Fun With Michael Scotto

Last year some of our classes were lucky enough to have a Skype visit with Michael Scotto for World Read Aloud Day. So when he started planning the tour for his new book Latasha and the Kidd on Keys, he contacted me to see if we wanted an "in person" visit. We were very excited to have this chance. We always enjoy Skype visits, but to meet him in person was even better and the students enjoyed having the opportunity to get signed books.

I think my students' all time favorite trailer is the one for Latasha and the Little Red Tornado.

Michael Scotto read from his books.

He also taught us his rules for writing.

1. Read

2. Listen

3. Imagine

4. Practice, Practice, Practice

Students had opportunities to ask many questions too.

Thanks so much for the wonderful visit and sharing your writing life with us!

It's Monday! What Are You Reading?

Jen & Kellee over at Teach Mentor Texts host a meme every Monday that invites people to share the children's and young adult books they have been reading over the past week and what they plan on reading the following week.

You may find more complete information about what I am reading at Goodreads or by clicking on the Goodreads widget along the side of my blog.

Printz Challenge - This year I am planning on trying to finish up all of the Printz winners and honor books that I have never read. The Printz awards go to books that exemplify excellence in young adult literature. There are fewer than 70 books since it is a relatively new award. I had already read 28 of them and this week I finished two more. :)

Both of these were powerful. Strangely enough, both were set up to flip from the past to the future with different characters. Jellicoe Road (Winner 2009) was extremely difficult to understand at first because I was listening to it. Once I had a hard copy and could flip back to other passages, everything was easier. The storyline is quite complex, but after about 120 pages, things start to pull together. I loved the strong friendships in this story. In Darkness (Winner 2013) was almost painful to read. The extreme poverty and violence present were shocking and heartbreaking. I had heard of the slave revolt in Haiti, but I realized I knew little about the country's history. I fully understand why both of these books won awards. The writing in both drew me in and made me care about the characters and their lives.

Picture Books

So now I know what F&Gs (folded and gathered) are like. It is kind of cool to look at an unbound picture book. I will have to show my students. The storyline on Who Needs Love was disjointed to me, but I appreciated the message of love. I enjoyed revisiting the story of Our Lady of Guadalupe. Since we have a shrine to her in our area, it would be great to have a copy of this book in our library. I don't think I have ever read a book by Pat Mora that I didn't like and The Beautiful Lady was certainly a winner. It was fun to visit Pat Mora's website to see the images of the lady that may be found in and around Mora's home.

For my second grade team who needed to compare two folktales, I tracked down Petite Rouge. I am so glad that someone mentioned this title. It is a hilarious take on Little Red Riding Hood with Cajun dialect. I laughed my way through as my teen daughter and I took turns reading. So if you need to compare and contrast folktale versions for Common Core, I would recommend this one.

I was excited to see Hide and Seek on Netgalley. I liked this mystery even more that Kate's first one. The mystery was fast paced and action packed, but what really got me was the setting. It takes place in the rain forest and we get to meet critters such as snot frogs, bullet ants, and three step snakes along with watching characters attempt to cross the swinging bridge of death. Too fun. I will write a more in-depth review later, but just know, this is one mystery series that keeps my attention.

By the way, the e-book format is growing on me, but I have to say, I still prefer paper copies. If it wasn't for Netgalley, I don't know how often I would read books on a device. With time, I may be completely won over, but I don't see that happening any time soon. Still get frustrated when page turning freezes up & I am stalled out.

My Mixed-Up Berry Blue Summer is a peek into the family life of a young girl named June. When the story begins we learn quickly that her Mom is in a serious relationship with another woman and is even talking marriage. June is really not sure what to think about this since not everyone in the community is receptive to such relationships. In fact, some of the people that June trusted react negatively and she hears hateful things said about her mother. The ending resolved a little too easily, but the book handles a sensitive topic well for this age level.

One more realistic fiction book was Postcards from Pismo. I am reading all of Michael Scotto's books in preparation for his visit next week. Students have enjoyed the trailer for this book and we have had some good discussion about families serving in the military. We have a few students with siblings and/or parents in the military and they have had a chance to share some of their experiences as a result of talking about this book.

Non-fiction

I enjoyed reading about the lives of some of my favorite Native American authors in Native Writers - or Indian authors. In the first section about Sherman Alexie, he is quoted as saying "Indians call each other Indians. Native American is a guilty white liberal thing." So, I guess I will go with Indian for now. I had been familiar with Alexie, Bruchac, Erdrich, Nicola Campbell and Tim Tingle, but was happy to learn about several more authors. This added a few books to my TBR pile.

The Coming Week:

I am currently reading all of these. Yikes. So hopefully I finish one or two. Happy reading!

It's Monday! What are You Reading?

Jen & Kellee over at Teach Mentor Texts host a meme every Monday that invites people to share the children's and young adult books they have been reading over the past week and what they plan on reading the following week.

You may find more complete information about what I am reading at Goodreads or by clicking on the Goodreads widget along the side of my blog.

It seems so weird that I won't have a Newbery Challenge section now. Hmph. But, that frees up time for other reading and no I am not going to start in on all of the Newbery honor books. If I did do such a crazy thing, I would start now and work my way back and that is a fact.

Picture Books

I have been on the lookout for picture books that show the experiences of indigenous peoples of our continent and When I was Eight fits the bill. This is a first-hand account of an Inuit girl who went to a residential school. While there, attempts were made to strip her culture from her. Young readers will see the many injustices, but also see the resilience of Olemaun, or Margaret as she is renamed. This is a picture book version of a portion of the previously published book Fatty Legs. I was able to read it through NetGalley and it is set to be published later this month.

Traction Man and the Beach Odyssey was okay, but I just didn't find the storyline terribly interesting and what is up with the offering of cocktails? Also, the female dolls were more than slightly annoying with their stereotypical behavior. Traction Man was fabulous in the first book, but this one isn't nearly as well done.

Library Lily was a cute book about the love of reading. I could totally relate to Lily's constant need to read. What Does Peace Feel Like? seems to be the perfect book to generate discussion about peace. I think I will use it with some of my younger classes.

Shane Evans wowed me again with We March. It is amazing that he can tell so much about the March on Washington with pictures and just a few words. He brings history alive for even very young readers.

As I think back on Stick Man's Very Bad Day I do NOT know what to say. I showed some of the illustrations to many different people and I laughed so very hard as I read it several times. It is bizarre and rather pointless, but it struck my funnybone. Steve Mockus has used pictures of actual signs from around the world to create a storyline of calamitous events for this stick man. Too funny if you are in just the right mood. Possibly irritating otherwise.

Professional

My goodreads review has some quotes and information about this thought-provoking book about culturally responsive teaching. Over and over again, I read that we need to get to know our students and their families and that the families are resources for us that we could utilize. There was so much more here that I will likely have to re-read at a later date.

Middle Grade

In preparation for our author visit with Michael Scotto, I read Latasha and the Kidd on Keys. I appreciate this sequel to Latasha and the Little Red Tornado. 

Both books are realistic fiction that shows us a family with warts and all. There are happy times, frustrating times and heart crushing times. Scotto doesn't provide a fairy tale ending, but one that is realistic and believable and hopeful. I look forward to seeing him at our school in a few weeks to share his books and about his writing.

The Coming Week

I am in the midst of two different audio books. One is a playaway so I am listening to Jellicoe Road while exercising. This is difficult since it is a rather confusing book, but I will stick with it. The other is Mark of Athena. I am listening to this while driving for the most part. I just started reading Kate Messner's new mystery Hide and Seek that I got on NetGalley. So yeah, I am "reading" three different books in three different formats. :)

I am also about to jump into some F&Gs which stands for "folded and gathered." This was new vocabulary for me. Anyway, they are pre-pub picture books and I get to read them. I am kind of holding them as treats and haven't started them yet. I just like knowing that they are sitting there waiting for me.

Have a great week of reading!

World Read Aloud Day Continues

The fun and learning just keeps rolling on here at our school.  Today two of our fifth grade classes got to visit with author Michael Scotto.  He shared about his chapter books and read one of his picture books to us.

We will have to watch the book trailer for his chapter book sometime soon.  It sure makes me want to read the book.

Next, one of our Pre-K classes had a great visit from some students at Cooper Elementary in Burlington, WI (led by @pageintraining).  They read us these really funny books:

Then, one of our first grade classes was lucky enough to visit with Michael Scotto too.  They had a fun time listening to his book and asking a ton of questions.

 We even saw a picture of his very own tornado dog.

World Read Aloud Day just keeps going, and going, and going, and going. Tomorrow another Pre-K class will have a Skype visit with some 5th grade students that will read with us. On Monday, second grade will visit with the author of the I Spy books, Jean Marzollo, and by then, all of the grades will have had a visit of some kind. I love it when there is an event that gets us trying new things and working with people from other places. These kinds of visits get us pretty excited about reading.