Picture Book Resources
Pirates vs. Cowboys by Aaron Reynolds, ill. by David Barneda
When the pirates stroll into town and come head-to-head with the local rowdy cowboys, there's an inevitable catastrophe of miscommunication. It looks like the town's about to witness an epic showdown as both sides misunderstand each other and take offense, that is until Pegleg Highnoon -fluent in both cowboy and pirate - sidles in to save the day.
Activity Tie-ins:
- Cultural Understanding: Our school is international, so like the Pirates and Cowboys, there are inevitable language and cultural differences among the students. This book provides a great opportunity to open up a discussion about how different cultures do things, similarities and differences, etc. and hopefully, develop appreciation and understand so these clashes of cultures can be avoided.
- Peacemaking: If not for Pegleg Highnoon, this book could have gotten very nasty very quickly. It's a great opening to talk with students about how they can be peacemakers in the school and at home. There are several great organizations out there with further resources on peacemaker training and peer mediation. Our school has done training in the past with resources from Peacemaker Ministries and I've also worked at schools who've used Peer Mediators.
- Career options: Interpreter is not a career option that often comes up on career days, but it is a growing field. This is a great book to illustrate the need for people whose work is to bridge languages and cultures.
- Creative Writing: Pitting pirates against cowboys is not something you often see. Have students brainstorm other fun mashups and possible humorous results for short story writing.
Have You Seen My Monster? by Steve Light
A little girl is enjoying the fair while looking for her monster who snuck in before her. As she hunts around the fair (and her monster has a grand ol' time himself) readers will get to learn names to all sorts of shapes found in the fairgrounds attractions.
Activity Tie-ins:
- Geometry/Shapes for K-12: I've never come across a picture book with such a wide variety of shapes introduced. Of course there's the expected circle, square, and triangle, but there's also every other polygon's name with sides from 3-10 plus petrafoil, rhombus, trapezoid, and trapezium. I remember memorizing a list of shapes for high school geometry class. This book would make learning those shapes a whole lot more fun (and probably more memorable). Not to say littler ones couldn't learn the shapes too. I'd be quite impressed if I ran into a 7 year old who knew what a nonagon and a petrafoil were, and this book could create just such a child.
- Visual Acuity: For students who need to work on giving their eyes a workout (such as those with lazy eye), the hide and seek aspect of this book is a really good exercise. Not only is the monster hiding on each page of this book, but Steve Light has a tendency to hide things in his pictures without really telling readers. I noticed stars on just about every page of this book though star was one of the few shapes not highlighted. Challenge readers to find all the stars. Or play I-spy with the pages of this book (they are incredibly detailed, almost all in black and white except for splashes of color to highlight the shape for that spread).
- Descriptive Writing Exercise: Because each page has a lot going on, this would be a good challenge for writers to describe a page spread in words.
- Sequencing Exercise: The girl and her monster meander all over the fair. Have students see if they can put the places of the fair visited in order after reading. (You may want to read once for fun, and then a second time with kids focused on remembering the order.) Sequencing is a good mental workout for everyone, not just kids.
This was the first Steve Light book I became aware of. In this one, a little boy is looking for his dragon. He starts in his apartment building and works his way all over New York City while his dragon is never too far away. At each stop, only one type of object appears in color and a box on the upper right counts these things from 1-20.
Activity Tie-ins:
- Counting: Obviously, this is a nice book to work on counting, and it stands out because it goes on beyond the normal stopping point of 10. The way Light illustrated the book in black and white with just splashes of color to highlight the items to be counted on each page makes it easier for young ones to find the items to count.
- Foreign Languages: If you're practicing numbers in an introductory foreign language class, you could read this book and have students count the items out loud in the foreign language.
- Point of View & Bending Rules in Art: Light does some very interesting things with point of view in his illustrations. He bends the rules at times to make everything fit. It's a good example of thinking outside the box in art.
- Visual Acuity: Like in the previous book, the main point is to find the dragon in each spread, but if you hunt around online you can find interviews with Steve Light about other things he's hidden in the pictures of this book. For example, there are mice hidden on every single page. See what other hidden items you can find.
