I've decided to celebrate the close of finals week (Friday morning is the end for me) by reading The Cat in the Hat
to everyone. I know I've felt all semester like I'm juggling one hundred things and every once and awhile they would all come crashing down, just like the Cat in the Hat. Now I can breathe for a little while and know that I can just focus on what I want to. Sit back, relax, enjoy the Dr. Seussiness.
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Yay vlogs! I'm talking about a really awesome children's book today that makes us think about how we see text in today's world. Definitely check it out.
Also, Green Reads has a new podcast up! Go listen to us talk about Eaarth: Making a Life on a Tough New Planet
and Into the Wild
.
I am an Amazon Affiliate. If you make a purchase using one of my links I will earn a small percentage which will then go back into this blog.
Normally Thursdays are Children's Books Thursdays (although I have not been so great at keeping up with this lately). In case you don't know what the reason for Children's Books Thursdays is, I wanted to explain it. For the past year I have participated in a program where I tutor two children three times a week for thirty minutes. I've worked five children this year, but the two I had this semester have really grown important to me. Today I am sad because tomorrow is the last day I'll get to see these kids and it is also my last day as a tutor. Next year I'll move onto my new job and leave behind the two jobs I've been working for what seems like forever. So today I thought I'd talk about the experience of teaching children to learn.
Tutoring is time consuming, and a lot of people don't put in the right amount of time. I often fall short myself. Choosing books for children is difficult, especially if the children are having a hard time reading. The books they "should" be able to read are too hard for them, but the books they can read aren't right for them because of the content. "The dog ran" is only interesting for awhile and then it becomes embarrassing. I learned how to read very early so I never experienced what the children I work with are experiencing. That is, I never experienced it in regards to reading, but I did experience it with many other things. Like math. And sports. And learning to ride a bike. I always say I can relate to the anger the students I work with sometimes have. If someone came in and said I had to do math for a half hour I'd probably be pissed too.
As difficult as tutoring has been though, it has been seriously rewarding. One of the children I tutored this year had difficulty reading even the shortest of words and now she has mastered the word "about." This may seem small, but after tutoring for a year I realize what a huge accomplishment this is! Another student I worked with wouldn't read pages that had more than one sentence on them. Now he reads pages that have paragraphs (although he does so begrudgingly sometimes). This is another huge accomplishment.
Tutoring has also taught me the importance of literacy especially in regards to children. I knew how important reading and writing was to me, but working with kids has made me realize how important reading actually is. Especially in today's world where we are constantly being bombarded by text. Emails, ads, signs, texts, newspapers, websites, and on and on and on. We're reading constantly, yet there really are a great deal of children struggling with reading. And this is just in the US, children's literacy is a much bigger problem on a national level.
There is another purpose to this post, possibly a more fun purpose. Since I'm done tutoring this week I want to change my regular Thursday post and I'm looking for ideas. Is there a meme or weekly post you'd like to see on English Major's Junk Food? If you have any idea let me know!
Well in the video I said I would include a list of Eric Carle books but I found an awesome video of Eric Carle talking about The Very Hungry Caterpillar so instead I will include a link to that. Go check out the Eric Carle video for the 40th Anniversary of The Very Hungry Caterpillar!
Sorry about the clicking, that was the camera in the background. Why am I getting my picture taken during my blog you might ask? You will have to wait and see my friends!
I have finally gotten the second Children's Book video up! It took some doing but I'm getting better. Now I'm off to write my paper- hope you enjoy the video!
At the far end of town where the Grickle-grass grows and the wind smells slow-and-sour when it blows and no birds ever sing excepting old crows... is the Street of the Lifted Lorax. I recently bought The Lorax at Kohl's because they had a deal where you could get one book and a matching plush for $5 each. Dr. Seuss was one of my favorites when I was a child so I jumped at this. When I started reading The Lorax again though I couldn't how big the message was! A lot of Dr. Seuss is like that, you don't realize the message as a kid but when you go back as an adult you realize how amazing it is.
The Lorax's home was once a beautiful and colorful place, but now it is sad and gray. What happened? The Lorax is a story about what happens when we don't pay attention to our surroundings. We lose the beauty that is all around us. With all the "go green" business out right now The Lorax is even more pertinent than it once was. Beyond the message though I really enjoyed the creepiness of the town after it's been torn apart compared to the bright quality the town had before. This is a really fun book to read, and as soon as I got it I was reading and rhyming. I have yet to use this with a student but my experience with Dr. Seuss is that it works best if you read the book to the child first and then have them join in for some choral reading.
I read a up a little about this book and in 1988 (two years before I was born) it sparked a huge controversy in California because the logging industry thought it was an unfair attack on them. Whatever you think about that, I still think the book's message is an important one for children and adults!
And this is my Lorax plush. Isn't he cute?!?
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So as I've mentioned on here a few times before one of my jobs is a reading tutor. I work with struggling readers at an elementary school twice a week. I'm still off right now but I wanted to start my children's book reviews this week. This first book is one of my favorite books to use for tutoring. SuperHero ABC by Bob McLeodis the only book I could get one student to read and enjoy. And I mean quite literally the only book. The student was really interested in video games and superheroes, so as soon as I saw this book I knew it would be perfect for him.
Unfortunately the language is a little difficult for a struggling second grader. the book is divided into two parts. There is the normal story, which is the description of the superheroes. These are all alliterative and fun to say. There are also speech bubbles in the scenes. These are easier to read, so I had my student read those parts and then I read the descriptions. After reading the book a few times he caught on to some of the words as well.
