Literacy Now

Bullying and relational aggression have been receiving a lot of attention in the media lately, but it's not a new problem. What is new is society's attitude towards bullying and relational aggression. What used to be accepted as a natural part of growing up has changed because now we know that bullying has serious consequences for everyone involved.

As a primary school counselor, I am devoted to the prevention of bullying behaviors. Every student can benefit from gaining the knowledge and skills needed to safely and effectively address bullying behaviors if encountered in any setting. My goal is to empower children to stand up for themselves and each other. My bullying prevention lessons are focused on developing a school culture of kindness and compassion; communication, problem solving, and conflict management skills; strategies for standing up for yourself and others; and reinforcing the importance of reporting bullying behaviors to a trusted adult.

Trudy Ludwig's books are the core of my counseling curriculum. She is a powerful advocate for children and the author of exceptional children's books. The themes of her books are relevant and meaningful to children. I read MY SECRET BULLY, JUST KIDDING, TROUBLE TALK, CONFESSIONS OF A FORMER BULLY and BETTER THAN YOU in my counseling lessons. These books address issues of aggression and help develop empathy in children as they navigate their complicated social world.

One of my favorite activities for building empathy is "Stand Up in Silence." There are variations of this activity, but after leading them through a reading of one of Trudy’s books, this is what I do with my students:

Stand Up In Silence

Intro

You may have strong feelings during this activity, but it is important that we honor each other's feelings by doing this activity in silence.

I am going to read several statements out loud to you. If I read a statement that is true for you please quietly stand up. If I read a statement that is not true for you, please remain seated or sit down.

Activity

Stand up if you have ever been teased about the clothes you wear, your height, your weight, or the size or shape of your body, or if any of these things has happened to someone you care about.

Stand up if you have ever been teased or made fun of for how you look or talk, or if this has happened to someone you care about.

Stand up if you or someone you care about has ever been put down, teased, or excluded because of skin color.

Stand up if you or someone you care about has ever been put down, teased, or excluded because of religious beliefs.

Stand up if you have used words to hurt others by calling them names or putting them down.

Stand up if you’ve been on the giving end or the receiving end of silent treatment or intentional exclusion from a group, game, or activity.

Stand up if you’ve smiled, laughed, clapped, or even remained silent when someone was being teased or bullied in front of you.

Stand up if you’ve ever emailed, texted, or posted something online about someone that you wouldn’t say to their face.

Stand up if you’ve been told that you act or look like a boy or a girl and that’s not who you are.

Stand up if you have ever been on the receiving end or the giving end of comments like “you're a loser,” “you’re so gay,” or “you're retarded.”

Stand up if you’ve ever felt pressure from friends to do something you didn’t want to do and felt sorry or ashamed afterwards.

Stand up if you’ve spread rumors or gossiped about someone else.

Stand up if you or someone you know was physically or emotionally hurt and you were too uncomfortable or afraid to say something.

Debrief

It takes courage to stand up. Lots of us stood up many times. When you stood up, you remembered what it feels like to be the target, the bystander or the bully. That is what empathy feels like.

Everyone here knows what it feels like to be hurt, to see someone be hurt and to cause the hurt. If we can remember what we’ve learned here today—that we’ve all been hurt by bullying—we will stand up and stop it from happening to someone else. We share a collective responsibility to prevent bullying behaviors.

Remember! It's a choice! If you don’t like how you are being treated or how you are treating others, stand up and do something about it!

If you are a target of bullying, report to an adult you trust at school and an adult you trust at home.

If you are a bystander, stand up! Report to an adult.

If you are a bully, stand up and get help! Talk to an adult you trust and learn skills to manage your emotions and behavior.

Laura Barbour, M.A. has taught and counseled children from preschool through high school in a variety of educational and mental health settings for over 20 years. She presently works as an elementary professional school counselor at Stafford Primary School in West Linn, Oregon. Laura joined authors Trudy Ludwig, C.J.Bott, Deborah Ellis, and Jennifer Brown at IRA’s 2011 Annual Convention to present a bullying prevention workshop titled “From Kindergarten to High School, Bully Books Start Discussions and Create Safer Classroom Environments.”

The International Reading Association (IRA) enjoys hearing stories from members working in the field of literacy. The popular Member of the Month series just moved from the Engage/Teacher to Teacher blog to its new home on Reading Today Online. We hope you enjoy these monthly features that profile IRA members from a variety of backgrounds, disciplines, and locations. Without further ado, let us introduce Bobbi Faulkner from North Carolina. 

Barbara (Bobbi) Faulkner is currently pursuing a doctorate in Educational Leadership at Appalachian State University. She has worked for several years as a high school hybrid—teaching English/Reading/and ESL classes in a sheltered format. In her current role, she is a mentor working with beginning high school teachers in a variety of disciplines. 

