Category Archives: Uncategorized

Anansi the Spider

Title: Anansi the Spider

Author: Gerald McDermott

Illustrator: Gerald McDermott

Publisher and Year: Landmark Production, Incorporated, 1972

Number of pages: 36

Tags/Themes: Culture, Diversity, Animals, Fiction, Picture Book, K-5, Olivia Ruff

Genre: Fiction

Descriptive Annotation: This picture book is based on the story of one of the travels of Anansi, a trickster from Ghana folklore. The children of Anansi help save Anansi from being killed, and then he must decide which child to give the moon to, so he puts it in the sky until he decides which child deserves it. In essence, it is the story of how the moon came to be. The illustrations are bright and patterned. There is an author’s note with information about Ghana folklore.

Classroom Application: The book would help students learn about different cultures and learn about the folklore of tribes in Africa. This could be used in a social studies classroom or an English classroom. This novel could be a great introduction to African culture for younger children, but it could also be used as an example when looking into literature about other cultures.

Linguistic and Cultural Diversity Analysis: This picture book would be great for younger students in K-1 to introduce other cultures in the classroom. For older students (2-3 grade) the book would be a good addition to a unit on African culture or folklore. The story provides opportunities for younger students to question what child would Anansi give the moon to, different moral questions of that sort. Quotes: “Then Game Skinner helped father Anansi. He split open Fish” (16) and “First son was called See Trouble. He had the gift of seeing trouble a long way off” (3).

 

 

 

Where The Buffaloes Begin

Title: Where The Buffaloes Begin

Author: Olaf Baker

Illustrator: Stephen Gammell

Publisher and Year: Puffin Books, 1981

Number of pages: 40

Tags/Themes: Culture, Diversity, Award Book, Animals, Fiction, Picture Book, 2-3 , Olivia Ruff

Genre: Fiction

Descriptive Annotation: This book is about a young Native American who went away from his tribe in order to find the buffalo herd. While he was gone, their rival enemy tribe was sneaking into their camp. The boy found the buffalo herd, and he sped back to their camp with the buffalo following, killing their enemies. The illustrations are in black and white.

Classroom Application: The book would help students learn about Native Americans. This novel could be a great introduction to Native American culture for younger children, and it helps with SELS, as the protagonist helps save his tribe from harm through his independence and will to explore.

Linguistic and Cultural Diversity Analysis: For older students (2-3 grade) the book would be a good addition to a unit on Native Americans as a way to demonstrate the culture and connection, or rather, inseparable relationship with nature. Two quotes: “Little Wolf never knew what came to him, what spirit of the wild whispered in his ear; but suddenly he leaped to his feet and cried out” (19) and “The prairie grouse got up almost under the pony’s feet” (3).

 

Ten Little Rabits

Title: Ten Little Rabbits

Author: Virginia Grossman

Illustrator: Sylvia Long

Publisher and Year: The Trumpet Club, 1991

Number of pages: 24

Tags/Themes: Culture, Diversity, Animals, Fiction, Picture Book, K-1, 2-3 , Olivia Ruff

Genre: Fiction

Descriptive Annotation: This picture book is about rabbits participating in different activities that Native Americans participate in. The different activities include ritual dances, fishing, and storytelling which are all important aspects of Native American culture in a broad sense. The illustrations depict different tribes and their regalia/clothing. There is an author’s note describing the tribes represented in the novel in the back of the book.

Classroom Application: The book would help students learn about different cultures and learn about the traditions of tribes. This could be used in a social studies classroom. This novel could be a great introduction to Native American culture for younger children.

Linguistic and Cultural Diversity Analysis: This picture book would be great for younger students in K-1 to introduce other cultures in the classroom. For older students (2-3 grade) the book would be a good addition to a unit on Native Americans as a way to demonstrate the culture and customs within the illustrations. The rabbits are participating in activities in which they are wearing certain regalia, providing an opportunity for students to learn about the culture of the tribes represented. The language used in this book is simple, making it appropriate for very young children. Quotes: “Nine festive drummers beating on a drum”(17) and “Two graceful dancers asking for some rain” (4).

 

Freedom on the Menu

Author: Carole Boston

Illustrator: Jerome Lagarrigue

Publisher and Year: Puffin Books, 2005

Number of pages: 29

Tags/Themes: Culture, Diversity, Family, Historical Fiction, Picture Book, 2-3 , Olivia Ruff

Genre: Historical Fiction

Descriptive Annotation: This picture book is told from the perspective of a child during the Greensboro sit-ins. The child’s older siblings are participating in the protests, and by the end of the book they are served at a diner where they used to only serve white people. There is a description of the sit-in’s from the men who originally did it.

