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Mythic Poetry in The Girl Who Saved Yesterday by Julius Lester and Carl Angel ~ Post by Mira Reisberg

6/27/2016

41 Comments

 
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Julius Lester’s The Girl Who Saved Yesterday, published by the wonderful Marissa Moss at Creston Books, is a powerful story with strong mythical qualities, full of beautiful metaphors holding deeper truths. A young girl is found abandoned at the foot of a large mountain near a small village. She is convinced her parents live at the top and every day begins a journey to return there. But the villagers are afraid her persistence will anger the spirits, and believing that they are doing the right thing, they take the young girl into a large forest and abandon her. She is adopted by the ancient trees that populate the forest, and they name her Silence. Years pass, and some of the trees start getting sick--they tell Silence that she needs to save Yesterday. None of them can tell her what that means, but it does require her to return to the village where she used to live. Silence’s return to her old village prompts an unusual light storm from the mountain where she was found years ago, an occurrence the villagers live in fear of. Following the trails of light, Silence discovers a field of bright stones at the top of the mountain, representations of their ancestors who have been forgotten by the villagers. These stones are central to saving the trees and helping the villagers remember. But will Silence be able to break through the ignorance and betrayals? You'll have to read it to find out.

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Julius Lester is a fantastic author whose writing carries strong mythical qualities, full of beautiful metaphors containing deeper truths. His descriptive similes pack surprisingly emotional punches despite the dream-like quality of his words - “Before anyone could ask, Sun began sliding from the sky like disappointment that would never be redeemed.” This story is absolutely haunting and memorable in the best of ways.
 
Carl Angel does a magnificent job of bringing this legend-inspiring story to life. From the very beginning, Silence’s adoptive family of trees captures the reader’s attention and doesn’t let it go. While the trees do have humanoid characteristics, they are clearly enigmas with facial features reminiscent of wooden tribal masks seen in a wide variety of cultures. His work with color to provide impact and emphasize light and darkness is truly remarkable, and many of his illustrations have a slightly blurred soft-focus effect that adds to the mythical quality of Silence’s journey to save Yesterday.
 
The Girl Who Saved Yesterday is a wonderful book that will leave you contemplative for a long time after you finish reading, and Julius Lester and Carl Angel were the perfect team to set this masterpiece to paper.

And now for a quickie disclaimer before a short video review, followed by a super helpful  interview with Carl himself. Carl is a beautiful longtime friend who I'm honored to be in the book Honoring Our Ancestors with and whom I've been fortunate enough to have lots of creative adventures with over the past couple of decades. I hope you'll love Carl and this book as much as I do.

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Just two other books illustrated by Carl.
And here we have a wonderful interview with the fabulous Carl Angel himself! Take a look at what he has to say about his beautiful work on The Girl Who Saved Yesterday.

Next, we'll be looking at another lovely mythic tale by Pauline Ts'o, published by an independent publishing house, Wisdom Tales.
41 Comments

Exploring Beautiful Hands by Bret Baumgarten and Kathryn Otoshi

6/20/2016

4 Comments

 
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Beautiful Hands, written by Bret Baumgarten and illustrated by Kathryn Otoshi is based on the author’s experience of holding his children’s hands and asking them, ‘“What will your beautiful hands do today?”’
 
A deeply personal book for both the author and illustrator, this stunning page-turner is filled with illustrations created entirely from the handprints of the author’s and illustrator’s family members. The handprints of over one hundred family members and friends make up the rainbow that arches across the closing spread of the book.
 
In lyrical language, this book explores the many ways someone can use their hands. Readers become engaged in a lilting conversation:
 
What will your beautiful hands do today?
Will they plant…
            What will they plant?
 
And, as the reader begins to answer the question – trees? Flowers? Seeds? – the page-turn reveals a lovely surprise:
 
…Ideas?
 
The colorful and imaginative artwork that fills the pages add to the magic and of this book. The illustrations are mesmerizing. Each creatively crafted image is its own world of wonder. Readers will find themselves examining the letters and pictures wondering, How is this possible? How did she do it?
 
Through words and art, Beautiful Hands stretches possibility. A reader realizes, Oh! my hands can do physical things, but they can do much more than that! I can make handprints with paint, and handprints can become butterflies, dragons, birds and lights!
 
This deceptively simple book will appeal to young readers and adults alike. It can grow with its kids. Children will love the colors, pictures and questions. These same colors, pictures and questions take on deeper, more thoughtful meaning as one matures. It is a book that can be used as a source of inspiration in classrooms ranging from Kindergarten to college, from English to Art. Like its sweet message, its possibilities are endless.
 
