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Dia!

By on April 17, 2017   /   Diversity, For Kids, For Librarians, For Parents, For Teachers, For Writers  

I had the opportunity to attend the 33rd annual Virginia Hamilton Conference at Kent State University in early April.  The event is the longest-running event focusing entirely on multicultural literature for children. One of the highlights of the program is the awarding of the Virginia Hamilton Literary Award. This year’s honoree is Pat Mora, author of over forty books for children, teens and young adults.

Pat is also the founder of El día de los niños/El día de los libros, (Children’s Day/Book Day), or simply Dia.

I must admit, that despite being directly involved in children’s literature for nearly twenty years as both children’s book festival founder (www.clairesday.org) and children’s book author, I knew nothing about Dia.

So, what is Dia? And what can we do as writers of children’s literature to participate and promote the initiative?

Dia’s roots began in 1925 at the first World Conference for the Well Being of Children in Geneva, Switzerland. Children’s Day was established after the conference, intended to bring attention to children’s issues. Many countries, including the Soviet Union, encouraged the publication of children’s books.

The Parade of the Red Army, Soviet Union, 1931.

In 1996, Pat Mora proposed connecting the celebration of children with literacy. The following year her concept was endorsed by REFORMA, the National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish-Speaking. The Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) is now the home to Dia.

Dia is intended to be a daily commitment to connecting children and families to diverse books, languages and cultures. April 30th is designated as the culmination of the year-long celebrations.

Libraries across the United States celebrate Dia with book clubs, bilingual story times, and, (yay!) guest appearances by children’s book authors and illustrators.

ALSC has a website, where book suggestions, toolkits and great resources can be downloaded to help with a Dia Celebration. Check it out: www.dia.ala.org

The website has a locator tab to find a Dia event near you: http://cs.ala.org/websurvey/alsc/dia/map.cfm

Pat offered in her comments to the audience at Kent State University that we in Ohio were not doing enough to spread the mission of Dia. There is only one event listed in the national registry in my home state. Pat is right. We can do more.

My hope is to somehow bring together a collaborative effort to celebrate Dia with our partner library system, the Toledo-Lucas County Public Library, and our Claire’s Day event. Stay Tuned.

What will you do to support this important mission of connecting children with books? Perhaps you could read of one of your works at your local library. Or, maybe volunteer to share multicultural books with children at your nearby school. Or, even just share the Dia website with your local school and/or library.

I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Book Fiesta, written by Pat Mora, illustrated by Rafael Lopez.

 

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Environmental Issues: What Would Harry Potter Do?

By on April 14, 2017   /   Common Core & NGSS, For Teachers  

Teachers: with Earth Day approaching (April 22), you might be spending time going over the [now] 4 R’s with your class. Maybe you’re discussing environmental issues. With the pressure of addressing common core standards, it can be hard to fit in a unit on the environment. But I say, let’s take the topic and repurpose it (the latest R!): instead of the focus being solely on the environment, hide it in the literacy curriculum. Everyone has a cause that’s close to his or her heart…even fictional characters.

EARTH DAY LESSON PLAN

OBJECTIVE: Analyze main characters at a deeper level based on character traits in the book.

MATERIALS NEEDED:

  • a book recently read (either read individually, within a guided reading group, or as a whole class)
  • [optional] picture books addressing environmental issues (list at bottom of post)

PREPARATION: [Optional]

  • Discuss ways we protect the environment. As a class, create and display a list of these environmental issues. (See the list at the bottom of the post.)
  • Research/read about local environmental issues as well as ones in other areas of the world.
  • Add to the list any new issues you’ve discovered.

LESSON: Discuss how fictional characters would protect the environment.

POSSIBLE QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION (click here for the pdf):

1. Based on what you know about the main character from details in the book, what environmental issue or issues would he or she support?

2. What details from the book make you draw this conclusion?

3. What would he or she do for this cause (what action might be taken)?

4. What obstacles might he or she face?

5. Think about the antagonist. Would he or she support the same cause? If not, what would his or her cause be?

6. How about any secondary characters? Would they support the same cause as the main character?

POSSIBLE PROJECT: Have students create a piece (short story, comic, essay, etc.) addressing the main character and his or her environmental cause.

SUPPLEMENTAL MATERIALS: Here are great picture books about people protecting the environment.

