Between the Lines

2nd Grade Faves

I asked the Amigos 2nd graders for the titles of some of their favorite library read alouds this year. After a great deal of excited conversation and laughter about the books’ characters and events, we finally remembered the exact titles. If you have time this summer, check these books out at your local library.

Library Lion by Michelle Knudsen (available in Sp.)

Willy el Timido y Willy el Mago por Anthony Browne (available in Eng.)

El Tapiz de Abuela por Omar Castañeda (available in Eng.)

365 Penguins by Jean-Luc Fromental and Joelle Jolivet (A 2007 Boston Globe-Horn Book Honor Book)

Bartholomew and the Oobleck by Dr. Seuss

The Weaving of a Dream by Marilee Heyer

Klondike Gold by Alice Provensen

The Terrible Hodag and the Animal Catchers by Caroline Arnold

The Region Of The West

Hello,
We are two fourth graders and we researched California & Hawaiian Islands.

If you come to visit California you’ll need…
* Sunscreen
* Bathing suit (beach supplies)
* Camera /autograph book (in case of sighting movie stars)

If you come to Hawaii you’ll need…

• Hula skirt (to dance like a Hawaiian dancer)
• Helmets (in case of falling coconuts)
• Beach supplies
• Camera (to take photos of the hawaiian beaches and beautiful things)

If you visit Colorado you’ll need…

• Skies
• Camera (to take photos of the Rocky Mountains)
• Winter thing (like

In California, Hollywood is a great place to see movie stars. The man made wonder is the golden gate bridge in San Francisco.

Hawaii has 8 islands & out of 6 islands people live on them.

Hawaii is the most popular islands because Honolulu’s has the biggest population

4th graders
King School

Tyrell by Coe Booth

Tyrell by Coe Booth is the true-to-life tale of a 15 year old boy who becomes responsible for his mother and younger brother when Ty’s father lands in prison and the family is evicted from their apartment.

Tyrell’s relationship with his girlfriend Novisha becomes strained as Ty endures life in a roach-infested motel with other homeless families & individuals, and struggles to make some cash without following in his father’s footprints. Guilt-tripped by his mother and determined to find a way out of the shelters his family’s bussed around to, Tyrell draws on a love of music and some of his father’s connections to organize a party.  But will it  be enough to change things for Tyrell and his family?

Complicated, convincing relationships between Ty and his girlfriend, brother, mother and buddies make this a book that lives beyond its pages. I found myself thinking about Tyrell in my spare time, wondering what events would transpire in his life. I’d highly recommend this to mature 8-12th graders who have a taste for realistic fiction.

Booth won the LA Times Prize for Young Adult Literature this past April, and was featured in the May 2007 issue of School Library Journal. Tyrell is written with a great deal of sensitivity, compassion, humor and voice. Here’s hoping Booth has many more stories to tell!

Journeys of the Senses

Jimmy Liao’s brilliantly illustrated book, “The Sound of Colors: A Journey of the Imagination” tells the story of a solitary girl traveling through the subway. The commuting experience, difficult at times for anyone, is even more daunting for this girl because she has recently lost her sight. Imagining the possibilities of all the subway tracks in the whole world joining together, she finds herself emerging from the underground into a forest full of elephants and apples, into the sea where she sunbathes on the back of a blue whale, and into a topiary maze that she and her little dog navigate together.

Translated from the original Chinese, the text expresses the girl’s emotions elegantly and promotes discussions with students about the ways in which we experience the world.

“Now I listen for the sound of the colors I can’t see. I try to smell the shapes, taste the light and dark.”

Happy Year of the Pig!

From Library Photos

It was a busy week at the Amigos & King schools, with both sides of the building preparing Valentine’s displays & celebrations of the Chinese New Year. King School students showed great creativity in their Chinese New Year assembly on Wednesday, and the hallways are swinging with paper lanterns. The Amigos Schools students marched through the halls of the school on Friday, carrying a dragon on their backs, banging instruments and carrying signs to wish the school community well in the new year. The library gathered its Chinese New Year books and made a quick display, with one of our favorite puppets basking in the glory of having his own year to anticipate.

From Library Photos

For now, February break gives everyone a chance to rest up from the week’s festivities and prepare to enter the next month with renewed energy & excitement. Have a great vacation!

WOW!

The Amigos first graders came into the library yesterday afternoon. I know how much they love their Chinese lessons with Ms. June, so I showed them the new books we have by Huy Voun Lee. When I held up 1,2,3, Go! they began to count in Chinese without any prompting. It gave all the adults in the room goosebumps. “Wow,” we said, “Can you do that again?” Sure enough, they counted in Chinese all the way through the book. Look for all four of Huy Voun Lee’s books in our library.

New Books for Middle Schoolers

An order of new YA literature arrived and it was so exciting to see the middle schoolers gobbling up the new books. As soon as word got out that there were new YA books, the library passes for book selection came rolling in. The order contained many books that I heard about at a workshop – The Best New Young Adult Books, led by a dynamic speaker, Kathleen Odean. After the workshop I was so excited about the new titles that I drove right over to Barnes and Noble to buy some of them. Melissa and I have been skimming through the new arrivals. Below are some of our favorites.

Marina Budhos’ Ask Me No Questions looks at the life of an immigrant family from Bangladesh after 9/11. The expression “Ask me no questions, I’ll tell you no lies,” goes to the heart of Nadira’s family’s problems. Her family attempts to gain asylum in the United States by driving to the Canadian border from their home in New York City. A lot is riding on their attempt to gain asylum. Their biggest fear is being sent back to Bangladesh and having to leave their life in America. As they wait for news of their father held in a detention center in Vermont, they watch the men of their tight knit Muslim community, disappear in the night. Today’s Boston Globe (1/30/07) has an article on the prospects for citizenship for people currently working without papers in this country.

I bet you never knew Pop Warner of Pop Warner football got his start as a coach of Native American children in boarding schools run by the U.S. government. Pop Warner coached one of the greatest atheletes of this country, Jim Thorpe. Jim Thorpe – Original All-American by Joseph Bruchac is based on Bruchac’s research into Thorpe’s life – interviews with family members and the reading of many primary sources. Bruchac is an American Indian, as was Thorpe.

The Cabbage-cott Medal

With the announcement of the Caldecott and Newbery award winners, we’ve been busy sharing these new books with students. The title of this post refers to one first grader’s excited description of a book with a gold medal on its cover, “That book won the Cabbage-cott Medal!” he exclaimed.

Flotsam by David Weisner has been a jumping off point for looking at wordless books and more of Weisner’s award- winning books. Students have “read” the pictures together and discussed plot, character, setting and used descriptive language to describe what they see. A class of third graders seemed divided about whether they’d like words in the book: some students were concerned they wouldn’t know the “right” story, while others felt that no words left them “freer” to imagine their own narratives.