Text Structure – Page 22 – Unleashing Readers

An Alphabet in Bloom by Nathalie Trovato

February 10, 2017 by Kellee

An Alphabet in Bloom
Author: Nathalie Trovato
Expected Publication May 16th, 2017 by Home Grown Books

Summary: In this wordless alphabet book, children will explore the many places that plants grow, from the familiar to the fantastical. Readers will be enchanted by the colorful cut paper illustrations of Nathalie Trovato along their journey from A to Z.

About the Artist: Nathalie Trovato is a French artist, educator and polyglot who lives in Brooklyn with her inspirational family. She considers herself a visual translator and through her minimalist approach she creates poetic connections between words and images.

About Home Grown Books: Home Grown Books develops books that support its core values – organic learning, creativity, sustainability and giving back. They reject a one-size-fits-all educational model, and are committed to treating all children as unique, creative individuals. The books honor children’s innate intelligence with compelling content that will spark their curiosity. As the books engage the imagination, little readers are drawn back to the books, effortlessly strengthening their reading habits and fostering confidence in themselves as a reader. Believing in the power of art to engage a little reader’s mind, their books feature artwork by emerging and established artists that will capture the imaginations of your little one. The language is simple and the artwork is complex, leaving room beyond the words for a child’s imagination to explore. As part of their Mini Museum Series, they partnered with high profile artists such as Wangechi Mutu & Katherine Bradford, to produce visually stimulating board books. Home Grown Books are the only independent publisher that manufactures all their books in the US with eco-friendly practices. The NYC board books are printed with 100% recycled (min 35% post consumer) CCNB paperboard with an aqueous coating. The paperback books are printed on 50% post consumer paper using low-VOC vegetable inks, and renewable wind-powered energy and the book pack packaging is printed in New York on paper from managed forest using low-VOC vegetable inks and renewable wind-powered energy. More info and news can be viewed here: homegrownbooksnyc.com/blogs/news

About the Founder: Kyla Ryman saw a need for creative and compelling reading content for children. In 2012, she founded Home Grown Books to develop resources that empowered parents and inspired little readers. Kyla is a mother of two boys and an advocate of organic learning. She embraces thinking, playing, and creating as the building blocks for learning. More info here: homegrownbooksnyc.com/pages/about-us#founder.

Review: I am so impressed with all of the beautiful books I’ve seen from Home Grown Books so far. First, I read two books from the Mini Museum series which highlights artists for young children, and now Trovato’s piece of art alphabet book that is unlike any other alphabet book I’ve seen. Each page is filled with cut paper illustrations of objects that start with each sequential letter. T (for Trent!) includes three, tree, trunk, tulips, twigs, and two; G includes garden, gardener, giant, glove, grab, grass, grasshopper, green, and grow; and V includes venus flytrap, vicious, and and violet ground beetle.

Teachers’ Tools for Navigation: After viewing these beautiful illustrations and discussing each page and the words they represent, readers can make their own pieces of alphabet art.

Discussion Questions: What words do you see represented for each letter?; What other words could the artist have included?

Flagged Passages:

C: caterpillar, chlorophyll, crawl, creeping D: daffodil, dawn, dew, dragonfly, droop, droplets, dusk

Read This If You Love: Art, Alphabet books

Recommended For:

The Book of Heroines: Tales of History’s Gutsiest Gals & The Book of Heroes: Tales of History’s Most Daring Dudes from National Geographic Kids

February 12, 2017February 1, 2017 by Kellee

Nonfiction Wednesday

Nonfiction Picture Book Wednesday is hosted by Kid Lit Frenzy and was started to help promote the reading of nonfiction texts. Most Wednesdays, we will be participating and will review a nonfiction text (though it may not always be a picture book).
Be sure to visit Kid Lit Frenzy and see what other nonfiction books are shared this week!

The Book of Heroines: Tales of History’s Gutsiest Gals
Author: Stephanie Warren Drimmer
Published November 8th, 2016 by National Geographic Children’s Books

The Book of Heroes: Tales of History’s Most Daring Guys
Author: Cristpin Boyer
Published November 8th, 2016 by National Geographic Children’s Books

The Book of Heroines Summary: Everybody needs a role model! Discover true stories of superstars, war heroes, world leaders, gusty gals, and everyday girls who changed the world.

