Great Minds Thinking Alike: Sites for Teaching Using Picture Books

I founded this humble blog for the purpose of sharing picture book teaching ideas with my fellow teachers. I frankly wasn't able to find anything like it on the Internet.

Since that time, many teachers have emailed me to say how much they appreciate the recommendations and resources found here. Many, however, are hungry for more, and invariably ask, "Where can I find other sites like yours?"

To advance the cause of teaching with picture books, I reached out to some of the extremely knowledgeable and talented educators who, like me, not only review children's books, but also provide their readers with teaching ideas and additional resources. I absolutely encourage you to visit their sites, become followers, and share their resources with your colleagues.

In addition, if you know of a fantastic site that I missed (especially if it's yours!) please let me know and I'll be sure to include you here.


The Book Chook
Audience: Teachers, Parents, Homeschoolers, Anyone Who Loves to Read, Write or Create and Wants to Share that with Kids.

Teachers and parents from all over the world visit The Book Chook to find tips on encouraging kids to read, write and communicate, reviews, letters asking for The Book Chook's advice, articles about using technology to motivate kids' learning, and links to games, activities and online fun.

Susan Stephenson is the face behind The Book Chook, where she shares her passion for children's literacy, literature and learning. Susan taught Kindergarten to Year 6 in Australian primary schools, drama outside school to kids and young teens, and ESL in China.

Currently, as well as pretending to be a chicken on her blog, she writes stories for children, and edits the free magazine for parents, Literacy Lava. It's published four times a year, and available as a downloadable free pdf. Each issue is erupting with practical ideas and strategies to involve children in reading, writing and communicating with creativity. Contributors come from all over the world, but each shares a passion for children's literacy.

Some recommended posts to explore:

• Introducing Kids to Fairy Tales Online
• Sharing Stories Using Online Editors
• Using Toys as a Springboard for Writing

Katie's Literature Lounge
Audience: Teachers, Parents, Homeschoolers, Librarians

In discussing Katie's Literature Lounge, Katie had this to say:

I am an elementary Head Start teacher by day and a reader during any/all free time. Being a teacher I am always looking for children's books to read and use in the classroom.

This blog provides readers with books (mainly picture books for children between the ages of 3-10) and if possible, lesson plans and reading activities to match. Feel free to steal the ideas for your own classroom, reading group, library or children!

Margo Dill's Read These Books and Use Them
Audience: Teachers, Parents, Homeschoolers, Librarians, Children's Writers

Margo L. Dill is a freelance writer, editor, and teacher, living in Mahomet, Illinois. Her work has appeared in publications such as Grit, Pockets, True Love, Fun for Kidz, Missouri Life, ByLine Magazine, and The Chicago Tribune. She is a columnist, instructor, and contributing editor for WOW! Women On Writing. She is assistant editor for the Sunday Books page in The News-Gazette.

Her first book, Finding My Place, a middle-grade historical novel, will be published by White Mane Kids. She owns her own copy editing business, Editor 911, and is an instructor for the Children’s Writers’ Coaching Club and the WOW! Women On Writing Classroom.

In discussing her blog, Read These Books and Use Them, Margo comments:

This blog has gone through many changes in the last two and a half years due to how my life has changed, too! But currently, I feature a book twice a week (picture book, middle-grade, or YA) and provide three activities or discussion points to go with the book. Every once in a while, I host an author, interview him or her, and have a book giveaway. I will also post information for teachers/homeschoolers if I find something really interesting that I think people need to know about to reach children or teach in schools.

In my archives, you'll find posts about books that help children/women around the world, more activities to go with books, lesson plans for preschool to senior high, six plus one traits of writing activities, product reviews, posts about being a mom educator, and more. 

When she's not writing, she loves spending time with her husband, stepson, daughter, and two dogs—Chester, a boxer, and Hush Puppy, a basset hound.

Some recommended features to explore at her site:

• Use the category list on the sidebar to find authors you like, books appropriate for your children or students, and even books to fit certain categories like books about health.
• Click on the tab at the top of Margo’s site to check out some ideas and resources for helping children and teens around the world.

NC Teacher Stuff

Audience: Teachers, Parents, Homeschoolers

Jeff Barger’s goal with NC Teacher Stuff is to provide resources that will help teachers in the classroom.

