Tag Archives: Animals

Misadventures of Sweetie Pie

Posted on December 4, 2018 by | Comments Off on Misadventures of Sweetie Pie

Title – Misadventures of Sweetie Pie

Author(s) – Chris Van Allsburg

Illustrator/Photographer – Chris Van Allsburg

Publisher and Year – HMH Books, November 4th, 2014

Number of pages – 32 pages

Tags/Themes – Rylie Loux, Animals, Emotion, Family, K-1, 2-3, 4-5

Genre – Fiction

 

Descriptive Annotation: This story is about Sweetie Pie, a hamster, that faces many difficult times with different homes and humans. Sweetie Pie was the last of his litter to be chosen from the pet store and he is handed off when he is no longer cute or wanted. Finally he ends up in a classroom, where the students take care of him. But one day, a student leaves him on the playground. The next morning, when the student rushes to look for Sweetie Pie, he is nowhere to be found. None of the children seem to care that Sweetie Pie is gone, because they just move on and get a guinea pig for their classroom. The good news is Sweetie Pie was rescued by squirrels and now has a great life with squirrel friends in a tree. The bad news is that there are no consequences for all the children that just left Sweetie Pie behind.

 

Classroom Application: This is a perfect resource for engaging students in a lesson involving animals and respect. It is important for students to know how to treat, respect, and care for their animals at a young age. Children also need to know what happens when the neglect to their duties as a pet owner. It also covers emotional connections and how they would feel if they were tossed between parents and not taken care of properly. This can also be used in the classroom to talk about the author’s purpose and point of view. Each author has a purpose behind their story and this book does a good job of expressing that purpose. This can be used in the classroom to teach the definition of author’s purpose and provides a great example. Also this story is shown in the perspective of the hamster and this presents to the children different ways a story can be written.

 

Linguistic and Cultural Diversity Analysis: This book represents the students emotional connection to animals in the story. “He’s soooo sweet! squealed the pigtailed girl. The hamster had heard these words before.” This quote expresses that since he has heard the same things over and over and had never been treated correctly, the compliment doesn’t even phase Sweetie Pie. This is implying that sometimes when people say the same things without changing, it is hard to still believe them. The other major moral of this story is the understanding of how to treat animals. This story is presented in a way that is relatable for students and also connects to their emotions. “Since it was the only time he was let out of his small cage, he pretended to like it.” This quote relates to the idea that Sweetie Pie doesn’t get treated the right way and is always traveling from house to house in his cage. He is never played with or set free and this is not the way to treat a pet. The author uses Sweetie Pie to help the children understand what his life is like. This story shows students that to have a pet, you must treat it the best you can.

 

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A Boy and A Jaguar

Posted on December 4, 2018 by | Comments Off on A Boy and A Jaguar

Title – A Boy and A Jaguar

Author(s) – Alan Rabinowitz

Illustrator/Photographer – Ca’Tia Chien

Publisher and Year – Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company, 2014

Number of pages – 30 pages

Tags/Themes – Rylie Loux, Animals, 3-4, Emotion

Genre – Biography, Non-Fiction

Descriptive Annotation: This story is a biography about the authors journey through life, from boyhood to adulthood, feeling restrained by his disability (speech impediment). He says he can only speak fluently when he is singing or when he talks to animals. He promised his pets and a jaguar at the zoo that he’d grow up to “be their voice and keep them from harm.” In college, he received assistance to help him speak fluently, formalized his study of animals, and eventually developed a specialization in wild cats and jaguars. A question and answer at the end of the book provides readers with additional context for his work, conservation efforts, and stuttering.

Classroom Application: This is a perfect resource for engaging students in a science lesson involving animals and wildlife. An example of how to connect this story in the classroom would be to have students study a specific endangered animal through writing, drawing, or speaking. Then have them talk about what is being done around the world to protect various endangered species and what we they can do to help. This story also supports students to listen and look closely, to wonder about the power of their own voices, and to consider issues of conservation and discrimination from a new perspective. This connects to the classroom to show that everyone is different in their own special way and there should never be bullying or inequity demonstrated in the classroom.