From Sacagawea to Mother Teresa, Annie Oakley to Malala Yousafzai, these famous females hiked up their pants and petticoats or charged full-speed ahead to prove that girls are just as tough as boys…maybe even tougher. Complete with amazing images and a fun design, this is the book that every kid with a goal, hope, or dream will want to own.

The Book of Heroes Summary: Everybody needs a role model! Discover the true stories of superheroes, rebels, world leaders, action heroes, sports legends, and many more daring dudes, all of whom played their part to make their mark, make a contribution, and make the world a better place.

From Abraham Lincoln to Sitting Bull, Stephen Hawking to Galileo, these cool guys had the boldness, bravery, and brains to meet the challenges of their day. With a fun design, engaging text, and high-quality photographs, this is ultimate hero guide and keepsake for 21st century kids .

Review: As I’ve stated over and over, I am so impressed with all the new National Geographic Kids books that I have encountered over the last couple of years. With this text, I specifically found the way that the publisher/authors structure the texts makes them so thematic-based thus accessible and informative. The books also have something for everyone as so many different types of heroines/heroes are featured from scientists, historical heroes, political heroes, and more! I cannot wait to put these in my classroom and find out how to use them with students!

Teachers’ Tools for Navigation: Teachers will find this book irreplaceable! It has so much information to fit into so many different units, connect with so many different texts, and relates to so many parts of history. These texts could also be used as the basis of a inquiry project where students use these texts as previews and they choose a theme or a hero/heroine and complete a research/inquiry project around it or maybe even create a text set around the theme or the person.

Discussion Questions: Which heroine/hero do you think changed history the most?; If you were to take part in an inquiry project about one hero/heroine, who would you like to learn more about?; Why did the author/publisher choose to structure the text in the way they did? What other structures could they have chosen? Which do you feel would have had a bigger impact?

Flagged Passages:

Read This If You Love: Biographies, History, Women’s Rights, Science, Animals, Mythology

Recommended For:

**Thank you to Karen at Media Masters Publicity for providing copies for review!**

Frightlopedia by Julie Winterbottom

January 18, 2017 by Kellee

Nonfiction Wednesday

Frightlopedia: An Encyclopedia of Everything Scary, Creepy, and Spine-Chilling, from Arachnids to Zombies
Author: Julie Winterbottom
Illustrator: Stefano Tambellini
Published August 23rd, 2016 by Workman Publishing Company

Summary: Here’s the book for kids who love scary stuff, whether it’s telling ghost stories around a campfire, discovering the origins of various vampires, monsters, and witches, or reading creepy tales under the covers with a flashlight.

Combining fact, fiction, and hands-on activities, Frightlopedia is an illustrated A-Z collection of some of the world’s most frightening places, scariest stories, and gruesomest creatures, both real and imagined. Discover Borneo’s Gomantong Cave, where literally millions of bats, cockroaches, spiders, and rats coexist—in pitch darkness. Learn about mythical creatures like the Mongolian Death Worm—and scarily real ones like killer bees, which were accidentally created by scientists in the 1950s. Visit New Orleans’s Beauregard-Keyes house, where Civil War soldiers are said to still clash in the front hall. Plus ghost stories from around the world, a cross-cultural study of vampires, and how to transform into a zombie with makeup. Each entry includes a “Fright Meter” measurement from 1 to 3, because while being scared is fun, everyone has their limit.

Review: I loved the structure of this text, and students and other teachers will as well. Different than a traditional encyclopedia, the Frightlopedia mixes fact, fiction, traditional literature, and hands-on activities which makes this a perfect classroom text as it will suck in readers in so many different ways, and it will also work in such a variety of classroom activities as well.

Teachers’ Tools for Navigation: Like I shared above, this text has a really nice mix of genres along with hands-on activities. For example, parts of the text could be used during lessons on mythology, literary standards, traditional literature, science, or history. There is just so much, it is hard to actually share it all. Go into MONSTERS, if you want include mythological creatures; SHARKS or JELLYFISH during biology; CAPUCHIN CATACOMBS or MUMMIES in history; XYLOPHOBIA or CLAUSTROPHOBIA during word students of affixes; WRITE YOUR OWN GHOST STORY during creative writing; and so much more!

Discussion Questions: Which section did you find the most frightening? Why? The most interesting? Why?; Do you believe in ghosts?; How were mummies made in different cultures?; Which animal is the most frightening to you?

