Review: The Fog

The Fog by Kyo Maclear
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Warble the warbler lives in Icy Land where he loves to people watch. One day, a dense fog rolls in but none of the other inhabitants seem to notice or care. Soon, Icy Land becomes Fog Land, and everyone falls into a new pattern of blindness, forgetting how visible life used to be. Deteriorating into the same disinterested haze, Warble is awoken from his stupor by the sound of a singing child. Together, the pair decides to reach out to the rest of the world using little origami boats to see if anyone else is conscious of the fog. As the duo receives more and more responses, the fog begins to lift.

Award-winning Maclear creates a beautifully messaged tale about environmental conscious, friendship, connectivity, and humanity. Although a slightly more abstract concept for younger children, The Fog is a great lap-read for preschool-aged children to third graders. Paired with Maclear’s simple yet meaning-packed text, Pak’s gentle watercolor illustrations elevate the story’s power. The initial icy white and gray colors against a bright yellow, thumbprint-sized warbler set the tone for Warble’s inner and spirited self and world awareness. Children can laugh as Warble uses a fan to try to blow away the dense, all-invasive fog and feel soothed as the warbler and his new friend watch the stars over the incandescent ocean.

I would like to thank NetGalley and Tundra/Penguin Random House Canada for providing me with a free ARC in exchange for a fair and honest review. Reviewed by Christine Frascarelli

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Review: Goodbye Days

Goodbye Days by Jeff Zentner
My rating: 0 of 5 stars

The book, Goodbye Days by Jeff Zentner, is the story of a boy named Carver Briggs who had a fatal accident that killed his 3 best friends. All of this happened because of a text message and to make things even more stressful the police is doing an investigation on their deaths. The name Goodbye Days comes from the fact that one of his friends’ grandmothers asks Carver to help her remember her grandson through a goodbye day together. With this he start to also help the other families with their own memorial day. The book was a heavy read and it got me crying through most of it. Zentner does an awesome job at expressing the fear, stress and despair that came with the accident. Not only Carver’s despair but also that of all of the families. With this situation being one that could happen to any of us and has happened to many it made it even more real and emotional to me. Student Reviewer, Dayana, 12th Grade Student

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Reading Aloud to Children - A chat with juvenile offenders

"Today I went to the Juvenile Justice Detention Center - Seminole County. I spoke with eighteen boys and seven girls (14-18 years old). I provided a one hour program for the boys and then the same program for the girls. The program began with (1) a discussion on the importance of reading aloud to children followed by (2) a book reading and concluded with (3) the students creating Black Out poetry. Here is a comment by one of the detention students, "Your presentation on how important reading is in our everyday life was not only enlightening but also fun and educational. It has taught me how to make reading fun and also educational for my little sister and all of her friends that I read to."

(1) Why read aloud to children?
Reading aloud promotes language development and language enrichment. Book language is generally more complex than spoken language. It exposes children to more sophisticated vocabulary and more complex sentence structure.

"Before a child can learn to read, a child must have been read 1,000 books." ~ Mem Fox

At 4 books a day for 5 days a week this will be accomplished in less than 1 year. Research by Betty Hart and Todd Risley of the University of Kansas found that at the age of six, children from families who value education and where parents read to and with their children daily have a 20,000 word vocabulary, while their peers from families where reading is not encouraged know only about 3,000 words.

Should I read the same story over and over?
Repetition helps children understand the form and structure of language and the story and enriches their ability to retell or act out the story in addition to adding the positive of participation.

Young children need to hear a word 9-14 times before they know it. (Betty Hart & Todd Risley)

Watching TV?
Increased time spent watching television during childhood and adolescence is associated with a lower level of educational attainment. Children who watch a great deal of television (more than 3 hours a day) have shorter attention spans, less creative thinking skills, and bad attitudes towards school.

Do not allow children younger than 3 years old to watch TV. ALL experts agree on this.

Is it OK for a child to ask questions or make comments?
Participation involves children in the story, helps them own the story, be better listeners, think about the story, remember the story, it helps hold their attention, and gradually helps lengthen their attention span. Plus, it is FUN!

