Rosa Parks

Rosa Parks by Courtney Baker is a picture book biography of Parks’ life.  The reader will notice right away that the illustrations are full bleeds bringing him/her right into the life of Rosa Parks.  This picture book is a great social studies resource.  It goes through Rosa Parks’ life from a child to her bus boycott.  The topic of segregation of course is one that must only be read when students are ready for it, but with standards, this occurs pretty early.  It is a great book to have in a classroom library as students could read it and become interested in her and then do independent research projects into different aspects of her life.  The tone of the story is very positive, which is good for elementary students, however many social studies educators may argue that it does not portray in all fairness the struggle of Civil Rights and the dirty stuff that went along with that struggle.  The debate about how much children should read or know about that is up to the reader, but just know that this does have a positive tone skipping some of the more negative aspects of segregation.  Students will enjoy reading about Rosa Parks’ life and how she was brave despite being jailed.  Her courage and integrity is something that all students would benefit reading about.

Knots in My Yo-yo String

         Knots in My Yo-yo String by Jerry Spinelli is a great memoir that is relatable to children.  When I first picked this book up to read, I thought it would be like most autobiographies I have read which tend to be very chronological, historical, and focusing on the person’s major achievements which tend to be later in life.  Jerry Spinelli did not write like that at all!  His memoir starts off at an older age and then goes backwards.  While this may be difficult for some younger students to follow, it offers great variety and excitement for older students who can follow it.  He focuses most of the pages, I would say 90% on his childhood up until he was 18.  This is great for children as they can read over 100 pages about someone else’s life.  Jerry had a lot of things go right, but he also had his fair share of things go wrong, both of which are interesting for children to read about.  He talks a lot about the little every day moments that made up his childhood.  He talks about his discussions with his brother, playing outside, running for class president, and just what happened in his life on a daily basis.

                Not only does Jerry Spinelli talk about his personal life growing up, but he also talks about his development into being an author.  Now I just finished describing how the book is mostly about his childhood, yes he relates his development of becoming an author to his childhood.  He in fact discusses how he did not like aspects of school and writing.  This is great for children to see that not all writers grew up wanting to be writers or planning to be writers.  And not all writers liked to write as children.  This perspective will give students hope for their own futures and possibly open their minds to paths that right now they think are not the right ones, but maybe they will be later on.  While this book tackles this heavy topic, it does so in a lighthearted way that many upper elementary students would love to read!

Chocolate Fever- Fantasy

          Chocolate Fever, by Robert Kimmel Smith, is a fantasy book involving children eating too much chocolate!  The book focuses on one child, Henry and how his obsession with chocolate becomes a problem when he breaks out in mysterious brown spots all over his body.  His teacher, the school nurse, and several others at the school are puzzled by these now bursting brown spots.  A doctor at the hospital diagnoses him with Chocolate Fever which causes him to run away.  The reader will enjoy this fantasy book following Henry’s adventure of running from this new disesase.

                There are a few pictures in the chapters throughout this book.  The pictures give minimal support to the text, but are interesting for the reader.  The book moves quickly and keeps the reader turning the pages.  Almost every chapter has a different setting, keeping the reader on his/her toes.  Henry is an interesting character, and his thoughts keep the reader wanting to know more about his predicament.

                While Henry’s predicament of Chocolate Fever may seem outlandish, his thoughts and feelings are ones that many children can relate to.  He struggles with bullying, both being the bully at the beginning and then being bullied towards the end.  Many students on either side of the bullying will be able to relate to Henry’s feelings of wanting to fit in.  He especially struggles with wanting to fit in after he is the first person, or so he thinks, to be diagnosed with Chocolate Fever.  He also wrestles with his feelings about his parents and wanting to please them, yet also living his own life.  These feelings and struggles while about a ficticious disease, are ones that children may relate to and may get them talking about their own situations and feelings.

                This book does tackle a few morals and lessons that can be taught light-heartedly through this fantasy book.  When Henry runs away and joins Mac, the truck driver, Mac tells Henry of his own childhood struggles of attempting to fit in, but instead of chocolate fever, his was racial.  The author does not go into great detail about these racial tensions Mac experienced, but it is left up to the background knowledge of the students as to how much they can understand the racial tension.  Henry also learns another important lesson that is part of his cure for Chocolate Fever, when Mr. Alfred Cane advises him, “Although life is grand, and please is everywhere, we can’t have everything we want every time we want it!” (84). Henry must learn this difficult lesson of how too much of a good thing can become a bad thing.  These lessons are at the surface level in this book, but they may get the reader thinking at deeper levels about the issues presented.