While his reviews are mainly picture books, he also reviews iTouch apps and the occasional novel as well. Jeff is a kindergarten teacher in North Carolina.


Picture This! Teaching with Picture Books

Audience: Teachers, Parents, Homeschoolers

Dawn Little is the author of Teaching Comprehension with Nonfiction Read Alouds: 12 Lessons for Using Newspapers, Magazines, and other Nonfiction Texts to Build Key Comprehension Skills (preview it here; buy it from her blog!).

Dawn's Teaching with Picture Books provides educators, parents, and homeschoolers with picture book models to guide their teaching of reading comprehension strategies and the six traits of writing.

Dawn is a mother of two, former classroom teacher, consultant, and author. She created a literacy consulting company, Links to Literacy, in 2009. Links to Literacy provides parent workshops, educator workshops, and literacy enrichment classes for children. She also blogs at Literacy Toolbox.

Some recommended posts to explore:

• Unite or Die: How Thirteen States Became a Nation by Jacqueline Jules
• Henry's Freedom Box by Ellen Levine
• Encounter by Jane Yolen

SimplyScience
Audience: Teachers, Parents, Homeschoolers

Shirley Duke is a former science teacher turned children's writer. She holds a bachelor's degree in science and a master's degree in education. She's always loved reading and science and her blog lets her combine them both. SimplyScience combines the pleasure of reading books with a short, simple science activity that can be used to extend an idea from the book.

Shirley started blogging two years ago and found she liked it. Her first book was No Bows!, a picture book. She's written Unthinkable, a YA horror named a Quick Pick for Reluctant Readers, and two science books. Her science books are Infections, Infestations, and Diseases and You Can't Wear These Genes. She guest blogs for the NOVA site "Secret Life of Scientists."

Some recommended posts to explore:

• You Can’t Wear These Genes
• Mammoths and Mastodons
• Journey Into the Deep

Teach Mentor Texts
Audience: Teachers, Parents

In speaking of her inspiration for creating Teach Mentor Texts, Jen Vincent says:

All the professional books I have read and all the research shows that the kids who read more are the kids who do better on reading tests.

I got to thinking about my life as a reader. I want all my students to grow up and be lifelong readers just like me...well, do I read worksheets? Do I fill out reading logs after I finish a chapter or 20 minutes of reading? Do I read a book that is way to hard for me or that doesn't interest me at all? Of course not. I decided that matching my students with authentic, mentor texts was critical to helping them improve as readers. I started blogging at Teach Mentor Texts to share the great mentor texts I come across.

My proudest professional achievement has been to achieve National Board certification this year in early/middle childhood literacy. I am so glad I went through the process because I learned so much about myself as a teacher and further developed my philosophy of teaching. I am currently in my 9th year of teaching. I am a hearing itinerant teacher; I work with K-8 students who hard deaf and hard of hearing in various schools in my district. Outside of school I am a mom to two awesome boys (ages 3 1/2 and 6 months) and wife to a sports-loving hubby.

Some recommended posts to explore:

• Sticky Burr
• Chalk 
• My Reading Life

Teach with Picture Books

Audience: Teachers, Parents, Homeschoolers, Children's Publishers

Keith Schoch is a classroom teacher of over 20 years presently teaching Sixth Grade Reading/Language Arts in Bedminster, NJ. He started his Teach with Picture Books in an attempt to share his love of using picture books in the upper elementary classroom. Since that time, he's started two other blogs: How to Teach a Novel and Teaching that Sticks. He leads occasional workshops and inservices, and also writes original curriculum and teaching guides, such as his recent teaching guide for Encyclopedia Mythologica: Gods and Heroes (Candlewick Press).

 

Teach with Picture Books is aimed at teachers of grades 3 and up who want to incoporate picture books in their daily instruction. In the majority of his posts, Keith collects a number of recommended titles sharing similar themes, topics, or traits, and then provides teaching ideas, related resources, and links to interactive activities.

About his most popular blog, Keith says:

I'm often asked my favorite picture book. That's like asking a parent to choose a favorite child. One is there when you need support, another is there to lend a strong hand, another is there to help you with a good cry, and another is there to provide wise counsel. Picture books can serve so many purposes, and pure enjoyment is perhaps the greatest of these.

