If you are a teacher, a student, a writer, or just a lover of words, this book will engage and entertain you. 

​Here are a few reasons why this book is amazing and you will love it!

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Table of Contents: The book is organized by topics. Browse through the topics and to find what you are looking for. Or skip the contents all together and just skim through the pages to become inspired!

​Looking for just the right word for red? Not only will you get the words, but since it is an illustrated thesaurus you can choose the right word with your eyes! Cherry? Tomato? Scarlet? Ruby? Take your pick.

Great resource for those "dead" words like nice and good and said. Teachers, this is a wonderful resource for having a discussion about multiple meaning words. Look how many different meanings nice has.

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Character Traits and Feelings: Teachers are constantly trying to build students' vocabulary with character traits and feelings. I love how they have it organized as a topic in this thesaurus.

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This book would be a great brainstorming tool.  For example, if students will be writing about the night, first have them brainstorm as many "night words" as they can. Use the topic headers as a starting point. 
Describing the night:
Nighttime things:
Describing people at night:
Things people do at night:

Then have students use this resource to expand their lists. Just the process of thinking of "words" around a related topic can help students generate ideas for what they want to write about the night while also expanding their vocabulary to use in their piece of writing. 

*Plus this book is full of little writer tidbits. Checkout the bottom of this page: Story starters.

Vivid Verbs!  Expand students vocabulary and paint a better picture for the reader with a vivid verb.  How else can you say the word "look": watch, gaze, observe, peer!

Does your writing need a little pop or sizzle? Try a noisy word or an onomatopoeia. 

​Brainstorming, brainstorming, brainstorming! Did I mention previously this is a great tool for brainstorming? You know those students (or adults) who just get in a funk and "have nothing to write about?"  Choose a topic: Jungle, Monsters, Knights and Castles, Space....and just read through the words. 

Or teachers, this could be a great "center" during small group time. Have students choose a topic and use the words to help write a description. 

Center Topic: Use page 46 and 47 to help you write about the jungle. Think about what the jungle looks like. What would you see? What would the animals be doing in the jungle?

​Center Topic: Write a spooky scene. Use page 82 and 83 to help you get ideas and add description. 

Writing a fairytale? Or a twist or a fairy tale? Who will be your character? Where will it take place? What words on page 84 and 85 could cause the "problem" in your story?

Concrete Nouns: If you were writing about the ocean, how specific can you be about what you see? Instead of just fish what kind of fish? Clown fish? Jellyfish? Pufferfish?

​(And check out the writerly tidbits for story endings.)

​Setting! What words help describe the setting? 

​This book also has great writing tips and word games at the end of the book!

These are only a few of the amazing things you will find in this thesaurus. This would be a great tool for any classroom teacher, parent, or student and adult writers to have.  (Stuck during PiBoIdMo: Picture Book Idea Month for ideas? Make sure you have this little gem on hand.) 

This book is published through Usborne Books. They have tons of amazing books. 

I was thinking about the many kinds of riches and for me the foremost is the richness of relationships. I've been fortunate enough to know Isabel Campoy who along with her partner in love and literacy Alma Flor Ada, have been instrumental in bringing about diversity in children's literature for many years. They've used an asset approach by highlighting the beauty, humor, depth and broadness of Latino culture as exemplified in Maybe Something Beautiful: How art transformed a neighborhood that Isabel shares in this interview. I hope that you feel the love that Isabel shares in her life and work and that I've been a grateful recipient of for over 20 years now.

Here's the less than 12 minute video, followed by a little about Isabel and some of her other books.

Isabel Campoy has published over 175 books, and received many awards, such as being honored multiple times as an ALA Notable, the San Francisco Library Award, the Reading the World Award from the University of San Francisco, the NABE Ramón Santiago Award, the International Latino Children’s Book Award, while nine of books have been Junior Library Guild selections. She is also an academic and educator who has specialized in literacy, home school interaction, and language acquisition, areas in which she has both published and presented on since l973. You can find out more about Isabel at http://isabelcampoy.com  You can also find out more about Maybe Something Beautiful here.

And while Isabel has been much honored for her smarts and creativity, it's her heart that speaks most in her children's books such as these below, many of which she has co-authored with Alma Flor in true partnership.

If you'd like to leave some kind words for Isabel Campoy or me or share this post, we'd love it!!

Hullo, welcome to Mondays with Mira. Today I'd like to share about how there are four main types of picture books and give examples with 2 concept books that I love. Let's start with the 4 types:

1. Plot-driven books where there's usually a main character, AKA the protagonist, who goes on an adventure to either solve a problem or find her heart's desire.

2. A character-driven story that may have a plot but is more about the emotional changes and development the character or characters undergo.

3. Nonfiction, which can have a plot, especially with a biography, but is usually more about the factual information that is being creatively communicated.

4. And concept books that focus on a concept like days of the week, counting, the alphabet, colors etc. Some concept books like Yuyi Morales's Just a Minute (a counting book) also have a plot, which makes it more fun.

Below are two lovely concept books from one of my favorite publishers, Little Bee Books. I noticed that I used the word "delightful" with both even though they are very different because they are both really delightful in different ways. And even though one of the books deals with a difficult subject, it does so with a lot of joy as it explores this little known fact of resistance. I also said something like, "slavery should never happen again" and realized that perhaps I should have noted that slavery is still very much a reality including in the USA (it just isn't legal here anymore). Oh well, that's what happens when you speak without a script.

Finally each of these videos is only 3 minutes long, so do take a peek and if you like this post, please share it and leave us a comment :)

I hope you liked these books as much as I do. Please let us know what you think.