Classroom Application: This book would be appropriate to read to younger students around 2-3rd graders. The book is a good introduction to civil rights, and it is told from a child’s perspective which makes it easier to understand what is happening.  I would use it as a way to explain some of the civil rights problems back then, and use it to make the students reflect how we fairly treat others.

Linguistic and Cultural Diversity Analysis: The book would be a great way to introduce civil rights to students who are younger. A teacher could use it to begin discussion about how to treat others kindly and talk about maybe things that we do now that aren’t fair to others. Two quotes: “It sounded as if he believed God was on our side” (9) and “Sister and Brother sipped coffee and I twisted on my stool while we waited for our meals” (29).

 

If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler

Author: Italo Calvino

Illustrator:

Publisher and Year: Harcourt, 1981

Number of pages: 264

Tags/Themes: Adventure, Chapter Book, Fantasy, Fiction, 8-12, Olivia Ruff

Genre: Fiction (Avant-Garde)

Descriptive Annotation: This novel is an example of Avant-Garde fiction. The novel has a different plot for each chapter, and it follows a the process of reading the book by Calvino. The style, plot, and narrator changes each chapter because each chapter is the first chapter of different books. The end of the book combines the titles from each chapter to form the beginning of “If On A Winter’s Night A Traveler.” The words used in the novel are complex, so it would be for an advanced English class.

Classroom Application: This novel would be idea for a college prep English course. The novel pushes the readers to analyze the traditional format of narrative, and the language used in the novel will push students to learn new vocabulary. This would be good as an introduction to Avant-Garde fiction, which is a part of literature that can easily be overlooked, but it is useful for generating great discussion about the reading process and structure of novels.

Linguistic and Cultural Diversity Analysis: The author, Italo Calvino, is an Italian author, and this novel was translated into English. The novel covers a range of thought provoking concepts given the nature of Avant-Garde. This novel disrupts typical aspects of literature, specifically with plot, narration, and structure. Students will be challenged to think outside of the box in regards to how they view literature because the novel itself calls attention to the reading process. I would use short stories first to introduce students to Avant-Garde, and this novel would be what I choose as the end of the Avant-Garde unit because it embodies many aspects of Avant-Garde fiction. “You are about to begin reading Italo Calvino’s new novel, If on a winter’s night a traveler. Relax. Concentrate. Dispel every other thought” (3). “With a zigzag dash you shake them off and leap straight into the citadel of the New Books Whose Author Or Subject Appeals To You” (6).

Drowned City

Author: Don Brown

Illustrator: Don Brown

Publisher and Year: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2015

Number of pages: 96

Tags/Themes: Culture, Emotion, Family, Graphic Novel, Non-fiction, 6-8, Olivia Ruff

Genre: Non-fiction

Descriptive Annotation: The novel is about Hurricane Katrina. The novel shows the reasons why the hurricane was disastrous, but it also shows how the country and the communities responded to helping struggling survivors. The students should understand complex words, and drowning is discussed in the novel, so this book would not be ideal for young children for those two reasons.

Classroom Application: This text would be effective in an English or History classroom. The novel is an interesting form that is not that of a traditional novel, so it would be interesting to analyze due to the form. It is important to show students that there is engaging and important literature that strays from the traditional chapter book format. It would be beneficial in a History classroom because the novel covers many different aspects of Hurricane Katrina including involvement at the community level along with federal level. Novels that are creditable and effectively show several aspects of a historical event is something that would be good to use in the classroom in order to offer a different form.

Linguistic and Cultural Diversity Analysis: The novel covers the disaster that struck New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit. The novel addresses the struggles that came with the hurricane including the obstacles facing the survivors, leftover environmental concerns plaguing the community, and the response from local and federal governments. This will enlighten younger students who were not alive for the hurricane to better understand the event and all of the different ways survivors struggled in the aftermath. I would assign this novel because of the form, and I would introduce this novel as a way to introduce graphic novels to my class. In terms of content, I would begin class discussion with asking them a question along the lines of, “What can you all tell me about hurricanes? Think of all aspects of the natural disaster.” And then I would put their responses on the board in order to create class discussion, and the novel would go into detail about environmental and social issues involved with one of the most horrific hurricanes to date. The narrative is written in a way that presents many facts, and I will include some quotes: “But the people there decide that being inside is better than staying abandoned on the sidewalk, and break in” (43). “Scores of sick, frail and elderly people swamp emergency medical clinics. Many are still strapped to doors used as makeshift stretchers” (74).

