What to do About Alice?

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Kerley, Barbara. 2005. WHAT TO DO ABOUT ALICE? Ill by Edwin Fotheringham. New York: Scholastic Press. ISBN 0439922313

PLOT SUMMARY
Even before he became President, Theodore Roosevelt had his hands full with his daughter Alice.  She enjoyed exploring the world whether it was through reading books, dancing the turkey trot, or watching sumo wrestling in Japan. Children will enjoy reading about the adventures Alice had throughout her life.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS
WHAT TO DO ABOUT ALICE is an easy read for young students who want to learn more about a President’s daughter.  I don’t think this book contains enough facts for a student to read and do a report over, but it is written in a way that will make students want to find out more about her life.  The way this book is written will help children see that children of President’s can have fun too.  The bibliography has 5 books and a newspaper that were used as references for this book. The illustrations help the reader see how animated and active Alice was.  The newspapers shown with real headlines from Alice’s day make the story seem more real.  This book is an ALA Notable Book and a Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book.

REVIEW EXCERPTS
BOOKLIST Starred Review: “Irrepressible Alice Roosevelt gets a treatment every bit as attractive and exuberant as she was....The large format gives Fotheringham, in his debut, plenty of room for spectacular art.”

KIRKUS Starred Review: "Theodore Roosevelt s irrepressible oldest child receives an appropriately vivacious appreciation in this superb picture book.... Kerley s precise text presents readers with a devilishly smart, strong-willed girl who was determined to live life on her own terms and largely succeeded."

CONNECTIONS
*If students are interested in Alice Roosevelt, encourage them to find more information by using databases.
*Other books about President’s children:

McCullough, Noah. FIRST KIDS: THE TRUE STORIES OF ALL THE PRESIDENTS’ CHILDREN. ISBN: 0545033691

We are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Nelson, Kadir. 2005. WE ARE THE SHIP: THE STORY OF NEGRO LEAGUE BASEBALL. New York: Jump at the Sun. ISBN 0786808322

PLOT SUMMARY
WE ARE THE SHIP: THE STORY OF NEGRO LEAGUE BASEBALL is not a story that many young people know.  This book shows how hard it was for Negro baseball players, but also how much they enjoyed playing baseball.  Told by an unnamed narrator, the story spans from the beginning of baseball in the late 1800’s through the integration of the major leagues in 1947.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Kadir Nelson wrote and illustrated this very informative book on the history of Negro League Baseball.  This book won the 2009 Coretta Scott King Author Award and the 2009 Sibert Medal.  The book is divided into nine innings, similar to a baseball game, each telling a different part of the story.  The full color paintings emphasize some of the more important parts of the history such as the picture showing the first night game being played and another picture showing that there were separate cabins for colored people.  The endnotes lead the reader to specific places quotes and details were taken from.  There is also a bibliography to show where general information was found for this book.

REVIEW EXCERPT
BOOKLIST Starred Review: “Award-winning illustrator and first-time author Nelson’s history of the Negro Leagues, told from the vantage point of an unnamed narrator, reads like an old-timer regaling his grandchildren with tales of baseball greats…”

SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL review: “A lost piece of American history comes to life in Kadir Nelson's elegant and eloquent history of the Negro Leagues and its gifted baseball players.”

CONNECTIONS
*Other books about the history of baseball:
Morelli, Jack. HERORES OF THE NEGRO LEAGUES. ISBN: 0810994348
Christopher, Matt. GREAT MOMENTS IN BASEBALL HISTORY. ISBN 0316141305
Stewart, Mark. BASEBALL: A HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL PAST TIME. ISBN: 0531114554
*Encourage students to study the history of another sport or activity they enjoy.

Biggest, Strongest, Fastest

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Jenkins, Steve. 1995. BIGGEST, STRONGEST, FASTEST. New York: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0395697018

PLOT SUMMARY

BIGGEST, STRONGEST, FASTEST is a book that Steve Jenkins wrote for his son who was always asking him about the extremes when it came to animals.  Some of the extremes he explores which animals are the smallest, slowest, largest, and fastest.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS

This is a great informational book for beginning readers and also for more advanced readers.  There is a short sentence describing each animal such as, “There are many kinds of large snakes, but the anaconda is the biggest.” Then there are longer explanations to the side if children want more information about the animal.  One of the neat things this book does is it shows the animal in relation to a human.  With the snake, there is a picture showing how much longer the snake is than the human.  This is great for children because they are not yet abstract thinkers, so there is a concrete example for them to see.  If students are interested in a particular animal there is a chart at the back of the book that gives more information about the animals found in the book.