Some posts to explore:

• Exploring Invention with Picture Books
• A Nation Divided: Exploring the Civil War Through Picture Books
• Going Extra Innings with Baseball Picture Books

Books4Learning
Audience: Teachers, Parents, Homeschoolers, Children's Publishers

The purpose of Books4Learning is to highlight quality children's literature as a resource for parents and educators (homeschool or classroom). Blog author Chelanne often offer ideas and links to prompt learning opportunities - literary, interpersonal, and cross-curriculum. Some posts focus on the best books on a specific subject or on a tween/young adult novel which Chelanna has recently read. 

Describing herself, Chelanne says

I am a parent who currently homeschools. I have two education/English related degrees.  I have worked as an elementary classroom teacher and a college English instructor. I LOVE reading books, especially picture books. I do library runs (to three different systems) at least twice a week. I love researching and finding everything available on a topic. I started blogging to share my favorites with others. 

Explore some of her posts here:

• Concept Books: General (Learning Numbers and Counting)
• Picture Books that Celebrate Imagination (for Boys)
• Activities, Ideas, and Lesson Plan for Chameleon's Colors

Thanks to all these dedicated bloggers for taking time to share about themselves and their work!

Got a question for these experts? Looking for a book or topic you'd like to explore? Have another site to share? Leave a comment below.

Coming Attractions: Book Trailers

I wrote about book trailers at my How to Teach a Novel blog, and the response from teachers was extremely positive. Like a movie trailer (aka movie preview), a book trailer provides just a glimpse of the overall story, with plenty of visuals and just enough hook to draw in the viewer (or, in this case, the reader).

Dr. Mark Geary has collected a terrific list of picture book trailers to get you started. You'll find lots of new and old favorites there (for example, Tuesday by David Wiesner; Diary of a Worm and Click, Clack, Moo: Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin; Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan, and The Whipping Boy by Sid Fleischman).

If you dig these and want more, YouTube has several, searchable by name and (not as often) by author or publisher. Publishing houses offer them as well, and most publishers provide search functions to help find them. The Scholastic site, for example, has over sixty terrific, professionally published videos. You can also check out my recent series on Publishers' Resources: parts I, II, III, and IV to see which children's publishers provide videos.

The video below shows how music, movement, and selected text can create anticipation for Farmer George Plants a Nation, written by Peggy Thomas and illustrated by Layne Johnson.



If you're a middle grade or high school teacher, definitely check out the Scholastic site, and also take a look at 60 Second Recap, a hip new site which breathes life into high school classics.

Suggested Uses for Book Trailers

So how can classroom teachers make the best use of these videos?

• Book trailers can create a sense of anticipation for an upcoming novel or even picture book. A teacher can whet appetites for the next day's reading by showing a book trailer at the end of each day.
• By their short nature, book trailers provide a clear model of summarizing. Trailers may additionally provide models of other literary techniques including cliffhangers, foreshadowing, mood, pacing, and tone.
• Prior to the introduction of a novel, the trailer is an alternative way to provide a general story outline, apart the back cover blurb. This allows students to focus less on the overall "story line" and to concentrate more intently on literary elements. After seeing a preview for a movie, we often feel that we can predict the entire movie's story line, yet we go to see it anyway. Why? Because we want to fill in the gaps that the preview intentionally created. We also want to enjoy the visual elements, the witty banter, the twists and turns that the trailer only hinted at.
• When using a novel as a mentor text, a trailer can scaffold the overall story line. How is that different than the idea above? When teaching my students the importance of using alternatives to "said," for example, I assigned pairs of students two chapters from Gordon Korman's Swindle. Korman is a master at crafting realistic dialogue, and in one chapter alone a student found thirty speaking words other than said, and the word said itself was used just five times (and most often with an adverb). Although students only skimmed to collect the words, they still wanted to get an idea of the overall plot (some students, after all, were assigned Chapters 15 and 16, pretty deep in the action!). The Swindle trailer not only helped students see how their chapters tied into the overall story, it also encouraged over a dozen of them to sign out the book that day.
• Trailers can be used to build critical thinking skills. Allow students to compare the books to their trailers, guiding the discussion with questions such as Did the trailer give you the same feeling as the book itself? Do you feel that the narrator was right for the video, and why or why not? What did the trailer leave out? Why do you suppose those elements were chosen? For what audience is this trailer intended: teachers, librarians, parents, students, booksellers, others? How do you know? What would you change in this trailer and why?
• In some cases, students can even compare one trailer to another for the same book. This alternative book trailer for Swindle can be found on YouTube. What are the strengths and weaknesses of each? Which segments from each could be combined to make a new trailer that's even better than either of the originals?

