How to Encourage Reading through Author Studies

If you've ever considered tackling an author study but wondered Is it worth the time? Is it worth the energy?or What can my students really get out of it? then I encourage you to check out a recent post at my How to Teach a Novel site titled Born to Write: What Students Can Learn through Author Study.

In addition to providing answers to all the questions above, I've also provided dozens of links to author study resources, as well as a review of Charis Cotter's Born to Write: The Remarkable Lives of Six Famous Authors.

Picture Books on Teacher Talk Radio

This past Thursday I had the opportunity to be a guest on Teacher Jen's Teacher Talk Radio.

Check out our discussion on using picture books in the classroom, and be sure to check out Jen's upcoming episodes and archive of previous broadcasts. In addition to listening live, you can also download episodes for free from itunes. If you're on Twitter, follow Jen so you don't miss out on any upcoming guests.

Authors and Illustrators Pronouncing Their Own Names

Well, the no nonsense title just about says it all. At this TeachingBooks.Net page you'll find an audio collection of children's writers and illustrators pronouncing their own names.

Time for a quiz! Sound these out before you click on them: How do you say Kevin Henkes? Louis Sachar? Jon Scieszka?

I love this simple site because I totally sympathize. Have you seen my name? Keith Schoch. Just so you know, it's pronounced shoke, which is simple enough, right? But giving a kid with a developmental speech problem a th and a sh in the same mouthful is kind of a dirty trick. If you ever see me presenting, you'll probably notice that at no time do I ever say my full name, but you'll hear my last name eventually when I act out a student asking me a question.

So check this site out and let's stop slaughtering these names!

(By the way, I've got the winners picked for the most recent giveaway, and once I get their permission I'll post those names here. I'm still in the process of notifications and confirmations).

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!

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.

Free Teachers' Resources from Children's Book Publishers

I'm not lazy, and I'm not cheap. But I really appreciate it when publishers back up their titles with solid, easily accessible teaching resources. With that in mind, I've listed some publishers which I feel really "knock it out of the park" with their online resources for teachers. Have I forgotten your favorite? Are you a publisher that feels you should be on this list? Email me and let me know. I'd love to give credit where credit is due.

Annick Press is a Canadian Publisher with a wide variety of titles. Although most titles in this list have a lesson plan link below them, be sure to click on each title to access additional resources including teachers guides, printable activities, and related links. Made You Look How Advertising Works and Why You Should Know is one title that I would personally and highly recommend for anyone teaching media literacy (see my post on Dollars and Sense, which features picture books and ideas for teaching about financial literacy).

Big Guy Books is a small press specializing in titles for boys. Their time traveling Time Soldiers books are perfect for those reluctant readers in your class, and the professionally written teaching guides are a definite incentive for further exploring these titles. You can even preview the first title of that series (Rex) via a free ebook.

Candlewick Press is one of those presses that flies under the radar, but you've probably read and loved many of their titles. Their resource page features tons of links, including reading levels, teachers guides, reproducible activity sheets, audio and video links, and more. An easier way to see the quality of resources made available to teachers is to click on a single title, such as the landing page for Kate DiCamillo's The Magician's Elephant. There you'll find a separate discussion guide, teacher's guide, and activity kit, as well as the book's first chapter, an additional excerpt, audio and video links, and a whole lot more. A truly exemplary site from a publisher that supports its teachers.

Charlesbridge features a page of free materials correlated to many of their picture book titles. You can also view by title on their web site; clicking on any title gives you a pretty decent summary of the book, as well as a note from the author, reviews, a sample page spread, and links to related free materials. A pdf of Curriculum Connections provides exactly that, but also some thematic details as well as a convenient look at all the book covers. (Participants from my workshops will recognize Galileo's Leaning Tower Experiment and What's Your Angle, Pythagoras? from among the titles).

Children's Book Press is a small, nonprofit independent publisher specializing in multicultural books. While their titles may not be familiar to you yet, they're worth a look; this single page of resources is a good jumping off point to get started.

Crabtree Publishing has a series of high quality, curriculum aligned teaching guides that provide lesson plan ideas as well as blackline masters. While there, also check out the printable graphic organizers. If you like what you see, you can create an online wish list for parents and friends.