Is reading aloud to children important? YES!!
"The single most important activity for building understanding and skills essential for reading success appears to be reading aloud to children. High quality book reading occurs when children feel emotionally secure and are active participants in reading." ~ Joint position statement of the IRA (International Reading Association) and NAEYC (National Association of the Education of Young Children)

"Reading is important. Books are important. Children’s fiction is the most important fiction of all." ~ Neil Gaiman (Excerpt from his acceptance speech as the winner of the 2009 Newbery Medal for The Graveyard Book.)

For the most part, the students embraced these concepts and discussed the ideas. Several of the boys were willing to read and offer their thoughts. They were genuinely interested. Unfortunately, several of the girls had just returned from court and their mood was a bit somber. But I stayed positive and hoped they would find value in the discussion.

(2) After discussing reading aloud to children, I read aloud to the students! I combined Christopher Myer's picture book, Black Cat, and the song, "Moments in Love", by The Art of Noise. (My sister, Kathy, gets credit for finding the music.) The words with the music create a wonderful rhythm. It's a little like rap. The students loved it. The boys were chanting along with the chorus and although the girls were still a bit bummed, some smiles began to sneak onto their faces. There may or may not have been a guard or two getting their groove on in the back of the room.

(3) The hour concluded with students creating their own Black Out poetry. The poem below was created by my most enthusiastic student. He was a willing reader, loudly chanted the refrain in Black Cat, and eagerly created his poem.

Halloween Fun

My pumpkin was wonderfully scary!

But now it is fuzzy and hairy!

It was spooky in its prime.

Now it's a pile of slime!

Perhaps you can tell - I'm under a spell.

It is the Curse of the Halloween Verse!!!!!

AAAAGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!!!

Wishing you many bad rhymes

at this dark and witchy time.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Check out the kid friendly Halloween joke clip put together by the Eugene Gregory students just for you!

Procrastination and Poetry

Music is great, music is fun. 

But music is even better when we are one! 

So put on your shoes and flip that frown,

'Cause family fun is happening downtown.

So began a poem I found in the present I unwrapped this Christmas. It was a gift from my children. The hand-written poem went on to say they had purchased tickets to a Glen Hansard concert for myself, my husband, and our 3 children. I was thrilled.  Thrilled with the gift and thrilled with the poem. Poetical gifts have become a tradition in our family. My children have been receiving wrapped poems since they were very young. To be honest, it wasn’t because I was clever or wanted to inspire their creative juices. It was simply because I’m a procrastinator. You see, despite my good intentions, I often found myself realizing that the gift I purchased online was not going to arrive in time for Christmas. So, feeling like a bad mother, my guilt drove me to write poetry. Somehow I felt that if my children learned that their gift was late through rhyming, funny words, they would be happy and overlook the fact that the gift they just unwrapped had nothing but paper inside. Surprisingly, it often worked. And now, many years later, it is almost expected that someone will get a poem for Christmas. This year I was the lucky one! So, if you find yourself without a gift, pull out a rhyming dictionary and write a silly, awesome, or perhaps awful poem. Trust me, the gift receiver will remember your poetical gift long after they use the gift you eventually give them. You may be asking yourself; does Diane realize that the holidays are over? You my think I’ve procrastinated in writing this blog post. And you’d be right. But I will try to get out being late with a delightful poem. Please see below and enjoy!

The holidays are over, the time has come

To put away gifts and clean up each crumb.

But as occasions arise in the upcoming year

Consider a poem to bring loved ones good cheer.

They’ll smile and they’ll laugh at your silly attempt

To cover your lateness and lack of present.

But the gift of your words and the gift of your time

Will be loved by all as a cherished rhyme!

So I hope you’ll enjoy this belated blog post

I wrote it for you cause I love you the most!

Happy New Year!!!!!

For rhyming help check out http://www.rhymezone.com.

Puree Your Reading! (by a Literacy Alliance friend)

Did you know that the single most important predictor of success in college is the ability to read for information? How do I know? I heard it at a workshop recently at my school. I’m a high school teacher. I don’t teach reading. But really all teachers teach reading to some degree or another. As I listened to the information in the meeting my mind wandered to my two daughters. I’m a mom too. I have my little E-worm who could break the bank with the number of books she adds to her electronic reader. On the flip side I have my Challenger. She thinks the best use of a heavy book is to hold down the lid on the hamster cage so there is no escape from her favorite furry friend. She will be going into the fourth grade, the year when students begin to make the shift from learning to read to reading for information. Fourth grade can be a make or break year for kids and I want her to make it!

