Tandem Insights

Heroic Reads

What makes a hero?  Courage, ability, honor, strength... These are a just a few words people use to describe their heroes.  Maybe a hero is someone who has stood up for what’s right, or maybe a hero is someone you know who has struggled against the odds. 

Anyone can be a hero, even animals.  The cat in Eileen Spinelli’s Hero Cat shows great courage and selflessness to save her kittens from a fire. This picture book is based on a real cat, but if your animal lovers want more fact than story, give them Snow Search Dogs by Maida Silverman, which is part of Bearport’s Dog Heroes series.  Or for those cat lovers who just aren’t interested in the bravery of dogs, suggest Cats to the Rescue by Marilyn Singer for a collection of stories about cats who have some amazing adventures and find themselves heroes.

         

Inspire your would-be heroes to action with Laura Driscoll’s Real Heroes Don’t Wear Capes.  This easy-to-read story includes facts about heroes of all sorts while emphasizing the idea that anyone can be a hero to someone.  Some people want to be heroes, like Dex in Dex: The Heart of a Hero and others just stumble into it, like the boy in A Strange Day who is oblivious to his heroism as he goes about his day.  Both books make entertaining readalouds for grades 1 to 3.

   

Heroes can be found in history or in our own lives. These are just a few books to help your students define their own heroes. Or become someone else’s.

Picture Books for Older Readers Round Up

All last week I posted about how fairy tales aren’t just for little kids.  And, it seems, neither are picture books these days.  Teachers and librarians have long been using picture books with upper elementary and middle school students to great effect.  Some use wordless picture books like those by David Wiesner and Barbara Lehman to inspire creative writing assignments (or even foreign language writing assignments).  Others use historical fiction like Eve Bunting’s Terrible Things to start off social studies units or a book like Jacqueline Woodson’s Show Way to bring up a discussion of truth.  One might also bring a little humor into that discussion with John, Paul, George & Ben, which is a hilarious look at the founding fathers.

Add to your Holocaust curriculum with Memories of Survival.  This beautiful picture book tells the story of Esther Nisenthal Krinitz’s experience during World War II, illustrated by remarkably intricate embroidered panels. The story is in Esther’s words, supplemented by her daughter Bernice’s contextual explanations about the time and place. In the introduction Bernice said that while many Holocaust survivors refused to speak of the past, her mother “couldn’t keep from telling” about the things she experienced. She tried writing her stories in notebooks, but eventually she wanted to show her children visually what her life had been like. That was the beginning of The Esther Project. She used her talent as a seamstress to create these embroidered panels to tell her story visually.  This critically acclaimed book is not to be missed in any collection of picture books for older readers.

Picture books are great opportunities to talk about art and photography with your students.  P Is for Peanut is a photography book disguised as an alphabet book.  It features twenty-six black and white photographs from the J. Paul Getty Museum collection.  Each photo is accompanied by a simple statement that is sometimes obvious and sometimes might make you think about what the photograph is saying.  At once playful, witty, and dramatic, this alphabet book is definitely for more than just those learning their ABCs. 

But photography books aren’t just for art teachers.  English teachers will want to take note of Charles R. Smith’s new picture book version of a Rudyard Kipling’s poem, If: A Father’s Advice to His Son.  Smith takes the classic poem and pairs the lines with his signature photographs of athletes in action.  He writes in the afterword that he wanted to use sports to illustrate the poem because to him “sports share the virtues explored in “If”: confidence, determination, leadership, effort, and the ability to dream.”  Use this book to connect poetry with sports or to start a group discussion about the poem.

Fairy Tales for Teens

Once upon a time fairy tales were only read to children, but once upon an even older time fairy tales were meant for adults just as much as kids.  These days there are versions of various fairy tales for all ages, including plenty of options for teens.  There are the creative re-imaginings that combine several stories like Sarah Beth Durst’s Into the Wild, this week’s Book of the Week.  And there are others that bring one story alive like the classic Beauty by Robin McKinley. 

Whatever the story’s origin, fairy tales often involve some kind of magic and a transformation.  A peasant girl becomes a beautiful princess.  A simpleton becomes a hero.  And so on.  All of these stories reflect the culture from which they came.  As do modern fairy tales like Weetzie Bat by Francesca Lia Block.  This post-modern fairy tale may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but it certainly captures the magical world of Los Angeles in which Weetzie lives, and the genie from the lamp transforms her life as he grants her wishes.

Writers are getting inventive when it comes to the genre of fairy tales.  For example, Enchantment by Orson Scott Card takes Sleeping Beauty’s story and gives it a time travel twist. Or perhaps you like more realistic stories?  Try Letters From Rapunzel by Sara Lewis Holmes.  Candace Brogan is a modern day girl looking at life through the stories her father used to tell her.  She takes on the name Rapunzel and writes from what feels like an isolated tower in this endearing middle school novel.

