In Between by April Pulley Sayre with Jeff Sayre Simon and Schuster, 2023 review copy from the public library
It’s been a minute since this blog has been anything except Poetry Friday, but last week I sat down with the March/April issue of The Horn Book and the Columbus Metropolitan Library app. As I read reviews, I reserved titles. The bounty has begun to come in, and I’ve got LOTS of great new books to share.
We’ll start with In Between. This is April’s last book. But even as a last, it is also an in between. An in between for her readers as well as for her husband and co-author, Jeff. In the dedication, April wrote, “For anyone walking the uncertain path between endings and new beginnings.” That would be all of us, all the time, right?
April’s photographs in this book are more stunning than usual, and paired perfectly with her words. She reassures us that it is perfectly normal to be in between, and although we (and the animals) are feeling awkward and not at all ready for what comes next, we “Grow stronger.”
And although “Paws may pause. Eyes may stare.” we’ll be okay, because, “…it’s only an in between.”
I can’t wait to read and discuss this book with my Kids Club kids!
My work so far as the Kids Club Reading Specialist has been very peripheral, very fragmented. I’m at each site weekly, and I’ve met with students one-on-one or in small groups every other week…if we’re lucky and their parents don’t pick them up in the middle of a lesson or before we even get started.
I’m not complaining, but I AM looking forward to next week when schools are closed for two days following Martin Luther King, Jr. Day for a Professional Development Day and a Records Day. On Tuesday and Wednesday, 24 students will participate in all-day Kids Club, and I’ll have the opportunity to work with them as a whole group!
Tuesday will be Fairy Tale Day. We’ll start with TELLING STORIES WRONG by Gianni Rodari. This is the story of a grandfather who just can’t seem to tell the story of Little Red Riding Hood the way it’s supposed to be told. Clever readers will be able to figure out why. This book doesn’t rhyme, but it will lead us to others that do.
Next up, I’ll have some of the older students prepped to perform a poem from VERY SHORT FAIRY TALES TO READ TOGETHER by Mary Ann Hobermann. Then I’ll invite pairs of students to practice and perform a poem from one of the You Read To Me, I’ll Read To You books.
Finally, in the upcoming weeks when we’re back to the regular schedule, my read aloud with small groups and individuals will be…
…ENDLESSLY EVER AFTER: PICK YOUR PATH THE COUNTLESS FAIRY TALE ENDINGS by Laurel Snyder. This rhyming picture book is a tour de force of planning. I literally have no idea how she must have plotted this book so that the reader has SO many different paths to follow! And in RHYME, no less! I love that not all of the endings are happy and not all of the paths are long. Plus, Dan Santat’s illustrations are tons of fun! I can’t wait to explore this book with readers of all ages and see what they think. I’m not sure we’ll get much past read aloud in those sessions…and that’s just FINE!
This week’s Poetry Friday Roundup is hosted by Susan at Chicken Spaghetti.
And here’s the lowdown on the Poetry Sisters’ January Challenge: We chose the word TRANSFORMATION to guide our work throughout the year, and for January, we’re writing a CASCADE poem. The Cascade form takes every line from the first stanza of your poem and TRANSFORMS those lines into the final lines of each stanza thereafter. (The link helpfully creates a little form that shows you how easy this might be.) Beyond that, there are no additional rules. Long or short, free verse, sonnet, or sestina, find a way in which you can incorporate the idea (or word) transformation as you write. We’ll post our poems on the last Friday of the month (1/27/23). I hope you’ll join us!
Texts for this Text Set have been posted daily on Instagram. Follow @TextSets there to get daily updates!
This week’s books could make up a mini-unit on the intentional use of dialogue in narrative. So many young writers work hard to create dialogue in their writing and many are reading books in graphic novel form, that dialogue makes up a great deal of their writing.. For readers, it is important that they understand how dialogue impacts a story. For dialogue to work in a story, the author has to be intentional about its use. This week’s set of books will give young readers a way to look at dialogue with a writer’s eye–why did the author make this decision about dialogue. Hopefully after studying a small set of texts, writers can be more intentional and effective in their use of dialogue.
