Miss Brooks' Story Nook, by Barbara Bottner

Title:  Miss Brooks' Story Nook
Author:  Barbara Bottner
Illustrator: Michael Emberley
Publisher: Knopf Books for Young Readers
Year: 2014
Pages: 40
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Themes: Reading, Imagination, Bullying
Age Range: Kindergarten through 3rd Grade

Summary: from Goodreads

Missy loves her librarian, Miss Brooks. And she loves to go to Miss Brooks’ before-school story time. But to get to Story Nook, she has to pass Billy Toomey’s house—and she does not love Billy Toomey.  Billy always tries to steal her hat and jeers, “I’m going to get you!” It’s vexing. Then one rainy (and hatless) day, Miss Brooks changes story hour to storytelling hour. She teaches the kids about characters and plot and action and satisfying conclusions and encourages them to make up their own tales. 

And that’s when Missy has a brainstorm. She sees a way to use her made-up story to deal with her real-life bully. 

Review:
Barbara Bottner is the author of some really high-quality books for primary grade readers, including Bootsie Barker Bites and Marsha Makes Me Sick.  She has a knack for writing fully rounded characters, mostly little girls, who are not just sugar and spice and everything nice.  Girls who have their flaws, but who learn and grow throughout Ms. Bottner's imaginative stories.

I found this book at a small bookstore in Lelan, Michigan, and was immediately enamored.  I think that part of the reason that I  love this charming picture book is because I was Missy when I was a child.  I loved stories, books, and teachers with a passion that bordered on reverence.  I was also the kid that was likely to get picked on in my rough-and-tumble blue collar neighborhood.  Of course, I am also Miss Brooks.  I see one of the major goals of my role as literacy coach at an elementary school as fostering a love of stories, both reading and writing them, in the students at my school.

The story of Missy and her annoying neighbor Billy is one that should resonate with lots of children. I appreciate that Missy finds a way to solve her Billy problem using her imagination to come up with a story that definitely makes him think twice about giving her a hard time again!  I think that we do a disservice to children when we don't acknowledge the agency they have over their relationships with peers.  While adults must obviously get involved when there is real physical danger to children or repeated patterns of abuse, we must also teach children how to navigate their own conflicts in a way that is assertive but not aggressive.

What makes this a good book for use in the classroom aside from the massage about bullying is the way that it guides young readers through the creative process behind story writing.  Miss Brooks continually asks Missy questions to guide her storytelling, and offers her suggestions about what readers want in a story, such as a satisfying ending.  Without getting too technical about the writing process, Missy learns that all it takes for a good story is an idea and her imagination.  The story also gives teachers a chance to teach their students the importance of writing for an audience.  Not every child in Missy's class appreciates the scarier parts of her story, but all along the way there is an acknowledgement that authors tell/write stories for readers to read-they are not squiggles on a page disconnected from context.  It is the interaction of the written word and the reader's interpretation where the magic happens!

Apparently this is actually the second book about Miss Brooks.  The first is Miss Brooks Loves Books (and I Don't), and I suspect, though I haven't seen a copy of the first book, that they would work as a pair to introduce both reading for pleasure and writing.

Teacher Resources
Barbara Bottner's Website
Miss Brooks' Story Nook Book Trailer

Bashful Bob and Doleful Dorinda, by Margaret Atwood

Title:  Bashful Bob and Doleful Dorinda
Author:  Margaret Atwood
Illustrator: Dusan Petricic
Publisher:  Bloomsbury Publishing
Year: 2007
Genre:  Fantasy
Themes:  Alliteration, Friendship, Family
Age Range:  2nd through 5th Grade

Summary:  
Bob was abandoned by his mother and raised by a pack of dogs. Dorinda is an orphan being taken care of (in Cinderella like fashion) by distant relatives.  Bob is bashful, Dorinda is sad and lonely.  When Donrinda decides to run away, she encounters Bob living in the bushes on a vacant block with his canine companions.  Dorinda and Bob become fast friends, with Dorinda teaching Bob how to talk and behave in public.  When a rampaging buffalo threatens the town, Dorinda and Bob's quick thinking make them celebrities.  When Dorinda's long lost parents show up, and Bob's mother has a change of heart, they each get the one thing they were lacking-a home to call their own, with people who love them.

Review:
You may know Margaret Atwood from her many novels for adults.  She is a master of speculative fiction, demonstrated most notably in her books The Handmaid's Tale and Oryx and Crake.  She has written many feminist novels, and several volumes of poetry.  I've admired her work for a long time, and like many consider her one of the most important literary voices of the 20th and 21st centuries.  So imagine my delight to find that she has written books for children!  Atwood brings all of her prodigious alacrity with language to this charming story about a bashful boy and doleful girl.

