Visit Jen at Teach Mentor Texts and Kellee and Ricki at UnleashingReaders to see what they've been reading, along with everyone else who link up.
From Random Choosing by Rafflecopter, here are the winners of Last Monday's Giveaway, thanks to Candlewick Press, of two prize packs of a paperback of Zora & Me by Victoria Bond and T.R. Simon and the next adventure, Zora & Me - The Cursed Ground by T.R. Simon:
Drum Roll Please-- Congratulations Lorraine Magee and Susan Hutchens! I'll be contacting you via email for your mailing information.
Thanks to Candlewick Press for the ARC of these next two books. You will fall in love with Merci's beginning year in sixth grade; she's an honest storyteller. You will want to be part of her family, figuring out how to do life as it arrives, sometimes things that frighten, sometimes events that make you wish it was you. As Meg Medina uses the metaphor of gears, I will too. The low gears made me smile, the middle ones made me hurry to the next page, and the high gear made me cry. I loved this close family, seemed very real to me, and I loved the often added Spanish words slipped into the story. It seemed natural and just right, was easy for me to figure out the meaning within the context and I do know French, also helpful. Don't miss getting to know Merci Suarez, her family and her friends.
Sunday was Grandparents' Day, and this is a book that would be wonderful to have on that day, but really any other autumn day. A young boy wakes with the wind rattling his windows, says he can't wait to go outside. Telling the story, he runs to tell his Grandpa all the things they could do and Grandpa thinks it's the perfect day to fly the kite. But first, they have to find it! In the search, other memories come up, like the picnic in a secret cave. Oh, what fun to remember while they looked. In between the search, there are double-page spreads of the goings-on outside. Usher's delightful windy autumn pages seem to whoosh off the page as he shows it covered with leaves blowing while one man struggles to sweep the leaves. Finally, the kite adventure happens, and what a magical one it turns into. Reading and seeing this magical time with Granddad makes a big smile, especially because I'm a grandmother and love my own adventures with my grandchildren.
"Another room, by ourselves. How many rooms have we walked into since that day--even if they weren't real rooms and we didn't know that's what we were doing?" Early in the story, an invitation for the six students, and it felt to me like one for me, the reader. It feels good to write their names, feels as if Jacqueline Woodson would want me to remember Haley, who tells the story, then Holly, Esteban, Ashton, Amari, and Tiago. And it makes me wonder what might happen if another six were placed in a room, no rules, just to talk. Haley somehow thinks it would be fine to record everyone, so has her uncle get her one, and the group agrees that capturing the words will be good. We soon learn about this wonderful teacher when Haley records early on: "Ms. Laverne," and reminds the group: "said every day we should ask ourselves, 'If the worst thing in the world happened, would I help protect someone else?'" There is much more about becoming a harbor for others, especially when one reads about one immigrant child saying about America: "It feels like this place wants to break my heart." Especially when these children are talking about what is the right thing to do. It's hard to imagine not reading this book aloud to a class, pairing it with The Day You Begin, shared below. Discovering what a Harmonic Convergence is is only one of the magical moments.