There’s something for everyone in this list of fairy tale retellings, spoofs, and adaptations for middle and high school collections.

Book of the Week: Into the Wild

It's tough being Rapunzel's daughter.  Sometimes all Julie wants is to live a normal life instead of having magical items she can't use locked in the linen closet and having a cat for a brother.  But that all comes with the territory when your mother is a legend among her own kind.  Rapunzel, owner of Rapunzel's Hair Salon, is the hero who helped all the fairy tale characters, including Goldilocks, Cinderella, and others, escape the Wild Wood, where they were trapped in their stories--living them over and over again.

Now, they all live relatively normal lives in the real world.  And Julie is stuck in the middle.  She knows too much about the Wild Wood to be a normal junior high school student.  But she's not quite as special as her mother's fairy tale friends.

But that in-the-middle status will come in handy when the Wild Wood starts taking over and finding new stories in which to trap people.  Julie is the only one who can stop the Wild from growing.

Fairy tale fans will love Into the Wild''s unusual look at fairy tales from an outsider's perspective.  This light-hearted fantasy-adventure will be familiar and new at the same time to most middle school readers. 

The Cybils

The Internet's first literary awards are back.

The Children’s and YA Bloggers’ Literary Awards, or the Cybils, started in 2006 when a group of bloggers decided to invent their own book award.  Within hours, the word had spread through the blogosphere.  Within days, the new awards had a name and a website.  Nominations quickly opened in eight categories, from picture books up to Young Adult fiction and even graphic novels.  Participating bloggers include librarians, teachers, booksellers, authors, and the kidlit-obsessed. 

Tandem Library Books was pleased to promote the Cybils’ freshman year to our customers, including the fact that one of our own, a longtime book blogger (that’s me!), was involved as a panelist and an administrator.  We are also excited to let you know that last year’s contest was so successful last year that it’s on again for 2007!  I’m switching to nonfiction this year, and I’m looking forward to immersing myself in the best YA and middle grade nonfiction of the year.

Nominations are open to the public from October 1st through November 21st, so don’t miss your chance to be involved with this one-of-a-kind award by nominating your favorite titles of 2007 at www.cybils.com!

Don’t forget about last year’s Cybils winners and honor titles!  Panelists and judges read through some nearly 500 nominated titles to choose the very best in each category.  Some went on to win other major awards, like American Born Chinese.  Others were blogger favorites that didn’t get as much attention from more established awards, like A Drowned Maiden’s Hair and Scaredy Squirrel.  Here are all 45 honored titles from 2006.

Elephant Appreciation Day Round Up

September 22nd is a big day.  An elephant-sized day, in fact.  As the week lumbers ahead to Saturday, take the opportunity to share these large animals with your students.

Don’t be limited to Dumbo and Babar.  Those are great classics, but don’t miss the newest loveable elephant in fiction from Mo Willems.  Emily posted about the Elephant and Piggie books a few weeks ago, and you won’t want to miss an opportunity to introduce your beginning readers to Elephant Gerald (say it fast… get it?)

Count your way through ten elephants with an increasingly overwhelmed little girl in I’ve Got an Elephant by Anne Ginkel.  Preschoolers through first graders will be hooked by the simple, catchy rhymes and the cartoonish elephants engaged in all sorts of un-elephant-like activities.

Immerse your audience in another era by reading aloud The Elephant’s Ball.  This 19th century poem has been brought to young audiences accompanied by rich and detailed illustrations of Elephant’s glorious ball for all the animals of the land.  As the world’s biggest land mammal, the elephant is not to be outdone! 

Your nonfiction fans will gravitate to the photographs in African Elephant: The World’s Biggest Land Mammal by Kirsten Hall and Travels With Tarra by Carol Buckley.   Take on the subject of responsible animal care with Just for Elephants, also by Carol Buckley.  Even if you can’t take a trip to Buckley’s Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee this Elephant Appreciation Day, you can read all about it and even watch the elephants roam free in this natural refuge online via the “elecam.”   

Biographies for Teens

Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.  And these biographies prove it.  Don’t let your teens be satisfied with any old bio that has over 100 pages.  Convince your teens that biographies don’t have to be boring. 

Start with a familiar name.  YA author Chris Crutcher has written his childhood into a book, King of the Mild Frontier.  Fans of his fiction will not want to miss this inside scoop and those who are looking for a funny story will also find themselves hooked into this bittersweet biography.

Then move on to a memoir of a regular girl.  Grief Girl by Erin Vincent is written like a novel with the present tense prose making the story feel immediate even though it all took place back in 1983 when Erin’s parents both died within a week of each other when she was fourteen.  Brutally honest and ultimately uplifting, this memoir is not to be missed.

