A Book Trailer: Spaghetti in a Hot Dog Bun

A Book Talk: Dirt On My Shirt

This hilarious collection of poems tells the story of the different people that live the narrator's neighborhood. The illustrations are light hearted, whimsical, and take you on a journey through the narrator's neighborhood the reader will meet unique characters such as Cousin Lizzy, Uncle Ed, and Aunt Foo Foo.

This would be a great book to introduce students to poetry because it is so much fun to read. I would use this book in a third grade classroom to assess students on their fluency. Fluency is something that a teacher needs to assess and sometimes it can be boring to students, but if you used interesting books such as this one the students would have much more fun reading for fluency
Book title: Dirt on My Shirt
Author: Jeff Foxworthy
Illustrator: Steve Bjorkman
Genre: Poetry
Number of pages: 32
Copyright year: 2008
Publisher: Putnam Juvenile

Standard Used: 21.B) Read on-level prose and poetry orally with accuracy, appropriate rate, and expression on successive readings. [RF.3.4b]

A Book Review: The Wolf Who Cried Boy

The Wolf Who Cried Boy takes a twist on the classic fable, The Boy Who Cried Wolf. This book is about a wolf who wants to eat a boy, and keeps telling his parents that there is a boy near by. Eventually his parents do not believe him and when a boy really does come his parents do not believe him. The illustrations in this book are in colored pencil, are very detailed, and aid in the visual aspect of the story.
I would use this book to teach about how there are different versions of many books. we would read both books and then use a venn digraph to compare and contrast the two stories.

Book title: The Wolf Who Cried Boy
Author: Bob Hartman
Illustrator: Tim Raglin
Genre: Traditional Fiction
Number of pages: 32
Copyright year: 2002
Publisher: Putnam Juvenile

Standard Used: 8) Compare and contrast two or more versions of the same story (e.g., Cinderella stories) by different authors or from different cultures. [RL.2.9]

A Book Talk: The Magic Hat

Book title: The Magic Hat

Author: Mem Fox

Illustrator: Tricia Tusa

Genre: Fantasy, picture book

Number of pages: 32

Copyright year: 2002

Publisher: HMH Books

Standard used: 4) Describe how words and phrases (e.g., regular beats, alliteration, rhymes, repeated lines) supply rhythm and meaning in a story, poem, or song. [RL. 2.4]

A Book Review: New Shoes

New Shoes is set in Alabama after the Jim Crow segregation laws had been past. The main character, Ella Mae, goes with her mother to buy some new shoes and questions why the white child gets help before her even though she was there first. When it was finally her turn to get to pick out her shoes she isn't even allowed to try them on. They end up being too small. Ella Mae and one of her friends decide to work some small jobs to save up money so they can buy some shoes to sell. She wanted everyone to be able to try on shoes before they bought them. With vividly realistic drawings the illustrations, capture the feelings of the story.

I would read this book in a fourth grade social studies class to discuss the Jim Crow Laws and how they impacted African Americans. By using this book students would not only learn about what the law did and how it impacted people, but how it felt like being segregated.

Book title: NewShoes

Author: Susan Lynn Meyer

Illustrator: Eric Velasquez

Genre: Historical Fiction

Number of pages: 32

Copyright year: 2015

Publisher: Holiday House

Standard Used: 10) Analyze social and educational changes during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries for their impact on Alabama. *Explain the Jim Crow Laws (Fourth Grade Social Studies)

A Book Review: Song and Dance Man

Bright and colorful pencil illustrations give life to the story about three children who follow their grandpa into the attic, where he becomes the song and dance man. He tell them about the days before T.V. back in the good old days. Grandpa begins to tap dance like he used to when he was a performer. The children are transported to the Vaudeville Stage, where Grandpa used to dance. When Grandpa is done with his performance the children hug him and tell him that they wish they could have lived back in the old days, but he smiles and tells them that he wouldn't trade his time with them for anything.
I would use this book to teach the students about making connections between literature and history in a fourth grade class. The students would write about what happens in the book and would connect it to things that they research about song and dance during that time period. At the end of the week we would put on a class talent show to let the students perform just like the song and dance man did.



Book title: Song and Dance Man

Author: Karen Ackerman
Illustrator: Stephen Gammell
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Number of pages: 32
Copyright year: 2003
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers

Standard Used: c. Link ideas within categories of information using words and phrases (eg., another, for example, also, because). [W.4.2c]

A Book Review: El Deafo

This graphic novel tells the true story of Cece Bell. A girl who has a giant hearing aid has been in a school where everyone is deaf, but now she is moving to a new school and she will be different. Cece is scared to start a new school with new kids. All of a sudden, she realized with her hearing aid she will be able to hear the teacher anywhere, even in the teacher's lounge. She believes that this is a superpower and names herself 'El Deafo' listener for all. Will her new found superpower be able to help her make friends?
I would use this graphic novel in a fifth grade class, where after reading the novel the students would analyze the illustrations and tell how they contribute to the meaning, tone, or beauty of the text.

Book title: El Deafo
Author: Cece Bell
Illustrator: David Lasky
Genre: Nonfiction, Biograghy, Graphic Novel
Number of pages: 233
Copyright year: 2014
Publisher: Harry N. Abrams

Standard Used: 7) Analyze how visual and multimedia elements contribute to the meaning, tone, or beauty of the text (e.g., graphic novel, multimedia presentation of fiction, folktale, myth, poem). [RL.5.7]

A Book Review: Oh No! Not Again! (Or How I Built a Time Machine to Save History)

One of the books from the Oh! No! Not! Again! series, this book tells the story of an extreamly smart little that builds a time machine and travels back in time to the year 33,000 B.C. all to make an A on her history test. How will changing history to to make an A on a test impact everything else? And how will she fix it? Find out in the funny sci-fi book Oh No! Not Again! (or How I Built a Time Machine to Save History).