Have your own source for book trailers, or other ideas for using them in the classroom? Email me or leave a comment below.

UPDATE: My new Twitter friend Tara Lazar (@taralazar) pointed out that there's now a Kids' Lit Book Trailer Ning. How cool is that? Thanks, Tara. See? Twitter is a good thing!

And Yet Still More Free Resources from Children's Publishers

This is my fourth, but probably not the last, post focusing on free resources from children's publishers. If you're just arriving, you'll want to check out the older posts to see parts one, two, and three. If you know of a publisher I've missed, drop me a line!

Salariya is the UK publisher of the immensely popular Scholastic "You Wouldn't Want..." series which I discussed in a previous blog. They've put four of their more popular titles online for direct viewing, with a little bit of interactivity and related links to boot. Check out the online versions of You Wouldn't Want to be a Roman Gladiator, You Wouldn't Want to be an Egyptian Mummy, You Wouldn't Want to be a Polar Explorer, and You Wouldn't Want to Sail on a 19th Century Whaling Ship. Some of the links which appear at the end of each book are equally worth exploring.

I don't know how I mentioned Candlewick in my previous post without noting their very cool Ology World site. While this is topic of a post on this site, I'll leave it to you if you wish to sneak a peek. Your boys especially will like the interactive approach to nonfiction.

I also mentioned the Walker US site and the Walker Australia site, only to find out that there's an equally impressive Walker UK site. The Kids Den presents the user with the option to explore several minisites devoted to specific titles and characters (such as Judy Moody, Alex Rider, and Anthony Horowitz's Power of Five). A page for grown-ups features short yet comprehensive articles on topics such as Learning at Home, Reading Aloud, and Rereading. One resource I highly recommend you download right now is a poster titled The Rights of the Reader (see thumbnail to the right), written by Daniel Pennac and illustrated by the quirky Quentin Blake. A must-have for any classroom or library. Other cool resources they offer directly (posters, teaching guides, podcasts, videos, etc.) are available from a single page where they're organized by age group. Additional literacy links which will take you off the Walker site are also provided at Links We Like.

Abrams' most famous titles for children come from their Amulet Books imprint. Leading the way is The Diary of a Wimpy Kid, now a best-selling series (visit the minisite here). Gaining ground, however, is the The Sisters Grimm, which appeals to a slightly different demographic. This title has its own minisite where teachers can download a teaching guide, allowing them to make natural connections to the fairy tale genre. Coming in third place is NERDS (National Espionage, Rescue, and Defense Society), also by Michael Buckley, author of The Sisters Grimm. This site, again, features its own minisite, author video, and first chapter online preview.




Abdo Publishing Group incorporates a number of imprints at its site, and it's worth a look. The printable activities change often, and offer seasonal connections to many of its titles. One handout which teachers might find useful is the Create Your Own Superhero Handout. This is a terrific page to accompany the Hero Factory online activity which appeared in one of my previous posts on heroes in picture books (you can also check out Marvel Comic's cool Create Your Own Superhero interactive site). Teachers interested in making a case for using comics and graphic novels in the classroom may also appreciate the two page pdf Comic Books and Literacy Studies (also required reading if you need some convincing yourself). In that document some notable folks, such as Bishop Desmond Tutu and Jim Trelease, make a case for reading comics as a part of their own character development.

While we're briefly on the topic of graphic novels, another terrific resource for librarians and teachers is a pdf created by Scholastic and Bone series author Jeff Smith. Using Graphic Novels in the Classroom is a straight forward guide written in Q and A format which answers many questions and counters many arguments about comics in school curriculum and libraries.

Kane/Miller Book Publishers shares ideas (teacher to teacher) in single page Teaching Tips sheets (they download as Word documents). You'll find a decent list here to many favorites, including one of mine: Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge by Mem Fox (see my dedicated post for this book). The Fun Page features printable games, coloring pages, bookmarks, etc.

