Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears by Verna Aardema

This is a cute story on one ideas of Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears. The story starts when Mosquito tells a tall tale to Iguana who doesn’t like what he hears so he plugs his ears… this in turn sets off a chain reaction between many jungle animals that results in a jungle disaster – all because of a misunderstanding!
I like this story because it gives the reader one persons (the authors) idea of why mosquitoes buzz people’s ears. Maybe the reader can come up with their own ideas on why mosquitoes buzz in ears… and write their own story. I also like this story because it brings us into talking about tall tales. Telling tall tales may have repercussions. As in this story, when people assume they may cause more harm. I really enjoy reading tall tales and think doing a unit on tall tales is a great idea. I would definitely use this book in my classroom for a tall tales unit or just a fun read.

Salt in His Shoe: Michael Jordan in Pursuit of a Dream, by Deloris Jordan with Roslyn M. Jordan

I was assigned a reading buddy for one of my classes this semester. He is a very energetic little boy who loves everything to do with sports, especially football and basketball. I researched a few books and the curriculum lab and came across one that I knew not only he would enjoy, but I would too. I grew up in a basketball household. Of course the Hawkeyes were our favorite team, but not too far behind were the Chicago Bulls. Now my favorite player of all time is Scottie Pippen, but come-on… how could you not love Michael Jordan! I actually read a book in high school about Michael’s life and found it very interesting, so when I discovered a picture book about him, I knew I had to check it out.
I was not disappointed in the reading of this book. The story was fun to read and it had a great message to all children, (aspiring to be basketball players or not) that patience, determination, and hard work can take you places. The illustrations in this book were also very impressive. I felt like I was sitting in the Jordan’s kitchen or on the playground with all the kids – very life-like. I would recommend this book anyone to read… not just sports fans and will definitely have a copy of it in my classroom.

Love That Dog by Sharon Creech

Okay, so I have to admit it, I love this book! It was unlike anything I have ever read before which to me was refreshing. The format was different, which I thought was cool… I don’t know I just really liked it!!
When I first picked the book up I was super excited to read it because... I Love Dogs! Even though after the first couple pages I could tell the story really wasn’t necessarily about a dog… but more about Jack and his introduction to and love of poetry, I was still enthralled by the reading. Throughout this book I found myself relating to Jack. Like him in the beginning, I was not a fan of writing poetry. To me poetry was something you had to decode, something that had more meaning behind it than just the words on the paper. When I read poetry it was frustrating to me because I felt like I never really understood the meaning of the poem. Jack made me a believer in poetry again! I loved his words, his poems. It was so simple to see, to understand. A poem can really be anything you think or feel one is. My absolute favorite part of this book was when Jack wrote a reflection to his teacher. She responded by asking him if she could type it up and put it on the board. He was stumped… how could this be poetry, it’s just my thoughts. That exact moment is why I love this book.
I know I will use this book when I teach poetry with my classroom. I just think it’s a great book to show students how poetry doesn’t have to rhyme. It doesn’t have to be difficult to understand. It doesn’t portray strong, emotional, deep meaning (but it can). Poetry can be about anything… even dogs.

Babymouse: Queen of the World! by Jennifer L. Holm & Matthew Holm

Babymouse is actually one of the only graphic novels for children I had really heard of before conducting my research project. As I was flipping through the book I was interested in the illustrations more than the words. With just the colors of black, white, and pink... the pictures actually turned out more powerful than I expected while reading the text. The way the illustrator used pink as an accent color and/or hiding it into the pictures in some instances, kept me as the reader interested and seemingly made me pay more attention to the pictures.

But hold on... I don't want to take away from the text of this book. While I must admit that at the beginning of the book I thought to myself, "I am completely lost and have no clue what is going on," as I continued to read I grasped the way the pages were designed and how the story was being told. It is unlike most books in the way it is told because not only is there a story going on, but the book is interacting and 'talking' to you while you read it. At the bottom of some pages you see Babymouse talking to herself. It lets the reader understand Babymouse a little more without having to use dialogue.

