Wednesday, February 13, 2013

The Brainstorm Plus: Pigeon, Hamlet, and Books kids love

Bookish Stuff

Many of you have met Mo Willem's Pigeon in his picture books: Pigeon Wants a Puppy!, The Duckling Gets a Cookie!, etc. If you haven't, you really need to. I don't care how old you are, go find a Pigeon book and read it. Trust me. Kids love them, but probably those who have kids or work with kids appreciate them even more. (Mo Willem's Knufflebunny books are pretty great too.)

Bottom Shelf Books took advantage of the spectacularly emotive illustrations from Pigeon Wants a Puppy! and redid the captions with Hamlet's famous monologueShakespeare + Pigeon = High Class Enjoyable Humor.


And in honor of Valentine's Day, let me share some books that the students at our school love. (In other words, if you find one on the shelves, it must have just been returned.)

The Mark of Athena (Heroes of Olympus, #3)#1) The Percy Jackson & the Olympians series, The Heroes of Olympus series, and The Kane Chronicles series by Riordan. I'm lumping all of these together because they are all linked. (Ok, no, The Kane Chronicles isn't...yet. It's coming. The Kanes and Percy will meet. There are huge clues in the most recent Kane books that it is just a matter of time.) All of these books are based on ancient mythology, Greek, Roman and Egyptian. Modern demi-gods are involved in the politics and emotional tantrums of these ancient powers. The books are all high adventure, help kids get to know ancient mythology, are well-written and sprinkled with humor. Kids love them. (Hey, I do too.) I have reviews of many of the books on GoodReads. Here's my review of The Throne of Fire.


A World Without Heroes (Beyonders, #1)#2) The Beyonders series by Brandon Mull. This is another recent fantasy/adventure series. We just got the first two books in the series over Christmas break, and the books haven't stayed in the library for more than a few hours since then. Here's my review of the first book in the series.







And Then There Were None#3) Agatha Christie books. Some things don't change over time, and the appeal of Agatha Christie's mystery writing is one of those. Her books remain constantly in demand. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes books run a close second in this.









Education Ideas, Tools, Etc.

Elementary Teachers, Technology Tailgate had this writing activity idea that uses pattern blocks.



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