Deb Andries and Her Reading Team
February 2021

Snow Uri Shulevitz
Reading teams do read together, and my Reading Team(s) and I have been doing just that. However, as you view the photos of the twins, Hayes and Myles, now seventeen months, you see them reading by themselves.

Revisiting the Moon

Max and the Tag-Along Moon
A full moon on December 29 ended the year 2020. New year, new moon, and we are thinking once again about moon books – we’ve looked at some of these before, but good books, like the moon, keep coming back.

The Very Amazing Eric Carle

The Grouchy Ladybug
Phyl­lis: Spring is final­ly here, and the pol­li­na­tors are buzzing in the blos­soms, so we thought we’d write about bugs this month. Plus, we’ve just fin­ished a book with our good friend and fel­low writer Liza Ketchum about the rusty-patched bum­ble­bee, the first bum­ble­bee to be list­ed as endan­gered. Once we start­ed look­ing for bug­gy books, we found so many by Eric Car­le, from very hun­gry cater­pil­lars to very grouchy lady­bugs to very lone­ly fire­flies that we decid­ed to look at his body of work.… more

Creating Collage

As we move into the spring season, the lesson of hope from The Very Hungry Caterpillar,a book that employs paper collage for its illustrations, inspired these activities.

Elizabeth Verdick

Freddy the Detective
When I pic­ture myself as a kid, I think of my bed­room in our split-lev­el West Vir­ginia house, a room I loved but had to leave behind at age eleven when my fam­i­ly moved to Mary­land. For years, that room was my own lit­tle world, my book nook, my place to cud­dle my cat Rag, col­lect chi­na-cat fig­urines, and, yes, read books about cats.… more

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

In my sto­ry­time bag this past month I’ve been car­ry­ing The Very Hun­gry Cater­pil­lar by Eric Car­le. I don’t always use it, but I like hav­ing it with me — I know it will always work. When I pull this book out of the bag, there are smiles, clap­ping some­times, and always a cho­rus of  “I have that book!” The Very Hun­gry Cater­pil­lar is fifty years old this year.… more

Ann Angel and Her Reading Team
October 2019

Berenstain Bears and the Spooky Old Tree
Rais­ing Star Read­ers is delight­ed to intro­duce a new Read­ing Team cen­tered around YA author and Wis­con­sin res­i­dent Ann Angel. Ann says: “One of my great­est plea­sures as a grand­par­ent is shar­ing a book with my grand­kids that was a favorite with my kids when they were grow­ing up. Anoth­er great plea­sure is see­ing my grown kids pull out a book they loved and read to it their chil­dren with the knowl­edge that they’re shar­ing a great love of sto­ry and reading.… more

That Lovely Ornament, the Moon

Moonlight
by Jacque­line Brig­gs Mar­tin and Phyl­lis Root Jack­ie: We’ve passed the Sol­stice but we still have more night than day. We can watch the moon with our break­fast and with our din­ner. We thought we’d cel­e­brate this sea­son of the moon by shar­ing some sto­ries fea­tur­ing that love­ly ornament. Phyl­lis: And Christ­mas Eve we saw an almost full moon cast­ing shad­ows on the snow before the clouds blew in. Moon­light… more

Skinny Dip with Amy Baum

What keeps you up at night? The Disney version of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. I had to sleep in my sister’s room for 6 months after that terrifying cartoon. What’s the first book you remember reading? Little Bear by Else Holmelund Minarik. I loved Little Bear and his very functional family. Also, I thought it was simply magical that all of the letters spelled out a story.… more