The Green Man Series

The Onion's funny take on adult enthusiasm for children's literature...


Adults Go Wild Over Latest In Children's Picture Book Series

Favorite Poem Project

A fun way to watch people read and discuss their favorites. If you scroll tro the right for a while, you can find a great sample with a fifth grader's perspective on The Sloth by Theodore Roethke. What a fun project to try in your class!

Which blogs to click on?

If you are about to read "So Far From the Bamboo Grove" try:

JeSsIcA's Blog
KBuzz
Slip N Slide


If you are about to read "The Year of Impossible Goodbyes" try:

ima warrior
LiveLaughLove
Booksforkiddos

Enjoy!

Anticipation Guides

Here's a link to a traditional description of anticipation guides. This site suggests them for upper elementary (4-6) and secondary, but they can also be adapted with success for younger grades. Though many teachers choose to do these as a list of true/false questions, I find that with our access to new media sometimes "a picture is worth a thousand words." That is, the juxtaposition of an image and a statement or a quote and an image can elicit strong emotions in the soon-to-be-reader. Also consider (for your class, if not for this project) short video, picture books, poems, or audio files to really evoke the big themes that you want kids to pay attention to while reading.

As for me, I was intrigued by two new things this evening:

1) A blogger's passionate plea to remember (and for the Japanese government to properly acknowledge) the hardships of comfort women.

2) Brian's suggestion to view a couple of films from Clint Eastwood that deal precisely with this topic, I just found some more information online, and I want to find these films!

Enjoy reading your second title; I look forward to next week's discussion:)

Welcome to Reading and Responding to Children's Literature!

If you've made it here, then you are on the right path to blogging your way through a whole lot of children's books this term. Please remember to send me you blog address right away so that I can get it linked over on the right side of this page. Also, feel free to browse the posts of past (and soon, current) students to get ideas for new books to read. The idea of this blog is to get you thinking and sharing children's literature, movies, and culture with one another.

Further, feel free to share your blog with others outside of our immediate class; I've had several past student get "followed" by authors (they sometime check who is reviewing their books:), local teachers, and even other children's literature fans throughout the world. It's a nice way to both use your professional voice and get your name and ideas out there. It also allows you as an almost-teacher to participate in an education minded online community.

Best wishes and happy blogging!

Wild Things

Check out the trailer for the new Spike Jonze version of one of our favorite books! I'm so excited for this film to come out! What do you all think?

Controversial Books

If you would like to find your five controversial picture books for this week, you might want to check out Amazon's list (many of which are on reserve in the lab or can be found at the Iowa City Public Library. You are reading The Misfits, but Amazon also has a good list of YA controversial books.

Also, you can find a lot of articles on this topic out there. Here's one on the book Jen was showing around at the beginning of class:) I encourage you to be creative (there is no real "border" with controversial books. Please include in your post 1) your thoughts of why this picture book might be considered controversial and 2) whether you are comfortable teaching the book to children. If not, why not? Which grade levels would you recommend the book for?

Here are a few more suggestions (hat tip to Lewis).