When did you decide you wanted to be a teacher? How did your career progress to working with English as a second language students/English language learners (ESL/ELL) and mentoring? 

I did the typical playing-school-with-stuffed-animals thing as a kid. I also taught school to my younger and older cousins in the summer using the Summer Bridge books. I liked getting to explain things to them and to see the way their faces changed when they began to understand. Admittedly, at that age, a small part of me delighted in being bossy. Since those childhood days, my desire to teach was solidified in high school when my English teacher, Dr. Melissa Eggers, took me under her wing, mentored me, and helped me to get scholarships, one of which was the North Carolina Teaching Fellows Scholarship. She inspired me to want to teach not only English, but also to teach and care for students, to want to reach out to those in need—academically, financially, socially, or otherwise.

I got involved with English Language Learners when I student taught in Guadalajara, Mexico. Although my certification is high school English, I taught fourth grade to students of a variety of nationalities, students who spoke a variety of first languages. These students were very fluent in English, which impressed me greatly. They struggled with the cultural differences encountered in texts. For example, I remember being surprised when we read a story about winter and snow and I had to explain what that was like because they have two seasons—rainy and dry—and having to explain what a dime is. 

My first teaching job after I graduated was working part-time in an elementary school ESL program in Boone, North Carolina. With this population, I discovered the differences between affluent students in Mexico refining their usage of a second or third language and the immigrants in the United States who typically faced financial difficulties as well as the struggles each wave of immigrants to the US have encountered. My students in Boone were at varying levels of proficiency—some were just beginning to learn the alphabet while others were struggling with reading comprehension.

Because this position was part time, it would not fulfill the requirements of my Teaching Fellows. Therefore, I took a position teaching high school English, and it was here, after completing my National Boards, that I realized that even for students whose first language is English, reading and reading comprehension can be a struggle. Prior to the National Board process, I had assumed that high school students knew how to read and understand a text and that they were just lazy when they couldn't get it. I saw just how little I knew about the process of reading or teaching it, and I went back to school at Appalachian University for a Masters in reading. 

I held several teaching positions after that—I was an ESL teacher twice and a hybrid reading/English/ELL teacher three times. After those experiences, I felt well-equipped to help teachers in other disciplines, especially those just starting out. As an ESL teacher, I often co-taught, and that experience, combined with getting my EdS in adult education and beginning my doctorate in Educational Leadership led me to want to affect education in a broader way. Mentoring allows me to have this reach beyond one classroom. I liken my role to that of a bee—I take pollen (other teachers’ knowledge and craft, and spread it to as many flowers as I can (my beginning teachers).

In your current role as a mentor working with beginning high school teachers in a variety of disciplines, do you find that new teachers are surprised by any aspects of working in a school?

For all of my beginning teachers, their biggest surprise is a mismatch between their expectations and reality. They expect to be able to come in and teach the lessons they have labored over to a rapt audience, to students who are motivated and engaged. Often, however, they are confronted with apathy and/or more overt disciplinary issues that they feel ill-prepared for by college and student teaching. Classroom management is even more of a struggle for my lateral entry teachers. Both lateral and regularly certified beginning teachers tend to want to preserve their positive relationships with students and feel that disciplining them is contrary to that goal. By the time they realize that students are taking advantage of their tenderheartedness, they feel that it is too late to start anew and become more stern.

What’s the best advice you could offer someone new to the profession?

Read Harry Wong’s The First Days of School. Classroom management is exactly that—managing student behavior. Before you step foot in your classroom, have a plan for everything. Decide what your procedure will be for handling late work, allowing students to use the rest room, turning work in, handing papers back out, working in groups, and so forth.  Be precise about your expectations and rehearse these procedures with your students, frequently. Structure is a key to preventing misbehavior. Have a routine for starting class and ending class. Arrange your room in a way that students know where to look to see what they are doing for the day, to see what their homework is, and to see important upcoming dates. Finally, engaging lessons are the biggest key to avoiding bad behavior.

You have a lot of experience with ELL students. How is teaching them the same and how is it different than teaching native English speakers?  

Whew. You like asking the easy questions. Seriously, I suppose the biggest difference depends on the proficiency level of the student. When I teach a high school class of ESL students who are new to the country, our focus is on basic vocabulary and even phonics, on learning the building blocks of the language and how to put those together to produce speech and writing, on how to extract meaning from listening and reading, and on moving beyond having to translate. Learning to read and write in a second language is complicated further for some students who have weak literacy skills in their first language or who never learned to read or write in that language. Students who are of medium proficiency tend to have good social language, which can often lead a teacher to wonder why they struggle academically. These students are working on gaining a knowledge of academic vocabulary and can be easily confused by material that is presented in one way and then paraphrased differently, for instance. My most proficient ESL students are mostly indistinguishable from non-ESL students, and they differ from those that have exited the program in that they perhaps lack the most technical vocabulary or the ability to write essays with complex structures and elaborate examples. For all ESL students, they have positive and negative transfer between their L1 (first language) and L2 (English) that I must be aware of and use to help them navigate pitfalls of misconceptions and to make a bridge between what they already know about language and its domains of listening, speaking, reading, and writing.

