Category Archives: Range of Reading

Drummer Boy of John John

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drummer-boy-of-john-john-largeMaybe it’s the vibrant art or maybe it’s the tropical setting of Trinidad, but on this snowy March day, I am in love with Drummer Boy of John John by Mark Greenwood with illustrations by Frane Lessac. Knowing that it’s a biography (so it hits the Common Core standard of Range of Reading) that incorporates music and art makes me love it even more.

It’s almost time for Carnival and everyone in Winston’s town is getting ready to celebrate with calypso music. Winston wishes he were in a band, because the best band in the parade will get free rotis from the Roti King. (Is your Craft and Structure Common Core Standard alarm ringing? Lots of interesting word choices in this book!) But Winston has no gourds full of seeds that go “shoush-shap/ shukka-shac” and no bamboo to pound on the ground with a “click clack/ rappa-tap” (Check Print Concepts off on your Common Core score card). When Winston throws his mango pit into the junkyard, he hears a “pong ping pang” as the pit hits old metal. Winston makes his own instrument from the dented metal containers – the first steel drum. Winston’s friends hear this music and form a junkyard band. They paint pots, pans, tins, and cans rainbow colors and experiment with the dents and bumps in the metal to make different pitches. Winston’s band is crowned the best band in the Carnival parade, so they all feast on rotis and mango lemonade.

This book has so many tie-ins for art, music, and social studies. (I wish I’d found it a month ago, so I could’ve used it for Carnival/Mardi Gras, but it’s a fun lesson any time of year.) Students can use recycled cans, jars, bottles and containers to make their own instruments. Paint them in the tropical rainbow colors Lessac used in her art. Play a clip of steel drum music for students (you can get cd’s from your local library or use this Youtube clip: Steel Drums in Trinidad and Tobago. Bring in mangos for students to taste after they try dancing under the limbo pole like the Roti King does. Use your recycled instruments to play a “listen and repeat” rhythm game to build listening skills. Winston Simon began with junk from the junkyard and ended up touring London and Paris with the Trinidad All Stars Percussion Orchestra. Who knows where tin cans and this inspirational book might take your students?

For more information about the author, visit: markgreenwood.com.au.
For more information about the illustrator, visit: franelessac.com

 

Let’s Talk About Race

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“It is time for parents to teach young people early on that in diversity there is beauty and there is strength.” – Maya Angelou.

Next Monday we celebrate the birthday of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. What better way to honor his dream of a nation where our children “will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character” than with a wonderful children’s book celebrating our differences and our similarities.

Let’s Talk About Race is written by Julius Lester and illustrated by Karen Barbour. “I am a story,” Lester writes. “So are you. So is everyone.” Our race is just one part of our stories. “To know my story, you have to put together everything I am.”

How does your story begin? When were you born, and who is in your family? What is your favorite food, your religion, your favorite color, your nationality? All of these things are a part of our stories. But, “some stories are true. Some are not. Those who say ‘MY RACE IS BETTER THAN YOUR RACE’  are telling a story that is not true.”

Lester goes on to tell a story that is true: if you press your fingers gently below your eyes, you can feel the bone beneath your skin. And if you press gently on a friend’s face, no matter what their skin color, you will feel the bone there, too.  “Beneath our skin I look like you and you look like me…” Instead of focusing on the stories we can make up about each other based on eye color, skin color, and hair texture, we can find out the true stories, the rich and complex stories, of each other.

After you read Let’s Talk About Race with your students, talk about race! And talk about all the other wonderful parts of our stories, from favorite foods to hair color to pet peeves. You can make a questionnaire based on all the elements Lester talks about for students to answer. Next, challenge students to find someone else who had the something the same on his or her list. You can integrate this into a math lesson by graphing some of the answers, like eye color, or get out the art supplies and let students make cool representations of themselves. If your students can “identify the main purpose of a text, including what the author wants to answer, explain, or describe”, you’ll hit the Common Core State Standard of Craft and Structure using a book with a truly worthwhile main purpose.

Monkey: a trickster tale from India

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It’s January, and is it just me, or are your kids more wiggly than a troop of monkeys, too? Here’s a book to get your kids monkeying around in a good way, and you’ll be teaching the Common Core State Standard of  Key Ideas and Details.

Monkey: a trickster tale from India by Gerald McDermott is a beautifully illustrated Indian folk tale. (Reading folktales from different cultures is part of the Key Ideas and Details Standard for Reading Literature.) Monkey wants to get to the island in the middle of the river to eat the mangoes. Crocodile lives in the river and he wants to eat Monkey’s heart. How does Monkey get to the island without being eaten?