- New York City Geography: The boy and his dragon manage to make quite a tour of New York City in their escapades. There are maps on the endpapers showing their route all over the city. This is a fun pick to read before you visit New York, or if you're studying the city and want to highlight some of the different areas.
- Geography & Community Study: Students could make a map of their own city. Pick places where a dragon (or another visitor) may want to explore, and then develop a route and maybe even transportation that could be used to get from place to place.
- Sequencing Exercise: Like in Have You Seen My Monster? you can test how well readers are paying attention by asking them put places visited in order of when they appear in the book.
- Compare/Contrast: Read both of Steve Light's Have You Seen... books and have students compare/contrast them.
Echo by Pam Muñoz Ryan
If you asked me to pick next year's Newbery winner right now, this is the book I'd give that special shiny sticker to. It's a fantastic example of beautiful writing and incredible story weaving. One could argue that it really isn't one book, but four woven into one big, moving story. That said, it's a little hard to summarize, but here goes:
Once upon a time, a little boy in Germany becomes lost in the forest where he meets three strange young women and finds a book that tells an odd tale about them, a witch, and a harmonica that must save a life for the women to be freed.
Friedrich is a boy in 1930s Germany. Life isn’t easy for him due to a birthmark on his face, making him easy prey for bullies and teasing. It’s for this reason he works as an apprentice at the harmonica factory during the morning and spends the afternoon in private tutoring with various men of the factory. During hard times Friedrich finds solace in music, playing the cello or a special harmonica he finds in the factory. Things start looking worse and worse for Friedrich as Hitler’s policies begin to spread and all those who have differences, including birth marks, fall into ill-favor. And those who don’t agree with Hitler’s policies could be in just as much danger, like his Papa.
Mike is an orphan in 1930s Pennsylvania. When Granny was getting to ill to care for him and his little brother Frankie, Gran found them a boys’ home with a piano and left them with the stipulation that they should be kept together. But Ms Pennyweather seems more concerned with what kind of money she can get out of the boys in the home than honoring last requests of relatives. She begins threatening to send the boys separate ways. Mike’s one solace is in music. One day a man comes and asks to hear the piano played. He is enthralled with Mike and Frankie’s music, and takes them to live with a Mrs Sturbridge. But though the house is beautiful and they get new clothes, great food, and even things like harmonicas, the new place feels too good to be true, and it seems that Mrs Sturbridge doesn’t want them.
Ivy is perfectly happy with her life in 1942 in Fresno, but the new year promises to bring changes. Her father gets an offer to go work at an orange grove in Orange County with a chance at a permanent house and land if the job goes well. Ivy is crushed that they have to move right then. Her class was going to be on the radio and she had a harmonica solo. The move has some happy surprises, like her own bedroom and a nice girl her age who lives next door. But to her shock, because of her heritage, Ivy has to go to Lincoln Annex school instead of the main school. It seems grossly unfair. Injustice seems to run rampant in the area. The land her father is working belongs to Mr. Yamamoto, who, along with his wife and two daughters, has been put into an internment camp because of his heritage. His son, Kenneth, alone escaped the camp, only because he had already enlisted with the Marines. Other neighbors want the Yamamotos to sell the land and be gone for good, but if that happens, the job for Ivy’s father disappears. Still, there are bright spots in Ivy’s life here. She has her new friend Susan, and she gets to start learning the flute, which greatly excites Ivy because she loves music.
One thing unites all of the stories, a single harmonica that moves from one person to the next and brings hope, and eventually to one owner, a saved life.
Activity Tie-ins:
- Actually, don't mess this one up by tying it to other assignments. Just read it. Read it yourself and then rave about it to your students. Then hopefully, they'll do the same and the book will just find it's way into numerous hearts. If you need further selling points here:
- It blends fantasy & historical fiction. I have trouble getting historical fiction off the shelves, but fantasy won't stay on. It's a good way to sneak in some history to fantasy lovers.
- It has several cultures tied together: German, Hispanic American, midwestern American, and Asian American.
- It addresses prejudices and those who overcome difficult circumstances in every story.
- Music and its power to help heal and build bridges is celebrated.
- It's a really, really, really good read. Just go pick up a copy for yourself.
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