Nomad Press seems to specialize in nonfiction books, particularly those focused on history and the people who made it. Their Activity Pages contain crafts and explorations from their titles, and you'll find about four or five dozen to explore (all available as pdfs from Scribd). Each featured book also has a full-page layout, featuring not only a summary, list of references, and information about the authors and illustrators, but also web links, downloadable Facts and Q and A sheets, plus a link to the activity sheet for that title (see Tools of Ancient Romans for a sample). Pictured activity is Make Your Own Tabletop Victory Garden from Great World War II Projects You Can Build Yourself.

Peachtree Publishers allows you to see all teacher's guides on a single page, and they're accessible by clicking on any book's cover (this one page includes picture books, middle school novels, and YA lit). I was pleased to see a teaching guide for The Yellow Star: The Legend of Christian X of Denmark, one of my favorite picture books for discussing the Holocaust (see others at a previous post). Peachtree is also creating a collection of story kits, meant for teachers of lower grades, which contain many more activities, templates, and picture resources than the above teaching guides.

Although I mentioned Harper Collins in the first installment of this Resources series, a reader suggested I also point teachers and students to the Harper Collins Children's Video Player, which offers snippets and full video versions of books from this publisher.

Are there more resources out there available from publishers? Absolutely! Let's find them together. Email me or leave a comment below if I've neglected to mention some great resources available from a publisher, not only here in the states but anywhere in the world!

Name to Know: Tracie Vaughn Zimmer

Under what rock have I been living? That's a question I asked recently over at my How to Teach a Novel blog. A couple readers emailed and suggested I repost here, since the reason for that rhetorical question would be of interest to teachers here as well.

I simply wondered how it took so long for me to discover Tracie Vaughn Zimmer. She's an author, and I do recognize a couple of her titles. But somehow I missed that she has also created this awesome site (absolutely no hyperbole intended) containing original teaching guides for picture books (over eighty of these!), YA books, and poetry. All for free! All Tracie asks in return, if you like what you see, is that you buy a copy of one of her recent books. Pretty good deal: free resources and one of her critically acclaimed titles for your library.

Personally I found teaching guides for many books I'm hoping to include in future blog posts including Abe's Honest Words, Daniel Boone's Great Escape, River of Words: The Story of William Carlos Williams, and Mama Went to Jail for the Vote.

So in a rare move, I'll shut up now. I'll let Tracie's web site speak for itself (and you can check out her blog as well). Thanks, Tracie, for your terrific resources!

Even More Free Resources from Children's Publishers

For those of you just joining us, this is Part III of an unofficial and unprecedented look at free online resources from children's publishers. I recommend you also check out Part I and Part II for some terrific links. A disclaimer: This is not meant in any way to be a list of the "Best Children's Publishers." Frankly, some exceptional presses are not mentioned in any of these three posts. Instead, this is a summary of those publishers offering teachers, parents, and students a little extra: teaching guides, reading group guides, printables, downloads, games, audio, video, or related links.

August House is a publisher best known for its storytelling and world folktales titles such as Storyteller's Start-Up Book, Ready-To-Tell Tales, and Wisdom Tales from Around the World. I've used these titles in summer camp settings with great success. What's most exciting on this publisher's site, however, is Story Cove. Story Cove is an interactive portal where students can either hear or view dozens of tales from around the world (which are also available in hard copy). Beneath the book covers on the index page you'll find links to Story Activities (such as Anansi and the Tug o' War) which typically include pdf teaching guides at four different levels (adaptable to higher levels as well). From August House's main site also check out the storytelling links for additional resources, information, and events.

Capstone Kids is a child-centered portal offering games and activities, mostly related to Capstone's graphic titles. But students can also check out chapter book characters such as Claudia Cristina Cortez from Capstone's numerous imprints. Downloads of stationery, stickers, wallpaper, journal pages, and a vacation packing list accompany a list of titles in that series. Other titles offer more generic downloads which could be used with titles of similar genre, such as How to Lift Fingerprints from the Field Trip Mysteries series. If you've ever considered using graphic novels, Capstone offers several resources on graphic novels that are safe for the classroom, including several downloads and the opportunity to receive a graphic novel teaching kit through the mail.

Stonearch, an imprint of Capstone, also offer a variety of resources including readers theater scripts and Ed-Libs, Stonearch's take on Madlibs. Also check out FactHound, another Capstone affiliated site, which allows students to search on topics of interest to find hand-picked results appropriate for children.

