PICTURE BOOK - I Am Not a Number by Jenny Kay Dupuis and Kathy Kacer

Illustrated by Gillian Newland

2016, Second Story Press, Canada

HC  $18.95

32 pgs.

Goodreads rating:  4.29 - 385 ratings

My rating:  4.5

Endpapers:  pale sage green

1^st line/s:"The dark figure, backlit by the sun, filled the doorway of our home on Nipissing Reserve Number 10."

My comments:  I'm not sure if you would consider this a very short fiction book for middle-graders, or a quite long picture book for middle graders, but no matter which you choose it's a powerful story of how the Indigenous people - in this instance Canadian - were treated for most of the 2oth century.  Rubbish!  Ripped from their families, sent away to be practically starved and "taught" by nuns and religious factions, these children were neglected and abused and shamed.  It's sickening, and I'm glad that some of this history is hitting the bookshelves for older kids. This story is true, based on the life of the author's grandmother.

Goodreads:  When eight-year-old Irene is removed from her First Nations family to live in a residential school she is confused, frightened, and terribly homesick. She tries to remember who she is and where she came from, despite the efforts of the nuns who are in charge at the school and who tell her that she is not to use her own name but instead use the number they have assigned to her. When she goes home for summer holidays, Irene's parents decide never to send her and her brothers away again. But where will they hide? And what will happen when her parents disobey the law? Based on the life of co-author Jenny Kay Dupuis’ grandmother, I Am Not a Number is a hugely necessary book that brings a terrible part of Canada’s history to light in a way that children can learn from and relate to.

Programming Ideas

A major part of my job as a Youth Services Library Assistant is to develop and present programming for kids from BABY to TEENS.  My expertise is with kids from about 8 and up.... I'll leave the ideas for little guys for the little-guys-experts/

There are a zillion ideas bumping around in my head, each one pretty much ignited by reading a  picture book, and I'm going to start with MATH.

MATH

The Fibonacci Sequence
Book:  The Rabbit Problem by Emily GRavett

Graphing
Book:  Lines, Bars and Circles: How William Playfair Invented Graphs by Helaine Becker
Activity Ideas:  Make a Bar Graph using M & Ms, Skittles, Froot Loops, or something similar.  If it's nice outside, kids could take their completed graphs and, using chalk, draw them on the sidewalk.

Infinity

Book:      Infinity and Me by Kate Hosford

Activity Ideas:  Create Infinity Tiles based on this Babble Dabble Do activity.

     Also "Endless Tiles" based on the work of Sebastian Truchet.  Information can be found on Math Munch  and  with an "instructable"  called Amazing Math with Truchet Tiles.

Money
Book:  Lemonade in Winter: A Book About Two Kids Counting Money by Emily Jenkins
Activity Ideas:  Coin Riddles: What's in Your Wallet? (Can you make exactly one dollar - cards with challenges like can you use five coins to make 62-cent?) Using real coins would be a plus.  Then, make a piggy bank to take home.

Palindromes and Accurate Addition
Book/s:  Mom and Dad are Palindromes by Mark Shulman (for introduction)
If You Were a Palindrome by Michael Dahl (read at the end to "debrief"
Too Hot to Hoot by Marvin Terban (riddles to ask throughout the session)
Activity Idea:  Each child should have a blank paged lab book for their calculations.A 100-chard should be included in the lab book.  Explain how number palindromes result (inverting each number and adding together until a palindrome happens).Have them look three and four step palindromes.  What happens when you try to make a palindrome out of 3 or 4-digit numbers?

Prime Numbers, Factors, and Multiples
Book:  The Boy Who Loved Math, The Improbable Life of Paul Erdos by Deborah Heiligman
Activity Idea:  Go through a 100-number Sieve of ERathsothenes to find all the prime numbers (Use a 200-number chart for older kids or kids who are ready for higher numbers).
Extension:  Card game for recognition and memorization.

Probability
Book:  A Very Improbable Story by Edward Einhorn
Activity Idea:  Begin by teaching about the different colors, suits, and cards in a deck of cards.  Then teach about Likely, Unlikely, Possible, Impossible, Even chances, Certain, etc.  Teach about tally marks and draw sets of 10 cards from a bag, discussing the probability of pulling out a certain card, or suit, or face card.....
          Throwing a pair of dice 100 times and recording the results also makes the beginning place of what are the chances....especially if you make bar graph showing your results.  It's actually quite impressive and easy to see the "odds."