So how do we get from hamster cage to college success? We’re working on it a little bit at a time. My current method reminds me of the approach some parents take to get their kiddos to eat vegetables. They puree the veggies and sneak them into the yummy mac-n-cheese. With my Challenger I can set a whole plate of spinach in front of her and she will say YUM! But ask her to read a chapter book and I get a definite YUCK! I am not eating that! I have to rethink how to feed this beautiful little mind of hers.

Here’s what we’ve done so far to “puree” reading for my Challenger. It’s an approach that takes no advanced planning but lots of patience and lots of attention to daily life and the opportunities that just pop up. Here are the everyday, and some not so everyday, things we do to get my daughter reading for information.

1. The internet. This is not my favorite because it always leads to a discussion of what we can and cannot buy. But it does work. My daughter loves to research how to spend her allowance. This involves searching, reading product details, and sometimes product reviews.
2. Television. It might not surprise you that my Challenger loves to watch TV. The good news. . . with the guide feature of cable and satellite there is a written summary of each show. She likes to read and find out what her “Little Ponies” will be up to today.
3. Toy directions. Not an everyday occurrence but a lot of reading involved. She wanted to build an island to match her favorite TV show. We went to Michaels and bought a kit. There were 11 steps in the directions; each step was multiple paragraphs long. It felt like a chapter book as we watched the island come to life with each step.
4. Little things. Checking the weather on the phone, reading menus at restaurants, and signs or maps when we go out and about.
5. Play acting. Our local elementary library is open on Wednesdays. The leader is so clever. She has the kids put on puppet shows. How does she puree? They have to read a script. But they love doing the show so much that they don’t even notice they’re reading. They also read and perform jokes. Sometimes they do magic! It’s definitely magical in more ways than one and we go home thrilled! Check your local library for free programs where books come to life.
6. Reading recipes. Last but not least and this one is probably my favorite. Thank you to Grandma! You can’t make chocolate chip pancakes without reading the Bisquick box. Can you think of a better reason to read for information?

These are just a few of the ideas I am working with to feed my Challenger. But there are more ideas out there. Have fun pureeing your reading! 

Thanks mom for reading to me

I was visiting my brother at his office yesterday and I noticed this quote embroidered on a pillow on his desk: "Richer than me, you will never be, for I had a mother that read to me." It caught my eye and I remembered that the pillow had belonged to our mother. It was a bittersweet memory for she passed away several years ago. But, ultimately it was a joyful one. I will forever be grateful for her unconditional love, her unfailing support, and she read to me!

Mom - Margie Johnson

My mother surrounded her children with literature. As children, we were read to, and encouraged to read and write on our own. She also involved us in the creative process. When we were little, she wrote stories, dressed us up in costumes, created sets inside and outside our house, took pictures of us acting the story, put the pictures and text into a book, and presented it to grandparents as a gift. She encouraged us to write our own plays. One summer visiting grandparents in NY, my siblings and I turned the basement into a theatre and performed (to rave reviews) our own version of The Three Little Pigs. During Christmas, we always provided any visiting relatives with a silly and enjoyable play. She taught us to play charades and enjoy being creative as we acted without words.  

During my childhood, the TV was off (there were no video games) and it was up to us to have fun. My siblings, friends, and I created worlds in our backyard tree house, down by the pond, in living room forts, down by the muck farms, wherever! I even created a library world - I spent the day turning the family room couch into a library and bugging my family to come check out books. One time I became a reporter for the day. Using an old manual typewriter, I wrote an entire newspaper (maybe 4 pages) on the exciting and crazy lives of my grandparent's mobile home residents in Tavares, FL. I rode around on my grandmother's three wheeled bicycle (basically spying on her neighbors) and recording it for posterity.  

As I grew, books and stories remained in my life. I tried to follow my mother's example. The Christmas plays were now written by my mother and myself, and the grandchildren were the performers. I read to my children and encouraged them to enjoy creating. During summer vacations, we all read one book together each night before bed. My children created worlds that they recorded on film. With their friends and cousins, they found props, made sets, wrote dialogue, and created original movies. They have grown into intelligent, loving, and curious individuals!

Now that I'm all grown up and a children's librarian, I am surrounded by stories even more. Every day I have the great privilege of sharing these stories with children in my community.

So, thanks Mom, for reading to me. I love you. Happy Mother's Day,

Diane