Yesterday I wrote about reading a book entitled Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy.  Last  night, after RT was asleep, Jake was still making noises and I couldn’t sleep.  So I dragged a warm blanket to the recliner in the guest bedroom, settled back and finished reading the book.  It took a couple of hours, and I wasn’t in bed until after 1:20 a.m.  However, the book was worth it.  First, let me provide a warning to parents and teachers:  There are a few damns and hells in the book.  And the storyline is one for older children.  The story takes place along the Maine coastline in the early 1900’s.  It’s about racism, meanness and greed in the guise of Christianity.  Good triumphs over evil . . . sometimes, but not always.  And because good doesn’t always triumph, there is destruction and death.  Several deaths.  What startled me when I read the information at the end of the book is that the book is based on a true story. 

I won’t tell you anymore about the storyline.  However, if you have a upper elementary or junior high student who can handle a little profanity and a disturbing storyline, it is an excellent book.  I understand why it is a Newbery Honor book.  The story will stay with me for a long time.

Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy  

I read a lot of children’s literature - everything from picture books to middle school and high school fiction.  As long as I’m a children’s reading specialist, it is part of my job.  It is also something I enjoy immensely.  Oftentimes children’s literature is better than adult literature.

This afternoon I’m reading a novel by Gary D. Schmidt entitled Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy.  It was a Newbery Honor Book in 2005.  It’s for upper elementary/junior high kids.  I’m just a couple chapters into the book, but I came across a conversation that fascinated me. 

In the story, Turner is a preacher’s son in the early 1900’s who has just moved to a new town.  Shortly after moving, he was skipping rocks one day, and one bounced off an elderly woman’s fence, and now he must read to her each day as penance.  This is part of their conversation during his first visit to read to her.

Suddenly, her eyes opened and she lifted her head.  “Have you thought about what your last words might be?  You’re never too young to know what your last words might be.  Death could come along at any moment and thrust his dart right through you.”  She jerked her arm out at him, and Turner shot back against the organ.

“I supposed,” he whispered, “something like, ‘The Lord is my shepherd.’”

“Too expected,” she said, shaking her head.  “nobody would care to remember that, and you’d have wasted your one opportunity.  You don’t get two chances to say your last words, you know.”

Sometimes it doesn’t take much to get me wondering, but these few lines did it for me.  I can think (tongue in cheek) of a couple for myself:

Wow!  That was amazing!  Hope we didn’t disturb the neighbors.

Who would have guessed I’d live to be over 100!

Nah - those are lame.  It would be nice to impart words of wisdom for the ones left behind, but I don’t know what those words could be.

So, I ask you:  What would YOU like your last words to be?

 

Lizzie Bright and the Buckminster Boy

 

 

(2) 
Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale by Mo Willems

 I just finished re-reading Touching Spirit Bear, a children’s novel (older elementary and middle school, grades 4-8) by Ben Mikaelsen.  The main character, Cole, has been physically and emotionally abused by his father since he was very little, and he lashes out at others as a result.  The author, Mikaelsen, takes up this serious issue and writes about it sensitively and without resorting to profanity or vulgarity.  As a parent and a teacher, I appreciate that.  

After years of being in trouble with the law and after severely beating a younger child, Cole must face either prison or “Circle Justice”, a Native American way of dealing with anger and violence.  Cole doesn’t submit to Circle Justice easily, and his anger, rebellion and his eventual forgiveness of others and himself are skillfully portrayed in the story. 

Each week I receive an email from Friday Forum with a topic or questions for blogging. This is the first time I’ve actually used the suggestion! Look at the topic for this week, and you’ll see why I decided to use it. Feel free to follow the link and join the Friday Forum or see previous weeks’ topics. Here are the five questions for today:

1. How often do you read? Daily - multiple times daily. . . literally for hours each day. Most of it is reading with children as part of my job, but I also read aloud to children, read for my own enjoyment, read lots of professional books, and each night before I go to sleep, I read for a few minutes before turning out the light and zzzzzzzzzz.

