Book Lists

Earth Day 2014: Inspiring a new generation of stewards

By on April 21, 2014   /   Book Lists, For Librarians, For Teachers, Nonfiction  

There is no power for change greater than a child
discovering what he or she cares about.

Seymour Simon
April 22, 2010
Earth Day 40th anniversary

Prolific nonfiction writer and Earth advocate Seymour Simon creates books that inspire young readers to care for our planet.  Tomorrow, a new generation of stewards will celebrate Earth Day — in parks, classrooms, gardens, libraries, homes —  all around the world.  I’d like to share some powerful resources teachers use to make Earth Day come alive for students and their families:  1) books that motivate middle-grade readers to take action for the environment, 2) how families can support students’ learning, and 3) resources to keep Earth Day “blooming” all year long.

Books about environmental stewardship
So many great books about caring for our world, it’s impossible to list them all!  So I’ve selected six titles that teacher colleagues recommend to provoke middle grade students’ thinking about and active engagement with the environment.

 Global Warming by Seymour Simon.  Earth’s climate has always varied, but it is now changing more rapidly than at any other time in recent centuries. The climate is very complex, and many factors play important roles in determining how it changes. Why is the climate changing? Could Earth be getting warmer by itself? Are people doing things that make the climate warmer? Award-winning science writer Seymour Simon teams up with the Smithsonian Institution to give you a full-color photographic introduction to the causes and effects of global warming and climate change. (Indiebound description)

Water Dance by Thomas Locker.  Travel with author-illustrator Thomas Locker and follow our planet’s most precious resource–water–on its daily journey through our world. (Indiebound description)

 

 Earth’s Garbage Crisis by Christine Dorion. This non-fiction text  focuses on the amount of garbage in the world. It explains the causes of the problem, but then provides actions and programs that are in place today that people are trying to get involved in to help this cause. It also prompts the reader to take action in his/her own community. (Teacher, Faith Kim description)

 

Wangari’s Trees of Peace: A True Story from Africa by Jeanette Winter. A picture book based on the true story of Wangari Maathai, an environmental and political activist in Kenya and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2004. (Indiebound description)

 Nobody Particular: One Woman’s Fight to Save the Bays by Molly Bang.  The story of Dianne Wilson, a Texas shrimper, who took on the EPA and the big factories in her town to clean up the bay. She faces a number of hardships in this quest. We will use her story to talk about how anyone can become a good steward of the environment, and what resources help people make a difference. (Teacher, Andrea Kunz description)

boywhoharnessed
The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by William Kamkwamba; ill. by Elizabeth Zumba.  The true story of William, a boy in Malawi who builds a windmill to give his village clean power, and save them from a devastating drought.  William is only a child, whose parents can no longer afford to send him to school, but he also finds a way to make a difference, proving that anyone can be a good environmental steward, if they have what counts on the inside. (Teacher, Andrea Kunz description).

Earth Day at home: Families as learning partners
Learning can be more meaningful and powerful when teachers connect the classroom to issues that directly affect students’ and their families’ lives.  Here are some strategies that middle-grade teachers have used to enlist families in deepening their students’ learning related to the environment.  Two examples below illustrate how families partnered with students to help them consider varied perspectives on environmental issues and to create a concrete action plan of things they can do together at home to help the environment.

1.  Critical thinking about complex issues.  During her unit on environmental stewardship, middle school science teacher, Andrea Kunz pushed her students to consider a range of complex issues that came up as they read and discussed books and articles.  To deepen students’ thinking, she asked them to take these issues home and gather insights and perspectives from their families:

Week 1: Do Humans Help or Harm the Environment?  For the next several weeks, students will be reading and writing about the impact that humans have on their environment.  This is a topic that many people have different opinions about, so to get started, we wanted to involve you in the conversation. This week, we are asking the question: 
Are humans mostly to blame for our environmental problems, or are they solving more environmental problems than they cause?
Talk about this idea with your student: what are your ideas?  What are theirs?  What reasons or events have influenced your thinking?

Week 2: Making A Difference, Taking A Stand
  This week, we are looking at different people who have made a positive impact on their communities by trying to solve a problem in their local ecosystem or environment. There are many ways that people can make a difference, in many areas of life, not just the environment. 

