Tandem Insights

Sometimes You Just Need a Vacation

      

Everyone needs a break from the routine once in a while. But sometimes you’re so busy, all you can do is read about it. 

Take a good, old-fashioned cross country road trip with a family in Pictures From Our Vacation by Lynne Rae Perkins, author of the Newbery award-winning Criss Cross. Mom gives the kids instant cameras and notebooks, and off they go to document their travels. Some of it is typical road trip stuff and lots of things don’t go exactly the way they’d like on the vacation, but it all comes together at the end in this charming story. 

A great picture book from 2007 has a whole house going on vacation. The door, windows, chimney, and other parts of the house get together to decide where to go when their family leaves in House Takes a Vacation by Jacqueline Davies. 

Another new picture book featuring a summer vaction is A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever, by Marla Frazee. Inspired by her son's trip to "nature camp" with his best friend, this is a tongue-in-cheek look at how adults and kids sometimes have different definitions for the nature of "fun."

Whether you're planning an actual vacation or just yearning for a break, these picture books will transport you and leave you feeling refreshed!

Frog Round Up

April is National Poetry, Garden, Humor, and Math Education month.  But did you know that April is also Nation Frog Month?  Here are a few titles that will get your readers jumping out of their seats.

Nic Bishop Frogs, photographed and written by Bishop, is a companion to the 2008 Sibert Honor-winning book Nic Bishop Spiders.  With clear, informative text and vivid photos, this book about agile amphibians does not disappoint.  Readers will enjoy the author’s note at the end of the book which explains that some of these photos were taken in Bishop’s own backyard.  To get certain shots, he even trained a frog to catch food right in front of him!

Great for beginning readers, Fun Facts about Frogs is another book full of wonderful  frog  photographs.  Author Carmen Bredeson teaches readers about frogs in a question-and-answer format.  Complete with a glossary and life-cycle diagram, Fun Facts about Frogs is a great pick-up.

In more of an environmental twist, learn about how the environment affects frogs in Frogs in Danger by Jim Whiting.  Topics of mutated frogs, global warming, and the future of frogs are explored in this photo-filled title.  Readers will get information about what they can do to help the earth and the frog population.

Happy National Frog Month!

Book of the Week: Knock, Knock!

Knock, knock!
Who’s there?
Gorilla
Gorilla who?
Gorill-a my dreams, I love you!

If you like this knock-knock joke by Tomie dePaola, you’ll be even more tickled and delighted when you pick up Knock, Knock!, the companion title to Why Did the Chicken Cross the Road.  Knock, Knock! features fourteen well known children’s illustrators and showcases their take on the classic knock-knock joke.  Contributing artists/comedians include Chris Raschka, Peter Reynolds, Yumi Heo and David Small.  Children of all ages will be in suspense when reading the setup page and then laugh out loud when turning the page to reveal the funny and sometimes punny punch line.  Not only are the jokes comical, but the creative illustrations and pictures will send readers rolling on the floor laughing.

Featured List: Money

For years financial education experts have asked for our schools help to improve students’ understanding of money matters.  Well today is no different!  There are so many great books out there with the sole intention of giving kids a leg up on preparing for financial decisions from the everyday to the more complex.  Here’s a list of books to help K-12 students with some basic financial skills that are- dare I say- fun as well as empowering.

Wild West Round Up

Cowboys come in all shapes and sizes. There’s the lady-sheriff and the rest of the townspeople of Fiasco in Tales From Gizzard’s Grill by Jeanne Steig who have all sorts of adventures in this tall-tale-esque story. Ridin’ Dinos With Buck Bronco is another tall tale featuring a rancher who gets more than he bargained for with some strange eggs that turn out to be dinosaur eggs.

Catch a case of the cowboy sillies with The Toughest Cowboy by John Frank or the Dirty Cowboy by Amy Timberlake. The visual humor and nuance of these books will have kids wanting to read these books again and again.

  Cowboys aren't always boys, either. Erica Silverman has published four early chapter book so far about Cowgirl Kate and Cocoa, her horse. The newest title in the series is out this month: Cowgirl Kate and Cocoa: Rain or Shine.

Then there’s Cowboy Slim by Julie Danneberg. Slim wants to be a cowboy, but he writes poetry. What kind of cowboy writes poetry? At least, that’s what the other cowboys say, but little do they know the power of words. 

