

Secondary Characters: Mama and Papa

Awards:  John Newbery Medal

Date of Publication: 1989

Publishing Company: Random House Inc.

Summary of the book: This is a story about a 10 year old little girl name Annemarie Johansen, who lived in Copehagen, Denmark. Annemarie and her family risked their lives to help her best friend, Ellen Rosen. They pretended that she was part of their family to save her life. This is compelling story of bravery and heroism.

How can the book be used with students in the classroom: I could use this book for a Social Studies lesson. I would have the class read the book, and we could discuss things like, the holocaust, concentration camps and Denmarks Jewish citizens. It’s a great book to talk about things that went on during World War II.

Joseph Had a Little Over Coat

Author: Simms Taback

Title: Joseph Had a Little Overcoat

Illustrator: Viking

Genre: Children’s Picture Book                                                

Subgenre: Fiction

Theme:  resourcefulness

Primary Character: Joseph

Secondary Character:

Awards: Caldecott Medal

Publishing Company:  Penguin Company

Date of Publications: 1999

Summary of the book:

This is a very colorful book based on a Yiddish folksong. It is about Joseph who had a little overcoat. The overcoat was all torn and had holes in it. In the book it illustrates this by having die-cut holes in some of the pictures. Joseph took his old coat of holes and made it into a jacket, after the jacket became all torn with holes in it he made a vest, when the vest was old and torn, he made a tie, he continue to make things out of the worn out material, by the end when nothing was left, he thought he had nothing and that is when he decide to write a book about his little over coat. As, children read this book and turn the pages they can guess what Joseph will make next from his overcoat.

I would use this book for a lesson on recycling, it would be a lesson on how things can be reused and that you could make something out of nothing.  I could also use the book for an art lesson, the illustrations of the pictures in the book are so vivid and it also has the die-cuts on the pages. I could also use the book for a multicultural lesson in music, because at the end of the book there is a Yiddish song that goes a long with the story.

Duck! Rabbit!

                                                                                  

Author: Amy Krouse and Tome Lischtenheld

Title: Duck! Rabbit!

Illustrator: Tom Lichteheld

Genre: Children’s Picture Book

Subgenre: Fiction

Theme: Compromise

Primary Characters: Character 1 and Character 2

Secondary Characters:  Duck or Rabbit

Awards:

·         Time Magazine Top Ten Children's Book of 2009, #1

·         American Library Association Notable Children's Book of 2010

·         Publishers Weekly Best Children's Books of the Year, 2009

·         Barnes & Noble Best Kid’s Books of 2009

·         2009 iParenting Media Award Winner – Book Category

·         National Parenting Publications Awards 2009 – Gold Award

·         IndieBound Summer 2009 Top-10 Indie Next Kids' Pick

·         Oppenheim Toy Portfolio, 2009 Best Book Award – Gold

·         Booklist 2009 Editors' Choice

·         Goodreads.com Best Picture Book of 2009 Nominee

·         About.com's Best Illustrated Children's Books of 2009

Publication Company: Scholastic Inc.

Date of Publication: 2009

Summary of the book:

This is a story about two unseen characters trying to convince the other one of the creatures in the book- is it a duck or a rabbit? Throughout the book you wonder could it be either. By the time the characters started to see the other’s view of what they saw, the duck or rabbit runs away and they see an anteater. Or is it a brachiosaurus?

This would be a great book for kindergarten through grade 2. I would use this book with my students, when teaching a lesson on disagreements. The book discusses how points of view can differ and still be right. In teaching the lesson we can talk about how we all see things differently.