Category: Uncategorized

3 Billy Goats Gruff-Fairy Tale Fridays

Tif Talks Books hosts fairy tale fridays and today is discussing The Philosopher’s Stone by H.C. Andersen.  I’ve never heard of this fairy tale but I do know the idea from J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter series and after reading Tif’s post I have to agree-J.K. did it better.

I am finishing up our fairy tale unit with 2nd grade students this week and we’ve had such a blast acting out Little Red Riding Hood and talking about all the elements that make up a good fairy tale.  Acting out the tale has really  made a difference in their understanding. And they love wearing a costume-although their was some heated disputes about the lead role!  I wish I’d taken photos or flipcam video of some of the skits.  There’s a Wolf at the Door with its 5 tales has them excited due to its fun content and size-they love that it is oversized!!

I did read Three Billy Goats Gruff retold and illustrated by Janet Stevens to a small group of students this week.  This is a great retelling, with funny illustrations and no real harm done to the troll.  My students love to “read” along with me (don’t all kids?) and so anything with a refrain is a definite thumbs-up and this one they could keep up with the troll and the billy goats.  The picture of the biggest billy goat, in his motorcycle jacket and John Lennon shades, brought down the house with laughter! There is something special Stevens has added using a frog , which takes a moment for the kids to figure out-good thinking skills!!  Next year I’m going to extend this fairy tale unit and act this one out as well.   Right now I am so ready for summer!!

Have you read any fairy tales this week?  Fly, pop, hop or click over to Tif Talks Books and check out her discussion!

Peaceful Reading…

A Pair of Red Clogs

by Masako Matsuno
Purple House Press
(1960, 1988)

Beginning:

A pair of old cracked wooden clogs!
I found them last night in a storeroom of my house
when I was looking for a box to send a new pair of clogs
to my little granddaughter.

Matsuno descibes the new pair she is sending to her granddaughter, far away and then remembers back to when she received the red lacquered pair in the box. 

One evening,
when I was as young as my granddaughter is now,
I went shopping with my mother.

And then she describes the store, the experience of picking this pair of clogs (she was only allowed to pick one pair) and how they sounded as she walked (kara koro, kara koro). It is a thrilling shopping trip and once she has them she joins in a traditional Japanese game and the red lacquered clogs are damaged.  They no longer go kara koro, kara koro as she walks and she gets them dirty in order to force mother to buy new ones now. 

The story is very well done showing an Asian child with a very normal situation that all children can relate to and predict the outcome.  The illustrations are beautifully drawn by Kazue Mizumura, with Japanese textures, dress and custums demonstrated throughout. I wished I could have located pages online to show some scenes from inside the book. This  makes a wonderful multicultural choice.  I thought the book was brand new until I looked up the copyright for this post.  It was new at my public library and definetely does not look dated. 

5/5 peaceful stars
Highly recommended for elementary
Peaceful Reading…

Two Picture Books-You Choose.

Picture Book A
Moon Rabbit (2009)
This is a delightful tale of companionship featuring a young city bunny; “Little Rabbit liked living in the city.  She had her own place to stay, her favorite cafe, and so many things to see and do.”  Sometimes the city gets to be too much and she heads out of town to the country (a nice quiet park) where she sits under a tree and relaxes.  She hears beautiful night music and goes in search of the source, brown rabbit  playing (it’s always a musician causing trouble)  Ahh, it is simple retelling of country mouse/city mouse but so beautifully told and illustrated through printmaking by Natalie Russell.  The illusrations are striking with her use of unique colors and patterns.  I’ve looked through the book several times now after our initial read-aloud and the illustrations draw me into each page.  Esme writes about it here and has it on her best books of 2009 list.