Symmetry
Book:  Seeing Symmetry by Loreen Leedy (perhaps not the greatest read aloud, but a good one to point out symmetry as you read.)
Activities:  First, make "freaky creatures" by making each student's name symmetrical by using cursive handwriting...color and add features.  Second, cut out a somewhat-symmetrical image from a magazine, cut it in half on the line of symmetry, glue to a piece of paper, and attempt to draw the other half.  Third, Cut paper symmetry (positive-negative images) as well as snowflakes.

Tangrams
Book:  Grandfather Tang's Story: A Tale Told with Tangrams by Ann Tompert
Activity Ideas:  As you read the story aloud, have kids see if they can make the animals using a set of tangrams provided to each of them.  It would be nice to have a felt board to show, as well.  Then, using the set of tangrams they are given, can the make a square?  A rectangle?  A parrallelogram?  A trapezoid?  A triangle?  Endless possibilities....

Mobius Strip
Book:  Math at the Art Museum
Activity Ideas:  The book Math at the Art Museum includes many different pieces of art with mathematical concepts, but I think I'd do two fun activites relating to the Mobius strip, and what it really means to have one continuous side.  I'd have kids make a Mobius strip, then draw a line (showing how it connects at beginning and end points), then cut out the line to see what happens.  Activity two would be to have kids draw a line (sort of like scribbling, going back and forth over itself a few times, then connecting at the end to have made one continuous line.  It can then be colored in using just two colors where the colors never touch each other.  I'd have them make this into a small art print to take home.

Programming Ideas with a Single Book

Robert's Snow by Grace Lin (ideas included in blog write-up)

PICTURE BOOK - Billy's Booger by William Joyce and his younger self

A Memoir (sorta) Illustrated by the author

2015, Atheneum

40 pgs. plus 12-page insert

Goodreads rating:

My rating: 5 Stars, Glorious!

1^st line/s: "Once upon a time, when TV was in black and white, and there were only three channels, and when kids didn't have play dates --- they just roamed free in the out of doors - there lived a kid named Billy."

My comments:  I'm always on the lookout for picture books for older kids.  Fourth and fifth grade boys will love this one...it's funny, and imaginative, and a teeny tiny bit gross...

Goodreads: A young lad who would rather draw than do math, spell, or gargle finds the perfect outlet for his always-on imagination in this manifesto to creative joie de vivre, featuring a book within a book, from the brilliant minds that brought you The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore.
          Billy loves to draw. He draws on books and on his homework and even on his math tests—he might not get the answer right, but doesn’t it look swell sitting in a boat at sea? His teacher doesn’t think so, and neither does the principal. But the librarian has an idea that just might help Billy better direct his illustrative energies: a book-making contest!
          Billy gets right to work, reading everything he can about meteors, mythology, space travel, and…mucus? Yep, his book is going to be about the world’s smartest booger, who stays tucked away until needed—say, to solve multiplication problems, or answer questions from the President. Billy’s sure his story is a winner. But being a winner doesn’t mean you always win.
          Full of nostalgic references to a time when TV was black-and-white and Sunday newspapers had things called the funnies, this wildly fun story-within-a-story is based loosely on children’s book legend William Joyce’s third grade year, and includes a sewn-in mini-book of that tale of the world’s smartest booger.

PICTURE BOOK - Ada's Violin: The Story of the Recycled Orchestra of Paraguay by Susan Hook

Illustrated by Sally Wern Comport

2016, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

HC $17.99

40 pgs.

Goodreads rating: 4.38 (72 ratings)

My rating:  %

Endpapers:  Pale Aqua

Title Page: Dirt-ish background with torn scattered pieces of musical score strewn about

Illustrations:  Collage and drawings together, perfect for this book!

1^st line/s:  "Ada Rios grew up in a town made of trash."  Powerwful!