The story reads in style very much like something written by Roald Dahl, taking on rather morose subjects with a sense of whimsy and sly humor.  But what truly makes this book unique, and perfect for classroom use, if that it is written in alliteration.  The first couple of lines gives you a sense of what's to come,

 "When Bob was a baby, he was abandoned in a basket, beside a beauty parlor.  His bubbleheaded mom, a brunette, had become a blonde in the beauty parlor, and was so blinded by her burnished brilliance that baby Bob was blotted from her brain."

The entire book reads this way, with B themed sentences for Bob and D themed sentences for Dorinda.  Despite this device, the story is not at all simplistic.  As you can see from the above sample, the vocabulary is very high level, and most of the sentences flow perfectly well, despite the challenges of finding alliterative phrases that express exactly what Atwood wants to say.  Teachers in my school have used this book, and another of Atwood's that I will review later, to teach alliteration, and to discuss how to find word meanings from context clues.

Speaking of context, the illustrations by Dusan Petricic  go perfectly with the text, and provide students with some clues as to the meaning of the often long, convoluted sentences Atwood wrote.  This is not a text I would hand students to read on their own unless they were pretty mature readers, but as a read aloud this book has lots to offer.

The Dark, by Lemony Snicket

Title:  The Dark
Author:  Lemony Snicket
Illustrator:  John Klassen
Publisher:  Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Year: 2013
Pages: 40
Genre:  Fantasy
Themes:  Overcoming Fears
Age Range: 1st through 5th Grade

Summary: 
Laszlo is afraid of the dark, but the dark is not afraid of Laslo. Most of the time the dark lives in the basement, except at night when the dark spread and covers the land.  The night that Laszlo's nightlight burns out, the dark invites Laszlo down into its lair to find what he needs, and in the process shows Laszlo that the dark doesn't have to be scary.

Review:
Being afraid of the dark is a pretty common childhood fear.  Most of us get over it with some degree of success, but who among us hasn't caught a faint reflection of ourselves in a mirror in a dark room and squealed in fright?  Well, Snicket and Klassen take this fear and use it for this charming story about Laslo and the dark.  Laszlo is not a wimpy crybaby of a kid, but he does have a healthy fear of and respect for the dark.  Every morning when it is safely back in the basement he stands at the top of the stairs and says hello to the dark, and he figures that maybe if he visits the dark every day, the dark will stay out of his room at night.  That works wonderfully-until that pesky nightlight burns out.  The story is engaging for young audiences, who may be struggling with their own fear of the dark, and the illustrations make great use of light and complete blackness to demonstrate the dark's power, both over the physical setting and poor Laszlo's mind.

The Dark won the Charlotte Zolotow Award for outstanding picture books for 2013, and it is a well-deserved honor.  Klassen won the Caldecott for his book This is Not My Hat, and the art is just as imaginative in this book.  Snicket is best known for The Series of Unfortunate Events books, which my daughter inhaled like oxygen when she was in elementary school.  Teachers can use the story to discuss the role of a narrator, and inanimate objects as characters.  And there are great opportunities for cross-curricular activities in writing, science, and art.  Definitely recommend this book as a mentor text, read aloud, or as part of a classroom library.

Teacher Resources:
TeachingBook.net Guide
Interview with Lemony Snicket about The Dark

The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish, by Neil Gaiman

Title:  The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish
Author:  Neil Gaiman
Illustrator:  Dave McKean
Publisher:  Harper Collins
Year:  1998 
Pages: 64
Genre:  Realistic (?) Fiction
Themes:  General Silliness
Age Range:  1st through 5th Grade

Summary:
The narrator of this silly story desperately wants his best friend's two goldfish.  So desperately, in fact, that he trades his father for them.  (His father wasn't that interesting anyway-all he ever did was read the newspaper.)  His little sister tries to tell him that it's a bad idea, but he doesn't listen.  When his mother comes home, she is understandably furious, and sends him on a journey to retrieve poor old dad.  Of course, Dad's now been traded to a string of friends for a variety of interesting items.  Finally, the narrator tracks down his father, sitting in a chicken coop-reading the paper!

Review:
Full disclosure:  Neil Gaiman could probably transpose the phone book and I would love it.  I have yet to meet one of his books-children's or adult-that I didn't want to gobble up with a spoon.  It is therefore no surprise that I adored this charming picture book.

The story is simple enough.  What brings it to life is the interplay between the narrator and his younger sister. She is dryly hilarious in a way no small person probably ever is in real life, but authenticity is not exactly what this story is going for.  There were a couple of points that I found laugh-out-loud funny, and you don't often find that in a picture book meant for children.