After reading this book in a third grade classroom, one of the activities that I would have the students do is answer the question that the girl got wrong. They would do research on cave painting and even create a cave painting replica of their very own.

Book title: Oh No! Not Again! (or How I Built a Time Machine to Save History)
Author: Mac Barnett
Illustrator: Dan Santat
Genre: Science-fiction
Number of pages: 40
Copyright year: 2012
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion

Standard Used: 9) Identify and explain how and where different cultures record and illustrate stories and history through art. (Third Grade, Art)

A Book Talk: A Butterfly is Patient

Book title: A Butterfly is Patient
Author: Dianna Hurts Aston
Illustrator: Sylvia Long
Genre: non-fiction, picture book
Number of pages: 28
Copywrite year: 2011
Publisher: Chronicle Books LLC

Standard used: 6) create representations to explain the unique and diverse life cycles of organisms other that humans (e.g., flowering plants, frogs, butterflies), including commonalities such as birth, growth, repreoduction, and death. (Third Grade, Science)

A Book Review: Peter and the Starcatchers

An exciting and adventurous prequel to the well-known story of Peter Pan. With detailed hand-drawn cover art, the first book in the series takes the reader on a journey to Never Land with Peter and the lost boys on a ship carrying cargo that could possibly be "the greatest treasure on earth." Is it gold or something far more? Read Peter and the Starcatchers to find out.

This would be a great book to use in a fifth grade literature class. After finishing the book each student would choose a chapter of the book. The students would analyze the chapter and write about how they believe that chapter contributed to the development of the theme, setting, or plot.

Book title: Peter and the Starcatchers
Author: Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson
Illustrator: Greg Call
Genre: Fantasy, Fiction, Adventure
Number of pages: 452
Copyright year: 2006
Publisher: Disney-Hyperion

Standard Used: 5) Analyze how a particular sentence, chapter, scene, or stanza fits into the overall structure of a text and contributes to the development of the theme, setting, or plot. [RL.6.5]

A Book Review: Malaika's Costume

Malaika lives in Trinidad with her grandmother. She feels left out when she is without a costume for the kiddies carnival. Her mother is working in Canada and does not have enough money to send to get Malaika her dream costume. Granny offers her costume from when she was a child but Malaika gets upset because she wants her costume to be unique. Then she gets an idea. She decides to use what she already has to make a costume of her very own and participate in the carnival. With bright and colorful illustrations the book will transport your whole class to Trinidad and be able to feel the fun excitment of the carnival.

I would use this book in my class to show students how different cultures celebrate holidays. We would do reseach on what people do during carnival and what the parade is like. Then at the end we would have our own class carnival where the students can design their own costume, design what they think a parade float should look like, and learn a traditional dance.



Book title: Malaika's Costume
Author: Nadia L. Hohn
Illustrator: Irene Luxbacher
Genre: International Literature, Realistic Fiction
Number of pages: 32
Copyright year: 2016
Publisher: Groundwood Books





Standard Used: Observe and perform a dance from a familiar culture that utilizes multiple elements of dance. (first grade art)

A Book Review: The Name Jar

Unhei has just moved to America from Korea and is nervous about starting a new school and is wondering if the kids will like her. She decides that she is going to choose a new name and tells her classmates that she will pick one next week. The kids in Unhei's class want to help by filling a glass jar with names for her to pick from. She goes through the names pretending to have one of the american names. When a classmate comes to Unhei's neighborhood and learns what her name is and what it means he decides to hide the jar. The next morning, the students search for the jar; Unhei tells everyone that she has pick a name. She writes 'Unhei' on the board and tells everyone that she wants to pick the name that she already has. The book has realistic cartoon illustrations that encapsulate the emotions that Unhei goes through.

I would use this book to discuss character growth and have the students write how they think Unhei develops throughout the story. We would talk about how in the beginning she was nervous about if the american kids would like her and by the end of the story she was proud of who she is and what her name is.

Book title: The Name Jar
Author and Illustrator: Yangsook Choi
Genre: Diverse Perspective, Realistic Fiction
Number of pages: 40
Copyright year: 2001
Publisher: Dragonfly Books

Standard used: Use linking words and phrases (e.g., because, therefore, since, for example) to connect opinion and reasons. [W.3.1c]

A Book Review: Strictly No Elephants

Strictly No Elephants is a picture book with brush painted illustrations that seem to bring the story to life. The book is about a child who has a tiny pet elephant. He wants to take his elephant to pet club day, but when they get to pet club day there is a sign on the door that says, "Strictly No Elephants." Find out what the boy and tiny elephant do by reading the rest of the story!

This would be a great book to use in a class to teach students about being inclusive even is others may seem different. After reading the story you could have your students write or draw how the characters responded to what happened in the story, or how they would have responded if they were in the characters place.


Book title: Strictly No Elephants
Author: Lisa Manichiv
Illustrator: Taeenun Yoo
Genre: Picture book
Number of pages: 32
Copyright year: 2015
Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

Standard used: Describe how characters in a story respond to major events and challenges. [RL.2.3]