Teaching ESL students is the same as teaching any other student in the sense that they need to be engaged and motivated. All students learn best when they are interested in the material, and I have found that the best way to interest them is to give them choice. I find out what their hobbies, likes, and dislikes are and use those as much as possible in my teaching. As far as teaching English Language Arts, both groups of students learn best when the SIOP model is followed, when I have thoughtfully prepared a lesson, activated and built background knowledge, provided students with comprehensible input (for example, text at their instructional reading level), used strategies to help them derive meaning from a text, allowed them to collaborate with one another, given them a chance to practice and apply what they have learned, delivered the lesson in a way that is dynamic, and then reviewed the material and assessed both formatively and summatively.

You are interested in researching adolescent literacy. What attracts you to this age group?

High school teachers assume that their students come to them knowing how to read. While they may be able to read, an astonishing number of them are at least two grade levels behind, which makes learning difficult in all subjects. Reading and writing are both integral skills necessary to being prepared for life in the 21st century, in our knowledge driven world. However, this age group has often been neglected by the research community. Also, I feel that they have been given up on by this point, and if they are struggling readers, they have often given up on themselves and schooling. I feel that even if they can only gain two years in terms of reading proficiency and they entered high school reading at a third grade level, they can leave functionally literate. Literacy to me is a civil rights issue, and I want to see more done to help our struggling readers.

As a literacy educator, how do you motivate kids to want to read?

I discovered the term “aliterate” several years ago when I was preparing a workshop about how to motivate students to read. Many of our students these days say they do not enjoy reading, so it is not just our struggling readers who need to be motivated. I engage them by providing them with choice. I have a well-stocked classroom library of over 1,500 titles that range from a kindergarten reading level up to college on topics from Tupac to deer hunting, including the Twilight books alongside Sharon Draper’s wonderful books. I use reader response, challenging students to connect the texts to their lives. We have lively discussions. We read and we create. I am constantly looking for ways to make the reading relevant to them. I show them that reading is fun. Reader’s theater is a favorite activity. They enjoy the freedom of SSR and like making book trailers to advertise the books they have read. I think outside of the box and lure them to books and other types of text by ANY MEANS NECESSARY!

What made you decide to pursue your doctorate in Educational Leadership at Appalachian State University?

The more I worked with struggling readers, the more I became aware of how little we know about how to help struggling adolescent readers. Appalachian has a super-star cast of reading experts, such as Dr. Darrell Morris, Dr. Gary Moorman, Dr. Tom Gill, Dr. Bob Schlagel, Dr. Beth Frye, and Dr. Carla Meyer. I learned so much from the master’s program at Appalachian and knew that I wanted to continue my studies with this group.

Which professional development books have you found influential in your education? 

Wong’s First Days of School, Mike Rose’s Lives on the Boundary, Atwell’s In the Middle, Tom Romano’s Blending Genre, Altering Style, Jim Burke’s Reading Reminders and Writing Reminders, Making Content Comprehensible for Secondary English Learners, the Words Their Way series, The Book Whisperer, Thinking Out Loud on Paper: The Student Day Book as a Tool for Fostering Learning, Hip Hop Poetry and the Classics, Backwards Planning: Building Enduring Understanding Through Instructional Design, Bringing Words to Life: Robust Vocabulary Instruction, To Be a Boy, to Be a Reader, Adolescent Literacy: Turning Promise into Practice, Readicide: How Schools are Killing Reading and What You Can Do About It, The Howard Street Tutoring Manual, Diagnosis and Correction of Reading Problems, and The Courage to Teach to name a few.

What do you like to do when you’re not wearing your educator hat? 

Read. Write poetry. Play with my two children, Nadia and Gavin, 7 and 9 respectively. Sleep. Paint. Make jewelry. Make paper. I’m crafty and I have lots of energy, so I have a hard time with down time, probably because I haven’t had much of it since I have been on this educational journey. Playing in the mud and in the sun is a favorite. Doing the unexpected. I love to hike and swim and hula hoop and laugh.

What do you consider to be your proudest career moment?

Hmmmm. Probably receiving the Character Educator of the Year Award from the Kenan Institute. But presenting at CRLA’s national conference last year with Dr. Ari is a close second.

 

 

 

English Learners Resources from the International Reading Association Annual Convention

The New Engage Blog on Reading Today Online

October is National Bully Prevention Month in our schools but somehow there seems to be a grand irony lost in asking educators to try and step up to stop bullying when I am not sure if there is a professional group of people being more bullied these days than teachers.