With artful simplicity, Beautiful Hands challenges readers to do and be more. Our hands can do physical things, but they can also stretch imagination, reach for love and help others. It is a gem for any bookshelf or library. Don’t be surprised if your copy is quickly covered with flurries of little handprints of its own!

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Author Brett Baumgarten and illustrator Kathryn Otoshi of Beautiful Hands.
Here are some more wonderful books illustrated (and written!) by Kathryn Otoshi:
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4 Comments

Quirky Fun in Little Red Gliding Hood by Tara Lazar ~ Mira Reisberg

6/13/2016

2 Comments

 
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If you don't know Tara Lazar, you should. She's the warm, funny, ultra-talented founder of Picture Book Idea Month (PiBoIdMo) and the author of some wonderful picture books. I love all of Tara's books but am especially sweet on Little Red Gliding Hood, written by Tara and illustrated by Troy Cummings. It's a fun fractured fairy tale that swizzles and twizzles its way through the enchanted forest as it follows the story of Little Red. Tara references the traditional Red Riding Hood story while making it completely fresh and new, weaving twists and turns throughout this quirky book. As Little Red glides throughout her adventures, she encounters no less than eighteen fairy tale and nursery rhyme characters, all true to character with cleverly incorporated surprises!
 
Little Red skates to her Grandma’s house every Sunday, but her skates are “worn-in and worn-out, no longer snow white, and a little too tight.” Unless she can figure out a way to get some new skates she won’t be able to visit her Grandma anymore!

Oh slippery slush! There's a pairs skating competition, and the prize is, you guessed it, a pair of brand new skates! Little Red needs to find a partner, but everyone she knows is already paired up. She rushes to Grandma’s to get some advice and ultimately finds an unlikely skating partner. But, will they be able to win the competition?
 
Troy Cummings’ brightly colored illustrations add to the humor and magic of Little Red’s story. His cartoonish interpretations play up the wackiness of the story, while simultaneously tying everything – characters from different stories and lands – into one sweet and hilarious whole. The detailed facial expressions and costuming of each character are enough to make a reader laugh on their own! His choice of bold pastel colors creates an enchanting winter setting for Little Red and the Big Bad Wolf’s adventures on ice.
 
Little Red Gliding Hood is a fun adventure that turns familiar stories on their heads.
If you're up for it, here's our slightly over 6 minute review with some peeks at the illustrations and a bit more about the underlying meanings.
Here are a few more of Tara's books.
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Please show Tara and us some love by commenting below and sharing :)
2 Comments

My Summer Reading (About Writing) List

6/5/2016

7 Comments

 
Below is a list of professional books for teachers of writing. However, I'm positive that children's writers would gain something from them as well. Some of these are new and some were new a few years ago, and have been sitting on my bookshelf waiting to be read. I'm really excited about these books and can't wait to dive into them. What's on your summer reading list?
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Have you ever told a writer to add more details, only to see their writing get longer not better? That's why Roz Linder wrote The Big Book of Details. "To help our students use details and elaborate effectively," she writes, "we need to find out what they want their writing to do, and then show them explicit moves to make it happen."
Roz breaks elaboration into 5 categories and shares 46 lessons based on the moves that professional writers use. With if-then charts that connect student needs to just-right strategies, you'll help writers master details that:
  • Describe: for people, places, and things
  • Dance: for showing action and sequencing events
  • Convince: for questions, persuasion, and arguments
  • Inform: for defining, comparing, and clarifying
  • Speak: for conversation and speech.
In Writers Are Readers, the mutually supportive roles of reading and writing are made visible through the idea of "flipsides;" how a reader's insights can be turned around to provide insights into his own writing, and vice versa. Lester and Reba's trademark engaging style is woven throughout chapters full of sample lessons, student writing samples, and recommended texts for maximizing the flipped concept across the year. "Leading the student to understand what he did as a reader can become a lens that brings into focus what the writer had to do before a reader ever saw the page," they write. Discover fresh new ways to turn reading strategies into writing opportunities that your students will be excited about and deeply understand.
It's been said that good writers borrow while great writers steal. Writing thieves read widely, dive deeply into texts, and steal bits and pieces from great texts as models for their own writing. Ruth Culham admits to being a writing thief-and she wants you and your students to become writing thieves, too!
A major part of becoming a writing thief is finding the right mentor texts to share with students. Within this book, discover more than 90 excellent mentor texts, along with straight-forward activities that incorporate the traits of writing across informational, narrative, and argument modes.

Chapters also include brief essays from beloved writing thieves such as Lester Laminack, David L. Harrison, Lisa Yee, Nicola Davies, Ralph Fletcher, Toni Buzzeo, Lola Schaefer, and Kate Messner, detailing the reading that has influenced their own writing.

