Okay for Now by Gary D. Schmidt

Wheels of Change: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom by Sue Macy

Mister Monday  by Garth Nix

Zita the Spacegirl by Ben Hatke

One Day and One Amazing Morning on Orange Street by Joanne Rocklin

Tales from Moominvalley by Tove Jansson

Written in Bone: Buried Lives of Jamestown and Colonial Maryland by Sally M. Walker

Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool

How Rocket Learned to Read $4.99

As an app, I think it’s definitely one of the best ebooks I’ve seen. The narration is soft and sweet (I guess the bird doesn’t need to be quite as deranged as I portray her, although the kids laughed a lot more when I read it) and the words are highlighted in a really smart and well paced way.  Unlike other picture book apps that are way too over stimulating, there is just enough animation to excite the kids – Rocket wags his tail, the bird flies on to his head, he blinks, etc. Interestingly, while the text is the same there have been some changes made to the way in which the illustrations are presented – zooming in and then out on a picture, separating one page of illustrations into three, etc. One of my favorite things about reading it as an app is getting to see Rocket practice writing his letters in the snow by running, which is a great original illustration, but really cool to see being done. There are also two great games to go along with the app; one for recognizing sight words and one for putting the alphabet in order.

It was really interesting to do it as a read aloud with a whole group of kids and a little awkward at first, but they all managed to get in a circle so they could see and were all very excited. Right away, a few kids asked if we were going to be able to look at books after we finished, which of course made me secretly very happy. They were all engaged and their favorite part seemed to be identifying what was animated in the picture, since sometimes it was a bit more subtle than others. We talked about how some of the pictures were different (like I said, we know this book really well now).  There was also information about the author and a slideshow of him and his dog that the kids really enjoyed seeing. After we finished, I gave them the option of looking at books or exploring the word games and they split down the middle, which I think definitely goes back to what I was talking about in my last post. They enjoyed the app, partly because they love the original so much, but were just as excited to go and re-read books like Chester and Library Mouse in print.

There’s a Monster at the End of this Book $3.99

The kids come to me in half groups, so not wanting to leave out the 4 year old contingent of that class, I showed them the app of There’s a Monster at the End of this Book from Sesame Street. This is one of my favorite silly stories of all time and worked really well with this age group. For those not familiar with this book originally published in 1971, Grover spends the story increasingly freaking out and begging the reader not to turn the page, fearing that there is a monster (himself) at the end. It’s super funny and of course the more he begs, the more you want to turn the page. As an ebook, it’s really great because it’s Grover’s voice, which is just hysterical in itself. There is also an interactive component to it, which the kids all loved. Throughout the book, he attempts to tie the pages down and nail them shut and with the iPad version when you touch the knots on the rope, for example, they break and the page turns, leading to another freak out.

I would highly recommend both of these books in print and in iPad form.

So many of the educators today, particularly at the high school level, seemed to have a very negative and frightened view of technology. I find myself in a unique position, as I am the first person to develop the technology curriculum at my school and that my population is nursery to 5th grade. I think the key is to establish a really positive foundation at an early age, taking out the taboos, and presenting it in an organic way. This year I’ve been very big on student generated content as a way of explaining larger concepts (ie creating wikis with the 3rd and 4th graders to teach what to look for in a website and how content is created) and I hope to expand upon this with the help of Common Sense Media’s lesson plans next year.

Also, I constantly hear adults talking about kids not knowing how to research, not reading books, having no attention span etc. However, I feel like so much of that is us putting these labels and our own lack of understanding on kids and then panicking about it. As the librarian and tech teacher dealing with young kids, I don’t find this to be true at all. I make a point to present online and print materials in much the same way and ultimately find that my kids choose the format that works best for them based on what they need. I recently put a lot of time in to culling a list of internet resources for the 3rd and 4th graders to use for a small project, yet they all used the print encyclopedia. Similarly, I did a lesson about ebooks where we talked about different formats and then they went around to four stations (Where the Wild Things Are book, tumblebooks on a laptop, iPad picture books, a choose your own adventure maze comic book) and were asked to read the book there and write down some thoughts. They had a lot of really fascinating insights and were completely aware and too much was going on or the were overstimulated. At the end, I asked them to circle which they liked the best and I was surprised to find that it was evenly split between the ebooks and the print books. I think kids are a lot smarter than we give them credit for and really do know how to discern between formats, if we present information to them early and in a positive way.

I have a lot more to say about this, but I think I’ll stop there for now.

Books I’m currently reading:

Inkheart by Cornelia Funke – I’m listening to it via audible, where it is wonderfully read by Lynn Redgrave. I really enjoy reading nonficton and often have a hard time paying attention to fiction, especially fantasy, because of all the crazy make-em-ups. Anyway, I’ve found that listening to fantasy on audiobooks has helped me a lot because I know if I was reading it, I would be skimming over pretty much anything aside from dialogue.

The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien – Yes. I’m a loser and have never read this before. I tried reading it when I was ten, but the font was too small and it was about crazy little creatures, so I don’t think I made it past the first page. Sixteen years later, I find myself with an Elvish tattoo, a complete Doctor Who action figure set, and a master’s degree in library science, so obviously this needed to be done.