Before reading this book, ask your students how you might get across a river where a hungry crocodile lives. Compare, as you read, their suggestions to what Monkey does in the story. Then, teach your “monkeys” cooperative learning and problem-solving skills: give teams of students the same objects like a rope, a scooter, a beach towel, etc., and challenge them to get their entire team across the river (the playground or the gym) without touching the ground or the “water” where the crocodile could get you! To alleviate frustration and encourage learning from errors, if anyone does touch the ground, let the team start over, and brainstorm how to avoid that problem in the next go.

When you return to the classroom, encourage students to experiment with painting paper and cutting it to make cool collages, much like McDermott did for this book. An art activity, cooperative learning that gets kids moving, and a beautiful book – it’s more fun than a barrel of, well, you know!

For more about this Caldecott-winning author/illustrator, please visit geraldmcdermott.com.

The Day-Glo Brothers on a free app – what a bright idea!

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I’m a librarian partly because I couldn’t afford my book habit if I had to buy every book I read. So when I’m looking for e-books, I usually look for free ones (some call me cheap, I prefer “fantastically frugal”). But I don’t want crummy books – I want the good stuff! Leave it to Reading Rainbow to hook me up with quality children’s books for free (and a huge variety of even more titles if I want to pay for a subscription).

I downloaded the free Reading Rainbow app to my iPad and was greeted by Levar Burton ( a man who has lured more children to reading  than the Pied Piper lured rats, but you don’t have to take *my* word for it.) I was thrilled to find one of my favorite biographies, with complete text and art, a bit of fun animation, and even a game to play.

The Day-Glo Brothers: the true story of Bob and Joe Switzer’s bright ideas and brand-new colors is written by Chris Barton and illustrated by Tony Persiani. Bob and Joe Switzer were in their father’s drugstore when they discovered that certain chemicals glow under ultraviolet light. With lots of experimenting and some accidental luck, the brothers invented colors that would glow even in sunlight, those neon colors called Day-Glo. It’s a “brilliant” story about perseverance, for, as Joe used to say, “If just one experiment out of a thousand succeeds, then you’re ahead of the game.”

So now you can share this enlightening biography (CCSS Range of Reading – check!) with your students for free in paper-book form from the library, or you can share it on iPads with the free Reading Rainbow app. Charlesbridge has a free activity guide to go with the book, along with an author interview and an animation on how fluorescence works.  How fun would it be to put a blacklight  in a lamp in your classroom and get fluorescent markers for an art project. Students can try making one of the props Joe used in his magic shows, or you can have students demonstrate with Day-Glo colors why we see the phases of the moon. A great biography on a free app – what a bright idea!

 

Stay: The True Story of Ten Dogs

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‘Tis the season for gift-giving and for “best of the year” lists. The New York Public Library put 100 terrific titles on their Children’s Books 2012 list, including my pick for Most-Heart-Warming-Non-Fiction-Book:  Stay: The True Story of Ten Dogs by Michaela Muntean with photographs by K. C. Bailey and Stephen Kazmierski.

Luciano Anastasini needed a second chance. He was a circus acrobat, from a long line of circus performers, until the day he fell fifty feet from the high wire. His body eventually healed, but he could no longer perform his old routines. He decided to train dogs for a new act, and since he was hoping for a second chance, he chose dogs who needed a second chance as well.

Bowser ended up at the pound because he was always stealing food from his owner’s table. Stick was a stray. Penny spun madly in circles, Cocoa was a digger, Tyke did the opposite of what he was told to do. Luciano took the dogs in and taught them to do fantastic, funny tricks. As the news spread about Luciano’s success with “hopeless” dogs, people brought him more dogs who needed a second chance: E-Z, Meemo, Sammy, Free, and Rowdy. Together Luciano Anastasini and his Pound Puppies have entertained circus crowds across the country. Muntean writes, “Sometimes a dog and a person will find each other at just the right moment – a moment when they need each other more than either could ever imagine.”

Share Stay: The True Story of the Ten Dogs with your students and discuss how Luciano turned each dog’s “flaw” into a strength in his act. (You’ll hit the Common Core State Standard of Key Ideas and Details, and hopefully have a wonderful class discussion on how our own flaws can become strengths, too.) Because it is the holiday season, consider making a craft that benefits shelter dogs. I love these easy, braided ropes you can make from upcycled old shirts. You’ll teach your students more than just informational reading skills; you’ll teach them that they can help make the world a better place.