Visit Kellee and Ricki at UnleashingReaders and Jen at Teach Mentor Texts to see what they've been reading, along with others who post their favorites. Your TBR lists will grow! Happy Reading!
Share with the hashtag #IMWAYR
I have been thinking of all the schools starting whether online or on-site, hoping all is going well. My granddaughters begin today. My grandson, in his second year of college, has started with differing classes: online, hybrid, and in the classroom.
When I share a book I've read, I often wonder how much to tell. When I love it, I want readers to experience every bit as "new", not remember what I wrote. Laura's and Saadia's collaboration on this story of two sixth-graders, Sara and Elizabeth, new to their middle school, both from families where parts of their families are immigrants is terrific. They've written alternating chapters letting the girls, who mirror similar experiences to those authors, tell the story.
It's complex to show the learning experience for the girls, their friends and other classmates, their families and some educators, too but it's all in this story! At the forefront are the girls and their struggles beginning school with old friends who are changing and leaving old friends from former schools. They are also part of families with older and younger brothers who are sometimes a pain to live with and with parents who are struggling with personal problems, too. Focusing on a cooking club that Sara's mother, a Pakistani immigrant who runs her own catering service, Sara and Elizabeth meet. Elizabeth's mother, a British immigrant, and a convert to her father's Judaism has lived in the US for years but still has not completed her citizenship. The moms will connect in another layer of the story. The cooking, and food shared from both cultures, weaves the story together. One recipe special to the story is given at the end!
Family and school life feel very real to me as these two girls' stories are told. Laura and Saadia don't hesitate in the stories to show that feelings of love can remain sturdy despite challenges within the family and that friendships take time, hard work and a willingness to listen to one another to make them work well.
I imagine this book can show many students a way to "be" when friendships feel so hard. Young middle school kids have a lot to ponder and learn as they grow up. This story will be a big help! It's a special book!
No, it really is NOT an alphabet book, but it is an ABC story about a bear who tries very hard to excuse something readers figure out quickly. He ate the cake! Eoin McLaughlin shares his journey from accusing the dog on the D page who whimpers "No!" that some big guy always watches what he does. That bear you see on the cover also accuses the pig, in front of the Queen (the Q page). Poor Pig is banished to page 27, Oh no! I can hear those reading this story shouting that they know who really did it, and it is laughable to watch Bear's expressions as he moves along through the neighborhood. The fun is made even more so by Marc Boutavant's bright and bold colorful illustrations. Hilarity rules in this tale.
At this time without all children returning to school, Jancee Dunn tells a funny tale about stuffed animals escaping from children's backpacks and creating havoc in school, led by someone's sweet teddy bear. They play "Pizza Fling" in the cafeteria, blew bubbles through musical instruments in the band room, and invaded the teacher's lounge! Scott Nash shows well the Principal's consternation in bright and bold illustrations of the havoc that occurs. Readers will laugh at the antics and love the ending when the Teddy even wins over the Principal. It's a book for a nice laugh about an imagined day at school.
 |
| first published by Walker Books-Australia |