  • One Plastic Bag: Isatou Ceesay and the Recycling Women of the Gambia by Miranda Paul (Millbrook Press)
  • The Tree Lady: The True Story of How One Tree-Loving Woman Changed a City Forever by H. Joseph Hopkins (Beach Lane Books)
  • Rachel Carson and Her Book That Changed the World by Laurie Lawlor (Holiday House)
  • Planting the Trees of Kenya by Claire A. Nivola (Frances Foster Books)
  • I am Jane Goodall by Brad Melter (Dial Books)
  • The Watcher: Jane Goodall’s Life with the Chimps by Jeanette Winter (Schwartz & Wade)
  • Out of School and Into Nature: The Anna Comstock Story by Suzanne Slade (Sleeping Bear Press)
  • Magic Trash: A Story of Tyree Guyton and His Art by J. H. Shapiro (Charlesbridge)
  • The Soda Bottle School: A True Story of Recycling, Teamwork, and One Crazy Idea by Seno Laura Kutner and Suzanne Slade (Tilbury House Publishers)

ENVIRONMENTAL ISSUES: Here are some issues to consider.

deforestation
global warming
land degradation
pollution (air, water, soil)
loss of biodiversity/endangered plant and animal species
habitat destruction
natural resource depletion
waste disposal
urban sprawl

STANDARDS ADDRESSED:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.5.2
Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text, including how characters in a story or drama respond to challenges or how the speaker in a poem reflects upon a topic; summarize the text.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.5.6
Describe how a narrator’s or speaker’s point of view influences how events are described.

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.SL.5.1
Engage effectively in a range of collaborative discussions (one-on-one, in groups, and teacher-led) with diverse partners on grade 5 topics and texts, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly.

 

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Spies Like Us

By on April 12, 2017   /   Book Lists, Fiction, For Kids, For Librarians  

When I was a kid, my grandmother took me to see The HMS Pinafore, a Gilbert and Sullivan musical that premiered roughly one hundred and thirty nine years ago. It’s a story of mistaken identity that takes place on the high seas. Never mind that the elaborate costumes and high heeled shoes seemed utterly impractical for sailing, I was mesmerized. One thing in particular caught my attention and still drifts along behind me to this day. Buttercup, who the plot reveals to be an epic failure as a nanny (think the anti-Mary Poppins), sings a song called Things Are Seldom What They Seem. In the song, she offers a slew of ridiculous examples in support of this statement: skim milk masquerades as cream; highlows pass as patent leathers; jackdaws strut in peacock’s feathers.

Other than the milk reference I had no idea what she was going on about but the thought that what you see is not always what you get lit up my young imagination like a match in a gallon of gasoline. Imagine my delight to discover there were a number of authors taken with this idea, too. They wrote about spies. Who knew there were people out there in the world whose job it was to pretend to be something other than themselves? It’s no wonder that a geeky elementary school student who often wanted to blend into the walls would find this appealing. I started in on the spy novels and never looked back.

To this day I read and write about spies and spying and how things are never quite as they appear. And lucky for us, middle grade is chock full of spectacular spy writing. In no particular order, some of my current favorites. They’re not top secret so feel free to share.

  1. Spy School, by Stuart Gibbs (first in a series). Ben Ripley may only be in middle school, but he’s already pegged his dream job: C.I.A. or bust. So he’s thrilled when he’s recruited to the C.I.A.’s top secret Academy of Espionage. Only, it turns out, Ben hasn’t been brought in because the C.I.A. expects him to succeed. Instead, he’s been brought in as bait to catch a dangerous enemy agent. Now, Ben needs to step up his game before he ends up dead. Can he solve the crime, get the girl and save the day?
  1. Stormbreaker, by Anthony Horowitz (first in a series). They told him his uncle died in a car accident but fourteen year old Alex Rider knows that’s a lie. Still, nothing could prepare him for the news that his uncle was really a spy for MI6 , Britain’s top secret intelligence agency. Recruited to find his uncles killers, Alex finds himself caught in a deadly game of cat and mouse.
  1. Liar and Spy, by Rebecca Stead. When 7th grader Georges moves into a Brooklyn apartment building, he meets Safer, a 12 year old coffee drinking loner and self appointed spy. Georges becomes Safer’s first spy recruit. His assignment? Tracking the mysterious Mr. X, who lives in the apartment upstairs. But as Safer becomes more demanding, Georges starts to wonder: how far is too far to go for your only friend?
  1. Harriet the Spy, by Louise Fitzhugh. First published in 1964, this novel is the grandmother of all middle grade spy books. Harriet M. Welsch is a spy. In her notebook, she writes down everything she knows about everyone, even her classmates and her best friends. Then Harriet loses track of her notebook, and it ends up in the wrong hands. Before she can stop them, her friends have read the always truthful, sometimes awful things she’s written about each of them. Will Harriet find a way to put her life and her friendships back together?

Do you have a favorite spy novel? I’d love to hear about it! Until then, make sure no one is following you…

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