I think I’d get started with Lift and Dumplings for Lili. Lift is in graphic novel format with very few words. Much of the story is told through illustrations. But there is some dialogue that is important to the story. But the author is intentional about every word of dialogue. This book would make a good first book to notice and wonder about the decisions about when to include dialogue and when not to and how the dialogue adds to the story. In Dumplings from Lili, there are two kinds of dialogue–the dialogue in the text and the dialogue in talking bubbles as part of the illustrations. There are different reasons for each and thinking together about why some of the dialogue was embedded in the text while other dialogue was embedded in illustrations (what purpose does each serve to the story and reader) will make for good conversation.
In both Not Enough Lollipops and That’s My Sweater!, the dialogue is critical to the story. The story would make no sense without the dialogue. Sometimes dialogue adds some detail and sometimes the dialogue is used to tell the story. These are two books to think about how and when dialogue is used to tell the story. Dialogue is used in very different ways in these two books but much of the storyline depends on the dialogue in each.
In See the Cat and See the Dog, again dialogue is critical to the story. Without the dialogue the story would not make sense. However the dialogue is used in a bit of a different way in these two as the characters actually converse with the narrator. This is tricky to do well (and sometimes hard to understand as a reader) but it is something many children try in their writing. How did the author have the character talk back to the narrator effectively in these two books would be the question I’d ask with these.
In Our Day of the Dead Celebration, talking bubbles are used throughout the book. The dialogue is often part of the illustration so this is a great book to talk to readers about how important it is to read the text and the illustrations for full understanding. This dialogue adds detail to the main part of the story in very important ways. The way that the author used dialogue to tell more is intentional and effective and worthy of study.
So many of our students love to write with humor. It takes so much skill to do this and a favorite author to study humor writing is Josh Funk. In his fairy tale series (It’s Not Hansel and Gretel and It’s Not Jack and the Beanstalk pictured here) , the use of talking bubbles to add humor is intentional throughout the book. There is intentionality and craft to his decisions and for our writers who want to make their stories funny, studying the ways Josh Funk uses dialogue can help! (And these stories are just great fun to enjoy together!)
This week’s books were linked at Bookelicious and/or Cover to Cover Children’s Bookstore. If you are looking for a fabulous local children’s bookstore to support, Cover to Cover is an amazing one. We are lucky to have them in Central Ohio! If you don’t have an independent children’s bookstore in your town, check out Bookelicious. They are an online independent bookstore for children with an incredible curated collection.
Texts for this Text Set have been posted daily on Instagram. Follow @TextSets there to get daily updates!
Text Sets is back and excited about a new school year! I know celebrating names is something teachers do early in the school year so this week, we’ll share some books that invite these conversations. I think it’s important that we don’t only share these books at the beginning of the school year. Many books about names are better shared once community is established. And of course, the books can also be revisited as part of a writing unit or for a reading mini lesson.
This week’s Text Set starts with a classic–Chrysanthemum. I’m starting with this one intentionally because I think if we are intentional about book choice, we layer texts and have several books that can explore a concept over time. We choose the books that we share because they naturally invite the conversations we hope have. As we work to expand and diversify the books we use, there will always be favorites that still work. The key is not using ONLY one book but to create a text set around a big idea so children have many stories to explore. When I taught K/1, Kevin Henkes was a favorite author and this book helped new readers pay attention to print and text and numbers of letters in names, etc. This book is still one of the best I know to help kids think about names from a print standpoint–to get them paying close attention to print. It is also great because of the theme and because it is often the first introduction young readers have to Kevin Henkes, an author we want them to know! Even though there are lots of new, wonderful books about names that I would also use, I wouldn’t get rid of this one!
