Comments on: Picture Books

By: Jonathan Hunt

Jonathan Hunt — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 12:51:57 +0000

I like all three titles that Nina has mentioned above–I even think WATER SINGS BLUE is distinguished, although not *most* distinguished, not in the way that DARK EMPEROR was.

I’d like to add a couple more picture book/poetry possibilities . . .

OH, NO! by Candace Fleming . . . The musicality of this text is really infectious especially once the reader nails the sing-songy cadence. I never thought Fleming would be able to top MUNCHA! MUNCHA! MUNCHA! but she has. It’s a great read aloud book and students can’t help but spontaneously joining in on the chorus. And the art is to die for (not that we consider that).

SQUEAK, RUMBLE, WHOMP! WHOMP! WHOMP! by Wynton Marsalis . . . His earlier poetry collection JAZZ ABZ is relatively unknown, but very excellent. Perhaps if it had not been published the same year as A WREATH FOR EMMETT TILL and SONG OF THE WATER BOATMEN. Anyway, this single poem employs lots of onomaetopeia as I mentioned previously. I’ve taken another look at this one, and would like to recant what I said about its suitability as an easy reader. I could definitely see the Geisel committee recognizing this one.

FORGIVE ME, I MEANT TO DO IT by Gail Carson Levine . . . Not a serious Newbery contender at all, but a must have for any teachers of poetry. Levine spends the whole book hilariously spoofing “This is Just to Say.”

I’VE LOST MY HIPPOPOTAMUS by Jack Prelutsky . . . Another one that is not a serious Newbery contender, but is very kid-friendly, and like FORGIVE ME is an extended collection of poetry (i.e. more than 32-48 pages).

Here’s the thing about both the picture books and easy readers: I like many of them, but I’m hard pressed to put them in my top three, let alone my top seven–at least in a vacuum where I’m isolated with my opinions. But people do wonky things in groups and if there was broad support for the right easy reader or picture book than I could definitely get behind it during committee discussions.

By: Monica Edinger

Monica Edinger — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 11:21:23 +0000

“…even though Maya is unable to fix what she did to Chloe (not Maya)…”

By: Monica Edinger

Monica Edinger — Wed, 31 Oct 2012 11:18:56 +0000

EACH KINDNESS is in my top seven goodreads Newbery list. It is stark and spare and poetic and makes readers feel and think hard. I think it is one of the most challenging books for readers of the year. I had a remarkable conversation with my fourth grade students about it. One said it is both a bad book and a great book, the bad being its difficult topic and great because of how it made them think. I’ve found that it is very hard for people of any age to consider that Maya, along with others, might have been so cruel, but it happens all the time. Woodson gets to the heart of how we are so complicated and can be both good and bad. I’m not always a fan of a teacher offering a lesson in a book, because it usually feels didactic in a not-good way, but it was necessary and worked in this one. I wish I had a video of the class conversation about this book as it was just incredible.

There are a number of books this year that ask/encourage readers to consider complicated issues of how to act, live life, and this is one of my favorites. (I also liked the way Applegate made the zookeeper complex too in IVAN.) Woodson does so in a challenging way, but the book still ends hopefully (as I think books for that readership should) with the sense that even though Maya is unable to fix what she did to Maya she is going to be a different person because of what she did — she is not a one-shot-villain, unwilling to even acknowledge that she was mean, but did see what she did, is profoundly changed by it.

Books from the point of view of the bully/harasser/mean child are rare to pull off and I think Woodson did an incredible job with this one. And that is not even getting into the gorgeous sentence level writing.