Note:  In the MIM in Phoenix, there is a display of some of these intruments!  There has been a 60-Minutes segment on it and there are all sorts of YouTube videos.  recycledorchestracateura.com

My comments:   Nonfiction picture books that tell true stories of what's going on in other parts of the world draw me like a bee to nectar.  And when they're well told, illustrated beautifully, and loaded with pertinent information, I'm one happy teacher.  However, I don't have a classroom in which to share this book anymore, and this is a book to be shared and discussed.  Perfect for the intermediate-grade classroom that is learning about how to make a difference in our world.
          I can't imagine a town that's built on, at, or even near a huge garbage dump.  What a wake-up message for kids AND adults.  Lots of additional information so that I can look and learn more, and maybe even help a bit.....

Goodreads:  From award-winning author Susan Hood and illustrator Sally Wern Comport comes the extraordinary true tale of the Recycled Orchestra of Paraguay, an orchestra made up of children playing instruments built from recycled trash.
     Ada Ríos grew up in Cateura, a small town in Paraguay built on a landfill. She dreamed of playing the violin, but with little money for anything but the bare essentials, it was never an option...until a music teacher named Favio Chávez arrived. He wanted to give the children of Cateura something special, so he made them instruments out of materials found in the trash. It was a crazy idea, but one that would leave Ada—and her town—forever changed. Now, the Recycled Orchestra plays venues around the world, spreading their message of hope and innovation.

PICTURE BOOK - The Stamp Collector by Jennifer Lanthier

Illustrated by Francois Thisdale

2012 Fitzhenry & Whiteside, CANADA

HC &$18.95

32 pgs.

Goodreads rating: 4.35

My rating: 2/It was okay

Endpapers: Slate blue

Title Page: Simple, with a few illustrations of stamps, tasteful

Illustrations:  Dark, with speckles of white, a little bit fuzzy, but very effective

1^st line/s: "This is the sotry of not long ago and not far away.
It is the story of a boy who loves stamps and a boy who loves words.
This is the story of a life that is lost.
And found."

My comments:  Rating this book a "2" meaning "it was okay."  The Afterword was the best part.  The premise was wonderful.  But the story itself didn't grab me.  It was poetically written and dramatically illustrated, but the meat and potatoes were hamburger and mashed.  There was not enough detail, a little TOO much showing and not telling, if that's possible.  The relationship between the prisoner and the guard was non-existent and then there.  A story that children would love?  For example?  Perhaps if this book were written for adults ... but it is targeted for the children's audience, I believe, and I found it lacking.  And I'm really sorry about that.

Goodreads:  A city boy finds a stamp that unlocks his imagination; a country boy is captivated by stories. When they grow up, the two boys take different paths – one becomes a prison guard, the other works in a factory – but their early childhood passions remain. When the country boy’s stories of hope land him in prison, the letters and stamps sent to him from faraway places intrigue the prison guard – and a unique friendship begins.

PICTURE BOOK - Desmond and the Very Mean Word by Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Douglas Carlton Abrams

Illustrated by A. G Ford

2013, Candlewick Press

HC $15.99

32 pgs.

Goodreads rating: 4.13

My rating: 4.5

Endpapers:  Musty peach

Illustrations: Gorgeous, full-paged; big and real.  Love 'em.

1^st line/s:  "Desmond was very proud of his new bicycle.  He was the only child in the whole township who had one, and he couldn't wait to show it to Father Trevor."

My comments: This is a visually inspriring story of an incident in Desmond Tutu's youth.  It is a story of forgiveness - how very difficult it is to do, but how rewqrding it can also be.

Goodreads:  Based on a true story from Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s childhood in South Africa, Desmond and the Very Mean Word reveals the power of words and the secret of forgiveness.    
     When Desmond takes his new bicycle out for a ride through his neighborhood, his pride and joy turn to hurt and anger when a group of boys shout a very mean word at him. He first responds by shouting an insult, but soon discovers that fighting back with mean words doesn’t make him feel any better. With the help of kindly Father Trevor, Desmond comes to understand his conflicted feelings and see that all people deserve compassion, whether or not they say they are sorry. Brought to vivid life in A. G. Ford’s energetic illustrations, this heartfelt, relatable story conveys timeless wisdom about how to handle bullying and angry feelings, while seeing the good in everyone.

PICTURE BOOK - Fiona's Lace - Patricia Polacco

Illustrated by the author

2014 Paula Wiseman; Simon & Schuster

HC $17.99

40  pgs.