That’s Not My Name is my new favorite book in this Text Set. The book was published this summer and does a great job of inviting conversations about the importance of pronouncing everyone’s name correctly. It is done so well for children (and adults) of all ages and the illustrations add a joyfulness to the idea of names that I love. If you are adding one new book to your collections of name books, I’d add this one for sure!
Alma and How She Got Her Name and How Nivi Got Her Names pair together well because they both tell the traditions of how names are chosen in families. In Alma and How She Got Her Name, Alma learns about all of the people she was named after. (Juana Martinez-Neal is another author/illustrator to highlight as she also has picture books, chapter books and more.)In How Nivi Got Her Names, Nivi also learns about the people she was named after as well as the traditions of Inuit naming traditions and their meanings. (And I had no idea how may books illustrated by Charlene Chua I have in my collection–another great illustrator to highlight!) Both of these books open conversations about the various wonderful ways that children’s names are chosen.
Your Name is a Song is another fabulous story that reminds us the importance of every name. Similar to That is Not My Name, the main character is dealing with the frustration of people at school mispronouncing her name. The response is a bit different but with the same important message and empowers her to go back to school with a new understanding. There is a history and music piece embedded in the theme and the author note and pronunciations of the names are an important piece to discussing the importance of celebrating every name. Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow has 3 picture books published and one on the way! I am pretty sure I’ll preorder everything she writes from here on out!
My Name is a Story is another brand new picture book. This one has so much possibility when I think about conversations that might happen. After having negative experiences around her name on the first day of school, her mother helps her understand the beauty in her name and in all that she is. Ashanti does a bit with acrostic poetry in a way that expands the idea beyond just a simple word–which would be great fun to talk about with young readers.
This week’s books were linked at Bookelicious and/or Cover to Cover Children’s Bookstore. If you are looking for a fabulous local children’s bookstore to support, Cover to Cover is an amazing one. We are lucky to have them in Central Ohio! If you don’t have an independent children’s bookstore in your town, check out Bookelicious. They are an online independent bookstore for children with an incredible curated collection.
Texts for this Text Set have been posted daily on Instagram.
Follow @TextSets there to get daily updates!
I worry when people think board books are only appropriate for infants and toddlers. Although they are great for that age, they are also great for older readers. I am a big fan of a laundry basket of board books for K-5 as part of the classroom library. The books I am sharing this week are fun and sturdy and great for all ages!
If you don’t know the Mathical Book Awards, then you must! It is a fabulous award “for fiction and nonfiction books that inspire children of all ages to see math in the world around them”. 1 Smile 10 Toes is one of this year’s winners and I LOVE IT!! It is an interactive board book and you can flip it around and make so many animals with different combinations of features. This can be a fun counting book for younger children, but older children can think about the many combinations and all readers can just have great fun creating new combinations! One of my favorite board books of all time!
I love this series by Sophie Beers and Love Makes a Family is one of my faves. (Change Starts with Us and Kindness Makes Us Strong are two others in the series that I love). I love this book for young children but I also think this series can be used in word study for older children. Anytime a whole book defines a single word or concept, there is lots to think about as word learners. Highly recommend this whole series! s
Our Skin: A First Conversation About Race is part of another board book series that I love–the First Conversations series. The others in the series are Yes! No!: A First Conversation About Consent and Being You! A First Conversation About Gender. These provide great anchors for good conversations around important topics. The books are done in developmentally appropriate ways with lots of access points and several opportunities to extend with conversations. There is great backmatter to support adults with having these conversations with children. Another series that is incredible for all ages.
Circle Under Berry book is fun for children and adults. Really, I don’t even know how to explain it but it is brilliant. There is so much on every page of this book–spatial concepts, colors, shapes, etc. And the whole design and concept behind the book is worth study. So much to love about this one!
I recently discovered this oversized board book-Little Cat Hide-and-Seek Emotions— that is a fun way to talk to children (of all ages) about emotions they may be feeling (and how to read those emotions when others may be feeling them.). The colors and illustrations make this book extra engaging, making it a great anchor for conversations around emotions.
