Booktalk: Look at the Reconstruction period through the life of one of the first African-American congressmen.
Snippet: Searching for more satisfying work, he went from waiter to cook –ah, the freedom to make such a move!– then from cook to better-paid pantryman on board the Altamont a Union transport steamer.
The Ocean Story
by John Seven (Author) and Jana Christy (Illustrator)
Booktalk: The story of the ocean is as old as the earth itself. Overfishing, pollution, and oil spills have highlighted the need to take better care of our oceans so that the story can continue to be told.
Snippet:
(The words on this page are:)
BOY: Why is the ocean so big?
MAN: It needs to be big to hold a story that is very old.
You are part of the ocean’s story too. Find out How You Can Help the Ocean and see “how your actions have an impact.” Make a poster showing one thing that you can do right now and “share what you’ve learned with friends and family.”
It’s STEM Friday! (STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)
Booktalk: Enjoy a variety of poetry forms such as free verse, haiku, and ode in this A to Z celebration of the beach and seaside life.
Snippet: F is for Flip-Flops
Winter is buckles and shoehorns and laces
And wingtips, galoshes, and hightops,
But summer is giggles and smiling faces
And wiggling toes into flip-flops.
Booktalk: Buster Bickles’s big ideas are always getting him into trouble. But when Buster gets to test the newly invented What-if Machine, anything Buster imagines becomes reality…
Snippet:
From the moment he woke up,
Buster Buster Bickles was full of big ideas.
“Hey, Mom, Look! I’m a flesh-eating robot!”
“Mom, look out!
Laundry Monster!”
“Hey, Mom!
EGGS-ray vision!”
STEM + the Arts = STEAM
STEAM DIY Activity
Try The What-if Machine online and create some silly scenarios to write and illustrate.
My Dog Is the Best
by Laurie Ann Thompson (Author) and Paul Schmid (Illustrator)
Booktalk: What do you get when you combine one energetic, enthusiastic little boy with his sleepy but tolerant dog? Unconditional love.
Using simple words and spare illustrations, My Dog Is the Best celebrates the special bond that exists between a young child and a beloved family pet. It’s the heartwarming story of two best friends. . . told by a boy with a very active imagination.
Snippet:
He reads books.
I’ve known Laurie for ten years. (We started working together in 2005 when she signed up for her first online writing workshop.) Needless to say I was quite pleased when she emailed me last month to let me know she had another new book coming out! After I asked her if could share it on my blog, Laurie invited me to be a part of this blog tour and graciously agreed to answer my three blog tour questions…
Q. When did you start writing?
A. Well, I guess in some ways I’ve always been a writer. My mom says that before I could even read my favorite thing to do was tell her stories, on and on, hour after hour. Later, in school, I loved every assignment related to writing. As a teen, I kept a journal, including lots of really terrible, angsty poetry. And, just for fun, I pursued a technical writing minor in college. Still, I never considered writing as a career until I was pregnant with my first child. I didn’t know much about having babies or raising them, so that became my big research project. I read everything I could get my hands on, and—of course—passed all of that useful knowledge on to my friends who already had children. One day my best friend said, “You know, you should really write all of this stuff down for people. It seems like such a waste to just tell me.” I realize now that it was probably just to shut me up (tactful, isn’t she?), but her comment set me on a new course, and I started querying parenting magazines. After my child was born, however, I fell in love with the children’s books I was reading at bedtime every night. I knew I’d found my calling.
Q. Describe your writing process.
A. It really varies, since I write so many different kinds of things. If I’m setting out to write long-form nonfiction, such as Be a Changemaker: How to Start Something that Matters, I start with research, then I outline, then I draft the proposal. Finally, when I’ve worked on that for a long time and given it a lot of time to stew in my brain, then I start drafting sample chapters. Inevitably, that changes the proposal and the outline, but I just can’t start with the actual writing until I have a vision of how all of the pieces are going to come together in the end.
A. For picture books, even nonfiction like Emmanuel’s Dream: The True Story of Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah, it’s more about trial and error, jumping in and playing with the story. I’ll usually just do just enough research or idea generation to have a basic idea of where I’m headed, then I’ll just start drafting. When I find a general structure that I like, then I’ll go back and research to find the facts and details that I need to flesh it out (for nonfiction) or I’ll work on developing the story arc and characters (for fiction).
