Life in the Oceans Takes Readers Beyond the Deep

Oceans have been on my mind a lot recently because my fifth graders are learning about them in science, so when I found Life in the Oceans at the library, I figured I should read up on this complex ecosystem on the off-chance I had forgotten any related information since I was in fifth grade. Turns out I have! Life in the Oceans was an extremely informative read and one that provides a visually pleasing mix of illustration and picture to support the text.

Author Lucy Baker provides readers with a great overview of the basic facts associated with oceans. There is a page dedicated to how the oceans are divided, one on wave power, multiple on the species of the deep and on the life cycle in the ocean including a highlight on the food chain. Particularly of note is the section on ocean resources, how they are being threatened by human impact and how people can intercede to help stop the damage. This could be a useful resource for teachers looking to teach students about human/environmental impact as one of the themes of geography or in a unit on environmentalism in science. The book overall could also be used as a resource in an report or presentation on the ocean ecosystem in general and the life that exists in them. The text is easily accessible for younger readers (grades 1-2) and could also be used for upper elementary readers, so it provides a great teaching point on how to approach non-fiction texts.

Children of the Civil War Helps The Past Come Alive

For many teachers, the issue of making the past come alive for their students is a common one. Historical events can seem too distant to be relevant in students' lives, especially in the age of video and computer games. However, Children of the Civil War by Candice Ransom can help students connect to the ways in which children were impacted by the important events surrounding the American Civil War.

The book profiles the lives of both northern and southern children before, during and after the Civil War. The text is accompanied by a wide variety of photographs and drawings from the period, exposing students to primary documents and making the realities of being a child during wartime tangible. The before period provides students with a quick overview of the relevant facts from the 200+ years of American history leading up to the war. The accompanying pictures of children playing outside of a plantation home juxtaposed with slave children  and their families send a powerful message regarding the stratification of society at the time. The second chapter, "A War-Torn Land," is the meat and potatoes of the book, profiling child soldiers, women and children left behind by men gone off to fight and slave families yearning for freedom. Ransom does a great job comparing and contrasting how children in the North and South were affected by the war, both in very different ways. Finally, the book concludes with a look at the extent to which life resumed after the war and reflects the changes in light of the terrible conflict that had just occurred. One quote from a Louisiana girl, Celine Fremaux, really highlighted for me the cost of the war, "Childhood had slipped away from me, never to return."

This book was eye-opening, even for a history major. The pictures spoke the realities of war and the text was extremely informative and easy to read. I would use this book as a read-aloud to give my class a child's perspective on the issue and to help students connect to a unit on the Civil War. I would also use this book to help students learn to interpret primary documents, a valuable skill necessary for higher level comprehension. Older students would not have an issue interpreting the text and pictures on their own but younger readers would need a bit of help processing.

Soar to Infinity and Beyond with The International Space Station

While astronomy is not covered on the elementary SOLs, many of the students in my cooperating classroom are interested in space and space travel. So when I found the book The International Space Station by Frank Branley my interest was immediately piqued. Much like Gail Gibbons' Polar Bears, The International Space Station presents scientific facts while highlighting them with detailed illustrations.

The International Space Station was first launched in 1998, when two astronauts, one from Russia and one from America, fastened together the first two parts of the Station. However, that was just the beginning. The International Space Station is still under construction to this day and is expected to be completed in the next one to five years. The Station is constructed by astronauts called "spacewalkers" who work in orbit, where there is no air or gravity. Spacewalkers wear specialized space suits to regulate their oxygen levels, temperature and pressure. They  must also be tethered to the Station by ropes or else they would float away into space and be lost forever! The International Space Station is a place for collaborative research among scientists from Russia, the United States, Japan, England and up to sixteen other countries so that we may learn more about outer space in preparation for further research.

I would definitely recommend The International Space Station as an excellent edition to any classroom library and as a great resource for helping students learn more about a pretty dense subject. The book explained the facts on an easy to understand level and the illustrations aided the text without making the reader feel overwhelmed. Teachers could also use this book as a part of a unit on technology or international collaboration.

An All-American Read

I'm not going to lie, I am a MAJOR history nerd, particularly when it comes to early American history. So when I found Heroes of the American Revolution by David Adler on the library shelves, I was immediately interested. As I read further, my interest was heightened. Not only does this book contain stories of  popular American heroes like Thomas Jefferson, George Washington and Paul Revere, it does a wonderful job of highlighting the accomplishments of lesser known figures of the Revolutionary War.