“We want you to stop the name calling and eradicate all bullying behaviors in the halls of your schools (you no-good, greedy, low-test-score-delivering louts).”

“We want you to teach respect and civility (you abhorrent, why-can’t-you-just-do-your-job worm lickers).”

“We ask that you reach down deep and instruct our young people in the noble ways of civility, kindness and respect (you detestable, how-dare-you-ask-for-health-care-benefits cretins).”

I’m paraphrasing, of course, but I do think the subtext of so, so many national conversations that take place in the media in regards to the world of teaching and teachers (as instigated by the voice box of agenda-driven politicians, reformers and business folks) is laced with a cocktail of contempt, disappointment, antagonism and good ol’ fashioned anger at those in our collective profession.

What happened to teachers being considered an admirable and necessary pillar of society who deserve support, respect and encouragement? Am I simply being naïve, or have those things merely gone the way of Blockbuster Video storefronts?

Truly, to hear our peers in the world of education be mentioned on the nightly news is to know that, uh oh, it’s time once again to cringe…’cause here it comes.

To wit.

To wit.

To wit.

I swear all this “to witting” is going to make me lose my wits. And the more I think about it, the more I believe that all this railing against those in our profession is being done by nitwits.

Sheesh, to hear the mainstream media tell it, one would think that those of us in education are actually members of Congress.

Yet, to be fair, we now live in a land of polarized news—so to mention the mainstream media is to connote that the media wing (which claims to be fair and balanced and/or proudly right leaning) cuts teachers a bit more slack and delivers a bit more appreciation for their service.

Bzzp.

Bzzp.

Bzzp.

Well, there goes that idea.

From the left, from the right, from up on high and even from within, we are taking a public hammering. We’re being picked on.

We’re being bullied.

And who is our champion? The unions? Boy, is that a mixed bag. The parents? Heck, it’s hard enough for them to rally for back-to-school night and let’s face it, they have their own problems. Well, perhaps it’s the Secretary of Education?

Does he like us? Loathe us? l can’t tell.

Now, to be fair, we deserve some of this criticism. Of course we do—but who doesn’t? Can we count a few of us in our ranks as despicable and horrifying? Yes, I believe we can.

But is that who “we” are? Is that the lion’s share of our constituency? How come there’s so little pushback against this insane stereotyping of teachers as malcontents who are actually overpaid underperformers that are doing more harm than good in our community?

I’ll tell you why—it’s because most educators are too nice and too dedicated to the work and too tired to fight the outrageousness.

Photo: BlueRobot via Photopin cc

As professionals, we’re not really all that combative by nature. To spend a great amount of our energy battling the nattering nabobs of negativity feels like a waste of time to most of us. Instead of waging a collective counterattack against the propaganda which seeks to paint us as low-performing and under-delivering, many of us simply absorb those messages, feel demoralized by the incessant abuse, and try to believe that better days will one day soon come and society will once again return to its senses.

Does anyone who is profiteering off of bashing and bullying teachers really see the long-term ramifications of such actions? They may think they are a “force for change,” but what’s really happening is that fewer people are aspiring to be teachers (in a time when we are facing a teacher shortage in the coming decade) and less respect is being accorded to teachers, which undercuts an educator’s ability to actually do the job society asks of them (and needs them to do). I mean, the last time I checked, pretty much every lawyer, doctor, engineer, software salesperson, Internet billionaire and venture capitalist began their career in the hands of a caring, concerned, knowledgeable teacher.

Teaching is the job that precedes all other jobs, and to tear the profession and its people down for short term glory (i.e. ratings or political gains) is to participate in a circular firing squad. Eventually, all of us will fall.

Bully away folks. But know that you do so at the expense of our collective future.

And never forget—it’s much easier to tear something down than to build something up. That’s a critical point to remember.

It’s also a point relayed to me once upon a time by a teacher.

Alan Sitomer was named California's 2007 Teacher of the Year. In addition to being an inner-city high school English teacher and former professor in the Graduate School of Education at Loyola Marymount University, Alan is a nationally renowned speaker specializing in engaging reluctant readers who received the 2004 award for Classroom Excellence from the Southern California Teachers of English, the 2003 Teacher of the Year honor from California Literacy, the 2007 Educator of the Year award by Loyola Marymount University and the 2008 Innovative Educator of the Year from The Insight Education Group. He’s the author of six young adult novels, three children's picture books, two teacher methodology books, and a classroom curriculum series for secondary English Language Arts instruction called THE ALAN SITOMER BOOK JAM.