Flagged Passages:

Read This If You Love: Ghost stories, mythology, being scared, learning about weird animals, learning about scary history

Recommended For:

Tales from the Arabian Nights: Stories of Adventure, Magic, Love, and Betrayal by Donna Jo Napoli

January 11, 2017 by Kellee

Nonfiction Wednesday

Tales from the Arabian Nights: Stories of Adventure, Magic, Love, and Betrayal by Donna Jo Napoli
Author: Donna Jo Napoli
Illustrator: Christina Balit
Published October 11th, 2016 by National Geographic Children’s Books

Summary: Classic stories and dazzling illustrations of princesses, kings, sailors, and genies come to life in a stunning retelling of the Arabian folk tales from One Thousand and One Nights and other collections, including those of Aladdin, Sinbad the Sailor, and Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves. The magical storytelling of award-winning author Donna Jo Napoli dramatizes these timeless tales and ignites childrens’ imaginations.

Review: This short story anthology of Arabian mythology was fascinating, captivating, and beautifully written and illustrated. The layers of themes and stories built upon each other to create a collection that is a wonderful introduction to true traditional literature.

One thing that I at first struggled with but then ended up loving was how stories overlapped with stories. The main story was that a young woman was telling her husband a story every night to keep him in suspense so that he keeps her alive for another night. So within her story, she is telling stories. Then sometimes the characters in her stories, to help her add suspense and cliffhangers, will tell stories. So that meant at times the story you were reading was a story within a story within a story. Sounds confusing but the way it was explained and implemented allowed for the tactic to do what the young woman hoped it would do for her husband–I just had to keep reading!

I also, in my ignorance, had not read any Arabian traditional literature as I only knew the pop culture versions, so I loved learning about the culture and history through their folk tales.

Teachers’ Tools for Navigation: Greek mythology is taught throughout school; however, there are folk tales and mythology from so many other cultures. I would love to see more Arabian folk tales taught during mythology units (and why not more folk tales and mythology from other cultures as well!). Donna Jo Napoli along with Christina Balit already have anthologies for Egyptian and Norse (and Greek), so those are a good place to start!

Discussion Questions: What are some themes you see throughout all of the tales?; How are the stories you were familiar with different than the popular culture versions you knew?

Flagged Passages:

“Princess Budur unfoldedthe letter and her own ring dropped into her palm. She read the letter. At last! She planted her feet against the wall and strained until the iron around her neck snapped. She pulled the curtain aside and threw herself into Qamar al-Zaman’s arms. On that day they were wed.” (p. 72-73)

Read This If You Love: The Arabian Nights by various and other Middle Eastern or Asian stories and folk tales, mythology

Recommended For:

**Thank you to Karen at Media Masters Publicity for providing a copy for review!!**

Dining with Dinosaurs: A Tasty Guide to Mesozoic Munching by Hannah Bonner

January 4, 2017 by Kellee

Nonfiction Wednesday

Also, I’d like to thank Sarah Brannen for making such a beautiful piece of artwork for our weekly nonfiction link up. It is perfect for illustrating why nonfiction is so important!

Dining with Dinosaurs: A Tasty Guide to Mesozoic Munching
Author: Hannah Bonner
Published September 20th, 2016 by National Geographic Children’s Books

Summary: Sure you know T-Rex was the meat-eating king and brontosaurus munched on leaves, but what else was on the dino dining menu during the Mesozoic era?

Meet the ‘vores: carnivores, piscivores, herbivores, insectivores, “trashivores,” “sunivores,” and omnivores like us.

Readers will be surprised and inspired to learn about dino diets and they’ll get to explore how scientists can tell which dinosaurs ate what just from looking at fossils!

Journey through artist and author Hannah Bonner’s whimsical world to learn how the dinosaurs and their contemporaries bit, chewed, and soaked up their food.

Review: Although the cover looks a bit silly, this text is to be taken seriously. Hannah Bonner does a wonderful job examining what different dinosaurs ate, the science behind what and why they ate what they did, how paleontologists know what dinos ate, and where all these dinosaurs fit in the grand scheme of things. Told in a unique structure that alternates between Hannah and a microraptor narrating and comic strip interviews with scientists, the text is not only informative but very entertaining.

Teachers’ Tools for Navigation: This is going to be the perfect text for a dinosaur unit in a classroom. It allows for so many different discussions including the different periods within the Mesozoic Era (and Cenozoic Era), connections between dinosaur diets and modern animals, types of scientists that study dinosaurs, different species of dinosaurs, and even text structure. Such a wide range of opportunities for classroom discussion (and even extension activities from the discussions). Additionally, the back matter of the text is filled to the brim with information and even an experiment.

