Posts filed under ‘Picture Books’
139. Andrew’s Angry Words by Dorothea Lachner
Retell: When Andrew’s sister bumps into him, scattering all of his toys, he screams angry words that travel around the world causing harm to everyone they meet. The rampage of the angry words is halted by a woman who dumps them into the ocean and replaces them with nice words.
Topics: anger, regret, kindness, mistakes, communication, respect
Units of Study: Fantasy, Talking and Writing About Texts
Tribes: appreciations/no put-downs, mutual respect
My Thoughts: When teaching the Tribes agreement of appreciations/no put-downs, I usually conduct some sort of funeral for put-downs. Students write a put-down onto a sheet of paper, tear it up and put it in the trash. Andrew’s Angry Words is the perfect text to support this lesson. The illustrator does a good job of making Andrew’s put-downs into something that looks dangerous, even poisonous. The story gives me a new idea to add to the lesson. After the funeral for put-downs, students could write an appreciation to replace the angry words or even better have them turn the angry words into I-messages.
138. Jose! Born to Dance by Susanna Reich
Retell: This is the story of Jose Limon, who left his family to move to New York. Frustrated by his poor artistic talent he fell in love with dance and worked to become a famous dancer and choreographer.
Topics: dance, war, family, Mexico, immigration, art, music, English, Spanish, death, New York, California
Units of Study: Nonfiction, Social Issues
Tribes: personal best, appreciations/no put-downs, mutual respect
Habits of Mind: persisting
Reading Skills: synthesis, monitoring for sense, envisionment
Writing Skills: using sound effects, zooming in on a small moment
My Thoughts: This text has multiple teaching purposes. It’s a great text for introducing or reinforcing the habit of mind–persistence. There are many moments in the story when Jose persists. He struggles to learn English but persists despite his cruel classmates. He is determined to become a dancer and shows persistence each day during rehearsal despite sore, aching muscles. During the read aloud we can hope that students understand that successful people, no matter what their focus, work hard and persist, even when they face adversity.
136. Harvesting Hope: The Story of Cesar Chavez
Retell: This is the biography of Cesar Chavez, the leader of the National Farm Workers Association who worked to organize farm workers to rally together and fight for better pay and working conditions.
Topics: family, Cesar Chavez, conflict, drought, California, farming, Spanish, migrant workers, unions, La Causa, strikes, protests, boycotts, farm workers
Units of Study: Nonfiction, Social Issues
Tribes: personal best, mutual respect, appreciations/no put-downs
Habits of Mind: persisting
Reading Skills: inference, interpretation, determining importance, synthesis, empathy
My Thoughts: Back when I taught in California this was required reading–in the Bay Area Cesar Chavez’s birthday is a school holiday. This book could fit into different types of text sets. For example, you could include this book when teaching a unit on the labor unit. You could also choose to read this book as a companion text to Esperanza Rising.
134. Between Earth and Sky: Legends of Native American Sacred Places by Joseph Bruchac
Retell: On the way to a pow-wow Old Bear teaches his nephew Little Turtle about the legends connected to the sacred places of other Native American tribes.
Topics: legends, Native Americans, sacred places, Wampanoag, Seneca, Niagara Falls, Navajo, Cherokee, Papago, Hopewell, Cheyenne, Hopi, Abenaki, Walapai, Grand Canyon
Units of Study: Content-Area, Nonfiction, Talking and Writing About Texts
Tribes: mutual respect
Reading Skills: envisionment, interpretation
My Thoughts: This is a great read aloud for integrating map skills. Using the clues in each legend, students could try and figure out which place is being described. A copy of the map in the back of the book could be distributed to students during the read aloud and partners could work together to locate each sacred place on the map.
132. The First Thanksgiving by Jean Craighead George
Retell: The story of the first Thanksgiving which addresses some former misconceptions.
Topics: Thanksgiving, Cape Cod, Plymouth Rock, Pawtuxets, slavery, Squanto, Puritans, Mayflower, survival, death, cooperation, farming
Units of Study: Nonfiction, Content-Area, Social Issues
Tribes: personal best, mutual respect
Reading Skills: monitoring for sense, envisionment, determining importance, synthesis
My Thoughts: When I was a kid, I learned about how the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock. They toiled through the winter and many people died. I learned how Squanto helped the Pilgrims plant corn, beans and squash and as a gesture of peace, the Native Americans and the Pilgrims sat together to celebrate the harvest. What I didn’t learn until I read Lies My Teacher Told Me by James Loewen is how Squanto came to learn English–he had been a slave in London. Several years before the Pilgrims arrival, Squanto had been tricked onto a boat headed for Spain. He was purchased by a merchant ship owner from London. Squanto eventually sailed back to the village that he had been stolen from only to find that his entire village had died from smallpox!