As much as children and adults look forward to the leisurely days of summer, many also eagerly anticipate the lower temperatures, the crisp air and frosty mornings as well as the pungent smell of apples and pumpkins being harvested that are associated with the autumn. As trees begin to dress themselves in golden and scarlet hues, their last hurrah before being shed for winter’s naked branches, fall beckons everyone to jump into a pile of freshly-raked leaves, to savor the taste and aroma of a marshmallow-filled cup of hot chocolate, and to trade summer linens for flannel sheets. This week’s reviews from members of the International Reading Association's Children’s Literature and Reading Special Interest Group feature books about the season’s turning, something that always happens around this time of year.

GRADES K-3

Duke, Kate. (2012). Ready for pumpkins. New York: Random House/Knopf.

Guinea pig Herky, short for Hercules, is the class pet of Miss MacGuffey’s first graders. He enjoys his lifestyle very much with regular food, water, shelter and lots of attention from all the children who love him. At Halloween he watches the students carve pumpkins, including one they call the Herk-o-Lantern. Herky observes the students and learns about seeds, and he notes how the students plant green beans the following spring. Herky warms to the idea of planting his own garden, and when he is taken home for the summer to the farm of the teacher’s father, he decides to plant the pumpkin seeds he stored over the winter. With his newly-found rabbit friend, Daisy, Herky plants the seeds and then impatiently awaits the plants’ appearance. As the summer weeks pass, Herky grows angry that his seeds aren’t sprouting. When he stamps his feet and digs up a seed to see what is happening, Daisy explains that gardens take a long time to grow. They spend the summer playing games and singing songs. When it is time to go back to school, the pumpkins have still not appeared. The book ends with the teacher’s father bringing a basket of pumpkins to school later in the fall, to Herky’s delight--although Mr. MacGuffey has no idea who planted these surprise pumpkins. Readers may want to visit the author’s website for more background. Teachers may want to choose from a plethora of pumpkin plans at A to Z for Teachers. They will find even more pumpkin ideas at The Virtual Vine website.

- Karen Hildebrand, Ohio Library and Reading Consultant

Enslow, Brian. (2012). Fall colors. Berkeley Heights, NJ: Enslow.

This nonfiction title for beginning readers introduces colors that are especially noticeable during the autumn season. The book opens with a note to parents and teachers discussing how this text introduces concepts and explains that there is an educator’s guide available at www.enslow.com. Each full-page spread contains a colorful photograph depicting an autumn object with two words. For example, one page shows an up close photograph of a maple leaf with its veins and stem. On the opposite page these simple words are included, “yellow leaf” (p. 11). This book is part of a series titled All about Colors of the Seasons. These titles are perfect for children who are learning the basics of reading: how to point to each word as they read, how the illustrations match the words and that reading has to make sense. In addition, this book contains a table of contents, index, websites and more information for early readers interested in learning more about the fall season.

- Deanna Day, Washington State University Vancouver

Farrar, Sid. (2012). The year comes round: Haiku through the seasons. Illus. by Ilse Plume. New York: Albert Whitman.

This first-time author states, “The haiku in this book depict little vignettes in the natural world to describe these changes across the seasons and months of the year” (p. 28). Each double-page spread displays one haiku and an illustration of the season.  The book begins with winter, depicting Jack Frost and a snowman and then continuing through the changing seasons, ending with a bear getting ready to enter his winter den. The author has included information at the end of the book explaining the pattern used in writing haiku and also the cycle of life depicted within each season of the year. The Caldecott award-winning illustrator has created the companion artwork for each haiku that complements each season and the emotion evoked in the poetry. Teachers might like to try “Haiku Starter” from ReadWriteThink.

- Karen Hildebrand, Ohio Library and Reading Consultant

Flatt, Lizann. (2012). Counting on fall. Illus. by Ashley Barron. Toronto, Canada: Owlkids Books Inc.

Teachers in search of an interactive math book that serves multiple purposes will enjoy this title. Not only does it focus on elementary mathematics concepts such as counting, estimating, adding, and subtracting, but it also enfolds them in information on the fall season and animals, making it a perfect choice to build text sets and unit plans centered on those topics. Each time readers return to the book, they will perfect their elementary math skills. Readers will be captivated by the text’s playful but challenging and evocative words with activity questions in sidebars. Inviting both aesthetic and efferent reading, the book presents a parade of animals from many ecosystems. Endangered animals such as humpback whales, picas, pronghorn antelopes, Canada geese, brown bats, and black bears are shown busily engaged in a way that invites readers to participate. The pictures are made with layered, tactile collage art, which presents flora and fauna creatively and in their native habitats in eye-catching and bright-colored spreads. A great addition to any classroom or home library, this book would be useful in challenging readers across curriculum areas in an engaging manner.

- Rani Iyer, Washington State University Pullman

Franklin, Linda Campbell. (2012). Into the pumpkin. Atglen, PA: Schiffer Pub.