Holiday House is a fairly new publisher to me, but I recognized many of their titles as I further explored the site, especially those by David A. Adler and Russell Freedman. Teachers can access lots of free resources from a single page, including an educator's guide to Adler's popular picture book biographies and a guide to using picture books to teach Language Arts. Some popular titles from this publisher include Freedom Walkers: The Story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott and The Anne Frank Case: Simon Wiesenthal's Search for Truth.

Kids Can Press offers several resources through their US and Canadian sites. Both sites, for example, offer electronic advance copies of new titles on their homepage. From that same homepage you can access the Resource Room which requires free but instant registration, and offers organized access to all the "good stuff" on the site. Clicking on individual titles throughout the site will also provide links to teaching guide downloads, such as this one for No Girls Allowed: Tales of Daring Women Dressed as Men for Love, Freedom and Adventure. Other popular books from this publisher include One Hen, Adventures in Ancient Greece (and other books from that series, which I blogged on previously), and If the World Were a Village.

Lobster Press is a small independent publishing house with a number of quality titles. Their Kids' Zone has a number of activities for print out, as well as a handful of kid-friendly links. From a single page you'll find free teachers' guides, quizzes, and lesson plans to use with Lobster Press books.

Another small publisher is Turtle Books in Connecticut. Choose Lesson Plans from their homepage to find teaching guide pdfs to several books including the award winning Prairie Dog Pioneers (Willa Cather Literary Award for the Best Children’s Book of 1999).

NorthSouth's most popular title is The Rainbow Fish, but you'll see more diverse titles as well, along with the resources to support them. One popular download is Once Upon a Time: A teacher’s guide for using fairy tales in the classroom.

Harcourt Trade Publishers has a number of free resources for teachers, including downloadable kits for Pirates, Chet Gecko, and National Poetry Month. On a different page you'll find a jumping off point called Teacher Tools, which provides access to numerous teaching guides, reading guides, theme lists, and related sites. Some features are presently off-line, but keep the page bookmarked and check back! I saw some guides before they went AWOL, and they're pretty good (such as the download for How I Became a Pirate.

Pelican Publishing Company lists a number of teaching guides for their picture books titles. Most promising is a series of original tales by Virginia Walton Pilegard which blend Chinese history and customs with mathematics. The Warlord's Beads (see the study guide), The Warlord's Kites, and The Warlord's Fish are three of the five titles in this series.

Most readers know Andersen Press from their Elmer the Elephant books. The publisher boasts many other popular characters as well, and many are featured in kid-friendly microsites full of cool activities. The Grown Ups Section features Teachers' Guides, Activity Downloads, and Book Discussions (essentially, a thematic grouping of their books).

Oxford University Press (UK) sounded a little too uptight and stuffy for me to even bother investigating, but I'm really glad I did. The Dinosaur Cove minisite and the The Death Defying Pepper Roux minisite are worth the visit, and would help to get students psyched about these titles. Many individual titles on this site contain excerpts and related links.

Bloomsbury Children's Books (UK) is one of those publishers whose books you'll recognize before the publisher's name. Their site features a very cool Historical Fiction Timeline, which organizes their titles in that genre by historical period (some of my homeschooling friends would find this to be very cool). You can also find their titles organized by theme as well. Their kids' site features videos, online games, and a few coloring sheets. If you're looking for teaching and readers' guides, you'll find them at the Bloomsbury US site.

Ladybird Books (UK) resources page is misleading; it seems to offer just a few resources. But after checking out the two primary games (bottom), you'll notice that there's also a link at the top of the page to Things to Do, and there you'll find more: activity sheets, downloads, and some cool "Madabout" posters for downloading (whales, sharks, space, knights, and more). There's not a lot for the over-primary crowd, but what's here is very good (and if you dig the titles, most are available in the US).

Little Tiger Press likewise is created with the younger crowd in mind. From the main page, click on For Parents, For Teachers, or Free Stuff from menu bar on left. Beautiful illustrations (screensavers, wallpapers) and activity sheets for downloads.

Puffin Books (UK) features activity downloads and teachers' notes for many popular Roald Dahl books, as well as links to book related websites and author sites. You'll also find a helpful resource called Ask the Teacher, where the publisher has listed many questions commonly asked of reading teachers, along with the answers.