McKean's illustrations are darkly engaging, and they fit perfectly with the mood that Gaiman creates with his storytelling.  As always with Gaiman's books, there is a certain level of darkness present, but unlike some of his longer fiction for children it is not scary.  As an anglophile, the fact that the book is littered with British turns of phrase only added to the appeal, and provide good opportunities for conversation with kids about the difference in language.  The story structure is fairly straightforward, and there isn't a ton of depth there to mine for good discussion, but it is a funny story that I think kids would like, and could certainly be used for working on sequencing, plot structure, or examining how the illustrations enhance comprehension.  Overall, a solid choice as a read aloud for elementary age kids.

Teacher Resources:
Diana Wagner Lesson Plan (scroll down)
TeachingBooks.net Resources
Oh, Boy, Fourth Grade Writing Unit for The Day I Swapped My Dad...

Mr. Wuffles, David Wiesner

Title:  Mr. Wuffles
Author:  David Wiesner
Publisher:  Clarion Books
Year:  2013
Pages:  32
Format:  Wordless Picture Book
Genre:  Science Fiction
Themes:  Aliens, Pets
Age Range:  1st-5th Grade

Summary: from Goodreads

In a near wordless masterpiece that could only have been devised by David Wiesner, a cat named Mr. Wuffles doesn't care about toy mice or toy goldfish. He’s much more interested in playing with a little spaceship full of actual aliens—but the ship wasn't designed for this kind of rough treatment. Between motion sickness and damaged equipment, the aliens are in deep trouble. When the space visitors dodge the cat and take shelter behind the radiator to repair the damage, they make a host of insect friends. The result? A humorous exploration of cooperation between aliens and insects, and of the universal nature of communication involving symbols, “cave” paintings, and gestures of friendship

Review:
Wiesner's book, Mr. Wuffles, was a 2013 Caldecott Award honor book.  The Caldecott Award is giving annually to the best picture book by the American Library Association.  Wiesner's book certainly belongs in the category of beautifully illustrated picture books.  His illustrations are sharp and engaging, with vivid colors and aggressive shading that provide depth and realism to an otherwise obviously fantastical story.  But what is most wonderful about this book is the juxtaposition of the adorable cat and the tiny aliens.  Wiesner cleverly takes the natural inclinations of a cat to bat around small objects, and uses it as a springboard for the trials and tribulations of a small group of ant-sized aliens.

This book is almost wordless, if you only consider Earth languages.  In reality, the aliens have a rich language that is scattered throughout the book, made up of symbols that are meaningless when viewed alone, but with the context of the wonderful illustrations it is pretty obvious what kind of things the aliens are probably saying.  The structure of the book is comic-book like, with multiple panels on most pages, and speech bubbles in place of traditional paragraphing.  The book could be used with younger students to emphasize the importance of using illustrations to look for comprehension clues.  Older students could be asked to "translate" the alien dialogue into English, inferring what the aliens are saying based on the context of the story and the illustrations, and essentially writing the text for Wiesner's illustrations.  Or, you can just put the book out for your students to enjoy, because even without words it is an engaging read.

Teacher Resources:
HMH Books Discussion Guide
TeachingBooks.Net Guide

Children Make Terrible Pets, Peter Brown

Title:  Children Make Terrible Pets
Author:  Peter Brown
Publisher:  Hatchett, Little and Brown Company
Year:  2010
Pages:  34
Genre:  Fantasy
Themes:  Pets, Letting Go
Age Range:  1st through 5th Grade

Summary:
Lucy Bear find a little boy in the woods.  She takes him home and asks her mother if she can keep him.  Her mother warns her that "Children make terrible pets!", but Lucy is determined.  When the boy runs away, Lucy is heartbroken-until she finds him in his "natural habitat", back with his own family.  She decides that the boy is better off in his own environment.

Review:
This charming picture book has the look of an old fashioned children's book-but with a very post-modern feel.  Lucy Bear has the same traits as any human child-curiosity, stubbornness, the desire to have a small living thing of her very own.  When I have used this book with students, they find the story very funny, and the older ones get the "joke"-that humans often take animals out of their own natural environments for our own purposes.  Younger students don't usually make that connection, but they do recognize that the things that the boy does that make him a terrible pet are all of the things that human children are supposed to do.

I've mostly used this book in conjunction with opinion writing in an elementary setting.  After we read the book, and chart the evidence from the author that shows that the boy was a terrible pet for Lucy, I have them think of an animal that would make a terrible pet.  They then write an opinion piece describing the animals and listing the reasons that it would make a terrible pet.  The one time that I didn't specify that they should choose and animal, many of the students said that their little brother or sister would make a terrible pet.  Totally adorable, but not was I was looking for!

Teacher Resources:
A Tale of Two Teachers Lesson Plan
TeachingBooks.net Lesson Plan
Kids Wings Lesson Activities