The book is divided up into mini-vignettes on each of the heroes profiled, 12 in all. Each hero gets their own biography and accompanying illustration. Some of the stories I found the most interesting were those of patriots I had never heard of! For example, Lydia Darragh, an Irish native living in Philadelphia, spied on British general William Howe, when he and his troops occupied her home. Hearing plans of a surprise attack on patriot forces, Darragh snuck out of her house and walked 13 miles to notify American forces, thwarting the British attack. I was also captivated by the story of Haym Solomon, a Polish Jew living in New York City during the Revolution. Not only did he work to smuggle injured troops to his house among British troops occupying the city, he also helped finance the struggling American army in 1779 when troops refused to fight after serving for months without pay.

I loved that this book highlighted often overlooked participants in the war, like women and ethnic and religious minorities. It would make a great teaching point for teachers to show students that history is FILLED with heroes of diverse backgrounds and might help students identify further with these heroes and the historical events associated. Readers might recognize author David Adler as the name behind the Cam Jansen series, but a visit to his website shows that Adler is the author of many social science-related children's books. Adler's books would be a great addition to any classroom library as they provide children with a great overview of many important historical events. I would definitely recommend Heroes of the American Revolution to history buffs young and old!

Take a Plunge with Polar Bears!

Non-fiction gets a bad rap for being rather a dry, heavy and emotionless genre of book so for my non-fiction blog entries, I wanted to find books that kids would actually find interesting. While non-fiction has never been my personal favorite, I think I've found a few selections that defy the stereotype. The first one  is Polar Bears by Gail Gibbons. I selected this book because Gibbons is a prolific children's book author, whose many books I have fond memories of reading as a child. Gibbons writes on all subjects but pays particular attention to holidays and scientific topics, so Polar Bears is a great example of her work.

Polar Bears is filled with tons of useful and interesting facts about the majestic creatures, all highlighted by Gibbons' beautiful drawings. Polar bears can be found in the Arctic tundra and they are most powerful and biggest of all Arctic animals. These bears belong to the scientific family Ursidae and have been living on earth for about 100,000 years. Polar bears can grow to be up to 10 feet tall and weigh up to 1100 pounds! Females are about 2/3 of the size of males. They can run 30 miles an hour (short distances though) and swim for at least 40 miles. They have special adaptations like warm fur, thick pads on their paws, webbed paws and even an extra eyelid to help them survive in the Arctic's freezing climates! Polar bears eat seals and have a very keen sense of smell enabling to smell their prey from up to 3 miles away! They hunt by waiting by breathing holes for seals to come up for air, swatting the seal with its paws and pulling it from the water with its teeth.

Besides the basic facts, Polar Bears also taught me two very important things about the bears that I never knew before. The first is that in the spring, when all the ice melts, polar bears eat musk oxen and carribous and scavenge for berries, mushrooms and seaweed. I had never thought about what polar bears do when it isn't the dead of winter before! Secondly, did you know that in 1970, there was great concern for the existence of the polar bear? Hunting had reduced the bear population to just 5,000. After a ban was placed on hunting, the species repopulated to a population of about 20,000 to 40,000. But the bears are still threatened by drilling for oil and natural gas in the Arctic and global warming.

I found Polar Bears to be an informative and interesting read. The book gave a lot of detailed information while the accompanying pictures held my attention the entire time. I could definitely see using this in a science lesson on either habitats, adaptations or bear species.Students could use this book as a resource for  a research project or teachers could use it as an informative read-aloud, maybe even as a teaching point for non-fiction literature. Further, teachers seeking to integrate science and language arts hould check out all of Gail Gibbons' books to see if she has written one on their particular subject (I'll bet she has!). As a precaution, I would use this text in an upper elementary classroom since it is so detailed. Many younger students will have a hard time processing the information presented. However, older elementary students will be captivated by this frosty read!

Fantasy Lovers, Get Savvy!

Mississippi Beaumont and her crazy, zany family have a secret. Despite the fact that they seem like your typical American family on the surface, this secret makes them truly unique.The secret? They each possess a "savvy" - a special power revealed upon their thirteenth birthday which enables them to do the supernatural. Her grandpa can move mountains and her great aunt Jules could step back twenty minutes in time every time she sneezed. Olive, a second cousin, has the ability to melt ice with a glare. Momma is perfect and her older brothers Rocket and Fish can create electricity and hurricanes respectively. Mississippi, or Mibs, is awkward, gawky (as so many pre-teens are) and eagerly awaiting her thirteenth birthday to learn her savvy. But then two days before her special day, her father is in a car accident and rushed to the hospital. Mibs, on a mission to see her father, sneaks on to a bus that she believes is headed towards the hospital. It is soon apparent that the bus carrying Mibs, Rocket, Fish and two of the local pastor's children, is actually headed in the opposite direction of the hospital! Mibs and her companions find themselves on the ride of a lifetime that will teach them not just about their savvies but about the realities of growing up.