This week’s books were linked at Bookelicious and/or Cover to Cover Children’s Bookstore. If you are looking for a fabulous local children’s bookstore to support, Cover to Cover is an amazing one. We are lucky to have them in Central Ohio! If you don’t have an independent children’s bookstore in your town, check out Bookelicious. They are an online independent bookstore for children with an incredible curated collection.
Follow @TextSets on Instagram for daily books/weekly text sets!
“No one is born a great cook, one learns by doing.” Julia Child was tall and loud and eager to learn to be a good cook. She learned the importance of taking “time and care” in choosing the best ingredients (making friends with the butcher, baker, and cheese maker) and in creating her dishes. Most of all, she encouraged her students, her TV fans, and her cookbook readers to have fun! What a great role model! For more images and quotes, see this review at Jama’s Alphabet Soup.
Although she didn’t start school until she was eight, Mary fell in love with science first, and chemistry later. She broke through gender barriers to get a job at North American Aviation developing rocket fuels. She was given the job of developing the fuel that would take a rocket into space. After several failures, she succeeded, and the rest is history! Mary Sherman Morgan is a role model for following your passion.
Did you watch the recent PBS version of AROUND THE WORLD IN EIGHTY DAYS? I was fascinated by their remake of Jules Verne’s story, and even more fascinated by the real-life story of two very different woman journalists, one outgoing and bold (Nellie Bly) and one quiet and reserved (Elizabeth Bisland) who raced to make it around the globe in just seventy-five days. Both had grand adventures and broke all kinds of stereotypes about what women could and should do.
The men of Pepperell, MA took big actions in the fight for independence, but Prudence led the women of Pepperell in small actions that formed “a pattern of rebellion:” burning British tea and making their own with local herbs, spinning their own cloth rather than depending on British cloth, using maple syrup instead of British sugar. “Prudence could live with inconvenience and additional work. But she couldn’t live with unjust laws and stolen rights.” A role model attitude for our times. Prudence even rallied the women to catch a Tory spy crossing the bridge that led into Pepperell.
This innovative biography in verse blends Clara Barton’s words with the words of the author. We’ve heard her called “The Angel of the Battlefield,” but this biography brings Barton’s heroic actions to life. This book would be a good one to pair with images of all of the aid organizations currently working on the ground in Ukraine and those helping refugees in Poland and elsewhere across Europe. Clara Barton is a role model for compassion and determination.
Texts for this Text Set have been posted daily on Instagram.
Follow @TextSets there to get daily updates!
Often, nonfiction is written with older elementary students in mind. This week, we take a look at a set of nonfiction that is perfect for younger readers. These books are actually perfect for all ages and they would be great writing mentors for middle grade writers. When we think about having enough quality nonfiction for our youngest readers, we want books that not only appeal to them, but books that meet their developmental and reading needs. These books do just that!
Love this new nonfiction guide for young readers-How to Say Hello to a Worm. There is so much content packed into this book but the question/answer format that is embedded in a narrative works well to share the information. The illustrations are bright and I love that the questions and answers are in different color font. This is a great feature that young readers will notice and just enough to begin thinking about the visual set up of some nonfiction texts.
I doubt that The Thing About Bees is officially nonfiction but it has enough nonfiction elements that I include it here. The subtitle “A Love Letter” lets readers know that this is a type of tribute to Bees. And the poetic language makes it a perfect read aloud. The way the information is embedded along with bigger themes is brilliant and there are so many access points for all readers.
Animals are often a top of interest for young readers and these two books are perfect. Animals!: Here We Grow! is filled with incredible photographs showing how animals change and grow. The combination of text and visuals make this one perfect for young readers. And in Steve Jenkins’ and Robin Page’s Who Am I? readers can guess the animal described based on the informational clues. (Another great mentor for older writers too!).
