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Spring 2005
Volume II, Issue 2
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| Delving into the Shelves |
For the ultimate in convenience, logon to ipage® and then click on the highlighted title for extensive title detail information.
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Aladdin and the Enchanted Lamp
By Philip Pullman, illustrated by Sophy Williams
Just when you thought there was nothing new to this classic story, the author of the “His Dark Materials” trilogy resuscitates Aladdin, with splendid assistance from illustrator Sophy Williams. Pullman places the story in its original China, which he explains in a prologue, and adds elements that go beyond the lamp. Just when you think the story is over—Aladdin has learned to be prosperous merchant who treats his mother well—the adventure starts again and this wiser Aladdin isn’t yet wise enough. Elementary grades.
His bright materials: The quick pace of the action and detailed character development is matched by the bright palette of the illustrator. This book is really an illustrated novel, a genre that is making a comeback with such soon-to-be classics as The Meanest Doll in the World and the upcoming The Old African by Julius Lester and Jerry Pinkney, all books that can be savored singly or in groups.
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Day of Tears
By Julius Lester
This “novel in dialogue” by Julius Lester delves into a hidden, shameful corner of American history: the day of the largest slave auction ever held on American soil. Emma is valued—she takes care of the master’s children. When he auctions off his greatest financial asset to pay gambling debts, she is confident that he will honor his promise to her parents that she will never be sold. But she didn’t count on a man’s greed and the fact that value to this particular man always has dollar signs in his eyes. This is not an easy story and Julius Lester makes it all the more thought-provoking by shifting his focus. Not only do we hear Emma’s central story, but we learn about the auction and its aftermath though a series of vignettes or intimate scenes which allows each character to tell his or her story. And it’s not just the slaves, but everyone from master to auctioneer who has his or her turn in the spotlight.
Dramatic possibilities: This book could be used with a wide range of ages but perhaps an approach where the older students present it as reader’s theatre for younger students would be most effective. The variety of characters, from an old hand who thinks slavery is just fine, thank you, to the offstage character of a famous British actress who has left her dissolute plantation-owner husband, makes for a rich experience. Read the interview with Julius Lester from the March Children’s & Teen Librarian if you would like to learn more.
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Just-Right Writing Mini-Lessons
By Cheryl Sigmon and Sylvia M. Ford
With the emphasis on writing skills throughout a child’s educational career, this series from Teaching Resources is a great way to help students gain essential skills and strategies so they can write both fiction and nonfiction. A matrix of major standards helps the teacher fit this resource into their teaching plans. Subjects range from finding appropriate topics to using a dictionary or a thesaurus to techniques for organizing information and even grammar tips. Reproducibles are included. Grades 2-3, others available as well.
It’s never too early: Even though it might be years before today’s second and third graders tackle the essay section of the SAT introduced in March, the foundations of good writing must be established early to be completely effective. Check out all of Teaching Resources’ teaching strategies books available from Ingram on ipage.
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The Stolen Smile
By J. Patrick Lewis and Gary Kelley
Everyone knows the Mona Lisa resides in the Louvre Museum in Paris, but how many know that it once was stolen by a misguided Italian patriot who strove to restore the masterpiece to his native country? Patrick Lewis’s text cleverly gives us a first-person account of the crime from a prison cell. Gary Kelley’s illustration of that prison and the adoring masses outside transports the reader to a time when an act of inspired insanity could give the perpetrator fifteen minutes of fame. In the end, the masterpiece is restored to the Louvre, since King Frances I had personally paid the artist for it four centuries before. Creative educators can use this story to explain the art world, the repatriation of works of art, the political and cultural environment of renaissance Italy and early 20th century Europe and how life cannot imitate art. Recommended for upper elementary and middle school.
Mona Lisa smile: In a book that can be used to exemplify the word “irony,” this tale of Vicenzo Peruggio’s ill-fated theft of the Mona Lisa, is a rare treasure in and of itself. Can you imagine the trepidation of any artist attempting to recreate the painting in this context? Gary Kelley attacks the challenge with aplomb and the sly humor of the text makes it seem that not only are we getting an enigmatic smile, but a knowing wink.
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Voyages Through Time: Kingdom of the Dead
By Peter Ackroyd
Are you looking for a way to engage reluctant readers? Silly question, of course you are. Peter Ackroyd’s “Voyages Through Time” series from DK publishing is an excellent way to engage readers fascinated with natural history and science. Available in both hardcover and a smaller paperback edition, these books combine an engaging narrative with several points of entry. Ackroyd includes maps, charts, images of artifacts along with reenactments of significant scenes in history. Kingdom of the Dead is a history of ancient Egypt, telling not only the stories of the dynasties but also illustrating how the pyramids were constructed, the configurations of tombs and how internal politics played a role not only at the time but in a pharaoh’s history. Appropriate for middle and high school.
DK detail: All the sumptuous illustrations one has come to expect from DK can be found in each volume. Visually arresting images make the reader wonder, which pulls them into the text. A favorite picture fom Escape from Earth shows the effect of zero gravity on a long-haired astronaut. The Egyptian equivalent, perhaps, is the depiction of the well-dressed Egyptian woman with a scented cone of animal fat on her head.
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Featured Title
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Days to Celebrate
By Lee Bennett Hopkins, illustrated by Stephen Alcorn
An indispensable resource for media specialists and teachers alike, this book of days includes facts, charts, quotes, birthdays, and, as one would expect from Lee Bennett Hopkins, poetry. Handy calendars at the beginning of each month give key information. Everyone knows April is poetry month, but did you know that the Library of Congress was established on April 24 in 1800? Or that Noah Webster published his American Dictionary of the English Language on April 14, 1928? Fascinating factoids fixed on individual days range from the French pinning fish on fools for the first of April to the foundation of the first Earth Day on April 22 in 1970, accompanied by a lovely poem, “Earth, What Will You Give Me?” by Beverly McLoughland.
School-wide applicability: This is truly one of those books that can be at home in virtually every room in the school. Media Specialists will not only want to have it for circulation but as a resource for themes, classrooms will want their own copy so that it can be used at any given moment to underscore a historical fact or give some perspective. Even administrators will find inspiration such as in this poem found on March 30 entitled "Pencils": “On my desk/In a small brown vase, /A bouquet of tall yellow flowers/Smelling of cedar” or the conclusion of this poem by Richard Armour: “You’re multiplied,/Expanded, freed./You’re you and also/What you read.”
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