Week 8: Newbery Winners of Today

Week 8: March 16-22

Newbery Winners of Today

http://bookworm4kids.com/Newbery.html

1.     2011 Moon over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool

2.     2010 When You Reach Me  by Rebecca Stead

3.     2009 The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, illus. by Dave McKean

Rationale:

This week and next I explore Newbery winners.  I remember vividly trying to read every Newbery nominee every year.  I also remember earning a special lunch with my librarian for all of the students who were able to complete this task.  The library at my school gives incentives for these books as well as other award winning books.   I chose to read the last 3 years winners for the modern books and for week 10 I chose to reread 3 books I remember loving as an elementary student.

The Tooth Fairy

The Tooth Fairy by Peter Collington reviewed by Publishers Weekly
Picture-book collectors and parents of preschoolers will surely want to find a space on their bookshelves for this splendid work. As in Collington's The Angel and the Soldier Boy and On Christmas Eve, exquisite, minutely detailed art relays a wordless story. When a girl loses a tooth at bedtime, she places it in a tiny "tooth box" that she slides under her pillow. Soon a tiny fairy wearing an ethereal white dress and a crown of roses flies from her home within the trunk of a tree to a trap door hidden in the forest floor. It leads to a cavernous mine, where-using a large furnace to melt the metal and a mold to shape it-she fashions a silver coin. At last the fairy enters the girl's room, retrieves the small box and exchanges the coin for the tooth. Readers of all ages will be delighted to learn exactly what this dedicated fairy does with the newly fetched tooth in the inventive, heartwarming conclusion. Somewhat out of sync with the elegant feel of the book, the final page contains a tooth box and coin to be cut out and assembled.

The Tooth Fairy has visited my home many times in the past year. This delightful story was looked at again and again by my girls. They even tried to fool our Tooth Fairy with tic-tacs to see if they could get coins. My oldest daughter was a bit confused by the piano keys though. She always thought the tooth fairy made her teeth into teeth for babies so they could be used again and again (I think that idea came from another book). I easily warded off the confusion though by reminding her there are several tooth fairies and they may all do the job differently. This book is a must for an elementary library, and will be especially loved by younger girls.

Sidewalk Circus

Sidewalk Circus by Paul Fleischman & Kevin Hawkes reviewed by School Library Journal:
As posters advertising the world-renowned Garibaldi circus are put up along a busy city block, a girl waiting for a bus watches the circus of everyday life unfold. There is no actual text to the book, just the words of store signs, a scrolling theater marquee, and the show bills. What the girl imagines is revealed through the playful shadows of the people on the street and the corresponding circus flyers. For example, as a chef flips pancakes into the air in the café, the corresponding poster promises "Fantastic feats of juggling." As a young man delivers a side of beef, his shadow is that of the strongman, featured on the neighboring poster. Fleischman has the incredible gift of always finding the extraordinary in the ordinary. To communicate his vision so successfully in a virtually wordless book is an amazing feat, with as much credit due to the illustrator. Hawkes's richly colored acrylic paintings sustain interest and pacing throughout the book, changing perspective, giving readers close-ups and then views further back. Vignettes of the girl waiting on the bench convey her growing sense of wonder as she discovers the parallels with the everyday. Appropriately enough, as she leaves on the bus at the end of the book, her place is taken by a wide-eyed boy who seems destined to find new parallels of his own. This delightful book will fascinate children and help them to see their world with new eyes.–Robin L. Gibson, formerly at Perry County District Library, New Lexington, OH

Some pages in this book worked well, they were easy to see and the kids picked up easily on the circus characters. Other pages were much harder to imagine and find the circus characterizations. Though considered a wordless book, the circus posters and marquee have hints as to what to look for from tight rope walkers to clowns. Overall the idea was good and my students enjoyed the pictures, but a lot had to be explained so they could understand. Though I must admit it was not one of my favorite books so far, it has rave reviews, so I would still add it to a library.

School

School by Emily Arnold McCully is a well loved book in our home. Being the youngest is hard, especially when your older siblings all get to go to school and you don't! My youngest tells the story again with a devilish smile as mouse sneaks out of her home and joins her siblings at school. Sylvie loves the idea that the little mouse can be a "big helper", as she says. McCully's ink and water color pictures are vibrant, yet soft as they show this adventure. This is a great book to get young children to tell a story in their own words and add details they see in the pictures. It is also a great book for helping children make inferences as to what they think is happening in the story from page to page.

The Red Book

This is a very short, yet extremely complex story. Each picture has the illusion of simplicity, but the details are astounding when you look closely. A girl finds a red book and when she opens it finds a picture of a boy on a beach. At the same time the boy on the beach find a red book and inside is the picture of the girl. As the story progresses, the girl flies to the island and meets the boy. Along the way she drops her book and his washes away; the books are discovered again and the story continues in the mind of the reader. The illustrations are simple enough to hold the interest of preschool children, but are complex enough to use with older or gifted students. It poses the question if this is really happening or if the readers of the red books are escaping into their imaginations. It was a clever and well thought out story.

People

People by Peter Spier was on a list as a wordless book when I was researching for this project, but in reality it is not a wordless book. I did like the traditional dress, foods, and other cultural aspects of the illustrations. The general message was that we are all different and that is what makes the world go round. As long as the children realize some of the pictures depict traditional culture, not always modern culture, I think it is good book to share. My girls have spent hours looking at the pictures, and enjoyed it greatly. Children would enjoy this book in a library and it sends a good message.

More, Fewer, Less

More, Fewer, Less by Tana Hoban review from School Library Journal:
Once again Hoban uses her remarkable eye to evoke the meaning of comparative words with her camera. Everyday objects and familiar animals are depicted-spoons, scissors, fruits, vegetables, flowers, and chickens. Although there is no text, the brilliant arrangement of the images suggests many questions with several possible answers. Beyond looking at what there is less and more of, questions of color, size, shape, texture, and distance also present themselves. The rich, full-color, full-page photographs are sharp and immediate. Each one appears within a bright, blue frame, adding to its appeal. A thought-provoking visual experience.
Pamela K. Bomboy, Chesterfield County Public Schools, VA

At first this book did not fair well in my classroom because one of my students with autism was disturbed that it had no words. I then "read" it with my own words and interpretations of "more, fewer, and less" and had one of my paraeducators do the same. Once he could see that you could tell the story again and again and there was no right way to do so, he loved the book. I did however find that my younger students with lower cognitive abilities had difficulty with this concept.