Picture Book Salute to Blue

Rare & Blue
Blue is beloved for the awesome beauty of its various shades on display in the natural world, and for the feelings of calmness, security, loyalty, and friendliness, it evokes. So, without further ado: a collection of ten lovely and compelling books, plus one, that celebrate blue.

Quirky Book Lists: Time

Noisy Clock Shop
Mar­garet Wise Brown once wrote that chil­dren won­dered about “mys­te­ri­ous clock time.” I cer­tain­ly did as a child. I sim­ply could not learn to tell time. This was back in the dark ages of ana­log clocks that seemed to hold secrets oth­ers could deci­pher but elud­ed me. I could have used any of the books on this list, but one in par­tic­u­lar is perfect.
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Elements of a Nonfiction Booktalk

Melissa Stewart
Not long ago, I saw this list of rec­om­mend­ed com­po­nents for a booktalk: Title Author Genre Main char­ac­ter Plot bit And boy, did it frost my britches. Why? Because the per­son who wrote it assumed the book­talk­er was rec­om­mend­ing a fic­tion title. What about non­fic­tion? It’s impor­tant to book­talk these titles too because many kids pre­fer nonfiction. So here’s my list of sug­gest­ed com­po­nents for a non­fic­tion booktalk: Title Author Audi­ence Cat­e­go­ry Text struc­ture Writ­ing style Voice choice Con­tent bit And here are a cou­ple of examples: The Great Mon­key Res­cue: Sav­ing the Gold­en Lion Tamarins by San­dra Markle is a spe­cial­ized non­fic­tion title per­fect­ly suit­ed for stu­dents in grades 4 – 7.… more

Taking Time for a Close Look

Woodpecker Wham!
Jack­ie: Phyl­lis is on the road with her beau­ti­ful and infor­ma­tive new book Search­ing for Minnesota’s Native Wild­flow­ers. [While Phyl­lis is out of the room, I will say that I love this book. It makes me want to get out and find flow­ers. Iowa has many plants in com­mon with Min­neso­ta and I look for­ward to tromp­ing with Phyl­lis and Kelly.)… more

Melissa Stewart: A Fresh Look at Expository Nonfiction

door knocker
by Melis­sa Stewart Nar­ra­tive non­fic­tion. The words have a nice ring to them, don’t they? Expos­i­to­ry non­fic­tion? Not so much. Rhymes with gory, pur­ga­to­ry, deroga­to­ry, lava­to­ry. Gesh, it’s no won­der expos­i­to­ry non­fic­tion gets a bad rap. And yet, plen­ty of great non­fic­tion for kids is expos­i­to­ry. Its main pur­pose is to explain, describe, or inform. As far as I’m con­cerned, this is a gold­en moment for expos­i­to­ry non­fic­tion because, in recent years, it’s gone through an excit­ing trans­for­ma­tion.… more

Leroy Ninker Saddles Up! Companion Booktalks

Actual Size
Let these help you get start­ed on the Book­storm™ books: Actu­al Size, writ­ten and illus­trat­ed by Steve Jenkins Ani­mal parts or whole ani­mals shown in actu­al size (a squid’s eye!) Try to guess the ani­mal by look­ing at just one part Ide­al for com­par­ing and contrasting
Bill Pick­et: Rodeo-Ridin’ Cow­boy,
 writ­ten by Andrea Pinkney, illus­trat­ed by Bri­an Pinkney True sto­ry of an African-Amer­i­can rodeo star You won’t believe his trick for qui­et­ing bulls and calves Biog­ra­phy of a true-life action superhero
Black Cow­boy, Wild Hors­es,
 writ­ten by Julius Lester, illus­trat­ed by Jer­ry Pinkney True sto­ry about one of the many African-Amer­i­can cowboys Find all the cam­ou­flaged critters!… more