Lift, Mix, Fling! Machines Can Do Anything an engaging introduction to simple machines for young learners. There is so much on every page and key vocabulary is embedded into rhyming text. This makes for a great read aloud and there is also lots to explore in the illustrations on each page.
I discovered This Pup Steps Up and This Cat Loves That on Bookelicious and they are great fun. They are both filled with rhyming text and incredible pictures. The dog book focuses on all that dogs can do and the cat book focuses more on the things cats like and don’t like. Readers will learn a lot while they enjoy so many adorable pictures of dogs and cats. What could be better!
This week’s books were linked at Bookelicious. If you don’t know Bookelicious, check it out today. It is an online independent children’s bookstore with an incredible selection of children’s books and many supports for young readers. Lots of great free events for teachers coming up that you can check out and register here.
Follow @TextSets on Instagram for daily books/weekly text sets!
This week, we’ll look at some fabulous picture book biographies. I LOVE picture book biographies and think they invite deeper understanding and study. I love that I can read several picture book biographies about a person in the time it would take for me to read a short chapter book. With different picture books, you get more information and different perspectives. This week, we’ll look at some great picture books that teach us about Black Women Leaders.
We’ll start with Vice President Kamala Harris. I love biographies about people who are leading now. I think it is so important for young readers to learn about people from history AND people who they see now in the world. I LOVED the biography by Nikki Grimes and just recently discovered the My Little Golden Book biographies thanks to John Schu. They are all written by different fabulous authors and are really good! Loved this one by Rajani LaRocco.
Shirley Chisholm is a Verb! is such an incredible picture book. It really captures so much about Shirley Chisholm. I also loved She Was the First!. I have not read Speak Up, Speak Out! (and it is not a picture book) but when I saw that it is by Today Bolden, I had to add it to my stack and share it here. It looks like a perfect middle grade read.
There is so much to learn about the four women featured in Hidden Figures. I love that we can learn about them together and about each one’s separate contribution (Counting on Katherine). I also love that there is a lot of different media surrounding this story so children have so many sources of information to build understanding.
I learned so much reading Pies from Nowhere–such an important story in understanding the Montgomery Bus Boycott. I am happy to see that there are two newer books (Sweet Justice and Georgia Gilmore about Georgia Gilmore so readers can get to know her and her story.
I just discovered Fearless Heart last week thanks to Lynsey Burkins. What a powerful story–another story I am so glad to know. Surya Bonaly cowrote the book so it is part autobiographical. This is an important story for all of us and there are media clips, interviews, etc. online that build on what we learn in this picture book.
This week’s books were linked at Bookelicious and/or Cover to Cover Children’s Bookstore. If you are looking for a fabulous local children’s bookstore to support, Cover to Cover is an amazing one. We are lucky to have them in Central Ohio! If you don’t have an independent children’s bookstore in your town, check out Bookelicious. They are an online independent bookstore for children with an incredible curated collection.
Follow @TextSets on Instagram for daily books/weekly text sets!
This week, we’ll celebrate some incredible Black authors who write and/or illustrate picture books (and more). I worry when we use February to share books by Black authors because these books should be read, studied and incorporated into the curriculum all year. However, I do appreciate a time to celebrate the work and one event I have loved for years is NCTE’s African American Read-In. Whether you are participating or not, the authors I highlight this week have so many incredible books that have so much to teach young readers and writers. And these are 5 must-have Author Baskets in your classroom library.
Oge Mora has become a favorite author/illustator for me lately. I love so much about her work and the power of her stories for our youngest readers. Fiction, nonfiction, cumulative stories–no matter what she writes, love is a thread through all of her books. So much for readers and writers across elementary and beyond.
Vaness Brantley Newton’s Just Like Me is my go-to for baby girl gifts. The cover is one of my favorite covers of all time. Vanessa Brantley Newton writes fiction, nonfiction and poetry and her illustrations are colorful and draw the reader into every story.