The witch has invited you to take a “peek through the pumpkin” (unpaged) and join all the Halloween regulars at the festivities. Using beautiful and ethereal illustrations, all the eerie characters found on Halloween are busy with the preparations for the party. What should they wear? Costumes or just go as themselves? Witches are laboring over the cauldron, spiders are on websites, skeletons are dancing, and even more preparation and activity bustles as party time approaches. Told in rhyming text, this delightfully scary, but not too scary, picture book will make a great read aloud for primary students. Teachers can have a little fun with their electronic white boards and carve a virtual pumpkin with their students at www.theoworlds.com/halloween or at www.abcya.com/pumpkin_carving.htm, or enjoy Halloween fun and enter the haunted house at the Ben and Jerry’s website.

- Karen Hildebrand, Ohio Library and Reading Consultant

Goldstone, Bruce. (2012). Awesome autumn. New York: Henry Holt.

This nonfiction look at fall contains just about every fact and aspect of autumn that a classroom teacher could need. Designed in an oversize format and illustrated with collage pictures and colorful photographs, the book features autumnal features including the wide variety of temperature changes, fall sports, food ripening and harvesting, explanations of trees changing color and losing their leaves, animal migrations, and fall holidays such as Halloween and Thanksgiving. If that’s not enough, there’s even more. This colorful, comprehensive book will serve as an interesting read for primary students as teachers make Common Core social studies and science connections. Teachers might like to use the slide show at the publisher’s website or visit the author’s website or try a lesson place called “Shhh!” Bear’s Sleeping: Learning about Nonfiction and Fiction Using Read Alouds” on ReadWriteThink.

- Karen Hildebrand, Ohio Library and Reading Consultant

Greene, Stephanie. (2012). Princess Posey and the monster stew. Illus. by Stephanie Roth Sisson. New York: Penguin/G. P. Putnam’s Sons.

Six-year-old Posey is a little nervous about Halloween this year because the other students in her first grade class say that only babies carry flashlights. In addition, her teacher, Miss Lee, has announced they will be making “monster stew” (unpaged) for Halloween this year, and Posey is not looking forward to that either. However, when she gets home and pulls her tutu out and transforms herself into Princess Posey, she finds a little bit of courage, and she knows she can face any challenge. Posey’s family supports her brave image (and tutu) and help her face her fears to enjoy trick or treat night in her princess costume. Teachers might enjoy this detailed activity guide at the Debbie Gonzales’ website.

- Karen Hildebrand, Ohio Library and Reading Consultant

Latta, Sara L. (2012). Why is it fall? Berkely Heights, NJ: Enslow.

This fun book makes science and weather easy to learn. Full-page photographs along with simple text describe when fall begins, why leaves change colors, what happens to plants in the fall, and what animals do in the fall, concluding with what people do in the fall. One beginning illustration shows how Earth moves around the sun in one year and how it tilts as it goes around. The text then explains, “The tilt causes more or less sunlight to fall on different parts of Earth” (p. 6). In addition, the book contains headings and text boxes. The book also has a science experiment, table of contents, words to know and index. Primary teachers will find this picture book a perfect addition to their classroom library.

- Deanna Day, Washington State University Vancouver

McNamara, Margaret. (2012). Apples A to Z. Illus. by Jake Parker. New York: Scholastic.

Fox, Bear, and several other forest friends take young readers through the alphabet as they learn about everything related to apples. Each letter of the alphabet represents some aspect of apples, from the deciduous trees that they are, to “G”rafting new breeds, to “V” for the numerous varieties of apple. Comic illustrations make this fact-filled book an enjoyable look at information about apples. The end of the book shares information about Johnny Appleseed, jokes, science and fun facts. Teachers will want to check out this lesson idea entitled “Delicious, Tasty, Yummy: Enriching Writing with Adjectives and Synonyms” at ReadWriteThink.

- Karen Hildebrand, Ohio Library and Reading Consultant

Roode, Daniel. (2011). Little Bea and the snowy day. New York: HarperCollins/Greenwillow.

A good read aloud for young readers as the wintery months approach, this title celebrates in simple fashion all the delights of colder weather. Very young readers will enjoy reading the simple story of Little Bea, a bee who spends a day outdoors having fun in the snow with her friends. Since Bea and her friends busily skate, make angels in the snow, and throw snow balls at each other, children who love that time of the year will be able to relate and smile at the idea of Little Bea being covered in the snow and later nursing a mug filled with warm cocoa. Many of the words used are fun to say and describe exactly how Little Bea feels in the frosty air as she says, "Brrrrr" (unpaged) when cold air hits her face and "Wheeee!" (unpaged) as she flies through the snow. The ending will prompt smiles when Little Bea and her friends decide it’s time to make a new friend, and then they literally make one--a snowman, that is. The color-drenched illustrations were created with Adobe Illustrator and Adobe Photoshop.