Picture Book B
The Knitting of Elizabeth Amelia(2009)
This is a sweet story about the love a mother gives to her children.  “Elizabeth Amelia was made of wool.  Just where the wool came from no one knew. But her mother found it tucked into a trunk in the attic and took it out and knitted Elizabeth Amelia just the way she wanted her: with apricot-colored arms and sunlit hair and a sky-blue petticoat that she never had to take off.”  Because Elizabeth Amelia is made of wool other students at school love to cuddle up to her as they sit in their school room benches-they find her differences appealing.  She grows up, meets a hansome dancing guy, marries him and begins a family of her own, using apricot scraps from her feet. Reminiscent of Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree, the mother keeps giving until she’s lost a good bit of herself.  Oh, what we give with love to our children.  Written by Patricia Lee Gauch and illustrated by Barbara Lavellee, an Alaskan artist and illustrator (Mama, do you love me?) .

Peaceful Girl and I enjoyed reading both books but we did have a favorite.  Which one would you pick?

Peaceful Reading…

His Holiness, the Dalai Lama

Today this advocate for peace is speaking close to home and
my husband and I are biking over this morning to hear him speak. 
This  morning he will be part of a panel on violence in the school
systems and this afternoon he will give the keynote address.
Read about it in my hometown newspaper.
Check back later for my experience!!
Have a blissful day!!
Peaceful Reading…

Trip to the library

I just got back from our local little library and I literaly filled my bags-one library bag and a second one from the used book store attached to our library.  Oh, my!! 
Here’s what I got from the children’s section:
Fantastic Nonfiction

If Stones Could Speak; Unlocking the Secrets of Stonehenge by Marc Aronson
What Can You Do with an Old Red Shoe? (A Green Activity Book About Reuse) by Anna Alter

Picture Books

The Travel Game by John Grandits; illustrated by R.W. Alley
A Pair of Red Clogs by Masako Matsuno; illustrated by Kazue Mizumura

The Knitting of Elizabeth Amelia by Patricia Lee Gauch; illustrated by Barbara Lavallee
Moon Rabbit by Natalie Russell

To The Beach by Thomas Docherty

What a haul of amazingly great books!  My seven-year-old second grader has become such a girl of discovery so I picked a lot of nonfiction.  I also liked to find good nonfiction for my school library and this is a fantastic way to research them before I buy them from Titlewave.  Nonfiction is expensive and it is sometimes difficult to tell how hard the text is without previewing it. 

We will be happily reading tonight!
Congratulations to Kay of My Random Acts of Reading won
my ARC of She’s So Dead to Us by Kieren Scott!!
I’ve begun Fablehaven by Brandon Mull and I love it!!

 

Peaceful Reading…

Fairy Tale Fridays

     Okay yes, I know Friday is almost over but I have had a very busy day!  Not quite a Cinderella kinda day but busy.  I didn’t get home until after seven and my first assignment was to finish Three Wishes so I can give it back to my friend, Tina.  I can cross it off my list-check. 
     Tif at Tif Talks Books hosts Fairy Tale Fridaysand she wrote about Three Billy Goats Gruff, one of my very favorite tales.  She talks about how that story just begs to be read aloud and I agree.  My son-you know, the 15-yr-old, when he was little, loved acting out that very tale at a nearby park that happens to have a wooden bridge over part of the playground.  He would giggle uncontrollably as we traipsed over the bridge taking turns as the troll.  Oh, the good old days when he was easily amused!!
     My fairy tale project with second graders is winding down with several dramatic re-enactments of Little Red Riding Hood talking place in the library this week.  We have two more stories to cover from There’s a Wolf at the Door but I do plan on fitting in Three Billy Goats Gruff at the tail end.  Acting them out I think, has really helped students remember the sequence of events.  I don’t have a favorite version of this and I think that is because I prefer one that you might find in a big, old, dusty fairy tale book.  I did find this toe-tapping, hip hop video…too bad I can’t show it to students.  They would love it.