Derrick Barnes is another author who writes incredible picture books (he also has a great nonfiction baseball book that I had to include because I LOVE it!). Each of these books is a celebration and I was thrilled to see that The Queen of Kindergarten is coming soon! (You may recognize Vanessa Brantley Newton’s illustrations on a few of his books.) The stories that celebrate children and the poetic language make these books must-haves.
If you’ve heard me talk books lately, you know that Daddy Speaks Love is one of my new favorites. I think it took this book and looking up the author to realize how many of Leah Henderson‘s books I love. Her writing, the topics she chooses, and her author’s notes are all gifts to readers.
Carole Boston Weatherford shows up in so many of my Text Sets (as you may have noticed) as her work is brilliant and so good across grades and ages. Her writing teaches us about people and times in history in a way that is accessible and honest. Her expertise combined with her writing means that I need every book she writes. I can always count on Carole Boston Weatherford’s work to be work I want to share with children and that I know will help us understand our world better.
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Finding authors we love is also so important to any reading community, and when we find an author we love, we want to read everything by that author.I love authors whose work spans formats and genres. I love this for readers and for writers in the classroom. As a middle grade teacher, it was so important to. me that both chapter books and picture books are valued in the classroom. Making sure we had author baskets that spanned both is critical. I also love authors that children can grow up with-who have written books for a variety of stages. This week, we’ll take a look at several authors who have such a huge variety of books. This is important for our readers and for our writers.
This week, we’ll start off with the two authors who inspired this text set-Kyle Lukoff and Donna Barba Higuera. Last week, when the awards were announced, I was THRILLED to see Too Bright to See because I am a huge fan. A must read for everyone. And The Last Cuentista was one I had on order but hadn’t read yet. When I looked dup the author after she won the Newbery, I realized she had written a picture book I love-El Cucuy is Scared Too!–and I mentioned to my friend Stella, how much I LOVE authors who write both picture books and chapter books. For our readers, especially in middle grades and beyond, having baskets of books by authors who write both picture books and chapter books can put renewed value in picture books for older children. And as writers, studying an author’s body of work, across formats is always so powerful. Thinking back, I don’t think I thought hard enough about all of the author baskets I SHOULD have had in my classroom like these.
Since we are talking about awards, let’s move right to Grace Lin, who won the 2022 Children’s Literature Legacy Award!! Grace Lin has written so many incredible books–from middle grade novels to picture books, to early series books to math board books. She writes across so many formats and genres. One of my favorite authors to read and definitely a favorite to study as a writer.
Kate Messner and Jess Keating are two of my favorite middle grade writers. I love that they write fiction and nonfiction that is so engaging for this age. And they both write a great deal of both fiction and nonfiction which I love. And so many interesting topics across nonfiction. I also love how often they weave their nonfiction interests into their novels. Both authors have nonfiction series books which I am a huge fan of!
Andrea Davis PInkney and Kwame Alexander have each created such a beautiful collection of poetry in various formats and genres. These two authors have so much to offer both readers and writers. I love that both authors invite readers into poetry in various ways and also invite readers to expand what they read–once they discover one book, they’ll want to read others by the author and naturally expand the types of things they read. And our writers can learn so much about word choice, etc. Love these two!
I will read anything and everything that Jacqueline Woodson and Kate DiCamillo write. These two are both brilliant writers who understand children so well. Their books are well loved by all ages. As with the other authors, they both write such a variety of books. These are also two authors readers can grow up with, always finding something new as they grow as readers. Lucky us to have these two in the world of children’s literature.
This week’s books were linked at Bookelicious. If you don’t know Bookelicious, check it out today. It is an online independent children’s bookstore with an incredible selection of children’s books and many supports for young readers. Lots of great free events for teachers coming up that you can check out and register here.
Follow @TextSets on Instagram for daily books/weekly text sets!
A(nother) Year of Reading 