Goodreads rating: 4.03

My rating: 4

Endpapers: solid bold green background with intricate last recctangle almost covering the entire page

Illustrations: ah, Patricia Polacco......

1^st line/s:  "Many years ago my father's family lived in a small, poor village a few miles from Limerick in Ireland.  Everyone in the village depended on the textile mill that was soon to close.  Most of the vilagers were unsure of their futures.  But Glen Kerry was their home and all that any of them had ever known."

My comments:  Another lovely family story from Patricia Polacco with many themes and at least one strong moral.  Most of Polacco's stories come from family stories, and within the book itself there is usually some sort of oral story-telling.  This is very strongly of that sort - a piece of the lace that is the second protagonist in the story is framed on the wall in Polacco's home.  This is also a very vibrant immigration story.

Goodreads:  An Irish family stays together with the help of Fiona's talent for making one-of-a-kind lace in this heartwarming immigration story from the New York Times bestselling creator of The Keeping Quilt.

          Many years ago, times were hard in all of Ireland, so when passage to America becomes available, Fiona and her family travel to Chicago. They find work in domestic service to pay back their passage, and at night Fiona turns tangles of thread into a fine, glorious lace. Then when the family is separated, it is the lace that Fiona's parents follow to find her and her sister and bring the family back together. And it is the lace that will always provide Fiona with memories of Ireland and of her mother's words; "In your heart your true home resides, and it will always be with you as long as you remember those you love."
          This generational story from the family of Patricia Polacco's Irish father brims with the same warmth and heart as the classic The Keeping Quilt and The Blessing Cup, which Kirkus Reviews called "deeply affecting" in a starred review, and embraces the comfort of family commitment and togetherness that Patricia Polacco's books are known for.

PICTURE BOOK - Hope is a Girl Selling Fruit - Amrita Das

English text from the Hindi Original by Gita Wolf and Susheel Varadarajan.

Illustrated by the author

2013 Tara Books, India

HC $16.95

32 pages

Goodreads rating: 4.40

My rating: 4/Lovely

Endpapers: Dark Olive

1^st line:  "It all started with my journey to Chennai, to attend a bookmaking workshop.  I had never traveled so far, and I wasn't sure what to expect."

She has written this as a preface of the book:

"I started out not knowing much

certainly not about the outside world.

I could paint, but apart from that

there was not much I could do.

And then it came my way,

that sliver of chance which has

made it possible

for me to do this book.

Life is strange ---

You never know what awaits you."

My comments:  The story is gentle, giving tiny peeks into the lives of three women in contemporary India. The pictures are gorgeous. "Amrita Das paints in the Mithila tradition of fold art which originated from women living in rural communities in the state of Bihar (India)."  She paints in lines of red and black, coloring with two shades of green and I think that's all.  I'm not entirely thrilled with the way that the faces are drawn - a profile view that seems perhaps Grecian- but I guess it works. Beautiful.

Goodreads summary:  "Remarkable. The sparse, simple story feels timeless and universal, and the illustrations are as important to telling the tale as is the text. This is a book to be lingered over and savored." — Debbie Stoller, BUST

          On a train journey to a large city, a young woman notices a very poor girl. Who is she? Where is she going? What does her future hold? Hope Is a Girl Selling Fruit is a gentle, reflective account of a young woman’s thoughts and feelings as she comes into contact with the larger world. The rich imagery takes the story into another realm, inviting the reader to interpret it at many levels. Young Indian artist Amrita Das pushes the boundaries of her traditional art to radical new ends as she muses on women’s mobility, class, and choices.

One Beetle Too Many: The Extraordianry Advntures of Charles Darwin - Kathryn Lasky

Illustrated by Matthew Trueman
Candlewick, 2009
$17.99
40 pages
for: grades 3+
Rating: 5
Endpapers: green with lighter green ferny leaves twining around

Dedication from KL: "In celebration of children, whose boundless curiousity gives thme a right to know their history on Earth." Don't ya love it?

I've been trying to get my hands on this book for over a year. Thank you, Tucson Library for coming through. It only took a year!

