Keep Sharp (Sanjay Gupta)

 

I've read quite a few books about aging, the brain and dementia. The thing I really like about this one is he gives solid steps for keeping your brain sharp...a 12 week program. I borrowed the book from the library but I will buy it so that I can get a copy of this 12 week program. It is full of great things to focus on for a healthy life!

Goodreads says:

Keep your brain young, healthy, and sharp with this science-driven guide to protecting your mind from decline by neurosurgeon and CNN chief medical correspondent Sanjay Gupta.

Throughout our life, we look for ways to keep our mind sharp and effortlessly productive. Now, globetrotting neurosurgeon Dr. Sanjay Gupta offers insights from top scientists all over the world, whose cutting-edge research can help you heighten and protect brain function and maintain cognitive health at any age.

Keep Sharp debunks common myths about aging and cognitive decline, explores whether there’s a “best” diet or exercise regimen for the brain, and explains whether it’s healthier to play video games that test memory and processing speed, or to engage in more social interaction. Discover what we can learn from “super-brained” people who are in their eighties and nineties with no signs of slowing down—and whether there are truly any benefits to drugs, supplements, and vitamins. Dr. Gupta also addresses brain disease, particularly Alzheimer’s, answers all your questions about the signs and symptoms, and shows how to ward against it and stay healthy while caring for a partner in cognitive decline. He likewise provides you with a personalized twelve-week program featuring practical strategies to strengthen your brain every day.

Keep Sharp is the only owner’s manual you’ll need to keep your brain young and healthy regardless of your age!

Sit (Deborah Ellis)

 

Deborah Ellis is brilliant. Each of these stories gives a unique glimpse into what life is like as a child. Adults are in charge. Life isn't fair. The children are considered less than....but they're not. They see more and understand more than many adults realize. Every single story was brilliant. It begins with the same story it ends with....only it's different.

Goodreads says:

The seated child. With a single powerful image, Deborah Ellis draws our attention to nine children and the situations they find themselves in, often through no fault of their own. In each story, a child makes a decision and takes action, be that a tiny gesture or a life-altering choice.

Jafar is a child laborer in a chair factory and longs to go to school. Sue sits on a swing as she and her brother wait to have a supervised visit with their father at the children’s aid society. Gretchen considers the lives of concentration camp victims during a school tour of Auschwitz. Mike survives seventy-two days of solitary as a young offender. Barry squirms on a food court chair as his parents tell him that they are separating. Macie sits on a too-small time-out chair while her mother receives visitors for tea. Noosala crouches in a fetid, crowded apartment in Uzbekistan, waiting for an unscrupulous refugee smuggler to decide her fate.

These children find the courage to face their situations in ways large and small, in this eloquent collection from a master storyteller.

Lift (Minh Le and Dan Santas)

 

Every kid will relate to Iris. Who doesn't love pushing the elevator buttons?!

This story doesn't have a lot of words...but the pictures tell a lot! 

One great thing that came out of this is one of my students made a comment that she is really being a rock brain (we are doing Superflex and have learned about the villain, Rock Brain). He was right! 

We loved how the girl lets her brother join in the adventure at the end. Good connections made to Magic Treehouse

Minh Le is amazing. I loved Drawn Together and I don't think I've ever come across a book Dan Santas is involved with that I didn't like. 

Goodreads says:
When Iris's elevator button-pushing is disrupted by a new member of the family, she's pretty put out.
That is, until the sudden appearance of a mysterious new button opens up entire realms of possibility, places where she can escape and explore on her own.
This is a story that will lift your spirits and expand your imagination, by the award-winning creators of Drawn Together.

Dragons in a Bag (Zetta Elliot)

 

This is a 2021 Global Read Aloud pick. I'm hoping that this year I can actually connect with another class as we use it for a read aloud. It's a great story! One thing that concerns me is that they only read a couple chapters a week. I'm not sure we can drag it out that long! I'd definitely be interested in reading the next books in the series.

There are lots of topics that could be discussed in this story: diversity, forgiveness, racism, segregation, forgiveness,  etc.  

In time we could use this as a "book club" book paired with Jeremy Thatcher Dragon Hatcher.

Read aloud to my class in October/November2021. It is way better as a read aloud! Then again, most books are.

Notice and Note Signposts

Words of the Wiser

• p. 116 Trub to Jax re: segregation
• p. 128...if you believe

Memory Moment

Contrasts and Contradictions

• p. 8 beer
• p. 10 box with no addresses
• p. 48 Ambrose invisible? 

Again and Again

Ah ha moments

Tough Qs

Goodreads says:

The dragon's out of the bag in this diverse, young urban fantasy from an award-winning author!

When Jaxon is sent to spend the day with a mean old lady his mother calls Ma, he finds out she's not his grandmother--but she is a witch! She needs his help delivering baby dragons to a magical world where they'll be safe. There are two rules when it comes to the dragons: don't let them out of the bag, and don't feed them anything sweet. Before he knows it, Jax and his friends Vikram and Kavita have broken both rules! Will Jax get the baby dragons delivered safe and sound? Or will they be lost in Brooklyn forever?

Little Bat In Night School (Brian Lies)

 Great book for September! I need to look into more books this author has written....lots of interesting books that I've never seen before!

This would be  good pair with lots of our favorite bat stories: Stellaluna, Bat Count, etc.

Goodreads says:

Little Bat is excited about his first night in school! Readers will love to see him spread his wings in this sweet, inspiring picture book from New York Times best-selling and Caldecott Honor–winning Brian Lies. Perfect for fans of We Don't Eat Our Classmates and The King of Kindergarten.

Little Bat can't wait for his first night of school. He is excited about everything: his new school supplies, learning amazing things, and making new friends.  
 
But when he finally arrives, his world turns upside down.

Any little bat who's tried something new or gone somewhere they've never been before knows that first times can be scary. With the help of Little Bat and his adorable classmates, readers will see that spreading your wings is easy when you listen, act with kindness, and take a chance on new friends.

With his signature, gorgeous artwork, New York Times bestseller and Caldecott Honor winner Brian Lies brings his expressive bats back for the youngest readers.  

My Dog Mouse (Eva Lindstrom)

 

Turns out mouse isn't her dog.

This is for anyone that loves dogs. 

I love dogs.

Goodreads says:

My Dog Mouse offers friendship, humor, and gentle heartache in one dog walk. This is a book for anyone who knows what it is to love an old, slow dog with ears as thin as pancakes.

Spectacularly Beautiful: A Refugee's Story (Lisa Lucas)

 

This is an amazingly simple book with a beautiful and true principle. Everyone is beautiful even though we all have scars from things we have experienced. Most of all, God loves us no matter what.

I'm curious about the style of the illustrations. It has realistic pictures as background and the characters are blobs of color. Maybe it is so that the people could be anyone? No skin colors or height or styles to get in the way. These characters could be any of us.

The author is a teacher who has taught children from difficult circumstances and clearly loves them as teachers do.

Goodreads says:

A young refugee living in America learns to see herself as beautiful, in spite of physical and emotional scars from her troubled homeland, thanks to a gifted teacher.

Spectacularly Beautiful tells the story of Shahad, a refugee who has moved to a new country and started at a new school with her new teacher, Ms. Truong. Shahad comes to school every day with perfectly braided hair tied in ribbons. But her hair can't hide the scars on her face and leg that are painful reminders of the country she fled, making her feel less than beautiful, and different from her peers. When a class project proves difficult for Shahad, Ms. Truong helps her come to see that her scars are only part of her story, and that she is not just beautiful...she is spectacularly beautiful. Little by little Shahad's confidence is renewed and she is able to return the same kindness to Ms. Truong.