This book has amazing art work and I really enjoyed how interactive the scenes were. I can't stress enough how great this book is for beginning letter sounds! That was something we really focused on. For those of you who don't have kids around to share books with this is still a fun book to check out. I was really into comic books as a kid, so this was a fun one for me too. And some of the superheroes are annoying and fun to complain about. Laughing Lass just happens to be one of my most loathed superheroes.
Pub. Date: January 24, 2006 Publisher: HarperCollins Format: Hardcover, 40pp
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This book is absolutely amazing. As a reading tutor I have a really hard time finding books that are entertaining for the kids and not boring. The language in this book is not extremely difficult but some of the passages are quite long. The deal I made with my student was I would read anything over three lines since those seem to be the more difficult passages, not to mention just long for a struggling reader. It's an AWESOME read aloud book though.
Written by Carolyn Crimi and illustrated by Gris Grimly, Boris and Bella
encompasses everything that I love. It is the story of messy Bella Legrossi and tidy Boris Kleanitoff; neighbors who despise each other. Each of them decide they want to have a Halloween party, only to find out that no one they invited is coming to either of their parties. Instead everyone wants to go to a completly different person's party because he is doesn't freak out about scratches on his floors and doesn't have a messy house. Boris and Bella both become angry that no one came to their party and decide to bust in on the preferred one. They angrily watch everyone else having fun and dancing. Even though they despise each other and are complete opposites, they are brought together by a longing to dance. I am sure you can guess the end for these two monsters.
I know this seems like a Halloween book, and it is I suppose, but I'm a huge Tim Burton fan and I will dig this stuff year round. The illustrations and story are equally spectacular, which is not often the case. Kids love it too, the child I used it for hates reading and he actually wanted to read this book.
Today I found out about yet another great book challenge going around. It is crazy that I found out about Shelf Discovery today because I posted my favorite books from childhood. Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stop Reading is a book by Lizzie Skurnick. The challenge is to read this book as well as six classics from the list in the book. What a great challenge! It is also running for six months, so that only comes out to one book a month which makes it easy to include in all the other challenges. To find out more check out Booking Mama's blog here.
I have not read the book yet but based on the table of contents I will be reading the following six books:
My Sweet Audrina by V.C. Andrews A Little Princess by Francis Hodgson Burnett Hangin' Out With Cici by Francine Pascal Little House on the Prairie by Laura Ingalls Wilder Are You there God? It's Me Margaret by Judy Blume Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh
The only book I have already read is Little House on the Prairie so this should be a great way to broaden my teenage horizons. Also, this is my last year as a teenager (two more months to go!) so this will be a nice farewell for me.
My boyfriend and I have this thing we do every week, we make lists and compare them. Top ten places we most want to live, top five jobs we most want to have, etc. Last week it was our top five favorite books from childhood. Since both of us read a lot more chapter books as children we decided that we would only talk about chapter books.
My List
Anne of Green Gables
The American Girls Series (especially Molly)
Little Women
Saddle Club Series
The Royal Diaries
Once I made my list I realized that my taste in books has not really changed at all from when I was a girl, except I don't read about horses anymore. But seriously, classics and historical fiction were my thing back then and they are my thing now. The only difference is that now I'm obsessed with more than just classics from the 19th-ish Century (some before, some after). My two favorite books are On the Road and Jane Eyre, I can't really think of a book I read as a child that was like On the Road.
I was totally obsessed with reading as a kid and I still am, and some things never change. After all, I'm still wearing converse and skirts.
Since I live on campus and have no car it is very difficult for me to go to the movies, at least for feature films. I did manage to escape over the weekend to my home away from home, Des Moines, where my boyfriend took me to Where the Wild Things Are. Being the book obsessed girl that I am I was very excited to see the movie, especially since it was one of my childhood favorites. Since I saw it a week after it came out I was also able to hear what a lot of other people thought about it. Most of the things I heard surprised me. My boyfriend's aunt, a librarian, absolutely hated it. Several people that I work with at the front desk in my residence hall also said it wasn't good. I also work at an elementary school where I heard a few teachers say they didn't like it. Obviously this made me very interested to find out why everyone was so against a movie I've been waiting to see since last March.
I can understand why so many people don't like Where the Wild Things Are. It is very different from the book, but the book is also, what, 32 lines? Since I am familiar with Dave Eggers and Spike Jonze I kind of knew what I was getting myself into. Let's face it, neither one are the most conventional of characters, although both are brilliant. I feel like what is causing a lot of the dislike towards this movie is fear. The fear of being honest with children and not always creating a perfect happy ending. As we all know, Max returns to his mother at the end of the book, but that does not mean all the problems go away. His mother is still single and he is still a lonely little boy. The plot is very much for adults, but I do not think that means it is not also for children, or that children will not understand it.
On the contrary, I feel like the movie is great for children. The bulk of the movie takes place with the wild things, and this is where the imagination from Sendak, Eggers, and Jonze really shines. The home that is created is so magical I felt myself wanting to be a child again, more than have in a long time. The scenery is so breathtakingly beautiful (it was filmed in Australia) that I literally had to catch my breath at some points. The world created is one that children can dream about very several years. Even with the beauty, the movie deals a lot with loneliness, and loneliness is a concept I think all children are familiar with. I work with three children as a reading tutor and I can tell that all three of them are very aware of what loneliness is, and they feel it. This is the concept that I think is tying all of us together in this movie, answering to the tag, "There's one in all of us."
Overall I felt that the movie stuck to the spirit of the book, even if others do have problems with it. Where the Wild Things Are encourages imagination, honesty, and community, all three of which I think children's movies and books have been lacking in recently.
Release date: October 16, 2009 Running time: 101 minutes Language: English Director: Spike Jonze Writers: Dave Eggers and Spike Jonze Based on Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak.