Linguistic and Cultural Diversity Analysis: This book represents the students knowledge of endangerment of animals. This is the scientific lesson that is being presented in the story. The other major moral of this story is the understanding of disabilities and their effects on people’s lifestyles. This story is presented in a way that is relatable for students and also connects to their emotions. “Animals can’t get the words out, just as I can’t. So people ignore or misunderstand or hurt them.” This quote relates to both of the main ideologies that are presented. The author uses the animals to help the young boy describe what he is going through. This may help students see how disabilities are not looked at as a negative, but they are able to connect it to something else. This also presents an idea of equity in the classroom. This story shows students that they are all different, but special in their own way.

 

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Rechenka’s Eggs

Posted on December 3, 2018 by | Comments Off on Rechenka’s Eggs

Title: Rechenka’s Eggs

Author: Patricia Polacco

Illustrator: Patricia Polacco

Publisher and Year: Philomel Books, 1988

Number of pages: 30

Tags/Themes: Animals, Picture Book, Emotion, Russian, K-1, 2-3, Diversity, Fine Arts, Olivia Ruff

Genre: Fiction

Descriptive Annotation: The book is about an old woman who paints eggs for a festival every year. During the winter she feeds the caribou, and once a wounded goose found her house. She tended to the goose, and once it broke all of the eggs she had painted for the upcoming festivals. The goose then began to lay painted eggs. She laid enough eggs for the woman to take to the festival, and then the goose had to leave with her flock. She left behind an egg with a baby goose in it that would stay with the woman forever.

Classroom Application: This book does not tell any lesson, but it uses aspects from a country that does not get much air time in children’s literature: Russia. The book uses Russian words, but it does not require any previous knowledge to understand it. This book could be used in an art class to introduce the Russian tradition of painting eggs. It could be used in a different classroom to show aspects of Russian culture in the classroom.

Linguistic and Cultural Diversity Analysis: There are a few Russian words in the book, and it puts an emphasis on the culture. The illustrations use aspects of Russian traditions such as the designs on the eggs or the patterns of the fabric used throughout the novel. The buildings are real buildings in Russia as well. Quotations: “Babushka lived alone in a dacha, a little house in the country, but she was known far and wide for the fine eggs that she lovingly painted” (1) and “She crossed the bridge over the Moskva River and soon she could see the onion domes of Old Moskva” (18).

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El Deafo

Posted on November 29, 2018 by | Comments Off on El Deafo

Title: El Deafo

Author(s ): Cece Bell

Illustrator/Photographer: Cece Bell

Publisher and Year: Amulet Books, 2014

Number of pages: 233

Tags/Themes: Allison Henry, Animals, Award Book, Fiction, 4-5, 6-8, Family, Graphic Novel

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Descriptive Annotation: El Deafo is the story of a young girl, Cece, navigating elementary school and all that entails, while deaf. After contracting meningitis at age 4, Cece loses all ability to hear. She receives hearing aids and a Phonic Ear to use in school. In order to cope with being different, Cece creates an alter-ego, El Deafo. This book is a graphic novel, therefore there are many illustrations in the text. Students would need to have background knowledge in basic school situations, a middle to upper elementary level vocabulary, and the knowledge of how to read a graphic novel.

Classroom Application: I would use this text to address the Social Emotional Learning Standards for late elementary. This book could be used for Learning Standards 1.A., 2.A., 2.B.2.b., 2.C., and 2.D. These standards refer to explaining emotions, identifying social clues and describing them, identifying differences and overcoming them, and cooperating with friends and other groups. All of these topics are addressed in El Deafo, where the situations are presented, Cece chooses a course of action, and then the consequences are shown.