A. In either case, my favorite part is revision. I was a software engineer before switching to writing, and revision feels just like debugging. I love taking something that is “broken” and fixing it so it’s just right, removing all of the errors getting all the parts to work perfectly alone and together as a whole.
Q. Tell us about your latest book.
A. I initially wrote the manuscript for my latest book, My Dog Is the Best, as an assignment for your Easy Readers/Early Chapter Books workshop! It’s very different from what I usually write. Be a Changemaker and Emmanuel’s Dream are both serious nonfiction, while My Dog Is the Best is sweet, humorous fiction. I wanted to play with simple language for very young readers, while using emotions and scenes to which many young children could relate. I tweaked a bit for rhythm, pattern, and word choice, but the draft came out almost the same as you can see it in its final form in the book today. I was pleasantly surprised to have something I liked result from an assignment in a genre I wasn’t used to writing in, and even more pleasantly surprised when others liked it, too!
Thanks so much for visiting the blog, Laurie! The book is adorable!
STEM + the Arts = STEAM
STEAM DIY Activity
The main character in My Dog Is the Best is a “maker” too. After he read a dinosaur book, he made a dinosaur costume he made for his dog. For your STEAM DIY Activity, you can make a costume for your dog, or make a small dog out of clay. If you have an adult to help you, try making a polymer clay puppy with this YouTube tutorial. (Click on the SEE MORE link under the video on YouTube to see the materials list.)
Visit all of the stops on the My Dog Is the Best book tour!
Booktalk: Hear the amazing story of the cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde, which were suddenly and mysteriously abandoned more than 700 years ago.
Snippet: An Amazing Discovery:
On a snowy day in December 1888, two cowboys, Richard Wetherill and his brother-in-law Charlie Mason, stopped at the edge of a deep canyon in southwestern Colorado. Richard peered through the falling snow, hoping to find some cattle that had wandered off. Instead, he spotted something strange inthe cliffs below. His heart begin to race.
There, built into the side of the red-yellow cliffs was a hidden village of buildings and towers.
Booktalk: What smaller scientific discoveries led up to major breakthroughs such as the assembly line, computers, or the Internet? Who first proposed ideas to solve problems? And how did the solutions change over time? Trace the history of key discoveries in engineering and design with timelines and find out the facts.
Snippet: Many thousands of years ago, people tasked with raising stone structures faced a problem. How could they make openings, such as windows and doorways, in their structures without weakening them? How could they create roofs and ceilings that would support their own weight and any weight above them? Openings were important for light, ventilation, movement, and defense. Roofs and ceilings, of course, provided shelter for people and objects housed in the space below. But roofs or windows with open space beneath them ran the risk of caving in.
It’s STEM Friday! (STEM is Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics)
#kidlit Link of the Day:
See how the Pre-K to grade 3 students at Usher Collier-Heights Elementary School in Atlanta, GA solved their STEM Friday engineering and design problem in “the final STEM Friday challenge for the fall season.”
Booktalk: What kind of spots do animals have? And why do they have them? Find out the many ways in which animals benefit from their spots. (Animal facts and spot matching game in the back of the book.)
Snippet:
Spots on creatures all around
way up high and on the ground.
The Crown Affair (Nursery-Rhyme Mysteries)
by Jeanie Franz Ransom (Author) and Stephen Axelsen (Illustrator)
Booktalk: In the sequel to What REALLY Happened to Humpty?, Jack (Jill’s other half) fell down the Hill and had his crown stolen. It’s up to detective Joe Dumpty to round up the usual suspects and track down the culprit.
Snippet:
When did you notice the crown was missing?” I asked.
“Not right away,” Jill replied. “First, I checked on Jack. Then I called 9-1-1. After that, it’s a blur. I was a little dizzy myself. I came tumbling down after, you know?”
“Each year, over 36,000 children from different regions of the United States read newly-published children’s and young adult trade books and vote for the ones they like best. These Children’s Choices, selected from more than 500 titles, can be counted on as books children really enjoy reading.”
Booktalk: Want to see inside a toddler’s (frantic) mind? Read this book! (Highly recommended for both parenting classes and Early Childhood Education training.)
Snippet:
I wanna play with Daddy’s phone
I wanna put on Mommy’s shoes
TAP, TAP, TAP
Get Mommy’s shoes off my feet now!