A great biography is also a great story.  Check out these great life stories for your middle and high school students.

Book of the Week: Wildly Romantic

The Romantic poets may have ushered in a new era of poetry, but that wasn’t all they were up to.

They weren’t the old fashioned group of boring old men that they may seem to teens studying their work in English class today.  No, back then poets were rock stars.  Their poetry was notorious for its subversive nature, but the lives they led were even more notorious and subversive.  They were flamboyant about their rebelliousness in ways that might surprise teens who only know their poetry.

Wildly Romantic chronicles the lives of five young writers of the day who became known as the Romantics: Lord Byron, Percy Shelley, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, William Wordsworth, and John Keats.  These rebellious young men lived outside the norm of the time while staging a literary revolution with their words.

I admit to being a bit of a poetry geek.  So much so that I was waiting for my copy of this book as soon as I heard about it. Here was a book for me!  But I was pleasantly surprised to find a highly readable book that I could recommend to anyone, even teens who aren’t necessarily interested in Romantic poetry. Here’s a collective biography with sex, drugs, and literature for your high interest lists.

View this book in the Tandem Library Books Online Bookstore

Women's Equality Day Round Up

According to a proclamation by the President of the United States of America:

“Our Nation is grateful for the bold leadership of American women who have opened doors of opportunity for women of future generations. On Women's Equality Day we honor the suffragists and all those who seek to expand equality in our world.”

This week marks eighty-seven years since the 19th amendment was ratified, and it is a great opportunity to highlight some of the women who have fought for equality. 

A group of women that really stood out to me were those who changed the way female journalists were viewed in the 1920s and 1930s.  Women like Margaret Bourke-White, Lee Miller, and Dickey Chappelle weren’t the “sob sisters” whose stories were relegated to the Women’s sections of newspapers.  They wanted to be where the action was, and they didn’t stop until they got there.  Catherine Gourley tells the stories of these and other women who set the stage for female journalists today in War, Women, and the News: How Female Journalists Won the Battle to Cover World War II.  Middle and high schoolers with an interest in history or journalism will be hooked by the daring adventures of these women.

Elementary and middle schoolers get an A to Z introduction to a determined group of women in Amelia to Zora: Twenty-Six Women Who Changed the World by Cynthia Chin-Lee.  Some of these women your students have probably heard about a million times, but others will be new to them.  The illustrations by Megan Halsey and Sean Addy are a striking complement to the text. This is a great first stop to whet readers’ appetite for more information on these amazing women.

Younger readers interested in politics might be interested in knowing more about Jeannette Rankin, the first woman to win a seat in the House of Representatives. Jeannette Rankin: First Lady of Congress by Trish Marx tells the story of Rankin’s fight for suffrage, her election to office, and her commitment to peace.  This illustration chapter book biography is a simple introduction to a woman who spent her life working to better the lives of women and children. 

Expand your students’ knowledge of these diverse and determined women in their efforts to change the world as they knew it with these books this Women’s Equality Day.

For Your Youngest Readers

Choosing picture books that will entice your pre-readers is no easy task, but if you have the right books, reading with this age group is very rewarding.  They can now understand more complex stories that you won’t mind repeating as many times as they will want to hear it.  But what makes a good picture book for your pre-readers?

Here are some elements that we recommend looking for:

• Repetition – Get kids involved with the storytime by allowing them to predict what comes next.
• Language Play – Use these stories to develop early phonemic awareness.
• Rhythm and Rhyme – These stories read aloud well and invite listener participation.

Other aspects to think about are humor, surprising endings, unusual characters and child-friendly illustrations.

We especially liked the illustrations in Digby Takes Charge by Caroline Jayne Church, which depict the determination of Digby the sheep dog to make the sheep do what he wants them to do, and the satisfaction on both his and the sheep’s faces when they finally find a solution that makes them all happy.  This is a cute animal story that teaches the importance of “please” without taking itself too seriously.

Add to your collection of Mother Goose rhymes with Mother Goose's Storytime Nursery Rhymes by Alison Green and illustrated by Axel Scheffler (The Gruffalo), which puts the familiar rhymes into a narrative context that will catch kids’ interest and help them to see how the stories relate to their lives as Mother Goose tells the stories to her goslings to keep them from wandering off.  Designed to be read aloud, this volume of familiar and forgotten favorites will bring to life these stories to a new generation.

And don’t forget to introduce your youngest readers to poetry.  There are so many great children’s poetry collections out there, but even so, you will not want to be without Jane Yolen’s latest offering: Here's a Little Poem: A Very First Book of Poetry.  This collection of sixty poems by various writers is specifically designed with preschoolers and primary graders in mind.  With starred reviews from both SLJ and Booklist to urge you on, this oversize volume should not be overlooked.

More great suggestions for your preschoolers to first graders: New Picture Books for PreK-1