Welcome! This blog evaluates children's and adolescent's literature in order to help parents, teachers, and book lovers of all kind to make thoughtful decisions about the books that they are reading and sharing with the children in their lives.
This is the story of a boy who notices an injured bird on the ground in a city full of people, and no one else even notices. He takes the bird home and nurses it back to health.
I really enjoyed this book. I would give this book a 25/32. This book really lacks diversity and it seems so silly to me because in a big city like they live in, there should be a lot more people represented other than just Caucasian. The plot is interesting and the story carries a nice message of kindness and compassion, which is one reason why I like this book. The book is really culturally relevant as well in a time when we are all in such a hurry that we often do not to stop and think about nature and how our small acts of kindness can help to change the world.I would recommend this book for grades Kindergarten through 4.
When Ojiisan, a wise, old man in the town who is well-respected and humble. When he realizes that there is going to be a tsunami, he sacrifices something of great importance to the people, in order to save them.
I would give this book a 31/32. This book takes place in Japan and tells the story of how a man saved his village from a tsunami. The illustrations in this book are creative and intriguing collages, however, I wonder if some of the images are stereotypical of Japanese people. However, the protagonist is a wise rice farmer in Japan, making this a great book to have if your looking to add some books with diversity to your home or classroom. The story line is engaging and the social message is one of helping those in your community, a positive message for every school to teach. This book is culturally relevant because natural disasters like tsunamis could happen at any time and it is important to teach students (of an appropriate age of course) about topics such as this. I would recommend this book for 2 through 5 grade.
Fable Comics is a collection of fables re-told in this graphic novel. This compilation of fables was created with by 26 contributors.
I would give this book a 25/30. This is a really fun book that many kids will love. I wouldn't really consider this book to be diverse. However, I do think that this book is really culturally relevant and the illustrations are stunning, in that each fable is made different from the last. The book may not fit my criteria super well of what I would consider to be high quality literature very well, however this book is still really wonderful to have to engage those readers in the classroom who enjoy graphic novels, and to support learning in multiple ways. This book would also be great to compare to the original story and try to figure out how the creators took the original stories and made them into these great short comic fables. I would recommend this book for 3rd through 7th grade.
Abuela takes you on a journey as young girl imagines herself and her grandmother flying over the streets of Manhatten.
I would give this book a 30/32. This is a beautiful book that takes you on a journey with a girl and her grandmother who she adores very much, who came to America from another country. What I like most about this book is it celebrates her grandmother and her grandmother's culture. Too often we give students and children the impression that they should leave their family's culture behind in order to be a "worthy citizen" and I think that this book celebrates their own family culture, while also celebrating being in America. The main characters are diverse and the storyline is well-constructed. There isn't a ton of character development through out the story, however, there are really positive messages about family. I think that this book is really culturally relevant for children, as there are children within our classroom whose family may have come to America within the past couple of generations. I really like that the author decided to do this book in Spanglish, showing a mixture of cultures.
This story is a folktale of a coyote who wants to eat a sheep, and a sheep who can outsmart him.
I would give this story a 27/32. I really enjoyed the illustrations and color used in this book. The book definitely had a great story line that reminded me very much of other folk tales that I have read, but this one is bilingual, which is really great for helping to have a diverse collection of books for children to read. I think that children would definitely be engaged in the story line of this book. This book shows some diversity in that the lamb (referred to as a she) outsmarts the wolf who is trying to eat her. In this way, it still portrays 'she' in a more positive light and having a protagonist type role in a book. Character development and cultural relevance were both okay, but there are some bilingual books out there that are of an even higher quality for children. Nonetheless, I think that this is a great book to have in the classroom or at home, and it teaches kids a few words in Spanish in this Spanglish book.
Here are some literary elements to look for in the book:
Onomatopoeia: "Coyote shook the water off of his fur, freh, freh, freh."
Conflict and Solution: There are many conflicts that the sheep faces with the coyote and each time she find a new solution.