I loved this book for many reasons. The characters were so unique and endearing - its as if your best friends from when you were younger were infused with the abilities of your favorite superheroes. They were also extremely realistic and human - two qualities I don't normally associate with fantasy characters. There is a great interview with the author, Ingrid Law, on Amazon.com (http://www.amazon.com/Savvy-Ingrid-Law/dp/0142414336/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1290552911&sr=8-1)  in which she says that she sought to create a different sort of fantasy novel in Savvy. "I wanted to create a different kind of magic—one that called to mind the feel of a modern American tall-tale. I wanted to break away from the traditional tales about magic and find roots in the soil around me. What would magic look like if it sprang up in the small towns of America?" To me this perfectly encapsulates Savvy. The characters can be role models for readers because of their reality.

I originally picked up this book because nearly every student in my cooperating classroom is obsessed with this book. So much so that one of my students who is a struggling reader was practically begging my cooperating teacher to let her read the book, despite the fact that she had ruled it out as a "just right" book. To me, if any book can cause children to a) pick it up en masse or b) beg to read it, it HAS to be good. And I was not disappointed. While I would recommend this book for students ages 9-11, Stonehouse has this book featured in its Battle of the Books program and rightfully so in my opinion; It is a bit challenging and lengthy for most students. However, I feel that Savvy's message is great for all ages -  a celebration of idividuality and remaining true to yourself, is applicable and valuable to students of all ages.

Travel to the Past with The Watsons Go To Birmingham

To be perfectly honest, I was SO excited when I realized that this was the week to read historical fiction. I have always loved history, social studies and historical fiction - you name it I loved it if it had to do with the past. I was so overwhelmed with the possibilities of which book to choose - that is until I saw The Watsons Go to Birmingham in Dr. Johnson's class. I remember being so jealous of my best friend in 6th grade because her English class got to read this book while mine focused on a different text. This was finally my chance to read the book I'd wanted to read for the past ten years!

Let me tell you, Christopher Paul Curtis' book did not fail to disappoint. The Watsons Go to Birmingham was both heartwarming and heartbreaking, a story that perfectly portrayed an African American family caught unwittingly in the turbulent events of the Civil Rights Era, specifically the16th Street Baptist Church bombing of 1963. The precious voice of the book's nerdy 8-year old narrator, Kenny Watson, endearingly captures the innocence of his youth, his earnest desire to fit in with his older brother Byron and his friends, and his struggle to understand the senseless nature of the violent bombing that rocks his family's world. The story begins in Flint, Michigan where the Watsons are originally from. They are a family chock full of personalities. There's Dad, the mischevious patriarch, Momma, the heart of the family and a Southern transplant from Alabama, Byron, the older brother who fancies himself a rebel without a cause, Kenny, the quiet, studious narrator and Joey, the lovable little sister. It's never a dull moment around the Watson house - the first chapter opens with the entire family huddled together on their couch wearing every layer of clothing they own to keep warm and ends with Bryon's lips glued to the frozen side mirror of the family car after trying to kiss his own reflection.

That is, until, Bryon's troublemaking ways get to be too much for Momma and Dad to handle and the entire family ships down to Birmingham, Alabama, Momma's hometown, to spend sometime with their maternal grandmother. Their visit chillingly coincides with the horrible attack on the 16th Street Baptist Church in September of 1963. Before the bombing, Kenny nearly drowns in a swimming hole and has a vision of his sister Joetta (Joey) as an angel. Just a few weeks later, the family learns that the church where Joey is attending Sunday School has been bombed. Kenny runs down to find his missing sister and steps into the still smoking ruins of the church, but is unable to find Joey. He returns home to find Joey safe but is so disturbed by what he saw at the bombed out church, he sinks into a depression. Eventually he heals, thanks to the surprising help of his older brother.

Given the senstive nature of some of The Watsons content, I think it goes without saying that this was an extremely emotional book. However, I think it is important for children to read to understand the themes of love, loss and recovery. These are complex emotions that can be hard to work through if you are a child, so seeing a character who is very similar to themselves experience them and work through them could be an invaluable teaching experience. I would be sensitive to the age group and maturity level of your classroom but I think this could really work with upper elementary grades, specifically 5th and 6th graders. This book also won the Coretta Scott King Award and was a Newbury Honor Book, so it is widely known and recognized for its excellence. Scholastic has a great guide to the book featuring an interview with the author, comprehension questions, related activities and related reading (http://www.scholastic.com/kids/homework/pdfs/Watsons.pdf)

As a result of this popularity, there are plenty of lesson plans, study guides and reading comprehension questions available on the Internet.  I could also see some connections to modern day events, particularly if students have learned about the Civil Rights Era before and could connect it to civil rights issues of today. Teachers could also direct connections between the bombing of a church to modern events like September 11th or if students have experiences from the on-going war. Obviously these are not subjects to be handled lightly and require sensitivity but the book could be an interesting jumping off point to discuss connections between past and present. I would definitely recommend The Watsons Go to Birmingham as a touching and thought-provoking historical read!