If you want to incorporate books into your classroom that deal with poverty, hunger, and homelessness then these books are for you. They were beautifully written and in a language that is very kid friendly. I was so impressed with how kid friendly it was how the authors managed to take on such intense subjects.

Crenshaw was my favorite of the two books that we read. I loved how the author, Katherine Applegate, brought in the concept of an imaginary friend. Most people when we think about children having imaginary friends we see it as a bad sign, that they aren’t doing well socially and that they may even be crazy or just awkward. But Katherine showed us that Crenshaw was way more than just Jackson’s imaginary friend, Crenshaw was just what he needed. Even though Crenshaw knew everything that Jackson knew, he was still his the part of him that he was lacking. Jackson never talked to anybody about his situation. He never talked about his fears, his anxiety, and anger about the fact that he they might be homeless again, that he was hungry again, and that he had to be the strong one and comfort his upset sister again. Crenshaw was the only person that he talked to about it and he urged Jackson to tell the truth. Once he did, a whole new world opened up for him. People started being honest with him, when he became honest with others and himself. While reading this book I found myself stopping to think a lot because being out in the teaching field I wonder how many Jackson’s I have ran across. I wonder how many students that I have taught or who have sat in my classroom didn’t know where their next meal was coming from or where they were going to rest their heads that night. Those students who, like Jackson, put on a brave face, from what is actually going on in their lives. I loved this book and I think it has so many good starting points and reference points that you can use to talk about some of the more difficult and intense subjects with younger students.

I don’t normally find myself getting attached to many text that I come across, but Last Stop on Market Street will pull at your heart strings, make you look at things for a whole other perspective, and you will probably find yourself crying, smiling or both. This book was the definition of inclusion, it included all people that are deemed by society as dirty, beggars, lazy, not to be trusted. Last Stop on Market Street teaches us that there is beauty in everyone and everything, you just have to be patient enough and to know where to look for it. It also teaches us that it is the little things that matter the most. That we get so caught up in technology, social media, and basically materialistic items. It is up to you how you view the world, It has so much good in it and so much bad, but we are the only people that can be the judge of that. Nana teaches us that and that is all about the way you look at something and by just having that simple thought in your head can change your whole look outlook on one thing. The pictures were beautiful, especially the color. I think they went along with the theme about it’s the simple little things and that for something to be beautiful, it doesn’t have to be this large grand display. This book would be such a great way to talk about homelessness and diversity of people by just simply asking what the children see just from the pictures.

In the article, A Ride with Nana and CJ, it talks about different strategies of critical reading. The author suggested three different ways: engagement, appreciation, and taking a critical stance. I think in reading a book such as Last Stop on Market Street it would be easy to implement. The book centers around the theme of diversity and in the article it talks about how students need to read books about it to know that their voices are heard and that they can relate to literature in someway shape and form. To engage the students you would simply ask them for their responses about the book, the types of pictures that they see and what they notice. To have them appreciate the text you could ask the students what they might take away from this text, what they thought the overall message that they author was trying to deliver. And lastly, when taking a critical stance, the students can focus on the social issue of homelessness within this book and now what they think of it since they have now seen if from more than just one point of view.

Both of these books are awesome and I will definitely have them in my classroom one day and hopefully be able to talk to my students about these subjects using these books to facilitate the instruction.

These two books are what you would call being able to step through that sliding glass door. They allow you to step into the worlds and lives of the characters and draw your own conclusions. Both authors do such a beautiful job at giving these characters voices and honoring who they were as actual people and their wants, hopes, and dreams.

In the book Stormy Seas we are introduced to five characters who are just children themselves. We follow them through their individual journeys that take place in different parts of the world and in different time periods. The author really does a magnificent job at telling the story from the characters point of view. Even though from the beginning we know that these characters are lucky and end up thriving in society, but you will still find your heart breaking and anxiety rising as you read their stories and feel their pain. I love how at the end of each story they put in statistics, it really puts the cherry on top when stepping through the sliding glass door, it puts it all in perspective for you.

Freedom Over Me was a beautiful book. When reading books on on the topic of slavery you are told a set story, you are told of their capture, their journey over, how and where they were sold, and their work life. This book not only tells you all of that, but it shows you who they were before their freedom was stolen from them. The illustrations and colors also played a big part in this book. The colors and faces of the characters are more blue and dreary when talking about what they are on the plantation and their jobs. However, when you flip the page and see the that person’s “dreams” the colors are immediately brighten and smiles come across their faces. I love how the author chooses to use the word “dreams” when working with this page. It lets us see where the character goes in their sleep and memories to back in their home in Africa, but also what they want for their futures.