When was a time you stood up for something you thought was wrong?  What happened? 

This is an opportunity for you to share your own experience, so that your student can see that many people can make a difference, or that sometimes we try hard to make a difference and it doesn’t always work out the way we think it will.  Tell your student your story! 

2.  Creating and enacting an environmental stewardship plan. Intermediate teachers Maria Smith and Stuart Potter created family activities that would build students’ understanding of concrete actions they could take to make a difference in the environment.  They started with a simple web of stewardship ideas that each student generated with someone at home.  Students then enlisted family members to help create an Environmental Stewardship Idea/Action Plan for their home. Finally, students led their families in carrying out one idea from their plan over a two-week period.

Resources to keep Earth Day blooming all year!

Finally, two (among the countless multitudes of) excellent online resources on Earth Day and environmental stewardship:

Authors for Earth Day: Supporting conservation through literacy.  A coalition of children’s authors who actively promote reading, writing, and learning about the environment.  The growing list of authors includes MUF’s own Yolanda Ridge!  Check out the A4ED blog to learn more about the authors and their projects.

The Nature Generation An environmental nonprofit that “inspires and empowers youth to make a difference. We reach our nation’s youth through innovative environmental stewardship programs in literature, science and the arts.”  Sponsors of the Read Green initiative to get “environmental books into the hands of children.”  Look into the short list for the 2014 Green Earth Book Awards (winners will be announced tomorrow on Earth Day, so come back soon!).

My thanks to author, science advocate, and environmental inspiration Seymour Simon for his life’s work on behalf of young readers and their world. And heartfelt thanks to the teacher colleagues who generously shared their book and teaching ideas on building strong environmental stewards in honor of this 44th Earth Day:  Andrea Kunz, Maria Smith, Stuart Potter, Hilary Mayfield, and Faith Kim!

 

Katherine Schlick Noe teaches beginning and experienced teachers at Seattle University. Her debut novel, Something to Hold (Clarion, 2011) won the 2012 Washington State Scandiuzzi Children’s Book Award for middle grade/young adult and was named a 2012 Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People.  Visit her at http://katherineschlicknoe.com.

 

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Book Your Next Birthday Party!

By on April 16, 2014   /   Book Lists  

Spring time is birthday season in my house.

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Over the years we’ve had a “bow wow ball”, a hunt through fairy land and a teddy bear picnic.

So why haven’t I held a party celebrating Middle-Grade books– a “Book Bash”? It wouldn’t be any harder than pouring a box of Cocoa Pebbles in a new dog bowl (it looks just like kibble!)

With these fun projects you’ll have your own literary themed birthday party in the (book) bag! And of course all these ideas can be adapted to your next book launch, too.

1. “Book” a cake. These days a cake that looks like a book is as close as your grocery store bakery department. Pick your child’s favorite middle-grade title, propose your idea to the baker well in advance, and enjoy!

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(cake image courtesy of Publix)

2. Books Books and More Books This one’s easy. Hand out books instead of goodie bags.

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Also consider this- If your house and your kiddo are already overrun with toys request guests donate a middle grade novel instead of a gift. All the books are placed in a cute book basket and donated to an underserved library or school! (Be sure to clear this option with your generous birthday boy or girl ahead of time!)

3. Book an author!

These days children’s book authors do Skype school visits all the time. Lots of writers Skype with scout troops and book clubs, too. So how about incorporating an author Skype visit into your party? All it takes is some advance planning (authors are often booked up months in advance), a good internet connection, a computer and a screen or monitor large enough to be seen by all (I have a cable that connects my laptop to my tv screen) Just be sure guests are calm and attentive (so this should probably be scheduled before the cake and games!)

You can find many authors who offer free short Skype visits here.search

Some writers may be skeptical about Skyping in a party setting but I, for one, love to “attend” any party of avid kid readers- especially those who’ve read my books! I’ll even send bookmarks ahead of time!

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4. This is a test!

Ready for some fun and games? How about a trivia contest? First prize, of course, will be books! You can write your own questions or follow the lazy moms’ party precept- why do it yourself when you can steal it from someplace else? Here are links to a hand full of internet kidlit trivia questions. You’ll find a slew more if you Google “children’s book trivia”.