In this story in particular, Babymouse wants to by Queen of the World... but she would settle for being invited to super-popular Felicia Furrypaw's sleepover. Will she get invited to the party or head over to her true friend, Wilson the Weasel's, for a monster movie marathon?

Pigling: A Cinderella Story by Dan Jolley

Cinderella is a classic story. Like so many little girls, at one time in my life I think I watched Cinderella nearly everyday. It's still one of my favorite Disney movies ever. A little girl I babysit sometimes thinks she is Cinderella... that's how much she loves it. She has the dresses, shoes, crowns... and her dad even calls her his 'princess.' I knew Cinderella was popular, but it wasn't until I picked up the book Pigling: A Cinderella Story, that truly realized it is kinda a worldwide phenomena. Pigling is a Korean tale. It's a story much like our American version with an evil stepmother and stepsister, magical creatures, a lost shoe, a ball/festival, and a Prince-like character who marries the Cinderella-like character. It's neat to see the different versions of this story.. In fact, not only was Pigling a Korean version, it was also in a different format than usual, it is a graphic novel.
I think it would be fun to maybe make a 'book club' out of a bunch of different versions of this Cinderella story. Students/Readers can find similarities, differences, find the cultural relevance to each version, etc.

Inside Out: Portrait of an Eating Disorder by Nadia Shivack

This very serious and intensive graphic novel is a story about the author, Nadia Shivack, and her eating disorder, Ed. When Nadia was only fourteen years old she began suffering from what would turn into a lifelong battle between her body and food. Shivack retells events in her life that from the first memory of when she became aware of food (at age 6) all the way through her outpatient treatment (at age 40). Her story, although extreme, is one that many of us can relate to… not feeling great about ourselves, our bodies, where we are in life, etc. At the time this book was published (2007) Shivack was still recovering. Eating disorders can be very destructive to a person both physically and mentally, and hers has taken her through ups and downs. One of the only ways that she has been able to remain calm enough to work to fight off this disease is by writing and drawing on napkins after meals, and that is what makes up this book. The pages are formatted like nothing I have ever seen before, but for the story being told it works very well. The illustrations are literally straight out of her notebooks, her napkins, anything she could find to write on. This (reading and writing) is the medium that has help her cope, helped her remain living. She took me into an eating disorder and I will never think about eating disorders the same.

Now my experience is not an eating disorder, but in my Methods class this semester we have to write a literacy reflection… a time in our life we remember about an experience in reading or writing. I choose to write about a time in my life when I didn’t feel like talking to anyone. I bottled up my emotions and didn’t know how or didn’t want to express myself, my feelings. My dad had just had a heart attack at the age of 48. I was devastated, scared, and upset. Today my dad is doing fine, but at the time it was a very serious thing. The one thing that got me through everything and kept me sane, was having to write about it in my rhetoric class. Writing about my feelings, my experiences, about everything… it helped!

Too Many Time Machines, by Mark Alan Stamaty

I’ve said it before in my blog, but I just love the idea of reading graphic novels. I have been volunteering in a classroom for a while, during the students reading time. There is one boy that I work with who just does not like reading. He is not a bad reader by any means; he just gets bored or frustrated reading. He really loves sports. Football and basketball are his favorites, but I found a graphic novel on baseball and couldn’t resist brining it in for him to read.
The book I choose to read is, Too Many Time Machines, by Mark Alan Stamaty. It is a graphic novel about a boy who loves baseball and wants to practice with his friends so that they can win the championship. However, all of his friends would rather play with their time machines. So, the boy decides to use his own time machine to travel back in time to meet Babe Ruth and discover the secret of home run hitting. Before reading it I had him thumb through the pages to see if this would be something he might be interested in reading. As he looked through the book he saw that it wasn’t your typical ‘school’ book and seemed pretty excited to see what it was all about. We read the entire book in two sessions. He loved it! Not only was it a subject he was interested in, the change in format really sparked his interest. When we were done reading the book, he even asked if I could bring in another one like it! This is what I love about this class… if I had never had to research a genre or see examples of such different genres I would NEVER have thought to get a book like this.