 

Peaceful Reading…

Look Again

(2009)

     I think every parent’s worst nightmare would be to have your child stolen; taken away in the dead of the night by some monster of a person…oh, right, that’s my awful reaccuring dream.  Lisa Scottoline takes an adopting parent’s worst nightmare and crafts this very beautiful story around it.  I loved getting to know Ellen Glesson as she moves from the joys of juggling single-parenting her son, Will, to the demands of a full-time reporting job.  Her comfortable world begins to crack just a little the day she spots one of those “Have you seen this child?” flyer and the child’s photo looks remarkably like Will.  She tosses the flyer away only retrieving it seconds later.  She becomes fixated on looking into Will’s adoption, driving here and there across the East Coast locating family members of the birth mother’s. 
    I knew things were not quite right when the adoption lawyer turned up dead but that was only a small tip of the rest of the mystery involving Will’s legal parents.  I so enjoyed it and at times didn’t want to put it down.  It was supposed to be my lighter book sandwiched between Little Bee by Chris Cleave and The Book Thief by Markus Zusak, both excellent books on serious topics.  It was lighter but fun and exciting as well.  I noticed from checking out her website, Scottoline has a a new book out, Think Twice.  I have a lot of books in line to read first but I know I will look for other books by her, including this new one.
Quote: 

“Mommy, look!”  Will called out, running toward her with a paper in his hand.  His bangs blew off his face, and Ellen flashed on the missing boy from the white card in the mail.  The likeness startled her before it dissolved in a wave of love, powerful as blood. p. 2 Look Again

This is a story about a mother’s love and how far that love will push you to go beyond normal and  find the truth.  There are shocking surprises along Ellen’s journey to uncover the truth about her son yet it wasn’t so scary that I couldn’t sleep at night.  She has an interesting love twist and a really wicked coworker bringing her misery but her role as a mother is definetely the strongest.  Doesn’t the cover pull you in a little also.  This is the paperback cover of the one I have while the hardcover has a bright red cover with no picture. 
Recommended
3.5/5 peaceful stars
Check out these other reviews:
and
Mimi and Christina at 2 Girls 1 Book review.
Peaceful Reading…

The Book Thief

by Markus Zusak

(2007)

     Watch this fantastic video [below] of Markus Zusak discussing his book. He has a sexy accent and he talks about the book with such passion. I loved that this book is set from a German village giving us the opportunity to see their take on Hitler’s Germany (it wasn’t all Yeah Heil Hitler) and I enjoyed death as the narrator. It gave me a sense of peace at death’s interaction in our daily lives.
     This book like Chris Cleave’s Little Bee is about having hope in the midst of waiting. I highly recommend this book and plan to read other Zusak novels because of his ability to create such real characters and twist the storyline around.  If you, like me, let this one slip by-go find a copy and read it.  You won’t be disappointed.


5/5 peaceful stars
Highly Recommended for HS and adult audience
Maw Books review of The Book Thief (2008)

p.s. I received this book in 2007 as an ARC (before I even blogged and knew what an advanced reader’s copy really was); I passed it on to my son instead and then let it languish on my bookshelf!!

Peaceful Reading…

Teaser Tuesday-Three Wishes

     This is a book I’ve wanted to read for a few weeks.  My friend, Tina found it at the library and is letting me read it first!!  Don’t you just love a good book-loving friend!  I finished The Book Thief this afternoon at peaceful girl’s gymnastic lesson so I am anxious to get into this book tonight. 

Here’s my teaser:

“You have everything you need to calm yourself, even when the world around you is nuts,” I told a class in Newark.
“Yeah, right,” a tenth grader scoffed at me.  “I just breathe, and that makes everything better.  You the one who’s nuts.”   ~p. 29 Three Wishes; A True Story of Good Friends, Crushing Heartbreak, and Astonishing Luck on Our Way to Love and Motherhood  by Carey Goldberg, Beth Jones, and Pamela Ferdinand

Teaser Tuesday is hosted by MizB at Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along!
Just do the following:
  1. Grab your current read
  2. Open to a random page
  3. Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page.
  4. Be careful not to include spoilers.  You don’t want to give away too much information.
  5. Share the title & author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!
Peaceful Reading…