Picturing America: Thomas Cole and the Birth of American Art

 Author(s)/Illustrator/Photographer: Hudson Talbott

 Publisher and Year Number of pages: Nancy Paulsen Books, 2018, 31 pages.

Genre: Nonfiction

Descriptive Annotation: The cover features an artistic rendering of Thomas Cole at work on one of his superb paintings of the Catskill Mountains in Upstate New York. The depiction demonstrates the way the sun sets at night on those majestic mountains. The artist who is pictured made the American art scene a respected one on the international stage, and his pieces are as well-known today as any Monet or Picasso. As for the book itself, it is a brilliant storybook that involves the engrossing story of a young English boy, Thomas Cole, who is forced to flee his homeland as a result of the ongoing Industrial Revolution there (late 1700s-mid to late 1800s). Thomas, our protagonist, is a boy who is used to his beautiful English countryside home life with his mother, father, brother Sami, seven sisters, and his grandpa Jed. Family life for him is consistent and comfortable. However, as the author notes, “Thomas’s father had to close his workshop because he could not make goods as cheaply as the big factories” (Talbott, p. 5). England is the only home he’s ever known, and when the Industrial Revolution comes to the village, he and his family must flee the land they love so much to make it in the American wilderness by boat from Europe. The family ends up in Steubenville, Pennsylvania, leaving four of Thomas’s seven sisters behind in the Old World, as the family only had money for the three sisters and the Cole parents to take a stagecoach. Thomas follows them on foot, and befriends a travelling portrait painter upon his arrival and learns how to paint. His passion takes off, and soon he is the toast of the worlds both New and Old, inspired by journeying up and down the Hudson River and funded by his first patron, a Mr. Thomas Bruen. It would be beneficial for the reader to learn why and how Cole’s career got started; the additional information, plus the background knowledge provided in the text, would help the reader to enjoy this story better. The language is pretty simple, but also profound in its own way when describing the devastating impact of industrialization on ordinary Americans and Englishmen, particularly Thomas and his family.

Classroom Application: It is an ideal text to teach lessons on the aftereffects of industrialization, since too often the media and history books solely focus on the big incidents that occur with the process of industrialization itself instead of the human impact, and its unsuitability for the long run. Good stewardship of the environment, and being able to appreciate beauty via subtle art as Thomas Cole exhibited in his paintings is the lesson I learned from this book. The author subtly demonstrates that treating your environment with dignity and respect results in a better world, rather than the outright sabotage through rapid buildup and environmental issues that resulted from the First Industrial Revolution (1760-1840). The best avenue to pursue is to educate others as Cole did, and help save “…the environment while there (is)…still time” (Talbott, p. 30). How the children best learn this lesson, of course, would be up to the teacher. The passion shown by the main character, Thomas Cole, in pursuing his goals of making a new, truly American art form and saving the environment from then encroachment of machines is certainly a worthy trait for teaching purposes, and could be tied into the environmental protection movement of the 1960s-present in a history classroom setting. Students could be taught laws or US Supreme Court decisions that allow discrimination against the environment, or in the past discriminated against it, and how to go about changing them.

Linguistic and Cultural Diversity Analysis: The book is set in England and Upstate New York, and its cultural influences will be very familiar to many readers in Illinois. Instead, focus on the unique American art schools formed over the 2 centuries we have been a united, independent country and expound on them to a large extent. This would also be great for an art course, as the artists who followed Cole such as Asher Durand and Frederic Church help reflect the artistic traditions of the USA since our independence in 1776: “It was the first art movement that was truly born in America” (Talbott, p. 30). Even though they weren’t part of the group that originally settled the area thousands of years ago, Cole and his devotees started to capture the natural beauty of the Eastern United States before a large portion of it was lost to the forces that built up the factories out East, making the region into what it is today.

Skin Again

Author(s), Illustrator/Photographer: bell hooks; illustrated by Chris Raschka.

Publisher and Year/Number of pages: Disney-Jump at the Sun Books, 2004, 30 Pages.

Genre: Fiction, Picture Book.

Descriptive Annotation: The cover features two pastel drawings of children’s hands (one white and one black) clasping each other over the image of a patchwork quilt of skin colors. Also included is a heart-shaped icon on the quilt itself, and all of these are shown in pastel colors. This is a combination of both standard unifying imagery used by mankind for millennia, and the use of children’s hands as innocent figures who don’t notice superficial man-made differences, which can be seen for the entirety of the picture book .

