Harvesting Hope

Harvesting Hope

Author: Kathleen Krull

Illustrator: Yuyi Morales

Published by Scholastic in 2003

48 Pages

Multicultural

 

The main thing that drew me to this book was the color of the illustrations. They are so bright and inviting. The vibrant colors that are on the cover of Harvesting Hope make you want to open the book and see what’s inside. Harvesting Hope is about the life of Cesar Chavez. The book starts when Cesar was a child and the great life they had while living in Arizona. Over the years the land begun to dry out and the drought forced them to move to California to find work. Cesar did not like working in the fields, for it made him feel like a slave. He soon decided he would dedicate the rest of his life to making a change. Cesar Chavez began an organization called National Farm Workers Association. Cesar began a march and became a very influential person. He gave hope to many.

The colorful illustrations in Harvesting Hope were done with acrylics, handmade stamps, and computer created cut-outs on BFK rives paper. The illustrations span across two pages and are large in size so the reader does not miss any of the details.  When I am looking at illustrations I always look at the characters faces to gain more insight of how they are feeling at that point in the story. Morales did an amazing job at the details in the characters faces. You can see their happiness at times in the story but also the despair they feel when having to work in the fields.

The age range for this book is 6-9 years old, and the grade level is first through third grade. You could read this story when learning about plants and harvesting. The students could each plant their own vegetable to take home and grow. Harvesting Hope talks a lot about family. The students could do a family project where they create a family poster and interview people in their family and ask them about a memorable lesson, a story, or a favorite saying. Cesar was very courageous in his acts. Write the word courage on the board and have the student’s think of ways that Cesar Chavez was courageous in the book. Engage in the discussion about how Chavez’s strategy about fighting without violence. Harvesting Hope was awarded The Pura Belpré Award.

Along The Underground

Henry’s Freedom Box

Written by: Ellen Levine

Illustrated by: Kadir Nelson

Published by Scholastic 2007

40 Pages

Historical Fiction

Henry’s Freedom Box was read to me by one of my professors in class one day. I really enjoyed the story and loved how the illustrations showed so much depth. Henry was born into slavery. The master his family worked for became ill and Henry thought he might free them. Instead he gave Henry to his son and he was separated from the rest of his family. Henry was a hard worker and did everything his master told him to do. He met a girl one day and fell in love. They were soon married and had a family. Then one day his worst fear happened, his family was sold. Now all Henry could think about was being a free man with hopes of one day seeing his family again. Does Henry ever become free? Make sure to grab a copy of Henry’s Freedom Box to see if Henry became a free man.

The illustrations in Henry’s Freedom Box were created with pencil, watercolors, and oils. Nelson added so much texture to each page in the story you can almost imagine how things felt. The illustrator did an amazing job on the facial expressions on the characters. You can see the desperation and fear in their eyes. If you were to flip through this book without reading the words you could use the illustrations to figure out what might be happening and how the characters are feeling.

This book is appropriate for ages 4-8. The grade level this book is suited for is preschool to third grade. I believe that it could also be used till about fourth grade. After reading henry’s Freedom Box you could talk about character traits have the students write down all of the characters traits of Henry. The students could also try to build a replica of the box Henry was in using cardstock paper. A great vocabulary activity for the students to learn important words from the text would be a Bingo came. The Bingo board has vocabulary words on them and the teacher calls out the definition for the students to mark the correct word.

Sea Animals

Sea Animals

Written by: Francine Galko

Illustrations: Pictures were taken by multiple photographers

Published by Reed Educational & Professional Publishing 2003

32 Pages

Informational Book

When choosing this informational book I wanted to choose something that I enjoyed so that I as well could learn more about it.  I chose the book Sea Animals because I love going to the beach and I think the animals in the ocean are beautiful. Sea Animals talk about the how the ocean is habitat to many different types of animals. The ocean is so large; animals live different parts of it. Some animals like at the top of the water while others live under rocks at the bottom of the ocean. Animals are not the only living things living in the ocean. There are many different types of plants that live in the ocean as well. While reading Sea Animals, by every picture there is a scale of how big the animal of plant is compared to something such as a person or a ball.

Much like most informational books this was has real pictures taken by professional photographers. When giving true facts about something real pictures are the best for the audience to be able to picture how the author is describing something. The pictures are very bright and they are very eye catching. These illustrations help tell the story because the readers are able to gain information from the pictures as well.

The good thing about informational books is that they are great for many age levels.

The age range for this book is ages 6-8 and the grade level is first grade and up. The students could use this book to do a research project on sea animals. The students could also do a survey on their favorite ocean animal and make a graph out of the data.  A good writing activity the students could do is write about an underwater adventure they would like to take. 

Invent Something of Your Own!

Invent something of your own!

