Dirt Boy (Erik Jon Slangerup)

 

When students in my class looked at the cover for our book there were lots of "ewwww! Gross!" This continued when we started reading....but then a hush came over the class. Who doesn't like getting really dirty sometimes?! And imagine meeting a monster, Dirt Man! We were totally sucked into this story.

Goodreads says:

In this award-winning story--now available in paperback--Fister Farnello runs away from home to avoid taking a bath and is befriended by Dirt Man, a filthy giant who lives in the woods. Watercolor paintings are accompanied by hilarious text.

The Dragon Thief (Zetta Elliott)

 

I reluctantly did this as a read aloud. We did the first book as a read aloud and it ended with such a cliff hanger that I gave in to reading the second one aloud. It ended up going over winter break though so it felt like it took us forever to finish it. Coincidentally, the 3rd book comes out on this very day! It's only in hard-cover though so we're going to have to wait...if only for the reason that I don't want to have the first two books in soft cover and then the third in hard cover! LOL I might take it out from the public library though and read it on my own. 

Dragons and magic are all really fun. In addition to that, I think this author does a good job of incorporating lessons and big topics without making it too pedantic or preachy. I will be able to find lots of reasons to refer back to it  for elaborative detail and stretching out a main event. It's a great book!

Notice and Note Signposts:

Theme: Belonging (p. 22)  Fitting in (p. 24)

Memory Moment: 

• Dad's death pp. 40-41

Again and Again

• Kenny/Jax - dads are absent

Words of the wiser

• p. 22 When you lose your home you lose part of yourself
• p. 24 Mumy says you can lose yourself if you try too hard to fit in
• p. 146
• p. 148

Contrasts and Contradictions

• p. 30

Ah ha Moment

Tough Questions

• p. 108 How To Handle Blue

Goodreads says:

Stealing a baby dragon was easy! Hiding it is a little more complicated.

Jaxon had just one job--to return three baby dragons to the realm of magic. But when he got there, only two dragons were left in the bag. His best friend's sister, Kavita, is a dragon thief!

Kavita only wanted what was best for the baby dragon. But now every time she feeds it, the dragon grows and grows! How can she possibly keep it secret? Even worse, stealing it has upset the balance between the worlds. The gates to the other realm have shut tight! Jaxon needs all the help he can get to find Kavita, outsmart a trickster named Blue, and return the baby dragon to its true home.

Our Darkest Night (Jennifer Robson)

 

I'm a big Jennifer Robson fan and again, I'm not disappointed. This book had me hooked. I loved it and I'll probably read it again. Jennifer Robson usually has happy endings and I really figured this one was not going to have a happy ending...the twists were good and she had me tricked. I've read a lot of World War II books and I thought the question on her website was good: There seems to be a lot of these books the past few years. Why are they so popular? .....great question for book club!  I read it in just two days....two work days....so I did find it quite compelling and hard to put down.

Goodreads says:

To survive the Holocaust, a young Jewish woman must pose as a Christian farmer’s wife in this unforgettable novel from USA Today bestselling author Jennifer Robson—a story of terror, hope, love, and sacrifice, inspired by true events, that vividly evokes the most perilous days of World War II.

It is the autumn of 1943, and life is becoming increasingly perilous for Italian Jews like the Mazin family. With Nazi Germany now occupying most of her beloved homeland, and the threat of imprisonment and deportation growing ever more certain, Antonina Mazin has but one hope to survive—to leave Venice and her beloved parents and hide in the countryside with a man she has only just met.

Nico Gerardi was studying for the priesthood until circumstances forced him to leave the seminary to run his family’s farm. A moral and just man, he could not stand by when the fascists and Nazis began taking innocent lives. Rather than risk a perilous escape across the mountains, Nina will pose as his new bride. And to keep her safe and protect secrets of his own, Nico and Nina must convince prying eyes they are happily married and in love.

But farm life is not easy for a cultured city girl who dreams of becoming a doctor like her father, and Nico’s provincial neighbors are wary of this soft and educated woman they do not know. Even worse, their distrust is shared by a local Nazi official with a vendetta against Nico. The more he learns of Nina, the more his suspicions grow—and with them his determination to exact revenge.

As Nina and Nico come to know each other, their feelings deepen, transforming their relationship into much more than a charade. Yet both fear that every passing day brings them closer to being torn apart . . .

Big Bad Bruce (Bill Peet)

 

This is really fun to read aloud! The witch's voice and Bruce's voice are so easy to imagine. Great read aloud! It was our inaugural read now that we have a document camera and can read something besides e-books! Yea!!

Goodreads says:

Bruce, a bear bully, never picks on anyone his own size until he is diminished in more ways than one by a small but very independent witch.

Catching Thoughts

 

This was a great way to start a discussion about things kids worry about. We also did a Go Noodle that is about banishing thoughts we don't want. The GoNoodle didn't have ideas about how to do that. It just said to do it but this book gives the suggestion to fill your mind with good thoughts to get rid of the bad thoughts.