The paper collage pictures are very detailed and fun to look at.  For example, you can see the tiny hairs on the ant’s legs and the scales on the anaconda.  The pictures help bring the size of the animals into perspective.  The picture of the sun jellyfish, which is the longest animal, stretches out for three pages and the picture of the shrew, which is the smallest animal, is lying in a spoon.

Steve Jenkins has written many books about animals and science. This book in particular was named an Outstanding Science Trade Book in 1996 by the National Science Teachers Association.  There is a bibliography of five books that Jenkins used to gather information for this book, showing students the importance of basing informational books on facts.

REVIEW EXCERPTS

BOOKLIST: “The book's design makes it accessible at many levels. The youngest can identify the various creatures. Preschoolers can enjoy the one-sentence descriptions in large type. Older kids will love thinking about the additional facts regarding scale and proportion that are printed in small type.”

SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL: “Large, clear print; fascinating facts; and beautiful, detailed, cut-paper collages make this excellent title a delight.”

CONNECTIONS

*Encourage students to read more about one of the animals they find interesting.

*Have students research different animals and compare them to a human

Mirror Mirror

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Singer, Marilyn. 2010. MIRROR MIRROR. Ill. By Josee Masse. NewYork: Dutton Children’s Book. ISBN 0525479015

PLOT SUMMARY
Using a new form of poetry called reverso, Singer tells many well known fairy tales from two different points of view. Reverso poetry has readers read the poem the traditional way, from top to bottom, then it reverses the order of the lines to tell another side of the poem. Singer uses this form of poetry to tell the story of Little Red Riding Hood from Red’s point of view, and then when the poem reverses it’s from the Wolf’s point of view. She also tells the stories of Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Snow White, and Goldilocks from two different points of view. Students will enjoy reading and rereading the poems to see the different viewpoints.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS
The cover artwork for this book gives readers a hint that it is going to tell opposing points of view of a story. The illustrations are a strong point in this book, giving the reader an idea of who is going to be sharing their point of view. The way the pages are split in half gives a visual cue to go along with each version of the poem. The simple shading of the text page also separates the two poems.

The change of punctuation from one version to the other emphasizes the changes in meaning. Such as: “But a girl mustn’t dawdle. After all, Grandma’s waiting” when told from Red’s point of view, but “After all, Grandma’s waiting, mustn’t dawdle…But a girl!” when told from the Wolf’s point of view. Singer also stresses different words by changing the font slightly.

Each word was chosen very carefully to fit into this style of poetry. I imagine that Singer spent many, many hours choosing the words needed to make these poems make sense reading them down and reading them up.

I have shared this book with the ELA teachers' from my school and they have all found it very interesting. We have decided to use it during “Teen Read Week” and have students try to write their own simple reverso poem.

REVIEW EXCERPTS
PUBLISHER’S WEEKLY review: “Singer uses "reverso" poems, a form of her creation, to show that there are two sides to every fairy tale”
SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL review: “The vibrant artwork is painterly yet unfussy and offers hints to the characters who are narrating the poems. An endnote shows children how to create a "reverso" poem. This is a remarkably clever and versatile book that would work in any poetry or fairy-tale unit. A must-have for any library.”
BOOKLIST Starred review: “This ingenious book of reversos, or poems which have one meaning when read down the page and perhaps an altogether different meaning when read up the page, toys with and reinvents oh-so-familiar stories and characters, from Cinderella to the Ugly Duckling.”

CONNECTIONS

*Have students try to write a short reverso poem
*Use when studying point of view with students

The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba's Struggle for Freedom

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Engle, Margarita. 2008. THE SURRENDER TREE: POEMS OF CUBA’S STRUGGLE FOR FREEDOM. NewYork: Henry Holt and Company. ISBN 0805086749