Linguistic and Cultural Diversity Analysis: This book is about a child that is deaf. This story presents many situations that students that are deaf and their classmates could find themselves in. This book could be used to start a discussion about treatment of peers that may be different from themselves. This book was published in 2014, therefore it is up to date in the vocabulary that it uses to describe the situations and the treatments used to assist the student that is deaf. This book could be introduced by explaining to the students that sometimes, people have different abilities. It could also be explained that, just because someone may have different abilities, does not mean that they are in need of assistance. It can be used to start a discussion on appropriate treatment of peers, addressing both bullying and trying to be too helpful. On page 34, Cece is teased by a friend for mishearing a question. Her friend, Emma, says, “No-not supper-summer! Summmmmm-mmmmmer! Supper! HEE HEE!” This part of the story focuses on Cece being teased by her peers and how see feels when this happens. Later in the story, Cece makes a friend that is too helpful. In response to Ginny, her friend, saying, “CEE-CEE. DOO YOO WANT MYYY PEEA-NUT BUTT-ER SAND-WICH?”, Cece thinks, “I really, really like Ginny. She’s funny. She’s weird. We love all the same things. So what’s the problem? It’s the wat she talks to me… “(67).

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Anansi the Spider

Posted on November 29, 2018 by | Comments Off on 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).

 

 

 

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Where The Buffaloes Begin

Posted on November 29, 2018 by | Comments Off on 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).

 

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Ten Little Rabits

Posted on November 29, 2018 by | Comments Off on 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).

 

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Muktar and the Camels

Posted on November 28, 2018 by | Comments Off on 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.

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Maus

Posted on November 28, 2018 by | Comments Off on Maus

Author(s), Illustrator/Photographer: Art Spiegelman

Publisher and Year Number of pages: Pantheon Books, 1991, 296 Pages.

Genre: Fiction, Autobiography, Memoir, History and Biography.

Descriptive Annotation: The cover features two Polish Jews (Spiegelman and his father) cowering under the shadow of a giant swastika, modified by the imposition of a German-stylized cat’s head emblem. This is a combination of both standard Holocaust imagery and the use of animals as metaphors, which can be seen for the entirety of the graphic novel. Maus is the heartbreaking story of a Polish-American man and his aging father’s experiences in the Holocaust as a Polish Jew, and the continued regret of Spiegelman “using” the death of six million Jews to sell his book to some extent in his mind. As the Holocaust is described to him via his father, Spiegelman also continues to express guilt that didn’t talk to his father more about his experiences on a frequent basis when he had the opportunity to do so when the former was alive. The whole of his father’s trials, from growing up in moderately anti-Semitic Poland to the German invasion in 1939 and the ways in which the population react (or don’t react) to the actions the Nazi regime takes against the Jewish population, are covered in the book. Prior knowledge of what the Holocaust was, and perhaps reading of some more traditional fare on the era such as The Diary of Anne Frank, would certainly be useful in the scenario of students reading this novel in the classroom.

Classroom Application: In this graphic novel, the characters are all played by different animal personas based on nationality, which would be ideal for some upper-level social studies settings. For instance, the Nazis/Germans are cats, the Jews are mice, Americans are dogs, and the French are frogs. The metaphors purposefully don’t work for large portions of the story, i.e. when a mouse is a veteran of World War I for Germany and he flickers back and forth between being a mouse and a cat. This is a teachable moment, since it’s Spiegelman’s way of saying that race and racism, or discrimination of any kind, is very arbitrary because the categories we apply really don’t hold water when held up to scrutiny, or when you consider that people can belong to more than one category.

Linguistic and Cultural Diversity Analysis: Spiegelman covers the different ways in which the Holocaust is remembered, and notes that when he published the novel, nobody had used a comic book format to do so before: “I’m not talking about YOUR book now, but look at how many books have already been written about the Holocaust. What’s the point? People haven’t changed…” (Spiegelman, p. 34). Exasperation with people not being able to get the message with traditional mediums of literature drove Spiegelman to write this book, and that is why 27 years later, this is still a widely taught and used piece of work, both in the US and Germany, the latter of which had to be lobbied to permit the public sale of this book due to the display of the swastika being an illegal offense in that country. Another source of controversy is that the animal chosen to represent the Poles was a pig, since that is a common stereotype of people from Poland and from Eastern Europe in general, and the Germans are universally seen as a brutalizing force in the novel as well. The author speaks through one of his characters as unrepentant on the latter, though, stating “Let the Germans have a little what they did to the Jews” (Spiegelman, p. 226). Such an attitude may seem severe to certain readers, but in the context of the experience of Spiegelman’s family and millions of others, it is understandable that they are biased against their erstwhile oppressors and architects of the genocide.