Dawn Publications specializes in science and nature picture books for the younger crowd, although I would still highly recommend their titles for classroom use through the upper elementary grades. Several of their titles would be a great way to prepare students for field trips, and I've also see their applications in summer camp settings. As Nature Director at a summer camp, I put Joseph Cornell's books to use on an almost daily basis. Sharing Nature with Children and Sharing Nature with Children II are classics which belong on every nature lover's bookshelf.

Harpers Collins Children's boasts a huge list of titles with Reading Guides or Teaching Guides. Note that at the top of the page, another tab reads Book Activities; this contains printable activities (mostly for picture books) which may or may not appear in the Teaching Guides for each title. This site allows you to preview most books online before purchasing.

Houghton Mifflin Publishers (which includes Clarion) features a teacher/librarian section, with questions and extensions for many of their titles.

Hyperion Books for Children (now affiliated with Disney) features a variegated collection of picture books and graphic novels as well as novels, and all teacher resources are linked from a single page. You'll find resources there for contemporary favorites such as Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus and John, Paul, George & Ben.

Lee and Low Books (About Everyone, For Everyone) specializes in high quality, multicultural titles. Their teachers' page gives an idea of the resources they provide, and by choosing a category (such as African American, Middle Eastern) you're directed to a list of Active Learner Classroom Guides, "designed to help you, the teacher, deliver useful and practical information to your students." Their titles are highly recommended for teachers and librarians looking to round out the scope and perspectives of their libraries. I've blogged about some of their titles including Heroes and Baseball Saved Us, and George Crum and the Saratoga Chip will be featured in an upcoming post on Invention.

MacMillan (Farrar, Straus, and Giroux) allows teachers to search teaching guides by title, author, or grade level. On this resource page you'll also find a calendar of ideas, as well as a guide for preparing for an author's visit. The calendar is pretty neat, as it names monthly observations (mostly secular) and recommended books for those observations.

Orca Book Publishers (out of Canada) is a new name to many, but their books can be seen increasingly in U.S. collections. The U.S. website includes a number of teaching guides, as well as books by themes, and teaching tools and free books.

Penguin Books lists all of its titles in a single page, which is fine with me. I found myself clicking mostly on books I hadn't read yet, which for the publisher is a pretty good reason to format teaching guides in this way (versus hunting for individual titles). Lovers of the Miss Bindergarten books will find a teaching guide here, as will fans of the new Astro Boy movie.

Random House's Teachers at Random site is a well-designed resources for teachers at all levels. In addition to teaching guides for the various titles (see the pdf for one of my all-time favorite tall tales New York's Bravest by Mary Pope Osborne), teachers will also find Classroom Cast, which features videos starring popular children's authors and illustrators discussing their work. For those elementary teachers who teach with themes, you'll find a theme list searchable not only by theme name but also grade range. Lots of other resources here for reading teachers at all levels.

Scholastic is the undisputed champ of children's publishing, its heavyweight belt earned monthly with school book club orders and book fairs. Its site, however, is a bit daunting; there's an awful lot there, and it's not real easy to search. Sometimes even when you know what you want, and you know it's there, you can't find it! So while I would recommend an unguided browse, there are two features you shouldn't miss. The first is the Teacher's Book Wizard, which you can read about in an earlier post. A second feature is the collection of sixty-five Book Videos. These were created to serve as mini-commercials for book fairs, but they're also a pretty cool way to get kids excited about books.

Simon and Schuster's site isn't the prettiest or friendliest around (I think they use too many serious fonts that are too often capitalized for no reason), but don't be scared off. The resources are worth the visit. Books can be searched according by several categories, and many resources are available including group discussion guides, printable activities, and audio and video links. The resource page for Andrew Clements' No Talking will give you a pretty good idea of what's typically available.

Sylvan Dell is a small publisher of science and nature titles, but what they lack in quantity of titles they absolutely make up for in quality. I blogged about the company in general, and then later about a stand-out title called One Wolf Howls. For teachers in the lower grades looking to bring some life and depth into their scinec programs, I can't recommend these books enough. You'll be amazed at the supporting resources provided at their site.

I've blogged about many Sleeping Bear Press books; not only are they impressive as picture books, but they're backed by a well-organized site of resources. I mentioned their huge variety of content area ABC books, and also individual titles such as The Listeners and America's White Table.

Thanks to all of these publishers for going above and beyond the call of duty.