- Barbara A. Ward, Washington State University Pullman

Rubin, Adam. (2012). Those darn squirrels fly south. Illus. by Daniel Salmieri. Boston/New York: Clarion Books.

As fall arrives and the leaves begin to fall from the trees, many of the local birds start heading south. Old Man Fookwire is sad to see them go since he loves watching their antics and painting them as they hang out in his backyard. But he’s not the only one who hates to see them go. Those pesky squirrels who seem to plague Fookwire want to know where exactly those birds are heading. They have somehow managed to craft various flying machines that enable them to follow the birds in order to follow those birds. Missing the birds--and, secretly, the squirrels too--Old Man Fookwire decides to climb in his hardly-used car and follow them too. Once he reaches their sunny destination, he is enchanted by the warm climate and relaxed atmosphere, not to mention the exotic birds and beach-front locale. It’s all too much for him, though, and all vacations must come to an end.  Eventually, he returns home with the squirrels in charge of the car and the driving. Readers are liable to laugh loudly at the illustration of the cranky old man with squirrels wrapped all around him, even hiding in his pants, draped on top of his head, and clutching his legs in welcome. Even the grumpiest reader will be unable to resist this sweet story about a surprising friendship and the watercolor, gouache, and colored pencil illustrations that accompany it. After all, everyone needs a break from work, and a vacation with those darn squirrels might just be the ticket to relaxation.

- Barbara A. Ward, Washington State University Pullman

Stead, Philip C. (2012). Bear has a story to tell. Illus. by Erin E. Stead. New York: Roaring Brook Press.

As leaves begin to fall from the branches of trees and the autumn comes to an end right before winter sets in, Bear has a story to tell. He knows he doesn’t have much time since so many of his friends are leaving, and he, too, will need to find a den for the duration of the wintery months. But every time he approaches someone, he is dismissed. As much as they’d like to make time for Bear’s story, Mouse, Duck, and Frog are busily preparing for winter, and they simply can’t stop for him. In fact, Mole is already fast asleep. Since no one has time for his story, and a story always needs an audience, Bear resolves to remember to share his story when spring returns. But the winter months are long, and he can’t remember what story he wanted to tell once he awakens. After several unsuccessful attempts, he must rely on his friends, each of whom makes a contribution to the story’s content. Readers will be engaged by the simple but precise text and the illustrations that show how tired Bear is as he wanders through the forest in search of a listener. Despite his own preoccupation, he still manages to help his animal friends, even lifting a paw into the air to see what direction the wind is blowing as Duck prepares to fly away. The rapidly-diminishing fall foliage, the falling snowflakes, and then the greens of spring on the book's pages show the passage of time.

- Barbara A. Ward, Washington State University Pullman

GRADES 3-5

Jenkins, Emily. (2012). Invisible Inklings: Dangerous pumpkins. Illus. by Harry Bliss. New York: HarperCollins/Balzer + Bray.

This is the second book in the new middle grade series about Hank Wolowitz and his invisible bandapat friend, Inkling. In this latest adventure, fourth-grader Hank has lost his best friend when he moved away. Now there is no one to go trick or treating with and because of the strange way he has been acting due to his invisible friend Inkling, Hank is lonely. In addition, Inkling has cultivated a fondness for the taste of pumpkins. In fact, he likes pumpkins so much that he even eats Hank’s sister Nadia’s hand-carved pumpkin art projects, leaving Hank to take the blame. Trying to keep Inkling fed, Hank is going broke from his meager earnings at the family’s ice cream store. From imaginary friends to the trials and triumphs of real friendships, this early chapter book provides a story with which intermediate age kids will identify. Teachers may enjoy having an inside view of the book at the publisher’s website. For a fun way to introduce an Inkling watch and listen to the author talking to an inkling, teachers may want to take a look at the author's website. Also see In Other Words: Emily Jenkins (Invisible Inkling series) Finds Her Protagonist on the Engage blog.

- Karen Hildebrand, Ohio Library and Reading Consultant

These reviews are submitted by members of the International Reading Association's Children's Literature and Reading Special Interest Group (CL/R SIG) and are published weekly on Reading Today Online. 

The International Reading Association partners with the National Council of Teachers of English and Verizon Thinkfinity to produce ReadWriteThink.org, a website devoted to providing literacy instruction and interactive resources for grades K–12.

The Weird series (Free Spirit Publishing)
Written by Erin Frankel and illustrated by Paula Heaphy
Grades 1 through 5

The Weird series introduces readers to Luisa, Jayla, and Sam—three girls intertwined in a bullying experience. Each story is told from their own viewpoint—the victim, the bystander, and the bully. In the first book, WEIRD!, we meet Luisa who is the target of the bullying. She endures relentless putdowns aimed at her unique style and personality. This causes her to emotionally suffer and become confused as to why this is happening and how to make it stop. She finally reveals the truth of what is going on to her mother who helps her reclaim her former self-confidence.