Skin Again is the heartwarming story of a group of kids getting along famously despite their exterior differences, as they continually are told by the narrator, bell hooks, that “The skin I’m in is just a covering. It cannot tell my story” (hooks, pgs. 2-4). As the story goes on, it is evident that while this story is short on words due to its targeted young audience, it has plenty of heart, and indeed makes looking inside others’ hearts a key point of focus for the reader: “If you want to know who I am you have got to come inside” (hooks, p. 14).  The whole of the story is about acceptance and loving others no matter what they may look like, and realizing that others are always coming from different places in their lives (and in the world) from you. Growing up in a predominantly white and Asian suburb of Chicago, Palatine, I wish I had had more books like this one to read, as they might have helped ease some of the tensions that arose between the northern and southern halves of the town based on race and class. Others should have read this as well, because even one person reading the book could have made a difference. Absorbing and understanding the messages described in this story would foster better understanding in any community, and seeing such harmonious relations between different races would be a useful antidote to our current racially-charged era. These lessons would certainly be useful for students reading this novel in the primary school classroom.

Classroom Application: In the book Skin Again, the characters are children of different races, based on the makeup of our nation, which would be ideal for instructing students from less racially or ethnically diverse communities. Different people from different settings are exposed to different realities on a daily basis, and that is more or less the theme that the book conveys. For instance, the last line of the book sums it up nicely: “For we are all inside made up of real history, real dreams, and the stuff of all we hope for when we can be real together on the inside” (hooks, pgs. 25-29).  This demonstrates how people should simply be authentic with each other as well, as authenticity is key in forming long-term relationships. This is a teachable moment, since it’s hook’s way of saying that race and racism, or discrimination of any kind, is arbitrary. It’s not only bad for the human race to think this way-it can be fatal, as we saw at Charlottesville last year. In short, we need less racism in the world, and this book here offers a way to start the anti-racist process at an impressionable age.

Linguistic and Cultural Diversity Analysis: hooks covers the interactions between children of different skin colors in a unique and innovative way, making sure to include culturally sensitive clothes and hair for the children of each race without overdoing it in the story. Not many people have used a picturebook format to do so before, or in this manner that acknowledges the categories of race without letting them get in the way of harmony between disparate peoples: “The skin I’m in looks good to me. It will let you know one small way to trace my identity” (hooks, pgs. 11-12). This is necessarily true- the author’s motivation was to do exactly this when they wrote the text. Exasperation with people not being able to get this message with traditional mediums of literature likely drove bell hooks to write this book, and that is why 14 years later, this is still an excellent (but still largely singular of its type) piece of work.  Another important message in this picture book is that the idea of forming perceptions based on race is misguided and skewered to a certain degree: “You can find all about me-coming close and letting go of who you might think I am” (hooks, pgs. 19-20). On those pages, a young black and young white boy are both pointing at one another from opposite pages, which is a metaphor for the pointing of fingers that happens all too much in today’s world. Such a metaphor may seem blatant and unnecessary to certain readers, but in the context of the age group that is reading this book, it is understandable that it is included to help eliminate biases at a tender age.

Muktar and the Camels

Author(s)/ Illustrator/Photographer: Janet Graber, Scott Mack

 Publisher and Year Number of pages: Henry Holt and Company, 2009, 29 pages.

Genre: Fiction

Descriptive Annotation: The cover features an artistic rendering of the protagonist, Muktar, with a camel, done in some lovely shades of watercolors that are throughout the book. There is a brown camel on a navy-blue background, and the shirt Muktar is wearing is a similar shade of blue, perhaps leading the reader to infer that Muktar himself is a fixture of the natural world as well, not disturbing the equilibrium that Mother Nature has set. As for the book itself, it involves the engrossing story of Muktar, a Somalian refugee who has found a refuge in Kenya but still misses his homeland and the tending of camels he used to do there. Muktar gets his chance to take up his old passion when a traveling librarian, Mr. Mohamed enters the refugee camp in Kenya in which he resides. Mr. Mohamed reached the town the camp is a part of, Garissa, by camel back, and soon Muktar’s troubles are alleviated somewhat by the presence of the three camels-a new, dynamic trio of mammalian friends. The teacher of the school Muktar attends, Mr. Hassan, always called him lazy and shiftless before in the classroom, but stops doing so now that he sees the young man’s ability to take care of Mr. Mohamed’s camels so well. Luckily for the reader, despite the complex geopolitical situation in East Africa, the story contains universal themes -feeling like an outsider, trying to fit in when in a new place, and getting a true sense of belonging in unfamiliar locales. This is accompanied by the equally universal themes of those three bad things hanging over your head until there is an activity or valve to release the feelings of loneliness and isolation that can easily plague even the most levelheaded person. There is some background information provided at the end to help the precocious reader truly enjoy this story as well learn about the turmoil Somalia has gone through since 1993, and how it has exacerbated the flow of refugees out of the nearly lawless country.