Reading Skills List Using Picture Books

I noticed that many readers to this blog ended up here from Google after searching for "list of reading skills using picture books" or some similar term. Often it's a more defined search, such as "prediction skills using picture books." While I've certainly offered lots of skills-based resources and suggestions over the past year, I was never one to provide such lists. Until now.

Rather than reinvent the wheel, I did a little poking around and found exactly what I was looking for. Nancy Keane (with the help of many others) created a wiki, organizing books by genre, topic, and value, as well as recommended grade level. It's an impressive list, and a great start.

But what many readers seek are "reading skills and strategies," and this was a listing I saw lacking. I therefore started a Focused Reading Skills List at this wiki. Already, with just the few books I've added, I can see that this list is likely to outgrow its single page format, but we'll worry about that when we get there.

So I absolutely encourage you to bookmark and share this page with colleagues. I also ask for your help in making it a truly awesome resource: please sign up for wiki spaces (at the upper right corner of the Focused Reading Skills page) and then help me edit the page by adding your favorite picture books. The whole idea behind wikis is that they're cooperative, growing documents, and this is perhaps one of the best examples of a wiki that would benefit from multiples authors and perspectives.

Email me if you add some titles or skills, or if you have questions about how to go about doing so. Through a community effort, we can create a pretty powerful resource for ourselves and others!

Into the Book: Learning Comprehension Strategies Online

Since this blog's inception I've received a couple of emails regarding reading skills: Which reading skills are most important? How do you teach skills that students will actually recall and use independently? Where can I access a list or description of reading skills?

Although I use several sources (which I'll discuss in future posts), one of the best online resources for teachers and students alike is Into the Book. (This links not to the main page, but to a page which shows all reading skills at a glance).

From the site:

Into the Book is a reading comprehension resource for K-4 students and
teachers. We focus on eight research-based strategies: Using Prior Knowledge,
Making Connections, Questioning, Visualizing, Inferring, Summarizing, Evaluating
and Synthesizing. Watch our engaging 15-minute videos and try the online
interactive activities.

I love the site because all eight skills are not only defined in word, but also by video example. A teacher area gives teachers and parents all the information they need to begin using this framework, and the student area provides fun, interactive practice with each of the skills, using both video and online self-checking lessons. (The student area allows students to create a "key" for use upon return to this site; this way, no registration or release of personal information is ever required).

Teachers can benefit from additional resources including a discussion forum, a section on classroom design for literacy development (featuring a panoramic classroom tour as well as individual design tips), and dozens of downloadable songs, posters, and teaching guides, all relating to the eight specific reading skills.

If you're a teacher into picture books, these are the skills you need to make them extraordinary teaching tools, and this is the site to find them.

Transitional Books: The Best of Both Worlds

It's not a bad place to be: stuck between the vast and varied worlds of the picture books and the complex and conflicting worlds of the novel. That's where many children find themselves at age eight (give or take), when they're trying to make the independent reading leap from picture books to more difficult chapter books. Is the language in chapter books that much more complex? Not necessarily. But gone are the beautiful contextual clues provided by picture books' illustrations. Fortunately for these readers, we have what can be called transitional books.

Transitional books may, in fact, be chapter books, but chapter books which are liberally illustrated. One of the finest examples I've seen in recent days is Rosemary Wells' Lincoln and His Boys. Historically factual yet unswervingly human, the short and easy to follow chapters are punctuated by detailed full-color paintings (by P.J. Lynch, the talented artist behind The Christmas Miracle of Jonathan Toomey). The life of Lincoln and the terrible costs of the Civil War are skillfully interwoven as the years of Lincoln's election and presidency are viewed through the eyes of his sons (read an excerpt here). This is a apt choice for any classroom study of our 16th president, the Civil War, or the universal theme of perspectives (see a recent post on universal themes at my How to Teach a Novel blog).

Be sure to visit Candlewick for additional print and video resources and activities on some of your students' favorite books. My favorite: popular authors such as Kate DiCamillo discussing and reading from their upcoming books.

Okay Gals, Play Ball!

I received a couple enthusiastic emails about my Women in Baseball post, so when I ran across this little documentary of the Racine Belles, thought I'd drop it in here for my readers.

Explore the Wild Side with Sylvan Dell

I am not a lazy teacher; far from it. That's exactly why I appreciate a publisher like Sylvan Dell that has so much to offer students, teachers, and parents.


