Non-Fiction Links to Fiction

Visit Alyson Beecher on Wednesdays for Non-Fiction Picture Books at Kidlit Frenzy.  Thanks to her hosting and sharing and those who add their posts, you can discover and celebrate terrific nonfiction picture books!  I always learn from these books, am happy that they are more and more available today for children, for everyone!

            These two books celebrate water, one is full of the facts in a quick and fun look at all the places it can be found. The other, though an imagined story, fills us with smiles, too, with just one thing, a puddle, and that delight found where one can SPLASH!

               Antoinette Portis choose few, but perfect, words to show all kinds of ways to discover water with one young girl, Zoe, telling this tale of water. Simply brushed shades of blues and greens with white bring water right into the picture! Beginning with a faucet, "Hey water! I know you! You're all around." and experiencing the actions as water sprays up in a sprinkler, down in a shower, gurgles in a stream. Pictures focus on the water feature with the word (like 'stream' or 'fog') incorporated into the illustrations with just-right additions, like people and trees by a stream, a whale in the ocean, and lest we forget, a dewdrop on a blade of grass. The double-page spread describing fog is lovely to see, "You drift in the air and hide/the world." It's a poetic way to show water's omnipresence, including ice and snow! There are three added pages of information that explain "water forms", "the water cycle", and "conserving water". It's a terrific book for the jumping off of a study of water.

          With only a focus on one puddle, this time on a school playground, a large one surrounded by smaller 'sisters and brothers, so dainty and sweet,/so shallow'. Soon gone by 'sudden sunshine', this puddle also worries about more rain, a poodle "piddle" in the puddle, and a shoe with two toes showing. More experiences include a duck, being alone, and the final reflection, a surprise. Richard Jackson's words bounce through in quick time as Chris Raschka's illustrations fill the page with color and the slightly distorted view a puddle gives. It's a clever and imaginative book that will be fun to include in a study of water or after a rainstorm, plus considering different perspectives.

Monday Reading

           On Mondays, I connect with a group that reviews books they want everyone to know about. Here's a fabulous way to discover books worth a look. 

          Visit Jen at Teach MentorTexts and Kellee and Ricki at UnleashingReaders to see what they've been reading, along with everyone else who link up.   

Be sure to go here to Buffy Silverman's post at Buffy's Blog for line number eleven of Irene Latham's Progressive Poem.

  

 It's also April, poetry month. I've taken a few days away to visit my family in Texas, so have not written a poem a day as I started this month. I do have a wonderful book to share that's all about poetry! 

Daniel Finds A Poem - Micha Archer

         Working in gorgeous collage and oil, Micha Archer tells the story of Daniel who finds a sign as he enters a park that announces "Poetry in the Park", coming Sunday at 6 O'clock. Daniel begins asking the animals he meets if they know what poetry is. A spider answers: "when morning dew glistens" and later by a pond, a Turtle tells Daniel that poetry is "sun-warmed sand". There is a surprise at the end when Daniel goes to the poetry time at the park, and recites the poem "he found". The book will make a beautiful mentor text to help students start finding their own poetry, just as these animals have.