This book attempts to tell the story of the first Thanksgiving without glossing over the contributions of the Wampanoag and of Squanto. I plan on reading this during the few days leading up to the Thanksgiving holiday. I also think I want to reread it during our Social Issues unit.
130. Planet Earth/Inside Out by Gail Gibbons
Retell: Gail Gibbons imagines what we would see if we looked inside the earth.
Topics: earth, gravity, ocean, Pangaea, equator, continents, earth model, fossils, plates, earthquakes, volcanoes, islands
Units of Study: Nonfiction, Content-Area
Reading Skills: monitoring for sense, envisionment, determining importance, synthesis
My Thoughts: We are wrapping up our Science unit on Earth Movements this Friday and I was looking for a text to end with. This book ties in a lot of subjects within this unit: the earth model, Pangaea, plate tectonics, faults, earthquakes, volcanoes, etc. The illustrations, which contain clear and useful diagrams, help readers comprehend the text. However, in some parts, readers most add to the illustrations with details from their own mental picture and think about what is not in the illustrations.
128. Giving Thanks: A Native American Good Morning Message by Chief Jake Swamp
Retell: An English and pictorial translation of a Mohawk message of thanksgiving.
Topics: Mother Earth, appreciation, peace, Iroquois, nature, thanksgiving
Tribes: appreciations/no put-downs
Reading Skills: monitoring for sense, interpretation
My Thoughts: This book is a wonderful November read aloud. I like reading this book before students head off for the Thanksgiving holiday. Since this message comes from the Mohawk, it compliments the 4th grade unit on Native Americans of New York State. Before reading this you may want to ask students to jot down what they are thankful for. While reading the book they can pay attention to what the Mohawks are thankful for as shown in the address. After reading, students can add to their lists and discuss what they learned about the Mohawk people.
127. The War Between the Vowels and the Consonants by Priscilla Turner
Retell: The snooty vowels and the rough and tumble consonants have never gotten along with each other. After a few letters begin to fight with each other, war breaks out between the vowels and the consonants. When chaos, in the form of squiggly lines, rolls into town the vowels and consonants must work together to defeat it.
Topics: letters, vowels, consonants, war, cooperation, fighting, cliques, power
Units of Study: Talking and Writing About Texts
Tribes: appreciations/no put-downs
Habits of Mind: thinking interdependently
Reading Skills: interpretation
My Thoughts: When I previewed this text I assumed I was going to learn about how vowel sounds are really strong and influence other vowel sounds. In reality this book is not really about letters at all–it’s about class and cooperation between the classes. The vowels represent the upper class–there are few of them and they are snooty. The consonants represent the lower-middle class– the undignified commoners. They distrust each other, go to war and then eventually must learn how to work together. I can see reading this in my class in order to have a discussion about cliques within the class and within the grade. It could be read again when we study industrialization and analyze the struggles between the rich and the poor.
126. Strong to the Hoop by John Coy
Retell: James has always wanted to play basketball on the main court. Knowing that he’s too young and too small, he practices on the side court. One day a player gets injured and he volunteers to play. Though he misses shots and fouls other players, he gains his courage and ends up winning the game.
Topics: basketball, courage, playground, body image, boys
Units of Study: Realistic Fiction, Personal Narrative
Tribes: personal best, appreciations/no put-downs
Reading Skills: envisionment, inference
Writing Skills: incorporating similes, alliteration, using commas to list action, balancing internal thinking, action and dialogue
My Thoughts: This book was hiding on my read aloud shelf in my classroom. I forgot all about it and now I’m kicking myself for not reading it to my class during our recent Realistic Fiction unit. This is a fantastic small moment mentor text. The events of the story are few: a boy practices, enters a game, struggles, and wins. However through a balance of internal thinking, small action and dialogue, the author creates a suspenseful, meaningful story.
125. Under the Lemon Moon by Edith Hope Fine
Retell: One evening Rosalinda awakes to find a man stealing lemons from her lemon tree. During the theft, a branch is broken and the tree becomes sick. Rosalinda searches her village for a cure. A mysterious woman helps her cure her sick tree and help a family in need.
Topics: theft, family, community, trees, kindness
Units of Study: Realistic Fiction, Social Issues, Talking and Writing About Texts
Tribes: personal best, mutual respect
Habits of Mind: thinking flexibly
Reading Skills: empathy, interpretation, inference, monitoring for sense
Writing Skills: using words to describe sound, using interesting verbs, incorporating foreign languages
My Thoughts: This is a text that can be useful for many units and for many purposes. As I was reading this text I immediately noticed the beautiful verbs the author uses. A reader who is unfamiliar with the vocabulary in the text can easily figure out the meaning of the words by thinking about the context. It’s a great text for teaching the strategy of playing ‘fill in the bank’ when solving tricky words.
Teachable Texts 