Bill Moyer’s PBS Classics Of Children’s Literature Quiz

Braingle Characters of Children’s Lit Quiz

Scholastic Book-box Questions for National Young Readers Week

 5. Break down and buy the game.

Someone has already done most of the work for you– for the older party crowd, at least. All you have to do is shell out more cash. Check out these literary games:

Trivial Pursuit started it all. Maybe everyone you know isn’t battling to fill their tray with pie pieces these days but of course Trivial Pursuit has a book lovers edition.

There’s also an intriguing game called It Was A Dark And Stormy Night, which challenges your knowledge of first lines   

There’s Book Lover’s Scrabble with extra points for words with a literary twist

Or a cool Book Lovers Edition of Memory Challenge.

Perhaps best of all– a book and a game, all in one. Literary Trivia: Fun and Games for Book Lovers.

Now are you ready to party????? What are your favorite book-ish party ideas?

 Tami Lewis Brown is always ready for a party- especially when it’s celebrating the completion of her next middle-grade novel!

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On Believing in Stories

By on April 14, 2014   /   Book Lists  

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Last month we went to New York City and splurged on seeing a play. We went from the hyper-busy, noisy street, to the theater’s crowded, buzzing lobby, to the doorway of  the theater itself. Inside was dim and quiet. It was a small space, a curtain-less stage. A family’s dowdy living room sat empty and still and waiting. We had to climb to our seats in the next-to-last row, but I didn’t mind, because I had a good view of our fellow play-goers as they too stepped in out of the din and light, paused and blinked and got their bearings. They’d crossed a real threshold. The little theater filled, strangers packed shoulder to shoulder, and even before the lights went down, I felt the deep, the ancient human magic of it. We’d all signed a crazy pact. We’d agreed to leave the rest of the world behind and fall under the spell of a story. We were going to believe in it, if we could. We were going to let it catch us up and whirl us around and—what I am always hoping for—let it change us.

A playwright, even more than a novelist, stops owning her work the moment it’s out in the world. Our books are read, usually, in solitude, the characters’ voices sounding different in each reader’s mind. But actors speak the playwright’s words; directors choose how to play each scene.  It’s an astonishing feat of trust and collaboration, all in the service of story. Sitting in a theater always makes me think of  sitting around a fire, predators prowling the darkness, stars dazzling the sky, but the big world’s been forgotten  as everyone draws close and listens to the man or woman with the magic velvet voice, the story teller. What happens next? We’re all leaning forward, wanting to know. And why? Why does it happen? The older we grow, the more we need our stories to answer that question, too.

I’m working on a new novel now. In singing, there are things called “head voice” and “chest voice”, and from what I gather, the ideal is to blend them together. On days when the writing doesn’t go well, it’s usually because I’m only using what I think of as my head voice. The words vibrate up there, serviceable and doing what they’re supposed to do—move this scene and plot along—but even as I write them, I know I’m going to have to revise them. My chest voice—the voice that draws from my heart—isn’t weighing in, and without it, the words are just words. It will happen, though. For me, a huge part of writing is persisting, believing that if I keep working, the two voices will come together and I will sing my head off. It’s a trust in the story itself: that eventually it will show me the best way to tell it.

When the New York play ended, we wandered out into the lobby. Reluctant to leave yet, we got glasses of wine in the café. We overheard two women at the next table, discussing the play. One of them had loved it and the other was dissatisfied, and before we knew it we were weighing in, the four of us taking stances, offering opinions, sharing lines we’d loved, and by the way, how brilliant was that thing with the wallpaper? The playwright had created a world we still urgently inhabited. We still had a stake in it. Strangers a few minutes before, here we were talking about families, second chances, and, of course, how we felt about the ending.

At last, we buttoned up, pushed open the theater door, stepped out into the blowing snow and blare of taxi horns. But the magic of the play, the story, came along with us. It changed what we noticed, the way we looked at the people rushing by. I can pull it out now, weeks later.

Tricia’s new middle grade novel, Moonpenny Island, will be published by HarperCollins in winter 2015.

 

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