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Hoot

Posted on November 28, 2018 by | Comments Off on Hoot

Author(s) Illustrator/Photographer: Carl Hiaasen

 Publisher and Year Number of pages: Alfred A. Knopf, 2002, 292 pages.

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Descriptive Annotation: The cover features a simple artistic rendering of a burrowing owl’s white eyes on a sky-blue background, very similar to other minimalist books of Carl Hiaasen’s that feature similar cover artwork. As for the book itself, it involves the engrossing story of Roy Eberhardt, a boy who is used to being a new kid. Florida isn’t the first state he’s lived in, but probably the most interesting place he’s ever been. We first meet Roy with his face being pressed against the window of his school bus by Dana Matheson, the local bully.  While dealing with Dana, Roy meets a boy named Mullet Fingers and learns of a sinister plot involving a pancake house called Mother Paula’s, which is planned to be built on the site of an owl rookery.   Roy used to hate Florida and mope about going back to Montana, but now he doesn’t think it’s so boring after all. Roy and Beatrice, his crush at school, have to decide whether or not to help protest for owls’ rights with Mullet Fingers by sabotaging the Mother Paula’s site, which is not an easy choice to make since he is already in trouble at school for ditching class to chase Mullet Fingers. Luckily for the reader, there isn’t much background knowledge needed to enjoy this story-all they need do is get comfortable in their favorite spot and get to enjoying it. The language is pretty simple but also profound in its own way and could be used for a variety of grade levels due to a mass appeal for readers with many different tastes.

Classroom Application: Since the book makes the protection of the environment at all costs from those who would besmirch or defile it an enormous priority, it’s an ideal text to teach lessons on sustainability and good stewardship of the Earth. The author subtly demonstrates that outright militancy and sabotage towards polluters isn’t the best avenue to pursue, and how the children best learn this lesson would be up to the teacher. The passion shown by the main characters in pursuing their goal of environmental preservation is certainly a trait for teaching purposes. One possible lesson after reading the book would be to review current events and find a story that gets the class excited about environmentalism. Students would also do well to recognize, as Roy does, that “Just because something is legal doesn’t automatically make it right” (Hiaasen, p. 180), and think about laws that exist in this country that may not necessarily have been just or good for every American, and how to go about changing them.

Linguistic and Cultural Diversity Analysis: Since the book is set in South Florida, the unique cultural blend formed in that region over the centuries is described to a large extent and would be great for a social studies-type course. The traditions of the Seminole peoples that originally settled the area thousands of years ago are ever-present. Hiaasen explains them to the reader through the character of Mullet Fingers, who is a barefoot young man that ran away from a “special” (read: Indian re-Education) school in Mobile, AL to come and protect the swamp that holds the owls from bulldozers that are coming to build a pancake house on their homes. The Seminole Nation has always been committed to maintaining and supporting the bounties and remaining in sync with those bounties, hence the fierce devotion Mullet Fingers has to the cause: “‘You bury those birds,’ Mullet Fingers said, ‘you gotta bury me, too.” (pg. 267). His zeal convinces Roy to stand up to the corporations as well, and the unity of both boys from drastically different backgrounds is a message that can resonate with many students if taught correctly. Goodness in oneself and others is also a key component in the book, as can be seen in Roy’s conversations with another character on Mullet Fingers: “‘Eberhardt, why do you care about this kid?’ It was a good question, and Roy wasn’t certain he could put the answer into words. there was something about the look on the boy’s face . . . something urgent and determined and unforgettable” (Hiaasen, pp. 74-75). That kind of lesson never gets old, no matter what sort of class you are teaching.

 

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