Schema: librarians, borrowing books

Text-to-Text Connections: My Librarian is a Camel: How Books are Brought to Children Around the World by Margriet  Ruurs and That Book Woman by Heather Henson

Miss Dorothy and Her Book Mobile by Gloria Houston

Alia’s Mission: Saving the Books of Iraq by Mark Alan Stamaty

What book would you protect and deliver somewhere if you could?

Author’s Note: The author tells us that the book was inspired from a real biblioburro program in Colombia.

Author’s Purpose: To inform and entertain the reader.

Mental Images: Note the scenes where Ana imagines herself in the books she is reading.  This is an example of what readers do when they make a mental image while reading. The illustrations help us to see Ana’s mental images as she reads.

Synthesis: Have you ever been inspired by a story you have read to write one of your own? Ana wrote a story for the librarian. If you were to write your own story, what characters would you include? Can you think of characters from books you have read that you really liked and wish there was a sequel to? What are your favorite series books?

Schema: human heart functions, love

Informational Literature: much factual information about the function of the heart is included. Information about foods, exercise, and the function of the parts of the heart are included in the story.

Personification: Henry’s heart is depicted with some human features with eyes a mouth and feelings.

Henry falls in love with a puppy. We finally have an author who thinks about the chaos that is caused by a nude body part and includes a fig leaf to cover that part in the illustration of Henry’s body. This would be a fun book to read around Valentine’s Day.

Cause and Effect: Henry’s heart is effected by the different causes that occur in the story. His heart reacts to the different stimuli with a fast or slow beat.

Drawing Conclusions and Inferring: What do you conclude Henry has fallen in love with when you read the description of the “girl?”

Schema: mysteries, museums

Text-to-text connections: From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler by E. L. Konigsburg

Cause and Effect: Because Ben was talking on the phone during a storm, the effect was that Ben lost his hearing when lightning struck the phone line.

Characterization: List Ben’s traits: curious, smart, brave to travel alone, good speller and writer, uses any resource available, resourceful for eating food left by others. How are the character traits of Ben and his mother alike?

Drawing Conclusions: Practice drawing conclusions as you read the pictures for Rose’s story. Inference is used to draw the conclusions.

Point of View: author’s: third person, character’s: Ben and Rose

Summarizing: Summarize Rose’s early life up to when she meets Ben

Mental Image: Can you make a mental image of the wolves chasing Ben? Check out the wolves’ diorama from the AMNH in New York City.

Go to the American Museum of Natural History in NYC’s website and look at some of the exhibits online.  See their other dioramas.

Check out the panorama of NYC boroughs at the Queens Museum of History.

Schema: football scoring rules

Text-to-Text Connection: Turkey Bowl by Phil Bildner also takes place many years ago.

In this full color picture book, the author shares the story of Roy Riegels as historical fiction. The real life lesson is that we all make mistakes, but we shouldn’t let a mistake  destroy our ability to move forward and achieve in the future. The story tells how Roy continued to be great athlete and a successful businessman and did not let his big mistake and label of “wrong-way Riegels” color his future in a negative way.

Author’s purpose and Point of View: Written in third person, the author tells the real life story of Roy Riegels.

Cause and Effect: Because Roy ran the wrong way, the effect was that his team lost their big game.

Drawing Conclusions: We can draw the conclusion that Roy did not let his mistake ruin his life because he continued to be successful.

Schema: slavery

The author tells the story in third person in a poetic format.

Setting: West Africa, 1725

Author’s Purpose: to show the perspective of a family whose child has been taken by slave traders

Voice: The language the author uses creates a unique voice for Dinga

Personification: The four elements: Earth, Fire, Water, and Air are personified as they seek to mother and then find Musafa.

Summary: Tell the story in sequence from Musafa’s birth to his being found again in the Southern United States in Charleston, South Carolina.

Drawing Conclusions: Do you conclude that Dinga went mad or insane with the disappearance of Musafa or do you think the elements could have communicated Musafa’s whereabouts to him?

Hurricanes: Many hurricanes have hit the South Carolina coast. The author notes at the end of the book that there is a legend in Barbados that says the “hurricane is Mother Africa in search of her lost children.”

Schema: stone soup
In this version, the setting is the times of the wild west. Slim and his grandson, Luis, ride into town hungry with no money. The use a bean to start the process of making stew. The rhyming verse they sing throughout the book engages the students:
“Chili’s good, so is barbecue,
but nothing’s finer than Fandango Stew!”

Many vegetables are mentioned. Students could list the ingredients they have seen in soups and come up with a new twist on this old story.

Schema: alphabet, vowels, spelling

Text-to-Text Connection: Alphabet Mystery by Audrey Wood

Cause and Effect: Because X changed his mind, the effect is the alphabet stayed the same.

Drawing Conclusions: The letters draw the conclusion that each letter has an important part to play when they begin exploring the roles of each other.

X is the narrator of the story written from a third person POV.  Students will relate to the story about X and how he wasn’t happy wear he stood in the alphabet. The author explores the role of each letter and the important parts they each play. The confusion of spelling with the “i before e except after c” rule as well as plural words that change f to v as in calf and calves make the other letter realize that all of them have a certain and necessary role to play.  The illustrations are very colorful and the book is in a graphic novel format with large text.

There is a short animation of the book on You Tube.

Schema: procrastination

Summary: Charlie Joe received books as his birthday present when he was only young child and was so disappointed that he developed a very strong distaste for reading. He schemes, plans, connives, bribes, and experiments in every way he can think of to get out of reading. He worries, gets punished by losing his phone, computer, and everything he enjoys for his lack of reading. Charlie Joe is in  middle school.   Between the reading problems, Charlie Joe is shocked by the relationships and cliques that are developing in his school.   His parents are embarrassed by him, and his teachers are disappointed in him, but Charlie Joe likes himself and is optimistic. His final stand at getting out of reading involves him launching a social experiment to get kids from opposite cliques to like and hang out with each other.

Cause and Effect: Because Charlie Joe will not read his own books, the effect is that he suffers many consequences.

Voice: Charlie’s voice permeates the book.

The book is formatted with many short chapters and short lists.

Text-to-Text connection with The Diary of the Wimpy Kid series in storyline as well as art work.

Author’s POV: The book is written in  first person.

Check out the author’s website and the song Charlie Joe Jackson hates!

Definition of Scapegoat

In rhyming text the author shares the story about very mischevious Jimmy and his goat, P. Petunia Oat.

Sequencing: What did Jimmy blame on Petunia in order: eating his coat, throwing away the TV remote, blowing his nose in the tote, breaking the boat, shaving the goat’s thoat

Reader’s Theater: This book would be a great reader’s theater with a part for the goat and a part for Jimmy.

Author reads his book in Spanish on You Tube.

Characterize Jimmy and Petunia based on the text and illustrations.

Drawing Conclusions: What conclusion do you come to about what happened to Jimmy’s coat?

Point of View: The author’s POV is third person.

Schema: fall colors

Author’s POV: third person

Text-to-Self connections: brothers, helping parents with work

Metaphor and similes: bus crawling as slowly as a caterpillar, leaves  compared to boats, bus sleeping through the winter like a bear after tourist season is over, tree limbs like brooms sweeping the clouds away

Cause and Effect: Because the seasons change, the effect is that the tourist season ends.

Drawing Conclusions: Can you draw the conclusion that the boys have changed the way they view the “peepers” at the end of the season as they view the sky? Yes, they are embarrassed that they are in awe of the stars and the sky the way the tourist are in awe of the beautiful fall colors.

Math: The boys are standing by the water and the illustration is showing their reflection in the water.