 

I Am Her

 

I am undecided and regretful

I live between a door of reality and illusion

I wonder if I am forgiven

I hear my own mistakes eating me alive

I see that i now have a chance to stay or run

I want to be loved  

I am as broken as Anne Shirley was the day she found out that she wasn’t a boy              

I am undecided, regretful, torn, and longing  

 

I question if he wants me back

I feel in my heart that he would, but fear whispers back that he won’t

I taste the sweet bitterness of following my traveling soul, but leaving my love behind

I worry that i have made the worst and most unforgivable mistake of my life

I excel of over questioning my motives to stay or go

I understand now that his soul wanders just as much as my lost one does  

I am undecided, regretful, hopeful, and worthy

 

I say I have made my decision

I believe in my heart that it is the right one

I dream of settling down beside him

I try to contain my excitement of getting to see my sweetheart

I hope I can provide a home and adventure for people for years to come

I once was Her

But now I am Africa

I am undecided and regretful  

 

I wrote this poem from the perspective of the female kraken. I chose to write about her because she is introduced as a minor character, but plays such a major role. She is majestic and mysterious and when she was telling her story I found myself enraptured by it and sympathizing with her. I started out with what I knew about Her and that was that she was in a quandary and she regretted some decisions that she made in her life. I wanted to make it clear to the reader of the poem that she was upset about not being and choosing her love, but not really regretful of choosing her life to travel and see the world.  I also wanted this poem to take a turn at the end. The reader will see at the end the she grew and her mood changed drastically. And it was then that she became her true self, Africa.

 

I Am Ruth

 

I am a child and unwanted

I live in small room on a boat that some might see as a cell, but I see as a safe harbor

I wonder if I will ever find a home that welcomes me with outstretched arms

I hear the cries of hatred from the docks

I see that we are not welcomed here

I want to be seen as a human and not as a danger

I’m as lost as a sailor in a hurricane

I am a child, unwanted, anxious, and persistent  

 

I question the hearts of mankind

I feel as though today might be my last

I taste bitterness of longing of everything i wanted to do with my life

I worry that our next steps on land will be our last

I excel at making the days pass in the harbors

I understand that I am not wanted  

I am a child, unwanted, a facer of reality, bitter

 

I say “why does a star on my shirt automatically tell people the type of person I am”?

I believe that there is still good left in this world

I dream that one day that when I introduce myself that Jewish won’t have to be part of that statement

I try to imagine why countries could hate me so much

I hope that I can get off this boat soon

I was once Ruth

But now I am Ruthless

I am a child and unwanted 

 

This poem I found was a little harder to write. I found myself wanting to do Ruth’s voice justice since nobody else really had (expect for Stormy Seas, of course). I also found this poem harder to write because I have never been in this type of situation, but the more that i dug and the more that I forced opened that sliding glass door, the more that I found myself tapping into Ruth. I wanted people to see that even though Ruth was still 18, she was still just a child and that she knew that she wasn’t wanted because she was a Jew. Even thought things turned out well for her in the end, I wanted the reader to see that this has changed her. That she went from Ruth, to Ruthless because of all the horrible treatment she received at such a young age. I also wanted the reader to feel her fear. In the line “I worry that our next steps on land, will be our last.” I wanted people to feel her fear and anxiety and that death was such a high possibility and that that was something that she had to live with each and every single day.

I enjoyed both of these books immensely and I think they are very good books to help get the conversation rolling about the importance of having welcoming arms to ALL people. I would definitely use these in my classroom one day!!

At first when starting out into this book I was very nervous, our teacher had told us that it might be a little bit difficult to follow because there were different worlds, characters, and time periods in them. I decided from the get-go that I would make a character chart to keep up who was who and to eventually hopefully connect them. After the initial fear of starting this book was gone, I got to see the beautiful artwork that this story was from start to finish.

H.M. Bouwman takes you on a magical journey through time, other dimensions, adventure, and love. She however, takes a topic that is so important to our history and makes it come to life. While there are many themes throughout the entirety of the book, at the heart of it is slavery, she does such an amazing job of making it come to life and into a book that children will want to sink their teeth into.

To me there were a couple of different themes in the book. The first one was that no matter where you come from, where you have been, what you’ve done, you are never alone. Family comes in all different shapes and sizes and we certainly see that through Ren, Kinchen, and Pip; Mai and Uncle Truc; and Thanh, Sang, and Jupiter. Genetic make-up, skin color, or paper documents do not define a family and never will. A home is not always a physical place that you go to at the end of the day, it is a place where you go where you  know that you are surrounded by love and your people.

We ALL come from different walks of life with different stories to tell. With that being said, we have all had our own fair of regrets and mistakes. We all deserve a second chance, no matter what we are guilty of. Redemption is not only such a big and powerful sounding word, it is also a big and powerful action. The act of choosing to forgive and forget is even a stronger task. But, Venus found it her heart to forgive Ren, even though nobody would have blamed her if she didn’t. He and other people like him, took her, her family, and her people and killed, tortured, abused, and separated them. All Venus asked in the end was that Ren would do some good with his second chance at life and he did. H.M. Bouwman teaches us that no matter how much hate weighs inside of us, our compassion and ability to forgive must always try to outweigh it.