Ruth's beloved easy-going style and friendly tone make this a book you'll turn to again and again as you guide your students to reach their full potential as deep, thoughtful readers and great writers. There's a writing thief in each of us when we learn how to read with a writer's eye!
In Writing with Mentors, high school teachers Allison Marchetti and Rebekah O'Dell prove that the key to cultivating productive, resourceful writers-writers who can see value and purpose for writing beyond school-is using dynamic, hot-off-the-press mentor texts. In this practical guide, they provide savvy strategies for:
--finding and storing fresh new mentor texts, from trusted traditional sources to the social mediums of the day
--grouping mentor texts in clusters that show a diverse range of topics, styles, and approaches
--teaching with lessons that demonstrate the enormous potential of mentor texts at every stage of the writing process.

In chapters that follow the scaffolded instruction Allison and Rebekah use in their own classrooms, you'll discover how using mentor texts can unfold across the year, from inspiration and planning to drafting, revising, and "going public" in final publication. Along the way, you'll find yourself reaching every writer in the room, whatever their needs. "Our hope in this book," they write, "is to show you a way mentors can help you teach anything you need or want to teach in writing. A way that is grounded in the work of real writers and the real reading you do every day. A way that is sustainable and fresh, and will serve your students long after they leave your classroom."
You'll refer to The Resourceful Writing Teacher time and again. Its teaching and learning strategies are understandable, accessible, and ready to implement. Bender establishes the specific teaching practices that help writers in grades 3-8 develop, giving you precise suggestions for minilessons, conferences, small-group strategy lessons, and shares.
Working through essential teaching points for writing narratives, writing non-narrative pieces, and using conventions, The Resourceful Writing Teacher forms an instructional blueprint that addresses the crucial skills writers need. Bender's ideas help students develop multiple strategies for internalizing skills such as:
  • finding topics
  • showing not telling
  • writing leads and endings
  • gathering information
  • spelling and punctuating
  • editing.  
With detailed instructional practices and a menu of essential skills and strategies to teach, The Resourceful Writing Teacher is the one-stop guide that streamlines instruction and gives students what they need for success in writing.
 In order to teach writing effectively, teachers must be writers themselves. They must experience the same uncertainty of starting a new draft and then struggling to revise. As they learn to move past the fear of failure, they discover the nervous rush and exhilaration of sharing work with an audience, just as their students do. Only by engaging in the real work of writing can teachers become part of the writing community they dream of creating for their students.
 
Kate Messner s new book, 59 Reasons to Write, shows teachers and librarians who teach writing how to be stronger role models for their students.

 
'Writing for my students provided me with appropriate mentor texts to share,' she writes. 'Writing with my students made me a mentor and a far better teacher.'
 
59 Reasons to Write grew out of Messner s popular online summer writing camp, Teachers Write. Throughout the book she offers mini-lessons, writing prompts, and bursts of inspiration designed to get you writing every day, whether on your own or as part of a group. Dozens of guest authors also share their writing processes and secrets, from brainstorming ideas and organizing research to developing characters and getting unstuck from writer s block.
 
59 Reasons to Write is for anyone who has always wanted to write but never managed to get into the habit. Daily warm-ups will help you flex your writing muscles and energize your teaching. As Messner shares, 'One of the greatest gifts of writing is the way it nudges us to look more closely not only at the world but also at ourselves.'
7 Comments
    We are so excited to be mixing things up at CBA, beginning with some delicious additions to the Blogfish. Meet our  awesome bloggers!!

    Here's our lineup:
    1st Mondays begin with awesome multi-published former student Shirin Shamsi who will be focusing on Muslim and cultural kidlit.

    2nd Mondays will feature super smart Melissa Stoller whose career is taking off with several new books.
     

    3rd Mondays will feature
    Bryan Patrick Avery, published writer, man of mystery, and professional magician among other things.

    4th Mondays will feature STEM, STEAM & SEL obsessed author Kourtney LaFavre sharing delightfully dorky, quirky, and fun info.

    And 5th Mondays we'll be taking a break

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  • Home
  • WRITING
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      • 2023 Mastering Graphic Novels Registration
    • Craft & Business of Writing Childrens Picture Books
    • The Chapter Book Alchemist
    • New!! Middle Grade Mastery Instant Access
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    • Testimonials
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  • Blogfish
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  • Community
    • Our Bookshop
    • Come Play With Us!
    • Resources
    • Course Scholarships >
      • Yuyi Morales Picture Book Scholarship
      • Andrea Davis Pinkney MG CB Mastery Scholarship
      • Rafael Lopez Illustrating Childrens Books Scholarships
      • Larissa Marantz Merit & Need Scholarship