Barefoot Gen, Vol 10: Never Give Up by Keiji Nakazawa – I’m lying. Honestly, I can’t bring myself to finish the series. I had read the first 8 over the summer, which were all the Brooklyn Public Library had. Two months ago, I realized they had the final two volumes and quickly read the 9th, but can’t open the last. It is such a powerful account of the atomic bombing of Japan and the decade that followed, through the eyes of Gen, based on Nakazawa, who was six in 1945. I’ve written about this series before and am just not ready to let go.

Books I’ve enjoyed since last posting:

Room by Emma Donoghue – Oh my god. I guess it’s good that I’m a few months out from reading this or else this would have taken up at least a dozen posts. This book was absolutely incredible and I had the honor of seeing the author speak at Word right after I read it.  It’s the story of a young woman, who has been kept in a dungeon for seven years, told from the point of view of her 5 year old son, who has never known anything else, but an 11×11 room. The writing style is absolutely brilliant and the horror of the story is made even more complex from Jack’s point of view, as you are forced to read between the lines of what he is saying. Despite all of this, his perspective is really beautiful and the book is extremely thoughtful and not at all exploitative. Also, Emma Donoghue is a genius. I could go on forever. Just read it.

Triumph of the City: How Our Greatest Invention Makes Us Richer, Smarter, Greener, Healthier, and Happier by Edward Glaeser – This was a really great read and I would highly recommend it. Looking at cities throughout time, Glaeser did a great job of proving his thesis. I think I love reading nonfiction so much because I always come away learning so much, if not feeling slightly more insignificant.

A Contract with God by Will Eisner – I’ve been wanting to read this for years, but finally picked up a copy when I went to theMuseum of Comic and Cartoon Art last month. It’s a tiny museum, but definitely worth going to and their exhibit on Eisner was really great. All the stories are wonderfully gritty and so New York, with The Street Singer being my favorite of the collection.

Books I’m excited about reading next:

Saturday Night and Sunday Morning by Alan Sillitoe – While I claim not to like fiction, I do really enjoy minimalist writing style and things like that. Last year I read Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner and really loved it, so I’m looking forward to reading this.

Role Models by John Waters – Um, yeah. I don’t think this needs to be explained. I did debate if I should listen to this because I could listen to John Waters talk all day, but after hearing a clip decided to get the book. I don’t know if it was just the part I heard, but he sounded kind of flat and forced. Definitely not David Sedaris or Neil Gaiman.

Sum: Forty Tales From the Afterlives by David Eagleman – I enjoyed reading about this brilliant kind of wacky guy in The New Yorker a few weeks ago and decided I would try his novel.

I’m trying to read this series slowly because I am loving them so much and don’t want it to end. This volume of the Barefoot Gen series takes place in 1948 and continues to show the tragedy the atomic bomb left behind. What I’m really loving about this series, aside from learning some Japanese history I never knew, is that is critical of both the American and Japanese sides and is truly a book about the need for peace. Gen is an amazing character, who is more and more determined, as the series goes on, not to let the bomb beat him or the others in his life. You can read more of my gushing in my earlier post here and I’m sure I’ll write another entry when I finish all ten.

The Bomb by Howard Zinn

Historian and social justice advocate, Howard Zinn has long been a hero of mine and I would highly recommend reading (if you had to choose only one) You Can’t Be Neutral on a Moving Train, his 1994 autobiography/history of the past 50 years. I was lucky enough to hear him speak several times before his death and one of the most compelling things he often mentioned was his experience as a bombardier in WWII.  Thinking nothing of dropping bombs over France and Germany thousands of feet away in the sky, it wasn’t until years later when he read John Hersey’s Hiroshima that he became the passionate and inspiring advocate for peace that I loved him for.  The Bomb is made up of two powerful essays “Hiroshima: Breaking the Silence” and “The Bombing of Royan.”

Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by Eleanor Coerr

So yeah, I’m obviously a little obsessed with Hiroshima right now and read this book yesterday.  It’s a beautiful story based on the real life of  eleven year old Sadako, who died in 1954, due to radiation sickness. With little mention of August 6, itself, the book does an amazing job of showing how the bomb continued to effect Japanese citizens. A book for young readers, Sadako’s biggest wish is to run on her junior high track team and is determined to get well by making a thousand paper cranes.  It’s really powerful and I’m thinking of possibly doing a unit with my fifth graders on it.

Packing for Mars: The Curious Science of Life in the Void by Mary Roach

One of my favorite books I’ve ever read is Stiff: the Curious Lives of Human Cadavers, so when I found out that Mary Roach had written a book about space (another love of mine), I couldn’t wait.  Like the nerd that I am, I tend to prefer nonfiction anyway, although I think her hilarious writing style and layman approach to her topics really make her books accessible to anyone. Stiff is still my favorite, but I really enjoyed Packing for Mars.  She focuses on the smaller, human details of space that are often overlooked and they really make for fantastic anecdotes and gives you a new appreciation for what goes into space programs all over the world

Word After Word After Word by Patricia MacLachlan

This is a sweet book by Sarah, Plain, and Tall author Patricia MacLachlan, who says she had often been asked to write a book about writing.  The story revolves around five elementary school students, who have a writer spending time in their class for six weeks and who challenges them to write. One of my favorite parts of the book was when the writer introduces the students to the concepts of plot, character, setting, etc. by reading to them passages from several classics, including Sarah, Plain, and Tall.  Most chapters ended with a poem or a few lines written by one of the main characters, which was very cute, and ultimately each character learned something about themselves through their writing. The book was rather simple, but a good introduction to the importance, joy, and pain of writing.

via John Hogan at Graphic Novel Reporter