Reading Workshop

This is my last post in 2014. I promise I will be better about posting book reviews more regularly in the new year. So for now, here is one last rant to close out 2014. Happy Holidays! As I have been writing my new book, which will be out in Spring 2015, I have been wandering the internet for resources and have uncovered an unfortunate trend: teachers still do crap in the name of teaching children to read that life-long readers would never tolerate. I have seen so many "alternative" to book reports postings, using digital resources to make kids do the same waste-of-time assignments I tried to rally against when I write my first book on the Reading Workshop in 2001. Why does anyone think having children post images on Pinterest from their iPads is any more worthwhile than writing book reports on paper plates? Why waste their time? The next thing you know someone will be suggesting that we use auto-cad architectural programs to build digital dioramas. So what should we ask youn...

Van Allsburg has changed course in his new release - The Misadventures of Sweetie Pie. When I read the reviews on Amazon about how horrible this book was, I had to see for myself. I absolutely love it. But, I also hate hamsters. The story revolves around a girl that gets a pet and doesn't take care of it and it ends up being discarded in a park and other places only to be taken up by another owner. Sounds familiar to me. Many people wrote about how they hate this story. They challenged it as supporting the bad treatment of animals. To that, I would say yes! Children do take poor care of animals and that is what the book is about. Read this to your children and talk with them about this problem, don't skip the book - skip the pet sometimes!

and now for something completely different: I have decided to add a few novels along with my picturebook reviews. To start, there have been some interesting novels with "found" images that I have enjoyed reading. The first, and probably most notable, is Miss Peregrine's Home for Peculiar Children. This is an excellent dark, fantasy and has been extended due to its popularity into a trilogy. The second book Hollow City has been released and the final should be out in late 2015. The second novel Asylum also uses found images and tells the story of a prep school boarding house that used to be an asylum. The characters uncover the dark secrets in the house....

The renowned children’s author E. B. White once quipped, “Humor can be dissected, as a frog can, but few people are interested and the thing dies in the process.” While we agree with his sentiment, we also suggest a brief exploration of the roles of humor in children’s picturebooks may be a worthy endeavor.             Children’s picturebooks and humor have had a close association since Randolph Caldecott enticed young children to read his picturebooks by poking fun at everyday events and illuminating the humorous aspects of the human condition. Theories of humor fall into three primary categories; functional or relief theories offer explanations of why we laugh and the value of laughter, stimuli or cognitive theories look at surprise and incongruities to understand what makes things funny, and superiority theories look at people’s responses to humorous events and phenomenon and why people find things funny. Whatever theories help u...

Peter Brown has become one of my new favorite illustrators and authors. I enjoy the humor in his books and his understated style of illustrating.

In much the same fashion as The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, The Numberless is a picturebook - app - augmented reality based narrative. These books are excellent examples of the "transmedia" productions we see when gaming meets children's literature. The picturebook version contains wonderful illustrations and interesting design elements. The story is rather formulaic but works.

Anthony Browne, the former Children's Literature Laureate of the UK has recently released a new picturebook called What If ? This enjoyable story documents a young boy's fear of going to a birthday party. He forgot the address and he and his mother search the houses along a street for the right home. In typical Browne fashion, what is revealed as the two of them look into the windows of various houses along the street is unexpected. Great story for facing your fears.