Discussion Questions: What are some ways paleontologists can tell which dinosaurs ate what?; What modern animals fit into each of the ‘vore categories in the text?; Why did the author choose to include the comic strip interviews throughout the book?

Flagged Passages:

Read This If You Love: Dinosaurs

Recommended For:

**Thank you to Karen at Media Masters Publicity for providing a copy for review!!**

On the Construction Site: A Shine-A-Light Book by Carron Brown

December 14, 2016 by Kellee

Nonfiction Wednesday

On the Construction Site: A Shine-A-Light Book
Author: Carron Brown
Illustrator: Bee Johnson
Published July 6th, 2016 by Ivy Press

Goodreads Summary: Watch a skyscraper spring up with this beautifully illustrated interactive book! By simply holding the book up to the light, or shining a light behind each page, young readers will be able to discover how large buildings are constructed, who builds them, and all about the amazing machines they use in the process. The innovative see-through feature fulfils a similar function to lift-the-flaps books, but has the added interactive dimension of the child being able to see both the surface and the hidden picture at the same time.

Kellee’s Review: Trent is enthralled with this book! Not only does it have a question and answer set up, you have to use a flashlight on the back of the pages to reveal the answer, and the answers all include construction vehicles–this is a win-win-win for Trent! After going through an obsessive time with this book, Trent was even sleeping with his flashlight. Trent also is fascinated and a bit fearful of shadows, so we used the book as a way to discuss how shadows work.

Ricki’s Review: What a clever, clever concept! My son had a blast reading this book. He clapped as I held each page up to the light to reveal the neat construction site images behind each page. Because he is young, I don’t think he quite understood how they worked, so I attributed it to magic. There is a lot of great information in this book, and we had fun learning all about how construction sites work. I will definitely be purchasing more books from the Shine-A-Light series in the future.

Teachers’ Tools for Navigation: On the Construction Site is a wonderful text to start conversations about shadows; construction of a skyscraper; and construction vehicles, planning, and careers. Also with its Q&A text structure, it will start conversations as you read the text and see the construction of the building. It’ll be a perfect read aloud and think aloud for early ed classrooms.

Discussion Questions: What steps must the workers take to build a skyscraper?; What safety items did you see on the construction site?; How does the Shine-a-Light books work?; What construction vehicles take part in the building of the skyscraper?; What different jobs are there on the construction site?

Flagged Passages: This is a little bit different. Instead of a flagged passage, we are sharing a You Tube video from the publisher that shows how Shine-A-Light books work and shows the other titles in the series.

Read This If You Love: Anything construction!

Recommended For:

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**Thank you to Lynn at Kane Miller for providing copies for review!**

Supercars (Mean Machines Series) by Kane Miller Books

December 7, 2016 by Ricki

Nonfiction Wednesday

Supercars
Published: March 2016 by Kane Miller Books

Kane Miller Summary of the Mean Machine Series: Sure to get your young car enthusiast revved up, the Mean Machines series is pedal-to-themetal, fast and furious fun … from the comfort and safety of your living room! Which customized car has a top speed of 252 mph? Which engine has a nitrous oxide injector? Which car’s nickname is the Black Bat? Which car has a plasma TV inside the truck?! Find out!

Ricki’s Review: My favorite aspect of this book (and the series) is that readers of all levels will enjoy it. My toddler absolutely loves the pictures and can’t get enough of them. This book has not left our house since we received it a few weeks ago. He says, “What’s this, Mama?” to every picture on every page. My husband has also enjoyed this book, and I love to watch the two of them engrossed in the pictures and text. This is a book that reminds me that there is so much that I don’t know about cars. I may not be able to pronounce some of the terms in the book, but I most certainly have fun trying! I suspect this book will remain on our couch for several more weeks (if not months), and I am quite all right with that.

Teachers’ Tools for Navigation: This would be a great book to spark research projects. Teachers might give students a copy of one of the books in this series and ask them to research cars that would fit into the other texts of the series. They might also investigate why certain cars are included while others aren’t.

Discussion Questions: Which car is the fastest? Which is the largest? Which has the most power?; What differences do you see between the cars? What similarities do you see?; What makes these cars “super”?; Which car would you most want to own and why?

We Flagged a spread from the Performance Cars book, which looks similar to Supercars (but with different cars):

Read This If You Love: Cars!

Recommended For:

**Thank you to Lynn for providing a review copy!**