Timeless Thomas

Written & Illustrated by Gene Barretta

Published by Scholastic 2012

                                                         36 Pages

                                                Biography

            “Never judge a book by its cover.” The quote is so true but sometimes as readers it is so much easier to pick a book if the cover looks interesting.  The cover of Timeless Thomas definitely caught my attention. Not only is there a cute old man on the cover but also pictures of other things that give the readers a hint of what the story may be about. Timeless Thomas is a story about Thomas Edison’s life. He was a great inventor that had multiple successful inventions. He began as a young boy inventing things and soon had his own laboratory to work in. Even though you may not realize it we still use many of his inventions today. This book goes through all of his inventions and even shows you what we use today that he invented. The story takes you through time all the way from 1859 to 1918.

            The illustrations in Timeless Thomas are very eye catching. Barretta uses very vibrant colors on every page. To me this was very interesting because of the time period Edison’s life took place. The pictures are painted with watercolors on Arches cold press paper. His paintings in the story are very detailed much like many of Thomas Edison’s inventions. Another aspect of the paintings that caught my eye was the faces on the characters. They show so much thought and it makes you wonder what they are actually thinking or what they would be thinking if they could tell you.

            This book would be great for student in first through fifth grade. The book Timeless Thomas could be used many different ways in a classroom. It would be really good to teach about timelines and have the students make a timeline of Thomas Edison’s inventions. There is a timeline in the back of the book they could use for a reference. The students could also do a writing prompt and write about which invention they use the most that Edison discovered. A science project or activity would also be good to do after reading this book.  You could have the students make electricity by simply having them rub a balloon on their hair.

Have a look at this Book Trailer I made for Where The Wild Things Are!

What's That Falling From the Sky?!

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

Written by Judi Barrett

Illustrated by Ron Barrett

Published by Scholastic 1978

32 Pages

Modern Fantasty

            Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is one of my favorite books, so of course I wanted to share it with everyone. One of the main reasons I love this book is because of the amazing details in the illustrations. I could sit and look at the illustrations for hours. I also love the imagination that was put into the story. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is introduced with two young children being told a bedtime story by their grandfather. He tells them about a little town called Chewandswallow. Everything is normal in this small town except one thing. The town does not have any food stores. That is because they don’t really need any because they get their food from a different source. Their weather is a little different as well. It rains three times a day in the town of Chewandswallow. Could the weather possibly be related to the food situation?

            The illustrations in Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs are flawless. There is so much depth to each picture. Each picture has a white boarder surrounding them. I believe that the border helps them pop out even more than they already do. Ron Barrett draws his pictures in black and uses watercolor painting to add color to them. His pictures have so much texture to them you can imagine the look and feel if the things in them were real. Although the text is very descriptive about what is going on in the story the illustrations add so much character to the story. The pictures are so descriptive; they could tell the story alone if there were no words.

            The age level this story is appropriate for it ages four to eight. This story is good for readers in pre-k through third grade. There are tons of fun activities that you could do to incorporate with this story. A fun writing activity you could do is choose a page(s) and have the kids write dialogue in conversation bubbles for the characters. You could teach begin by teaching the students about dialogue and how to use it correctly. A science lesson you could teach using this boat is about things that float or sink and why. At the end of the story the people leave the city by rafts made of bread. Have the students choose different objects that could be used as rafts and see if they will sink or float in water. Another thing you could do with this book is have the students the students separate foods into graphs to determine what foods are healthy or unhealthy. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is a New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Book of the year.

Never Disturb The Angry Troll

The Three Billy Goats Fluff

Written by Rachel Mortimer

Illustrated by Liz Pichon

Originally published in Great Britain by Hodder Children’s Books 2010

Also published by Scholastic

32 pages

Fractured Fairy Tale

While talking to a friend one day about different genres of literature she pointed me towards this particular book for a fractured fairytale. I instantly fell in love with it just by looking at the cover. You can tell that this book is full of surprises and I love a good book that keeps me wondering what will happen next. The Three Billy Goats Fluff is about three little goats that are fluffy, but you’ll never guess what their coat is used for and how it gets so fluffy. Close to where the billy goats graze there is an angry troll that can’t seem to get any sleep. He gets very angry at the little goats but momma goat always has a plan. Momma goat knows how it feels when you don’t get any sleep so she comes up with an idea to sooth the troll. She makes the troll a gift and leaves it for him by his house. The troll is overly joyed at the gift she gives and he uses it right away to catch up on some sleep. Now that the troll is happy the little goats can freely run around happy and free. 

The illustrations in this story are sure to catch any child’s eye. They are very colorful and intriguing.  It looks like Liz Pichon uses different types of painting in her illustrations. She adds texture to her pictures and it makes the animals in the story really come to life. The way Pichon uses lines shows action and movement from the characters that you could notice even without reading the words to the story.

The story, The Three Billy Goats Fluff is a great story for young readers. The interest level would suit pre-k through first grade but the book is on a third grade reading level. This story is sure to keep their attention simply because of the suspense and the interesting illustrations. You could use this story to explore descriptive words. There are many descriptive words such as fluffy, lush, etc. You could have the students find objects around the classroom or at home that could be described using those words. Another activity you could do with book could correlate with rhyming. When teaching students about rhyming you could point out the rhyming words used in the story and have them think of other words that could rhyme with them as well. In the story momma goat wrote a letter to the troll. You could teach the students about friendly letters and how to write them. The students could then write their own friendly letter to one of the characters in the story.