The award-winning science and nature books which define their niche are extremely colorful and well-designed. As a teacher who often reads books upside down (so that younger students can see the pictures more easily) I definitely appreciate the no-nonsense fonts!

What I especially like, however, is that each Sylvan Dell picture book features an educational section called For Creative Minds which features a number of teaching ideas and resources. For example, Sort it Out!(obviously intended for lower grades than this blog's target audience) features two pages of sorting cards which can be used for classification (a table is included for this) or Memory. But what teacher would want to cut apart such a beautiful book? Here's the good news. Each book's For Creative Minds is available for pdf download from the publisher's site. Check out the quality of the pages that accompany Sort it Out!.

How the Moon Regained Her Shape is an example more appropriate for fourth grade. It's a terrific Native American-influenced folktale which can be used to study that genre, or the phases of the moon, or even bullying. As you can see, the teaching materials for this book are a little more elaborate and mature. Turtle Summer: A Journal for my Daughter is on one level deceptively simple as a picture book, and yet on another level incredibly insightful as a journal of scientific observation of nature. Again, the For Creative Minds section provides parents and teachers with ideas which are as simple or involved as you choose. This kind of resource instantly increases the value of this book as an instructional tool in the classroom.

This, however, is just the beginning of what Sylvan Dell offers as educational supports for their books. At their site you'll also find Teaching Activities (30 or more pages!) for each title. These guides feature questions, cross-curricular activities, charts, vocabulary lists, games, glossaries, cloze activities, maps, and more. For the teacher who wants to take the picture book experience beyond the read-aloud, these Teaching Activities are priceless. Check out the Teaching Guide for Ocean Hide and Seek. Dozens of options (yes, options; don't try to do them all!) to support a simple, beautifully illustrated book which students will want to view over and over again.

Still need convincing? How about online, self-checking, interactive quizzes? Alignment to state standards? Online Ebook previews of each title?

I'm impressed. This is one publisher that definitely fulfills their end of the bargain. Go and see for yourself what an amazing website this young company has created, and explore some more titles while you're there.

I love it when my job is so easy!

Teacher Book Wizard

Scholastic's Teacher Book Wizard is a truly awesome resource for teachers. I highly recommend you check out the video tour of all the features.

At its simplest, the Book Wizard is a database of 50,000 books, available from different publishers. You can search by author, title, key word, reading level, or themed book lists. Book results contain author information, vocabulary lists, and age-appropriate extension activities. The Leveled Search option allows you to search by interest and reading levels, language, book type, and even genre.

Teachers who try Book Wizard seem most excited about the BookAlike feature which allows you to find books similar to one you've already read. For example, if a student loves The Magic Treehouse series, you can enter that title to see other books which may be appealing. The slide feature allows you to return results that are at, above, or below the original level. So for that fourth grader who picked out Shiloh but finds it too challenging, the BookAlike feature would recommend Ribsy or Stone Fox as more appropriate grade-level choices. In my experience I've had lots of parents ask for book suggestions at parent-teacher conferences. Having the BookAlike feature available makes such suggestions a breeze! Students could even be taught how to use this resource for themselves.

List Exchange allows teachers, authors, and celebrities to share lists of favorite books. These are searchable as well. See a list you like? You can save it and then customize it to make your own.

A final feature allows you to use search results or book lists to create online purchase orders. One click formats the book list as a purchase order, with all math done online. But truthfully, for the average classroom teacher, that's probably the least impressive function.

Lee & Low Books: Globally Aware Picture Books

Here in New Jersey and in many other states across the nation, educators are encouraged to focus on 21st Century Skills, and with them, global awareness.

Teachers often lament, "How can I teach students about the world when they barely know about themselves, their families, and their own community?" I think this is answered beautifully through multicultural picture books, and one of the preeminent publishers of multicultural titles is Lee and Low.

I've been a fan for a while now; Ken Mochizuki, author of Heroes, Baseball Saved Us, and Be Water, My Friend (a biography of young Bruce Lee) publishes with Lee and Low. I recommend those three titles highly, but a fourth, Passage to Freedom: The Sugihara Story, is especially recommended to those readers of this blog who wrote in to thank me for the Holocaust books featured in a recent post. In this little-known true tale, Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara makes the difficult decision to help thousands of Jews escape the Holocaust through Japan, against his government's orders. This books truly speaks to children about doing "the right thing" for others, no matter how little we seem to share in common with them.