2. Who are your favorite authors? My favorite children’s authors are Patricia Polacco, Lois Lowry, Shel Silverstein, Mem Fox, Gary Paulsen, Dr. Seuss, and Doreen Cronin. I don’t have a favorite author of adult books - probably because I read such a strange assortment of books.

3. What genre most interests you (For example, suspense, romance, horror, contemporary, etc.)? Children’s literature. Some of the best writing in the world is in children’s literature. In adult literature I read mostly nonfiction - self-help type stuff. There are only two non-education related magazines that I read each month: Readers Digest and Guideposts. I subscribe to several others, but I rarely read them. They just collect dust for awhile until I gather them up and give away. I won’t renew those subscriptions when they run out.

4. What elements of a book most appeal to you (character development, plot, dialogue, etc.)? I call it the “connection factor.” Whether or not I can connect with the text.

5. Do you buy books written by celebrity authors? Why or why not? Sometimes I do. It depends on the topic and the author. Again, if the connection factor is strong, I will buy it.

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Did you know that this week is Read Across America week? Thursday, March 2nd is Theodor Seuss Geisel’s birthday. Geisel (better known as Dr. Seuss) was born in 1904 and would have been 102 this year. He authored and illustrated forty-four children’s books. The first one was published in 1936. Not only have our children grown up with his books, but we did and our parents did. Maybe even some of our grandparents.

Today was “Crazy Socks Day” at my school in honor of Fox in Socks, one of my favorite Dr. Seuss books. Children and teachers wore their craziest socks. For me, that meant some Rudolph-the-red-nosed-Reindeer socks. Yes, Christmas was over two months ago, but my Rudolph socks are the only unusual socks I own.

Fox in Socks is a tongue-twister of a book that the children LOVE, and it’s great reading practice for them. They have to read THROUGH each word carefully to get it right. I used the book with a small fifth grade reading group yesterday, and I used it with first grade, second grade and fourth grade groups today, and they all loved it. I even read it aloud to the entire third grade yesterday. With a room full to bursting with children, it held each one’s attention. In the small groups, it was fun to watch the children’s faces as they struggled through the tongue twisters. There was laughter. No one realized they were getting some high quality oral reading practice. The introduction to Fox in Socks warns

Take it slowly. This book is dangerous!

And it is! Dangerous for anyone who doesn’t want to smile. Here’s a sample:

Let’s do tricks with bricks and blocks, sir.
Let’s do tricks with chicks and clocks, sir.
First, I’ll make a quick trick brick stack.
Then I’ll make a quick trick block stack.
You can make a quick trick chick stack.
You can make a quick trick clock stack.

Or how about this one?

Bim comes.
Ben comes.
Bim brings Ben broom.
Ben brings Bim broom.
Ben bends Bim’s broom.
Bim bends Ben’s broom.
Bim’s bends.
Ben’s bends.
Ben’s bent broom breaks.
Bim’s bent broom break.
Ben’s band. Bim’s band.
Big bands. Pig bands.

Tomorrow evening I will stop by Sam’s Club to pick up NINE sheet cakes so that each child at my school can celebrate Dr. Seuss’s birthday on Thursday with a piece of birthday cake. I’ll be wearing a Cat In The Hat hat as I dish out cake slices.

Your assignment: If you know a child, read a Dr. Seuss book to him or her this week.

Another feature of THE MEDIAN SIB is book recommendations. I read lots of children’s literature, and I read lots of professional literature - especially on reading, for teachers. I will share some books that I feel are particularly noteworthy. Some of the best books ever written are children’s books. AIRMAIL TO THE MOON by Tom Birdseye is one of my favorites. It offers humor that children and parents will appreciate, and it offers great examples of figurative language that teachers will love. I have frequently used this book for mini-lessons on figurative language with all grades.