Accolades to the authors of the 2012 Newbery and Caldecott award winners.
January 29, 2012
Chris Raschka’s A Ball for Daisy, a wordless picture book, wins the 2012 Caldecott Award,
In Raschka’s own words: “I was thinking how about how loss comes into young lives, and how we try to deal with that somehow.” This book is Mr. Raschka’s first wordless picture book, something he wanted to try “so that a child could read the book without knowing how to read.”
HOW do you read a wordless or nearly wordless picture book? Without words, the shapes, lines, and colors tell the story. One of the great things about wordless picture books is that children at any age can read them by telling the story they see in each picture. Share with your child the story you see in the pictures. Where did the story take you and where did the story take your child? Without words the story unfolds for each reader in its own unique way. Don’t miss the opportunity of knowing these delightful reads simply because you didn’t know what to do with them. All you have to do—is enjoy them!
For a complete list of the awards see http://www.ala.org/ala/awardsgrants/index.cfm
Commemorate Lewis Carroll’s Birthday and do as he suggests: “I try to believe in as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
January 27, 2012
Reading encourages us to be creative, innovative, ingenious, imaginative, & curious, qualities we need in abundance if we want to lead interesting lives. I agree with Elearnor Roosevelt who said: I think at a child’s birth, if a mother could ask a fairy god mother to endow it with the most useful gift, that gift […]
Kung Hei Fat Choy ~Chinese New Year 2012~ The Year of the Dragon.
January 23, 2012
Celebrate the Year of the Dragon by reading some of my favorite stories which feature unlikely dragons—the best kind of dragons in “my book” and other stories that take you inside the Chinese Culture. The recommendations are terrific read aloud to children of various ages. As Walter Dean Myers, our current national ambassador for young […]
Was Benedict Arnold a notorious traitor, a coward or a hero?
January 17, 2012
Benedict Arnold was a General during the American Revolutionary War, who started out as a general on the American side and was commissioned into the British Army as a brigadier general. If you are curious how this happened, read on! For younger children, ages 7 and up, Traitor: The Case of Benedict Arnold by Jean […]
Parental Involvement is key to a child’s success— in and out of school.
January 12, 2012
There’s no question that a great teacher can make a huge difference in a student’s achievement, and we need to recruit, train and reward more such teachers. But here’s what some new studies are also showing: We need better parents. Parents more focused on their children’s education can also make a huge difference in a […]