For future readers, if you find yourself reading this text and becoming lost and/or frustrated with it, my advice is to keep going. It will be worth your while. The connections that she makes at the end of the story are incredibly mind-blowing and will leave you speechless! I highly recommend this book to anyone and everyone!

My question that I have for H.M. Bouwman is, where did you get your ideas and inspiration to write this book from?

 

References

Bouwman, H. M. (2017). A Crack in the Sea. New York, NY: G.P. Putnam’s Sons.

These three books warmed my heart! They were all so beautifully written in a language that is so kid friendly, but powerful and grasping enough to convey such a moving and important message and lesson.

When you look at this page in the book Her Right Foot, you see The Statue of Liberty from when it was first built to what it looks like now. In the book it explains that over the next 35 years, the rain turned the copper of the Statue of Liberty to the green-blue color that we know it is today. This relates a lot to our country and our current situation in a lot of ways. Our country is old and it has seen a lot of wear and tear, but it has withstood the storms that have blown its way. But with its fair share of trials, we didn’t expect it to stay the same. It has changed and adapted to how we know it today. However, what we look like today, won’t be what we look like in another 200 years. It will be known to a whole other generation as something different from how we saw it, but one thing we do know is that we will continue to stand tall, brave the storm, and adapt to the challenges.

In the book Wishtree, the author makes this book very believable. Even though the books main character is a talking tree, the books main plot centers around a girl named Samar who faces discrimination from people in her community because of her religion. This scenario is very real because it happens on a daily basis not only in our country about around the world. Change is a hard thing for people to accept and people really fear what they do not know or understand. Our preconceived notions of people, the religious beliefs, and lifestyles create a barrier that can become very dangerous to our society if it is not torn down. It blocks us from truly seeing the beauty of diversity that our world has to offer. The author in this story builds tension by putting both the main characters in situations where you aren’t sure what will happen to them. Red is suppose to be cut down, most of the book builds up to her being cut down and it isn’t until the tree cutter has their tools out and ready that we realize that Red won’t be cut down. We also see that Samar and her family might be forced to leave in fear of their own safety. At the end of the book we see that her school and community ban together and want her to stay.

The thing that most and automatically drew me to Her Right Foot was the illustrations. They were so large, colorful, and bold. They immediately grab your attention and they are span over two pages. To me the author uses few words and large images to leave a lot of interpretation up to the read. He allows them to draw their own conclusions about our country and what freedom really means and looks like. The author draws upon the issue that our society faces today with immigration and toleration. He reminds us what our country was founded on and what it stands for and what it really means and looks like to move forward. I actually learned a lot from this book. In school we weren’t really taught much about the history of the Statue of Liberty itself. For example, I had no idea that the statue itself was actually set up in France for a year or that it was actually copper before the rain turned it the color we know today. I know this information is accurate I checked reliable sources and they all verified the information.

In the book My Two Blankets, the story is told from the view point of Cartwheel. Cartwheel and her Auntie have just moved to a new foreign country to escape war. I love that this story is told through the eyes of a child. It give us a lot of insight as to what they actually struggle with. If the story were told in the eyes of Auntie, we would see a whole other set of struggles, but seeing the story through Cartwheels eyes reminds us that even the simplest of things such as conversation and friendship, that we might take for granient, is so important in order to feel like you really belong somewhere. The special meaning that this book conveys to me is the importance of acceptance. One thing that we all have in common as humans is the need to feel wanted, loved, and accepted. This book reminds us of that and how much a simple conversation with someone really impacts us as people. If Cartwheels friend had not shown acceptance towards her and her differences, who know what might have happened to Cartwheel.

These three books intertwine with the main theme as being all about acceptance and what our country was built off of. Her Right Foot reminds us that our country was built from immigrants and that we must keep moving forward when welcoming them. Wishtree and My Two Blankets reminds us of how amazing it feels and looks when we are able to look past our differences and look into the hearts of people.

In the two articles the both address the importance of critical literacy perspective. It says that we as educators and parents should always challenge kids to look at things from another perspective. This allows for kids minds to expand and to think outside of their box. It allows them to see all things that they might have missed or might have thought of from their own point of view.

One activity that I would do with my class would be to divide them into groups of 4-5. I would give each group a lemon. They will have a minute to examine the lemon for unique marks and characteristics. After the minute is up I will take up the lemons and mix them up. Then one person from each group will have to come up and identify their lemon. They should be able to do identify them if they have payed close enough attention to their individuality. This activity should teach students to look at the unique things in other people and what makes that person who they are.