For a mini lesson: Explore problem and solution with students by using this book and the problem the the sheep faces of the coyote wanting to each her, and all of the ways that the sheep comes up with to solve this problem.
Personification: The main coyote and the sheep in this book possess human like qualities because they can talk to one another.
Catching the Moon is the story of a young girl who wants to be a baseball player. With little to no support from her family, she has to prove her skills in order to catch the attention of a coach who is going to coach a team right in her neighborhood. she faces discrimination because she is a girl, but in the end, she proves that she can do anything that she puts her mind to.
I LOVED this book. I would give this book a 31/32. The illustrations in this book are fantastic, the book features diversity of characters, there is character development among multiple characters that can be traced through the story the grammar and vocabulary is wonderful and is quite broad for a children's book. But the best thing about this book to me, was the diversity, the achievement of a diverse character, and the messages that this book sends to readers, and especially to young girls that you can overcome stereotypes and that you can overcome obstacles. The girl was so good at baseball, but her parents wished that she didn't love it so much, but that didn't stop her. There are messages such as friendship, perseverance, and acceptance, that are such important messages for kids to hear.
Here are some literary elements to consider:
Beginning, Middle, and End: In the beginning, the girl wanted to be a baseball player, even though she didn't have a lot of support. In the middle, she finds out about a baseball coach who will be starting a team in her neighborhood, but that she can't be in it because she is a girl. In the end, she proves that she is worthy enough to be on the team, and the coach helps her to get the supplies that she needs to play baseball on the team.
Title and Subtitle: Explore the title: Catching the Moon, and the subtitle, The Story of a Young Girl's Dream, and discuss why the author decided to use a title and subtitle.
Conflict and Solution: There are multiple conflicts and solutions through the book.
For a mini lesson on conflict and solution, give children each a different conflict from the book and have them draw and write what the solution was.
Mercy Watson Thinks Like a Pig is the story of Mercy, the Watson's pet pig, who gets into trouble by eating the neighbors flowers that they had just planted. When the neighbor, Eugenia, calls animal control, Eugenia's sister Baby tried to warn the Watson's about their beloved pig and animal control coming to get Mercy. However, Mercy is nowhere to be found. This is the silly story, which in the end, brings the neighbors together to enjoy some toast, including Mercy of course.
I would give this book a 21/32. I really enjoy Kate DiCamillo's writing style and I thought that this book and the idea of a silly pet pig like Mercy is adorable, however, I wouldn't consider this book to be of high quality necessarily. It is still a cute read and I can definitely understand why many kids that I work with like these books.
This book really lacked the element of diversity, and the story line was good, but I wouldn't say that it involved achievements of any kind, really. There is not a lot of character development, and not really any social messages for affirming our children. The grammar in this book is appropriate. I would say that the cultural relevance of this book isn't really there either. Although I wouldn't consider this to be a work of high quality literature necessarily, I think that the Mercy Watson books are entertaining and funny, which makes them enjoyable for kids, and there is no reason that kids shouldn't be reading books such as Mercy Watson. I just do not think that they are books that I would use in the classroom for lessons or anything like that.
Here are some literary elements:
Text to match meaning: Whenever the characters are yelling something loudly, the font gets bigger, for example...
"Pig, Pig, Pig!" This shows that the yelling is getting louder and louder.
Beginning, Middle, and End: In the beginning of the book, Mercy ate the neighbors flowers. In the middle of the book, animal control was looking for Mercry, but Mercy was at a tea party, and at the end of the book, all is forgiven and they eat toast together.
Onomatopoeia:" "Erf?" said the dog."
For a mini lesson on onomatopoeia, use this book as an example for some onomatopoeia. Have students come up with other noises that they might hear in a book and record them on the board. Next, have students write a sentence using an onomatopoeia.
This is the story of a boy who notices an injured bird on the ground in a city full of people, and no one else even notices. He takes the bird home and nurses it back to health.