But wait, there's more...

Really. This list represents only half of the newly uncovered resource sites I've found to share. So follow me on Twitter and be on the lookout for Part IV! And as always, let me know if I missed some!

What Makes a Good Children's Book?

What makes a good children's book? I'd suppose that's a tough question to answer, otherwise Microsoft would have already written Newbery Notebook 1.0 and Caldecott Creator for Windows. A good children's book is far from formulaic.

It seems, however, that Little, Brown Books has done a pretty good job of nailing some of the more prominently recurring traits of good children's books (both novels and picture books). See the whole list at the Upstart Crow Literary blog (a cool place to peek behind the curtain of the writing and publishing biz).

What use is this list to the average classroom teacher?

• It may help you understand why some books win with children while others fail. The list explains, for example, why a common literary motif of many children's novels (Harry Potter, Lord of the Flies, Narnia, Holes) is the removal of the protagonist (and other main characters) from adult supervision and control.
• The individual attributes may help you create some connections between otherwise unrelated texts. One successful exercise with every novel, for example, is looking at how a character grows or changes over time. I've used this approach with Number the Stars, Because of Winn Dixie, Crash, Flipped, and Island of the Blue Dolphins to name just a few. Check out this sample recording sheet.
• The list can be used a fairly accurate indicator of a book's overall value when teachers must choose just two or three titles for study. Many teachers, for example, complain that their boys just don't "get into" books which feature strong female protagonists. A book like Poppy, however, which features a female animal protagonist, is somehow more readily embraced.
• Teachers can use the list as a reference for writing minilessons. If these are the traits that make good children's books work, and if these are the attributes with which children have the most first-hand experience, then perhaps many of them could inform student writing as well.

How else do you see putting this list to work for you? Email me or leave a comment below!

(This same post appears at my How to Teach a Novel blog).

More Free Resources from Children's Publishers

In a previous post I shared about a dozen links to children's publishers who provided extensive resources for teachers (teaching guides, reading group guides, printable activities, and audio and video links).

Susan Stephenson, aka The Book Chook, blogs regularly about books and literacy. Susan replied:

Loved your post! It brought me some new publisher sites, and reminded me of great ones I'd forgotten.

However... I couldn't help but notice, your list did tend to concentrate on the northern hemisphere! Check out these Australian publishers and see what you think. Most are much smaller than their US counterparts, so you won't find bells and whistles like flash games etc, but you will find solid support.

So I perused Susan's suggestions, and sure enough, she's right! Lots of gems here.

Black Dog Books was recommended highly by Susan because their teachers notes are "perfect to add value for both classes and homeschoolers, or just for parents who want to immerse their kids in all sorts of literacy activities." While each title features a splash page with a link to the teaching pdf, you can view all teachers notes on a single page as well. Some really fascinating titles!

New Frontier is another excellent publisher, mostly of picture books and children's titles, some educational. They have great support in their teacher notes, which include discrete learning objectives for each title.

Walker Books Australia has a useful entrance page for teachers, and from there you'll find pdfs of great literacy-based ideas centered around their books. I noticed that this includes novels as well as picture books (for example, a great teaching guide on Octavian Nothing).

As an important aside, I noticed that Walker Books logo, a bear carrying a candle, looked very familiar. Sure enough, there's a Walker USA site, although you'll find their materials for kids and teachers at BloomsburyKids.com. That site features lots of teachers guides as well as reading group guides. Some titles you might know? Daniel Boone's Great Escape, Princess Academy, Prowling the Seas,(which I blogged on recently) and Two Bobbies.

Susan also shared that Ford St. is another excellent publisher that concentrates more on YA. According to Susan, "This is a small independent publisher with top class books, and again there are excellent teacher notes that promote literacy, and give young people points to think about." I'll definitely include that link when I create a similar post for teaching resources for novels at my How to Teach a Novel blog at a future date.

Thanks, Susan, for supporting your fellow Aussies and their fine work in the publishing field. Perhaps this will encourage others to represent their own countries!
When you get the opportunity, be sure to check out Susan's excellent blog at http://thebookchook.blogspot.com/. Book reviews, giveaways, and lots of other "good stuff" for teachers, parents, and lovers of children's books.