HIROSHIMA, NO PIKA, by Toshi Maruki

WHITE WASH, by Ntozake Shange

NAPPY HAIR, by Carolivia Herron

FLY AWAY HOME, by Eve Bunting

SMOKY NIGHT, by Eve Bunting & David Diaz

FRIENDS FROM THE OTHER SIDE, by Gloria Anzaldua

ROSE BLANCHE, by Christopher Gallaz & Roberto Innocenti

FAITHFUL ELEPHANTS: A TRUE STORY OF ANIMALS, PEOPLE, AND WAR, by Yukio Tsuchiya

SAMI AND THE TIME OF TROUBLES, Judith Heide

Pale Green Pants

So I may have mentioned my love for Dr. Seuss in class, but I wanted to comment on it again here. I found Seuss' books to be an incredible (and, I'll admit, unexpected) resource when I was in the classroom. They were thought provoking for my sixth graders; titles that I hadn't read in years proved surprisingly durable. Characters like the Lorax, the Sneeches, and Horton helped us talk about "big picture" issues like the environment, ethics, and friendship. But the Seuss that I want to recommend to you here is the one that I read to my 3-year old stepson last night. It's his favorite Seuss, but one that I never appreciated until I read it with him. It's called The Pale Green Pants. The real brilliance of this book (I think) is taking a silly idea (a pair of pants with nobody inside them) and making it actually scary. I was surprised at first, but now I can see the beauty of the dark purple backgrounds and how they are indeed, pretty creepy. Also, the story gives the paranoia-like decline of the main character (a Seuss style bear thingie) in great detail; he looks exhausted and has dark circles around his eyes. But in the end the pants were really scared of him (I know, not too surprising). Overall, it is really charming and surprisingly spooky. I highly recommend it if you haven't read it yet!

Genre or Genres?

What are genres? Which genres are important to children's literature? Science Fiction? Fantasy? Is all of children's literature a genre? Well...there are no easy answers here! During this class we will explore and debate these concerns. We will also think about why all of this matters. In the mean time I would like you to explore a couple of small links that will inform our debate.

1) Two children's literature critics demonstrate how children's literature might be a genre
2) Genres in the classical sense (the way you will see them in libraries)

Next week we will be signing up for genre presentations. As you read through the genres, please think about few that interest you. I'll ask you to get together with groups next week and the presentations will occur during the two classes that follow.

The Elephant Wish: Eerie and Wonderful!

I recently had the chance to sit down with The Elephant Wish, a fantastic first book by the head writer for Sesame Street, Lou Berger. I had chosen the book from the "new books" shelves in the curriculum lab after I recognized the cover art by my new favorite illustrator Ana Juan. If you haven't checked out her website, then you are in for a Pan's Labyrinth-style treat! This Spanish artist did the illustrations for another favorite book (one that I now own), The Jewel Box Ballerinas.

Though I was sure that I would love the art, I was not at all expecting such a terrific story. Berger's main character, a little girl named Eliza, makes a birthday wish to be carried off by elephants. Not long after an elephant (wearing a floppy black hat) comes along to do just that. Eliza's parents dream of her marching with elephants, but are caught up in their own lives. It is only Eliza's elderly neighbor that understands what happened because the same thing had happened to her when she was a little girl.

Now I'm going to go out on a limb here, but it felt to me like the girl in the story was imagining what it would be like if she wasn't in the world with her parents--if she had died. I searched online for links about "elephants" and "death" and found nada. So perhaps it was just me. Still, I had this image reinforced when the elderly woman took her place riding the elephant, sending Eliza back to her parent's world.

I would be really curious to know your interpretations. Did you get the same eerie sense? Something else?

"Here Be Dragons"

Welcome to my blog. I created it (with a little help) for the course I teach at the University of Iowa. I'm hoping that it can become a place where I can share my musings about topics related to the teaching, writing, and enjoyment of children's literature; it will also be a hub for my student's blogs on related topics. On a side note, this blog draws its title from a phrase used to denote the uncharted waters of medieval maps. I pictured this like our journey into new territory with children's literature and media. After all, children's books are pretty odd if you think about it. A book written by adults--though often from a child's point of view--for an audience of children. Unfortunately, moments after the "Here Be Dragons" was suggested, a little research accidentally debunked what seems to be a really cool myth. Indeed these maps never seems to exist in the form that I imagined them. Wow, this title just keeps getting better...

The quote under the title comes from Maurice Sendak's "Where the Wild Things Are," a book that I loved as a child, and now love to read with children. Maurice Sendak is amazing and really funny, if you've never listened to him check out this interview on NPR. Also, in case you're a fan (or soon become one) of this book, you'll want to check out these amazing stills of this soon-to-be film from Spike Jonze.

So here it is. A little blogging experiment in my own class. I'm tremendously excited.