                Overall, students will enjoy this lighthearted book, but also may begin to think about larger issues by reading this book.

Bull Run- Historical Fiction

          Bull Run, by Paul Fleischman, is a historical fiction book based on the American Civil War.  The book is composed of the thoughts of sixteen different people.  Each person’s thoughts, which are similar to a diary entry, compose only about one to two pages and then the reader will read the next person’s section.  The book focuses on the start of the Civil War and Bull Run.  The characters, while fictional are based off of real people, as historical fiction is usually.  The thoughts of these characters include great detail about their ways of life which enable the reader to relate to each of the characters.

                This book would be an excellent book to read while studying the Civil War.  While the details surrounding the important events of the Civil War are based off of facts from the time period, the focus of the book is more on the people themselves.  While students are studying the Civil War in history, this would be a great way to connect it to people’s lives.  Because the sections are not in any order, and have both people supporting the South and the North following each other, it makes the reader reconsider the points of view of the war.  However, Paul Fleischman does not include many politics, instead leaving the focus on the individuals and how their lives were affected by the war.  This is a great book to have students work on understanding different perspectives and could be used as a launching point from which students could write editorials pretending they were in the time period.

                While the random order of the sections in regards to people supporting the North and South is good for students to constantly reconsider perspective, it can make the book hard to follow.  I got confused a few times as to which side different people were on as I was reading, but this reminded me once again that politics was not Fleischman’s focus, but the people’s individual lives.  It can also be difficult to remember the individual stories of each person’s life as there are sixteen different individual stories happening at the same time.  By the time the reader returns to the same individual, he/she has already read fifteen other individual stories and may have forgotten the storyline for that individual.

                This book does a great job of including many different individuals from different walks of life.  Fleischman includes women, blacks, servants, doctors, generals, young children, and men.  By reading so many stories from different points of view about the war, the reader can gain a better understanding of how the war affected people from all walks of life.  Fleischman also includes art through the thoughts of Nathaniel Epp as he was a photographer during the war.  In Social Studies, we have been discussing the importance of bringing in individuals, both famous and others including women, children, and minorities.  This book definitely does that for students allowing them to read so many individual stories but connect them all through the time period.

                Overall, this is a great book for older students who either are familiar with or learning about the Civil War.  Readers will be in for an adventure following sixteen characters, but they should be warned to pay close attention to each individual character’s life and personal storyline in order to understand the overall story.  With close attention to detail and the ability to jump around, older students will love this book as they learn about an important historical event from so many different perspectives.

Encyclopedia Brown-Realistic Fiction

          Encylopedia Brown is a mystery series created by Donald Sobol.  The series is set up as chapter books, but each chapter is a different mystery to solve.  Sobol puts the solutions to the mysteries all at the back of the book so that readers are left with the decision to solve each mystery individually and then check, or read through the entire book before finding out the solutions to each mystery.  While the chapters flow and follow a sequence, solving the mystery at the end of the chapter does not necessarily guide you in solving the next mystery.  The print is fairly large and spread out so it is easy to get through.  There are a few pictures, about one in each chapter that support the text, but only give a glimpse into part of the text, leaving much of the action up to the imagination of the reader.

                This book requires readers to pay great attention to detail to catch the tricks the lead to the solution.  In each mystery, there is one mistake in the story that enables Encyclopedia to solve the crimes.  Encyclopedia’s father is the chief of police for their town, but little does the town know that Encyclopedia really solves all the crimes because he pays close attention to the stories and catches the inconsistencies that his dad and others do not.  This is an excellent series for readers who are working on paying attention to detail and comprehension as it encourages both through solving mysteries.

                In this book, the Case of the Secret Pitch, Encyclopedia solves several crimes through his close attention to detail.  When they pick up what they think is an innocent hitchhiker who gives Encyclopedia chocolate that can be broken into pieces, Encyclopedia realizes that the hitchhikers story about standing outside for an hour in the 90 degree weather cannot be true.  It is little details like this that the reader must catch to keep up with Encyclopedia and solve the mysteries.  Encyclopedia also builds relationships with friends in this book, but it also shows how he is sometimes singled out because of his unique ability.  This book also deals with the issue of gender as his female friend, Sally, is torn about whether to continue being Encyclopedia’s bodyguard, or become more girly.  The boys make fun of her when they find out she is the body guard, and this leaves her with a tough decision that you will have to read to find out what happens.  While the focus of the novel is on solving mysteries, there are many other issues that are embedded throughout that keep the reader thinking.

                This book is definitely an entertaining, page turn that will keep kids interested and keep them reading!  They will be forced to pay close attention and read very carefully so they can along with Encyclopedia solve the mysteries for the town of Idaville.