What I didn't realize (until visiting their website and reviewing other titles) was that Lee and Low's specialty is multicultural children's books. Once again my job as a teacher and a blogger of picture books is made easy because the site features well-written, in-depth teaching guides for their titles. For the above-mentioned Passage to Freedom, for example, you'll find an Author Talk as well as a Teacher's Guide available either on the site or as a separate pdf download. The Guide features readability scales, themes, a summary, before and after reading questions, writing activities, ESL ideas, and extension lessons across the curriculum. So even if you're not studying the Holocaust or World War II, this Guide would help you understand how to use in the book in several other meaningful ways with your class.

What else will you find at their site? Homeschoolers will find several project and fundraising ideas. Teachers and homeschoolers alike will discover ideas for teaching current events by visiting the Calendar page. And finally, unpublished writers of color can enter to win the New Voices Award, which recognizes promising new authors.

I look forward to including Lee and Low titles in my future posts, but for now, do yourself a favor and head to their site. You'll be impressed by the diversity of their titles, as well as the resources they offer teachers and parents.

Picture Book Previews

Originally created as book talks and mini-commercials for book fairs, the sixty-five book videos at Scholastic provide power previews and instant incentives for young readers.

I recently used the book trailer for Swindle by Gordon Korman to get my students excited about that novel. This video in particular plays out like a movie preview. Other videos, such as that for Chasing Vermeer, are traditional book talks with engaging questions for the reader, while others, such as Lily Brown's Paintings, provide students a peek behind the author's process of creating a book.

For whatever reason, these videos aren't easy to find on the site, and typically don't show up in the search results for the individual authors. But now you've got the link to explore them all, so off you go! See for yourself what great resources these videos can be.

A Novel Approach to Teaching Novels

Since many of this blog's readers are upper elementary and middle school teachers (with a special shout out to my homeschoolers), I thought you'd like to know that I've launched a new blog.

How to Teach a Novel is aimed at teachers in grades 3-12 who are using this authentic literature in their classrooms. This blog will attempt to bring you the related web sites, effective and efficient practices, and most current and relevant articles related to the art and science of teaching the novel.

Now, if you haven't already checked it out, you might want to visit my older, static site over at Squidoo which bears the same name. The How to Teach a Novel "lens" (Squidoo's unique name for personal sites) presents a step-by-step approach for the teacher who holds a novel in hand but lacks the resources to teach it. It's the online companion to a popular workshop which I've presented several times over the past couple years. (As for the presumptuous titles? They make it much easier to find the sites when searching Google).

I'm a huge fan of novels, I love teaching them, and I feel that there's a right and a wrong way to go about it. I'd love to hear about your experiences as well. Drop me a line and share your favorite sites, favorite books, best practices, and your success and horror stories. After all, we're in this thing together!

Graphic Novels and New Literacies

Graphic Novels are not Picture Books. I know that. But since they are more alike than different, please allow me at least one post to win over the skeptics.

Who are the skeptics? Teachers who dismiss this literary form with a wave of the hand, saying any one of the following:

• Kids can read comic books on their own time.
• There's way too much violence in those books.
• Most of those books are inappropriate for my age group.
• I don't want kids reading dumbed-down versions of classic literature.
• Aren't all those books just about superheroes on steroids, stuffed into spandex?
• (add your own here)

The fact is, graphic novels are incredibly varied in genre. Sure, some graphic novels feature superheroes, but an even greater number concern themselves with history, historical fiction, biography, science, science fiction, and realistic fiction. In my fourth grade classroom, Jeff Smith's Bone is a big hit, as well as the hybrid Diary of a Wimpy Kid and Babymouse.

Ask about the origin of the graphic novel, and you're likely to start a feud equal to that of the Hatfields and McCoys. Its origins surely link back to traditional comic strips and dime store pulp novels. But most fans of the form will agree that it was Art Spiegelman's Maus which finally brought credibility to the art and its creators.

I can't even begin to scratch the surface of what's appeared out there since the time of Maus' publication, so I'll share just a few titles that I've recently read and enjoyed.

