[Z] Zoo’s Who by Douglas Florian

Zoo’s Who is a book of poems and paintings about animals by Douglas Florian. (Linking to Amazon because the author’s website links to Amazon…) The paintings are mixed media with stamps and pieces of magazines and parts of the poems themselves incorporated into the paintings. The poems are short and sweet. While some hit the mark better than others, they are great for getting alliteration, rhythm, and puns into children’s ears before they decide poetry is hard and inaccessible. There are also nice examples of concrete poems, and it is obvious thought was put into the design of each poem and painting. (This is probably why I like poetry books by designers so much.)

My favorite poem is “The Eagle”:

I’m not a seagull.
I’m royal.
I’m regal.
All birds are not
Created eagle.

Okay, so maybe I just really like the last line. But isn’t it good? 😛

This post is my Blogging from A to Z entry for the letter Z.

[P] Pi in the Sky by Wendy Mass

(This was first written for my Materials for Tweens class.)

In Pi in the Sky by Wendy Mass, Joss is the seventh son of the Supreme Overlord of the Universe living in The Realms, but that doesn’t mean he’s anything special. It just means that he gets to deliver pies. Not just ordinary pies, of course, but pies nonetheless. His life changes when one day, the Earth disappears, taking his best friend, Kal, and his parents with it, leaving behind a girl from Earth named Annika. Now it’s up to Joss and Annika to bring the Earth back.

This campy space coming-of-age adventure is firmly rooted in science but still manages to be funny, moving, and entertaining. Readers will root for Joss as he races around The Realms trying to achieve a seemingly impossible task. The last chapter provides a nice ending that ties up all the loose ends while still leaving room for future adventures.

An educator’s guide with discussion questions and curriculum connections can be found here. You can also read the first seven chapters of the book for free in this sneak peek edition!

This post is my Blogging from A to Z entry for the letter P.

[N] No More Dead Dogs by Gordan Korman

(This was first written for my Materials for Tweens class.)

Wallace Wallace’s policy has always been to tell the truth. In No More Dead Dogs by Gordan Korman, when Wallace is assigned to write a book report about Old Shep, My Pal, he won’t pretend he likes the book just because it’s his English teacher, Mr. Fogelman’s favorite book. This results in detention, and he is banned from football until he writes a satisfactory essay. Instead of warming the bench at football games, he has to spend time after school with the drama club, run by Mr. Fogelman, as they put on a play of Old Shep, My Pal. Wallace’s suggestions make the play a whole lot more interesting, but someone wants to frame him for sabotaging the play.

This book asks the question: Who are your real friends? As Wallace Wallace goes from being a popular jock to a drama nerd, he reevaluates the people around him that he considered his friends. The “villain” of the story is underdeveloped, but it comes off as more realistic this way–all of Wallace’s friends have their good and bad parts, just like real people do.

This post is my Blogging from A to Z entry for the letter N.

[M] Millicent Min, Girl Genius by Lisa Yee

(This was first written for my Materials for Tweens class.)

Eleven-and-a-half-year-old high schooler Millicent Min might be a genius, but she’s no good at making friends. When her mother signs her up for volleyball and she’s forced to tutor Stanford Wong, the basketball jock and her archenemy, she resigns herself to a terrible summer. But summer is ready to prove her wrong…

Even though Millicent may seem like an exaggerated character on the surface, she comes across as a pretty real depiction of a girl who is only good at school who is facing real problems that she needs to deal with head on. The book teaches lessons about friendship and the important things in life that all children have to learn at some point in their lives.

Millicent Min by Lisa Yee won the Sid Fleischman Humor Award in 2004 (among others).

This post is my Blogging from A to Z entry for the letter M.

[REVIEW] Sideways Stories from Wayside School by Louis Sachar

I remember buying all of the books in the Wayside School series by Louis Sachar (including Sideways Arithmetic) from my Scholastic book order at school. I loved how they made me laugh when I read them because they were so silly.

I wanted to do Sideways Stories from Wayside School with my third grade book club class last year, but I couldn’t find it at home, so I went to the library and borrowed a copy. The next week, half of my class received the book as a Christmas present from their teacher at school (they all had the same teacher). I guess she thought they would enjoy it, too. And we were both right. Most of the kids, even those that did not normally enjoy reading (i.e., the boys), had started reading the book during snack time. They were laughing so hard that they had to show their friends what they were reading. I had never seen most of them so excited about a book before.

Just what was in this book that made the kids laugh so hard? They were probably laughing at the kid with the raincoats, but I liked the nonsense of school life that this books brings to light. Like the story of the three Erics, where one Eric was called “Fat” because the other two actually were fat, even though “Fat Eric” was actually skinny.

All the short vignettes that make up this book have something to say about life and human nature. My favorites are the one about the boy who couldn’t help but pull the two beautiful long pigtails in front of him (always made me want to pull pigtails ever since I read this as an elementary schooler) and the boy who smiled and smiled all day. Everyone wanted to know why, but he wouldn’t tell them. Finally, he said, “You need a reason to be sad. You don’t need a reason to be happy.”

I was surprised to find such profound insight in a book for kids, especially one that was just supposed to be funny. I doubt most kids would understand some of them until they are older, but there are some playground truths that kids understand already, which may be part of why they find the book funny.

Can be read with interest by at least second to fifth grade, although once middle school hits, the kids might feign disinterest just for the heck of it. That’s okay, because Sachar writes great books for middle schoolers and high schoolers, too. Contains: Gross things, scary teachers, nonsensical school.