Pair these titles with some great nonfiction to tie it all together. Try classics like Cowboys of the Wild West by Russell Freedman or Cowboy Country by Ann Herbert Scott for a look at life in the wild west that will fascinate your primary grades audience.

Book of the Week: The Little Rabbit Who Liked to Say MOO

After spending time with quite a few bunny rabbits over the years I was pleased to meet Jonathan Allen’s Little Rabbit.  Knuffle Bunny, Bunnicula, Little Bunny Foo Foo, Peter Rabbit, Roger Rabbit, Edward Tulane, Runaway Bunny, and Velveteen Rabbit never left me wondering “What sound does a rabbit make?”; The Little Rabbit Who Liked to Say MOO by Jonathan Allen did. 

In the same style of computer animated artwork which brought to life Owl and Owly in I'm Not Scared! and I'm Not Cute!, Allen introduces us to Little Rabbit and his crew of farmyard friends. 

With simple, large text, students in grades PreK through 1 can easily join in a shout-out-loud storytime.  Readers will appreciate Little Rabbit’s individuality as he helps the other baby animals realize that they are not limited to their own language and can enjoy making other animals' sounds. 

Why not keep the silliness rolling with another animal picture book?  Lila Prap’s multilingual Animals Speak is a fun way to introduce how animals "speak" in other lands.  And in this book, they speak 41 different languages including English, Afrikaans, Farsi, and Romany.

Classroom Connections: The Power of Words

History hot off the presses! 

Muckrakers by Ann Bausum takes us into the story of investigative journalism—sometimes called the “unofficial fourth branch of government”—and the reporters who used their medium to change America. History teachers covering the early twentieth century will want to use this book in their classrooms particularly for the more than 50 archival photos it contains.  Pair this with War, Women, and the News by Catherine Gourley and Journalists at Risk by George Sullivan for a history lesson with a focus on journalism.

English teachers reading The Jungle by Upton Sinclair or The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck with their classes may want to use Muckrakers to give students some historical context to these works of fiction that began with investigative journalism and ended with some big changes.  Bring it all together by showing your students how words are still making a difference in the way we live our lives today with books like Fast Food Nation (or the adaptation aimed at young people, Chew on This) or An Inconvenient Truth.

Promoting Peace

“Singking in the sea
Of forgetfulness
I reach for the raft
of remembering.”

Wars might end, but they do not go away.  Many try to forget what they have experienced and move on from there, but others, like Ibtisam Barakat in the poem above, have chosen to remember.  To tell their stories.  To inspire a solution for the conflicts that have touched their lives so painfully.

On that note, you might want to pair Barakat’s memoir with more books about the Middle East. 

Or perhaps you can direct readers to other stories of war and conflict that may inspire them to come together for peace.

Book of the Week: Tasting the Sky

“The small girl
I once was
Sings out this story.”

To three-year-olds fear is darkness or strangers or thunderstorms.  For three-year-old Ibtisam Barakat, fear was felt in every inch of her small body as her family had to suddenly evacuate as war broke out.  She ran barefoot with her family, friends, and neighbors to safety, but in a time of such upheaval, she never really felt safe.

Tasting the Sky: A Palestinian Childhood tells of the fear of living in Palestine in the 1960’s from the perspective of a very young child who, at the time, had little knowledge of why her life was suddenly so different.  The politics stay in the background of this memoir.  Instead we focus on life—childhood, culture, language—in spare and moving prose that sheds new light on what it means to grow up surrounded by war.  What it means to remember when everyone keeps telling her to forget.

View this book in the Tandem Library Books online bookstore.

Pi Day: March 14th

      

Is your school celebrating Pi, the famous and beloved number, this week? Many classrooms take a break at 1:59 pm on 3/14 to acknowledge Pi, affectionately known as “3.14159.” Of course, there are those who have memorized decimals beyond that, but here at Tandem Insights we’re content to carry it to the standard five decimals. Math teachers aren’t the only ones with ideas on how to celebrate this special number! Schools are finding many creative ways to commemorate Pi, including Pi poetry, Pi webquests, and Pi trivia games. Looking for books about Pi and other interesting math concepts? Here’s a list of books to help you celebrate Pi Day.