Resources

Eggers, D. (2017). Her Right Foot. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Book.

Kobald, I. (2014). My Two Blankets. New York, NY: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt.

Applegate, K. (2017). Wishtree. New York, NY: Feiwel & Friends.

Callow, J. (2017). Nobody Spoke Like I Did: Picture Books, Critical Literacy, and Global Contexts. The Reading Teacher, 71(2).

Edwards, A. WOW Stories: Connections from the Classroom. Worlds of Words.

I am not going to lie, “The Wild Robot” in the beginning was a very dry book for me to get through, but as the plot developed more and more it grew on me. The book, “What Makes a Monster” grabbed me from the very first page and kept my interest as I have never heard of some of these animals and creatures before. Some of these things that they could do sound like they came straight out of a SyFy movie.

“The Wild Robot’s” special meaning that it convey’s to me is about perspective and how important it is to see situations from different ones and not just your own. The animals saw Roz as a monster. Miriam Web defines a monster as “one who deviates from normal or acceptable behavior or character.” With the animals only seeing with their one minded perspective they almost missed out on seeing what Roz could offer their community. The same goes for the book “What Makes a Monster”, we view these creatures and things that we would probably never think of going near. In our perspective they are probably seen as awful horrid creatures, but in another perspective, they are simply using the tools that nature has given to them and surviving like you and I, they are even helping our world by controlling some organism populations. If we don’t challenge ourselves to think boldly and outside of the box then we will never grow. Because if we don’t challenge ourselves, then what won’t become a monster to us? I think that this is absolutely a lesson that is worthwhile to teach to elementary schoolers. They don’t see the world as critically as we do yet. Their thoughts and actions come from experiences, but mostly from hearing and seeing people do things. If we show them and encourage them to see things from other people’s points of view and not just their own, it will hopefully lead to a more forgiving, coexisting, and humble world that we live in. This story relates much to our world today as we are going through a struggle with accepting people into our country and space who are different. This book does an excellent job of teaching tolerance and acceptance, which is something that is greatly lacking in our society today. It shows what good and change that difference can bring and how wonderful and beneficial it can be, but also stresses that we must be willing to open up and grow. Roz, was the star of this book and for more ways than one. I believe that any child and/or person who has ever been an outcast can see themselves in her. Roz, not only grapples with trying to adapt and survive in her new home, but how to survive socially by building relationships and gaining acceptance within the community. Roz, eventually evolves when challenges are put in front of her and she has no choice, but to evolve to survive, but she also grows the most in personality when we see her doing the right and humane thing. I have been Roz before. I have been the person that everybody talks about, but doesn’t talk to, and have been shamed because of my differences. But like Roz, I evolved and I grew and eventually blossomed. This book definitely met my expectations about what makes a good children’s book, it draws you in, has an interesting topic, illustrations, and a good plot.

I learned so many cool and new interesting facts throughout the whole book, “What Makes a Monster.” The zombie fungus was probably one of the most cooling and bizzar thing I have ever read about a living thing being able to do. I knew that all of this information was factual by all of the sources in the back from all of the research that they author did. Even though this book was strictly factual, to me the overall meaning of it was that we too as humans are monsters and perhaps our own worst enemy and that monsters aren’t just creatures that sound like they have come straight out of a SyFy thriller. This book I think is what I would define as a good children’s book. It is full of color and illustrations that catch the eye and draw in the readers attention and it talks about interesting creatures that they have probably never heard about.

The two articles related well with each other. In the article “Story As a World Making” the author is clear to point out that every aspect of our lives, society, and world come from story. They also make the point very clear that we must learn to embrace everybody’s different stories and cultures. The second article, “Readers Can Do Anything” it tries to get at the point of if our differences aren’t recognized, met, and helped then people and things will suffer. If we don’t find a way to make our different stories fit and coexist then are world is in for a rude awakening.

The one lesson that I would want to teach my kids from both of these books is about perspective as I think it is a reoccurring theme in both books. The activity that I would do would be to have two students stand across from each other. I would then put a piece of paper with the number six down in-between them. I would then ask what number they each saw. One should say six and the other should say nine. I would then point out that none of them are wrong and that they saw different numbers because of their points of view and perspectives, but that their perspective isn’t the only way to look at things and that we should always recognize as human begins that we should challenge ourselves to see another light to things.

 

References

Brown, P. (2016). The Wild Robot. New York, NY: Little, Brown and Company.

Keating, J. (2017). What Makes A Monster. New York, NY: Alfred A. Knopf.

Short, Kathy G. “Story as World Making.” vol. 90, no. 1, Sept. 2012.

Sharp, Colby. “Readers Can Do Anything: Our Children’s Literature Day Lunch Keynote on the transformative impact of a good book.” Literacy Today, June 2018.

 

 

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton