The American Library Association (ALA) Youth Media book awards are huge.
You can be sure that the books they select are the best-of-the-best. In other words, great choices to add to your child’s collection.
This year, the Newbery Medal went to Dead End In Norvelt, by Jack Gantos. Read more about it, and the runners-up, here.
And the Caldecott Medal was awarded to Chris Raschka, for A Ball For Daisy. More, here. (They don’t have 2012 information posted yet – this announcement was only made this morning - but probably by this afternoon they will.)
Congratulations to all of the ALA winners.
For more information about the ALA awards, and for a look at the 2012 winners in all categories, click here.
“In The Bag!” by Monica Kulling, illustrated by David Parkins
Here is a lovely, empowering book you should read with your kid for a couple of reasons.
First, it’s a terrific book, a good story with wonderful illustrations. Second, it’s empowering for girls. It teaches a young generation—that sometimes can’t believe that women were ever discriminated against in North America—about women’s struggle for equality. Third, it’s a biography–a great way to introduce the genre.
In The Bag! tells the real-life story of American Margaret Knight who, in the mid-1800s, became an inventor.
Kids will enjoy reading about how she invented something we all take for granted: a flat-bottomed paper bag. (Before that, we learn, “bags” were simply scrunched-up cones of paper.) While Knight starts out simply trying to solve a problem, kids will be amazed when she comes up against the “how can a woman be an inventor?!” mindset of the day.
It’s a book that can open up a really interesting dialogue with your kid. Or, at the very least, get him thinking about paper bags a little differently.
This is the video that’s recently gone viral. If you (and your kid) haven’t seen it, you must – it’s lovely. One-minute and 52 seconds of delightful, stop-motion, book-adoration.
Visited the bookstore “Type” in Toronto this morning and got the back-story: Apparently a couple of filmmakers (Sean Ohlenkamp for one) have made these kinds of videos before on a smaller scale. They wanted a larger venue, so they approached the owners of Type, who were happy to accommodate. Type let them take over the store for a number of nights from 9 p.m. until the next morning, when all the books – of course – had to be back on the shelves, in order.
They had about 20 volunteers to help them reshelve each night. (The books didn’t go back by themselves, unfortunately.) It took over a year to edit.
The video came out a couple of days ago and it’s really taken off. Gotten coverage throughout North America. Yay for Type – and books! (And my friend Val, who originally sent me the link to the video!)
Every week, I do a half-hour presentation at my son’s school on “the news.”
It’s often the best half-hour of my week. And a lot of the kids – and the parents – tell me they look forward to the class.
What I do is pretty simple; you can do it, too. Either at your kids’ school (especially if they’ve got an open-minded teacher like ours) or just at home.
What it will do for your kid is to get him interested in reading the newspaper, following news stories and learning about what’s going on in the world. You’ll be helping him develop a life-long habit of curiosity and general knowledge.
Here’s what I do
I read the newspapers for a week. Simple – most of us do it anyway. So at the end of the week I know stuff, like that Kim Jong-Il died, and that there’s a problem in Syria, and that Sidney Crosby’s out of the game again, and that Justin Bieber’s in Toronto doing a charity concert. In other words – the news.
Then, once a week, I tell the kids about it.
And although it’s a class of grade fours and fives, when I’m talking about the news you can hear a pin drop. That’s because kids are very interested in knowing what’s happening.
In half an hour I might do six or seven stories. The most important thing I do is to use my “adult” knowledge of the world and put events in context. For instance, when an adult reads “Kim Jong-Il has died,” we think “uh-oh – what will that mean for South Korea?” Whereas kids think, “What is a Kim Jong-Il?”
So I open by explaining that there’s a country in Asia called North Korea, and for 17 years it’s been run by guy named Kim Jong-Il… and I explain. I don’t get too graphic and I certainly avoid scary stuff – and I try to point out the positives. For instance, in this case to illustrate his eccentric nature I tell them about how Kim Jong-Il used to dress up as Elvis and sing Blue Suede Shoes. The kids laugh but then they quickly jump to the understanding that if the leader of your country is doing that stuff, it may be amusing but it’s probably not good.
One of the kids in the class is now working on a news website himself. He wants to become a journalist. My son is thinking about a career as a sports journalist. Other kids in the class go home and talk about the news with their parents. One time, I had a parent come up to me and say, “my son explained to me what the G8 is!” So that’s pretty fun.
More than that, the kids are reading. Reading. Seeing newspapers as relevant to them, and not just boring adult stuff.
Since newspapers are not specifically kid-friendly, I point kids to our website, TeachingKidsNews.com, which offers daily kid-friendly news articles. You certainly don’t have to use this website, but if you need kid-friendly news articles, it’s always appropriate. Plus, it’s free.
However you do it, introduce your kids to the news. You’ll quickly find out that they want to know what’s happening in the world, and not just what the toy companies tell them is important. And it’ll get them reading.
My bookshelf and my books have been held captive in my attic for eight years.
Last week I hired a professional organizer. Long-story short, my bookshelf is now where it belongs – in my home-office, with all of my favourite books on it.
There’s the Pelican Shakespeare, with the tissue paper leaves; The Tragedies, The Comedies, The Histories and The Romances. This is the Shakespeare that I used to lie in bed with, cram for my mid-terms with, enjoy with a glass of white wine in the days before I was sophisticated enough for red wine.
Timothy Findley, himself, signed that copy of You Went Away. I stood in line, he signed it, I slammed it shut and I scurried away with my autographed copy, like a squirrel with a treasured nut. Later, I opened it to read my sage’s inscription at my leisure, and share it with my friend. To our amazement, and then hilarity, we could not decipher what on earth he had written. “Cordially free”? I looked at her. We peered at the handwriting again. Cordially free? For years, my girlfriend and I would happily greet each other with, “cordially free!” It was only yesterday that I opened it again, 17 years later, and there – clear as a bell - it says “with cordial feelings.”
There is the copy of Marshall McLuhan’s Counter-Blast. Inside the front cover is a plate: Awarded to Joyce Grant of Woburn Collegiate Institute for Outstanding Achievement in CREATIVE WRITING; Dated this 20th day of February, 1981. A fittingly formal kick-off to what will prove to be a lifelong career in writing (albeit, not every word of which will turn out to be either creative or outstanding).
The first-edition Gone With The Wind from my first husband — now himself, gone with the wind.
My Norton Anthologies, from which I’d proudly slogged through The Faerie Queene and Paradise Lost – until someone years later pointed out that both were “abridged,” and doused any hope I had of bragging that I’d read either of them all the way through.
Every book on my shelf tells a story.
I pass my fingers over the embossing on the covers. I open the older books and riffle the pages to smell the memories. The sight of my bookshelf, back where it belongs, by my side in the room where I write each day, almost makes me cry.
And that is why your kid needs a bookshelf of his own.
A beautiful illustration from The Crown On Your Head, by Nancy Tillman
To a pre-reader, words aren’t the main attraction.
As a parent, you can read the words to your child sometimes… and then other times, don’t be afraid to ignore the words.
You can go through an entire picture book with your toddler, pointing to the pictures and talking about them.
Identify the colours. Name some of the items in the picture. Ask her, “what do you see?” or “what’s that?” Let her point something out. (Make a big deal out of it when she does.)
Going through a picture book this way can also help to prevent some of the parent burnout that can come with reading the same picture book over and over with your child.
I recently came across a picture book whose pictures I absolutely adore… but I wasn’t that taken with the words.
It’s called The Crown On Your Head, by Nancy Tillman. It’s got a great premise, too – it talks about a “crown” each of us is born with, that we wear all our lives. The ”crown” signifies that we are important and special.
The book’s message about self-esteem and equality is lovely, and the illustrations are rich and luscious.
It’s a book parents could look at with a baby or a toddler and they wouldn’t necessarily even have to read the words. You could use the premise, point to the crowns on each page, and talk about how your child is special, too. And how we all have a crown, how each person is wearing one and it means that everyone can shine. So nice.
Thank you to Maile Carpenter for inspiring this blog post.
The goal is to find the differences between the two, similar-looking pictures.
You click on each thing that’s different. It might be a missing leaf on a tree, a missing house in the background, or a different-coloured tie.
When you spot the five differences, you get a new pair of images. There are three levels: Easy, Medium and Hard (which you can’t unlock until after you’ve finished Medium).
The game is timed, so you can’t just sit there staring. However, if you do take too long it flashes you a hint – well, it shows you a difference. Not really a hint.
It’s a good way for kids to really look at an image, and think about “same” and “different.” It’s also good for hand-eye co-ordination, since you have to click right on the difference.
Small kids can play it with an adult, by just pointing to the screen with their finger. And the Hard level is perfect for older kids, who won’t be bored.
I’m a big believer that if you want kids to understand words and letters, they’ve gotta get their hands dirty.
If there’s something to feel, touch, throw, squish and otherwise interact with — kids are going to get the message on a whole different level.
(It’s called kinesthetic learning, but I prefer “squishing.”)
Play-Doh has created a new toy that lets kids create, and then squish, letters. And in-between maybe spell a few words.
Cookie Monster’s Letter Lunch is a back-to-basics Play-Doh toy. You push the playdough into the moulds, and create letters and healthy foods.
Then you can “feed” Cookie. His mouth has a flap that goes down when you put, say, playdough broccoli on it. (My kid, who is 10 and far too old for this toy, loves the fact that after you feed Cookie, the playdough falls through his body and out his, er, back. OK, derriere. But 10-year-olds can find something rude in anything.)
The kit comes with a sturdy Cookie Monster, dozens of moulds the right size for tiny hands, four tiny cans of Play-Doh and one of those Play-Doh spaghetti-maker thingies. They’re fun.
If you’ve got a Play-Doh type of kid (if you’ve got one you know it – they spend hours!) this is a decent toy. Very simple and sturdy. And kids can squish every letter they make. And then feed everything to Cookie, who is never too full to eat a kid’s creations.
When you open the kit, make sure you keep the box intact so you can put all the parts back in there. The box has a handle, which is a good touch.
Disclosure: I asked Hasbro to send me this toy because it looked like it had some merit in terms of literacy; I think it does.
Here is a great video that teaches what Silent E does. (Spoiler alert: For one thing, it makes a hug huge!)
Thanks to thekidshouldseethis.com, who brought this to my attention via a tweet.
Their website is fantastic – it’s a collection of videos that kids just gotta see.
And if you’re in the mood for something slightly more modern…
1) Read to your child. Every day.
2) Have lots of books in your home.
3) Let your child see you reading.
If you do these three things - even if it's all you do - the research shows that you are on your way to having a kid who loves to read.
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Teaching Kids News
This website is a companion to Teaching Kids News, which offers kid-friendly news articles as well as curriculum points for use by teachers and parents. >>
The American Library Association (ALA) Youth Media book awards are huge.
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