Capstone Press and Stone Arch publish short, colorful, highly engaging graphic novels depicting historical persons and events. Capstone's Graphic Biographies, for example, introduce students to Wilma Rudolph, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Cesar Chavez, and Matthew Henson. Stone Arch also publishes shorter books on historical events, such as Ropes of Revolution, a graphic interpretation of the Boston Tea Party.
Kids Can Press has recently released the Good Times Travel Agency series, featuring the adventures of Josh, Emma, and Libby Binkerton in Ancient Greece, Ancient Egypt, Ancient China, and the Middle Ages. These books are a clever balance of traditional comic strip narrative and background information provided via the pages of Julian T. Pettigrew's Personal Travel Guides. For readers who have outgrown The Magic Tree House, this is the next step in their reading journey! Also an excellent introduction to any of these cultures.

One of the most well-rounded and highly regarded publishers in the business is First Second. Their books are extremely well designed and well constructed. My students, in fact, treat these book with great reverence because they just "feel" so different (read: "better") from the standard paperbacks put out by other publishers. One of First Second's most well-known books to date is Gene Luen Yang's excellent American Born Chinese, which was awarded numerous honors including the Michael L. Printz Award. In this book meant for older readers, three tales intertwine in what is at first an unlikely union. To look at the stories, so unlike in artistic style and handling, one would think that three different artists had collaborated on the project.

American Born Chinese is equally entertaining and powerful, and tackles some difficult to discuss topics in a way that is both unique and inviting. How to put it to use in the classroom? Glad you asked. The folks at First Second have created lesson plans for some of their graphic novels, including American Born Chinese. Gotta love it. (FYI, Gene's newest book, The Eternal Smile, has just been released).

Another First Second title I loved is Robot Dreams by Sara Varon. This is a wordless graphic novel, and is thus by definition simple, right? Wrong. This book challenges the reader to construct the story behind the pictures. I witnessed two students view the same six frames and take away entirely different perspectives. That's one of the powerful challenges to be found in comic books and graphic novels; the reader must supply the story between the frames (an important critical thinking skill). Depending upon students' schema and personal experiences, their story interpretations may vary widely.
Somewhere between American Born Chinese and Robot Dreams is Sardine in Outer Space, a colorful, traditional comic adventure created by France's Emmanuel Guibert and Joann Sfar. Kids in the 8-12 group will appreciate the slapstick humor and outrageous situations. The misleading simplicity of Sardine will also inspire children to think, "Hey, I could do something like that." (Lesson plans available for this title as well).

While there are still dozens more books I'd like to discuss, there's simply not time. But one more title that really stuck with me is Shawn Tan's The Arrival. This larger format wordless book is incredible in its illustrations, which seem so new and fantastic yet so familiar at the same time. The Arrival is an immigrant tale that echoes American immigration stories in so many ways. Rather than fail miserably at describing the book, I'll instead recommend that you get to the library or bookstore to see it for yourself.


Want more information about teaching graphic novels? Don't ask me. I'm in way over my head. Instead, start with Scott McCloud. His incredible tome titled Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art is a masterpiece which is required reading for anyone remotely interested in understanding the history, conventions, and future of comics in particular, and art and language in general.

One would expect NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English) to blast graphic novels as pedestrian and unworthy of respect as literature. Quite the contrary! Search their site and you're rewarded with numerous articles and blog posts (166!) about how to use graphic novels in the classroom. (I would also suggest this site to find like-minded educators who can point you in the right direction on this topic).

The Graphic Classroom is a blog devoted to using comics in the classroom. Chris Wilson (aka Jack) and his staff really have their act together. You'll find recent reviews, lesson plans, and recommended lists by age level. I especially love Chris' disclaimer, to which all teachers should take heed: "Some comic literature is not appropriate for every classroom, or every community. Some are not appropriate for any classroom. You need to review any piece of comic literature for yourself and determine if it is appropriate for your grade, class, curriculum, goals, school and community." I can hear some teachers saying, "See, Keith? I told you some of these comics aren't acceptable!" Yeah, and some novels aren't acceptable for classroom use either. That's why we need to read them first, people!

New Lits has a decent wiki page on Graphic Novels in the Classroom which is worth a look. Lots of links including several graphic novels that can be read online. The New Lits site seems like pretty good reading overall:

NewLits.org is a wiki space created to collaboratively develop a rich range of specialist resources for middle school language arts/literacy educators (typically Grades 5 to 8). These resources focus variously and broadly on new literacies and digital technologies.

If you're a fan of the form, or a teacher using graphic novels in the classroom already, please share additional sites and ideas by leaving a comment here!