Classroom Application: A central theme is the acceptance of others despite their differences, and the description of world events make this an ideal text to teach those lessons to students. The author and illustrator demonstrate that stigmatization isn’t the best avenue to pursue when new or different people enter your community, and how the children best learn this lesson would be up to the teacher. The passion shown by the main character in pursuing his goal of camel tending and acceptance from his peers in the camp (and Kenyans in general) is certainly a good lesson for teaching purposes. One possible lesson after reading the book would be to follow the news coming out of two current conflicts-Syria as mentioned in the Stepping Stones review, and Yemen-or even Somalia, which is still run by a weak government, and tie that into classroom curriculum. Students will also hopefully recognize, as Mr. Hassan does at the end of the story about Muktar, that we all have a purpose on this Earth, and at some point, we all need a person to “take care of the…ornery beasts” (Graber, p. 25) in our lives.

Linguistic and Cultural Diversity Analysis: The book’s setting is along the Kenyan-Somalian border, and the unique cultural blend formed in that region in recent years due to the combination of cultures from refugee movements is depicted and would be great material for a social studies-type course. The traditions of the Somali peoples that originally only stayed in Somalia have dispersed everywhere from Nairobi to Minneapolis, and are now present in the fabric of each city’s social structure. Graber explains this concept to the reader through the character of Muktar, who is an orphaned young man that ran away from a war-torn country with his nomadic family. Tragically, he was the only one who made it out alive, and his “…mother and father rest in graves beneath piles of stones” (Graber, p. 6). The Somali people from Muktar’s region of the country have always been committed to maintaining and supporting their camel herds, and Muktar’s father hammered that lesson home whenever he could: “Camels first. Always camels first. Camels are treasure” (Graber, p. 5). His zeal that he got from his late parents to take care of these animals convinces Mr. Mohamed to take him on his travels across the continent, and Mr. Hassan allows it when he sees the boy so happy about caring for the animals rather than depressed about his situation.

Bring me some apples and I’ll make you a pie: a story about Edna Lewis

Author(s), Illustrator/Photographer: by Robbin Gourley.

Publisher and Year Number of pages: Clarion Books, 2009, 45 Pages.

Genre: Historical Fiction and Biography.

Descriptive Annotation: The cover features the protagonist, Edna Lewis, brandishing an apple of the sort used by the future chef at Freetown, Virginia. Watercolors depict the sons and daughters of former slaves in their community, gathering crops and making a living free from the bulk of anti-black persecution of their brethren further south under the post-Civil War Jim Crow laws. The book covers the harvest of crops, which are baked into delicious recipes that can be found at the back of the book, and the process of getting them from field to fork.  Breaking the mold of standard imagery of the era in our collective mindset, all of the workers in Freetown live relatively pleasant lives, seemingly unburdened by segregation due to the town being formed by and for African-Americans, and not a single white person in sight for the entirety of the text. Prior knowledge of what the community of Freetown was, and perhaps research on Edna Lewis’s long cooking career could help further classroom discussions immensely.

Classroom Application: In this picture book, the characters are all assigned different tasks in farming the field, which would be ideal for some role-play for those children who live in suburban and urban settings who have never experienced rural life and its trappings before. Accompanied by a field trip to a local farm (especially in the Bloomington-Normal area) would be an excellent idea and a way to broaden one’s knowledge of Illinois’s agricultural traditions, supplemented by the Virginian ones seen in the book. I certainly never heard pecans falling from the sky during harvest season: “The leaves are falling, and so are the nuts. Ping-ping-ping. Pecan and walnuts fall on the rooftop. The family fills baskets full of them” (Gourley, p. 34).

Linguistic and Cultural Diversity Analysis: Gourley covers the legacy of slavery, and Jim Crow, in a way that can easily be remembered, and notes the historical significance of Freetown at the last page of text before the recipes come in: “Edna Lewis was born in 1916, in Freetown, Virginia, a community founded by her grandfather and two other emancipated slaves” (Gourley, p. 40). The author speaks the dreams of Edna to become a famous chef towards the end of the book, too: “How about we make a summer pudding or a cobbler? Or just have a bowlful of berries with sugar and cream?” (Gourley, p. 19). Such a bevy of ideas for making food with the berries are indicative of a creative young mind, and it is crucial that teachers encourage that kind of pluck and ingenuity so that they can make the next generation of innovators like Edna Lewis reach new heights of greatness.