In the second book, DARE!, we are introduced to Jayla the bystander of the bully problem. In the beginning, Jayla does nothing to stop Luisa being tormented because she is afraid of the bully. Readers discover Jayla was also once a victim of the girl's taunts. Author Erin Frankel shows us the danger of becoming a bystander in the second book when Jayla joins in the bullying because she feels intimidated and pressured into doing so. One day Jayla dares herself to take a stand and have courage to fight this problem. She learns to cope with her past fears by befriending Luisa and standing up for her.

In the concluding book of the series, TOUGH!, we meet Sam who has been behind all of the bullying. But readers also discover what is underneath all of the mean behavior. Sam is exposed to television programs depicting bullying behavior, bullied by her brother at home, and has also been picked on at school. The only way she feels she can regain control is by hurting others and acting tough to cover up her own secret pain. Sam finally loses her bullying ways when a teacher intervenes and offers to help. Her anger and desire to lash out at others subsides when she begins to use kindness and compassion.

The illustrations in this story will definitely spur discussion. It is illustrated in black and white except for the characters in each book who are in color. Two of the same pages overlap and appear in each book. Each book in the series also includes an activity guide and helpful information for adults. The Weird! series is a powerful teaching tool about bullying. It's insightful, creative, and will touch students' hearts and minds and empower them to stop bullying.

Cross-curricular connections: Character Education, Writing, Art, Language Arts

Ideas for Classroom Use:

Character Study through Illustrations

Lead a discussion around the use of color in the books. Divide the class into three groups and give them each a different book to study. Allow them to take notes on their observations by using sticky notes. On a white board, write the names of each different book and allow each group to put all of their observations under each title. Students can also take it a step further and try to interpret why they feel color was used this way.

Some observations students should look for and discussion points:

• The story is black and white except for the main characters.
• The main characters are in color.
• Luisa's colors fade as the bullying continues.
• Jayla's colors fade as she stands by silently watching Luisa being bullied and joins in on the bullying.
• Luisa's polka dots float away, Jayla's stars fade, and Sam wears hearts under a hoodie.
• Luisa's polka dots come back bigger and brighter than ever.
• Jayla's stars come back in full color.
• Sam stops hiding behind her hooded sweatshirt and we see her hearts as we see her kindness begin to grow.

Insightful questions:

• What color do you feel when you are happy?
• What color do you feel when you are bullied or when you see someone else being bullied?
• What happens to your color when you feel powerless?
• What happens when you are empowered?
• How can you protect your color?
• How can you protect other people's colors?

As a closing activity for this lesson, have students write and illustrate their own story about bullying from their point of view. Were they the victim, bystander, or maybe even the bully? Encourage students to use color in a similar fashion as it was in the Weird! series to represent their power and how they overcame their problem. Allow students to share their stories with the classroom community. For younger students, allow them to do a drawing using colors that make them feel courageous, confident, and kind.

Additional Resources and Activities:

PACER
This website contains information from the creators of National Bullying Prevention Month and The National Center for Bullying Prevention that helps promote awareness and teach effective ways to respond to bullying.
Kids’ site: www.pacerkidsagainstbullying.org
Teen site: www.pacerteensagainstbullying.org

NEA Bully Free Schools
This website provides information on NEA’s bullying prevention campaign. There are also tips and resources to help you address the issue of bullying in your classroom.

Choose Kind
This is a blog inspired by R.J. Palacio’s WONDER. It contains links to anti-bullying resources and opportunities to use the novel in conjunction with efforts to get your students to “choose kindness.”

Teaching Tolerance
This website by the Southern Poverty Law Center offers a documentary, classroom activities, and teaching kits that promote tolerance.

The Trevor Project
This website is a companion to the Trevor Lifeline, a 24-hour, national crisis and suicide prevention lifeline for gay and questioning teens. The site offers teacher resources, tips, and training. The number for the hotline is 1-866-4-U-Trevor.

Bully Free Program
This website offers a range of tips for dealing with bullying for teachers, students, and parents.

Claim Your Rights
The Claim Your Rights program is designed to help everyone understand that they have the right to safer schools. This resource helps students, parents, and teachers report incidences of bullying, particularly when schools deny that bullying exists.

Roxanne Davidson has been working as an elementary school counselor since obtaining her Master's Degree in Education in 2005. Bibliotherapy has always been a passion of hers as she has witnessed the healing power of books in her students' lives. She has made it her mission to help teachers, children, and parents find contemporary books to help them address the many issues kids currently deal with in the classroom and at home. This inspired her to start the popular book review blog, Books That Heal Kids. Besides writing for her blog she enjoys running, reading and spending time with her husband and daughter.

© 2012 Roxanne Davidson. Please do not reproduce in any form, electronic or otherwise.