PLOT SUMMARY

In this free verse novel Margarita Engle tells the story of Cuba from 1850-1899.  Most of the story is told through Rosa, a “freed” slave who uses plants from the jungle to heal people.  She used to heal people for her owner, now that she has been freed; she heals people in hidden caves.  She does not discriminate among anyone; Rosa heals slaves, Spaniards, and Cubans.  Rosa’s husband, Jose, also tells part of the story.  He tells about trying to keep everyone safe and how hard it is on Rosa to lose some of the people she is trying to save.  Silva, a freed slave who has lost her family finds Rosa and starts learning how to heal people on her own.  Lieutenant Death is another person who tells part of the story.  He is a slave hunter who brings slaves back alive for money or brings their ear back as proof they are dead.  All of these points of view tell of the struggle that has been happening in Cuba for too long.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS

Engle uses a lot of sensory language to tell about Cuba’s struggle.  Her words paint a picture that is hard to read at times. Rosa describes their hospital saying, “The caves, this stench, the bat dung, urine, frogs, fish, lizards, maja snakes…”

She uses back and forth rhythm to show the sides of the fight such as when Lieutenant Death says: “They attack. We retreat. They hide. We seek.”  Engle also writes some words in Spanish.  There does not seem to be a pattern for the use of the Spanish words, but it does bring some of the Cuban culture into the book.

The different points of view show students how the struggle effects different groups of people.  On one page the Captain describes a new game he is playing and how he wants to buy it after he has won the war. On the previous page Silvia tells that everyone is so hungry they sing about making an ajiaco stew.

The use of poetry is a great way to tell another side of the story in Cuba.  Students often don’t learn the story from the point of view of the slaves.  Using only the necessary words to tell the story, the reader gets to the point quicker making this book a quick read.  It might be hard for some students to keep up with the changing point of view from page to page, but once they figure that out, they will learn so much from this story that will help them understand Cuba’s struggle for freedom.

REVIEW EXCERPTS

SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL review: “The Surrender Tree is hauntingly beautiful, revealing pieces of Cuba's troubled past through the poetry of hidden moments”

BOOKLIST Starred Review: “Engle's new book is written in clear, short lines of stirring free verse. The switching perspectives personalize the dramatic political history.”

 

CONNECTIONS

*Read in history class before studying the history of Cuba.

*Other books by Margarita Engle:

Engle, Margarita. THE POET SLAVE OF CUBA: A BIOGRPAHY OF JUAN FRANCISCO MANZANO. ISBN 0312659288

Engle, Margarita. THE FIREFLY LETTERS: A SUFFRAGETTE’S JOURNEY TO CUBA. ISBN 0805090827



Red Sings from the Treetops

BIBLIOGRAPHY
Sidman, Joyce. 2009. RED SINGS FROM TREETOPS: A YEAR IN COLORS. Ill. By Pamela Zagarenski. NewYork: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children. ISBN 0547014945

PLOT SUMMARY
RED SINGS FROM THE TREETOPS is a wonderful free verse poetry book for students learning about the seasons. Most books about seasons discuss how the weather changes, but this book takes a new approach and describes the colors associated with each season.

CRITICAL ANALYSIS
This book has the best illustrations of any of the books I have read so far. The abstract paintings will keep students on a page much longer than it takes to read the words. There are so many details in the paintings that students can find such as how the color is used in the clothing and the changing hats worn by the animals. It is also interesting how Zagarenski uses words on some of the clothing that represent the season as well.

The sensory language in this book helps the reader see how the colors are associated with each season. When describing the sun Sidman writes: “Yellow melts everything it touches…” In fall, “Green sighs with relief: I’ve ruled for so long. Time for Brown to take over” describing the leaves changing colors in the fall. This paints a vivid picture for children as to what is happening in each season. When reading this poem aloud, the short stanzas give it a quicker pace than other poems.

The words for the color are always shown in that color. For example, red is written in red font. I think this will help children learn to spell these words when they see them directly associated with the color.

I feel that there are so many details in the pictures that the children lose sight of beautiful words in the poem. The children I showed the book to were more interested in looking at the pictures than reading the words.

REVIEW EXCERPTS
SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL review: “Children will find many small stories waiting to be told within the detailed paintings and enjoy looking at them over and over. This poetic tribute to the seasons will brighten dull days.”
BOOKLIST Starred review: “The changing seasons have been the subject of many a picture book, but this one has a particularly unique take on the topic. Each season is explored in terms of how it encompasses colors.”

CONNECTIONS
*Other books about seasons:
Rose, Deborah Lee. ALL THE SEASONS OF THE YEAR. ISBN 0810983958
*Use in art class to show the meanings of different colors
*Have students use colors to describe their favorite season
*Have students identify the items in the book that are being described