This is a super biography of Charles Darwin - making him a real person. You can feel his curiosity, see his peering and examining and thinking. You can totally visualize the rain forests of South American...Patagonia...the Galapagos. Following his five-year journey on a map would be great - wish one were included in the book.

Kathryn Lasky discusses the controversy - and such a major controversy it is - between creationism and evolution. Theology vs. science? Hmmm.....

She tells how Darwin's father despaired over his son's lack of ambition with his studies, over his inability to find a career he deemed suitable. Even Charles' loving wife, Emma - who provided ten (TEN!) children for him - was not comfortable with his theories of evolution.

This is a wonderful, fascinating biography for 4th - 5th - 6th graders. Lots to think about, and lots to learn. A must-have for a biography unit.

Most of the illustrations are just great. A couple, of mountains and snow and the sea, are a little too barren for me - but I guess they're trying to depict the setting, huh? The illustrations in What Darwin Saw by Rosalyn Schanzer would go so beautifully with this - I'd use the two books together. Compare and contrast. Higher level thinking skills. Mmm hmm.

Benno and the Night of Broken Glass - Meg Wiviott

Illustrated by Josee Bisaillon
Kar-Ben Publishers, 2010
"ages 7-11"
$17.95
32 pages
Rating: 5
Endpapers: The legs and feet of people pre-11/10/38 and post-11/10/38

Told from the point-of-view of a neighborhood cat in 1938 Berlin, we learn of life in a small, friendly neighborhood before and after Kristallnacht (the Night of Broken Glass) which most consider the beginning of the Holocaust in November of 1938. It's a particularly powerful story. Although it's hard to say at what age the concept of the Holocaust should be discussed, this would be an excellent book with which to begin, I think.

The illustrations seem to be a combination of cut paper, stenciled painting, line drawing, and coloring. Pages are covered from edge-to-edge and get darker as the story progresses.

The 2-page Afterword and 2-page Bibliography are just right for my 4th graders, and include a couple of actual photos.

Super book.

The Odious Ogre - Norton Juster

Illustrated by Jules Feiffer
Michael DiCapua Bks/Scholastic, 2010
$17.95
32 pages
Rating: 4
for older kids
Endpapers: Easter yellow

Lots and lots.....and lots......of high-level , fancy, wonderful words. There once was a horrendous ogre. "He was, it was widely believed, extraordinarily large, exceedingly ugly, unusually angry, constantly hungry, and absolutely merciless." He terrified one and all - until he met his match in a friendly, happy, positive-thinking young lady.

Talk with kids about the ending: "She also understood that the terrible things that can happen when you come face to face with an Ogre can sometimes happen to the Ogre and not to you."

I'm not usually a Jules Feiffer fan - but these watercolor illustrations, framed with a thicker line of paint, work perfectly.

Groundhog Weather School - Joan Holub

Illustrated by Kristin Sorra
G. P. Putnam's, 2009
$16.99
32 pages
My rating: 5
Grades 1-4
Endpapers: 3 shades of aqua - blueprints of a groundhog's burrow.

Because the winter weather is different depending on where you live, the head weather groundhog decides to open a groundhog weather school. He advertises and we see many different animals examining the ads. School begins and we meet a number of the students. We read their reports on actual "real" famous groundhogs - from Punxatawny Phil in PA to Sir Walter Wally in NC to Buckeye Chuck in OH -- and even Pierre C. Shadeaux in LA - eight in total. We learn about natural weather predictors (ie: tree leaves curl up if there's moisture in the air). We learn a bit about famous weathermen, facts about groundhogs and their lives, the reasons for seasons, how shadows happen - and then we follow several of the students who graduate - and what happens between then and February 2nd (Groundhog's Day).

Comical. Clever. Entertaining. Interesting. Informative. Jam-packed with information, this book completely won me over: My 4th graders would love it - a fun, easy way to learn all SORTS of things!

Illustrations cover the page in medium tones...and the groundhogs are adorable!

And by-the-way...this very morning, February 2nd, the groundhog saw his shadow - so six more weeks of winter. A horrible thing for Northeast Harbor, Maine which wakes up to a frigid 8 degress this morning, but an awesome thing for sunny southern Arizona which wakes up to high-40's and gets leaves work in the 60's.....let's keep the heat down for as long as possible!