Goodreads says:

Have you ever had an unwelcome thought that you just couldn't get rid of, no matter how hard you tried to push it away? In Catching Thoughts, a girl is plagued by an unwanted thought. No matter what she does--ignore it, yell at it, cry about it--the thought won't go away. Frustrated and discouraged, she finally looks that bad thought in the face and says, Hello. At last, she is able to notice other more beautiful, positive thoughts all around her. As she catches hold of new thoughts, the girl discovers she can fill her mind with whatever she chooses.

Willodeen (Katherine Applegate)

 

I was mystified by the cover and title...so to explain that, Willodeen is the name of the main character who is sensitive about nature. The little bear with wings is a hummingbear and they're starting to disappear. They sound really lovely and I wish they were real! The big green eyes and animal with the horns is a less than snuggly animal called a screecher. Willodeen has an appreciation for screechers that most people don't. It's kind of like a warthog but also has a really bad smell. 

I think kids in my class would really love this book since they're often more sensitive to the environment than adults are. There are lots of lovely words of the wiser in this book that come from young people. (January 2022)

Read with my class in February/March 2022. As usual, I got much more out of it when I read it aloud and discussed it with my class!

- Read aloud May 2024. This isn't my favorite book to read aloud. My mouth doesn't bend around the phrasing that well, for some reason! 

Pairings for classroom "book clubs":
The Wild Robot (nature)

Characters
Pa, Ma and Toby - p. 14 fire kills them ("The Great September Fire")
Willodeen - likes animals, people confuse her (p. 17)
Mae and Birdie - take Willodeen in (p. 14)
Duzuu - pet hummingbear
Connor - makes sense of nature with art

Themes:

Connection: humans/nature and  humans with each other

Humans/nature

p. 236 One touch of nature makes the whole world kin. (Shakespeare) - Mae

p. 237 We are all connected. People and plants and fish and birds and yes, even screechers.

Human to human connection quotes

p. 50 I was good, it seemed, at burying things

p. 135 There's magic in all of us," Birdie said. "Just a bit. You're born with it, like fingers and toes and fuzzy baby hair. Some of make use of it. And some do not."

p. 180 Our conversations were often like that, just a handful of words. I liked it. The silences were comfortable as an old sweater.

Speak up!

p. 232 With enough whispers, you can make a roar.

Elaborative detail: 
p. 5 screechers
p. 23-23 hummingbirds
p. 52-54 Mae and Birdie

Signpost Notes:

Ah ha Moment
 

p. 72 Birdie and Willodeen recognize that Willodeen's anger or angst inside of her is something she shouldn't ignore and should use to accomplish her great work she needs to do (but what is it?!)
Birdie squeezed my hand. "Don't stop being angry, Willodeen. It's part of who you are. You see the world differently. You care. That's a gift."

Words of the Wiser

p. 88 Connor: "My father says being different makes life more difficult."

This ends up being true because Willodeen has to go through some difficult and soul searching times trying to fight for the screechers.

p. 135 "There's magic in all of us," Birdie said. "Just a bit. You're born with it, like fingers and toes and fuzzy baby hair. Some of us make use of it and some do not."

Willodeen had wished for magic on her birthday when she blew out the candle. (p. 73)

The magic that had happened was that the screecher Connor made came to life. They knew it was his screecher because of the bow around his neck and the notch in his ear (Willodeen had cried after the town council meeting and her tear fell on the screecher puzzler that Connor had made for her)

Memory Moment:

p. 56 Willodeen's last birthday party

Tough Qs:

p. 7 Why do we love what we love

p. 55 Did animals remember things the same way we did? or did they just exist from moment to moment

p. 70 What did I want? I tried not to long for things. Even if you got what you wanted, it could be snatched away in a moment.

Goodreads says:

The earth is old and we are not, and that is all you must remember . . .

Eleven-year-old Willodeen adores creatures of all kinds, but her favorites are the most unlovable beasts in the land: strange beasts known as “screechers.” The villagers of Perchance call them pests, even monsters, but Willodeen believes the animals serve a vital role in the complicated web of nature.

Lately, though, nature has seemed angry indeed. Perchance has been cursed with fires and mudslides, droughts and fevers, and even the annual migration of hummingbears, a source of local pride and income, has dwindled. For as long as anyone can remember, the tiny animals have overwintered in shimmering bubble nests perched atop blue willow trees, drawing tourists from far and wide. This year, however, not a single hummingbear has returned to Perchance, and no one knows why.

When a handmade birthday gift brings unexpected magic to Willodeen and her new friend, Connor, she’s determined to speak up for the animals she loves, and perhaps even uncover the answer to the mystery of the missing hummingbears. 

The Power of Moments (Chip and Dan Heath)

 

This book is a great follow up to Why We Meet. It is full of concepts good to think about for planning family gatherings, classroom activities and more.

Goodreads says:

The New York Times bestselling authors of Switch and Made to Stick explore why certain brief experiences can jolt us and elevate us and change us—and how we can learn to create such extraordinary moments in our life and work.

While human lives are endlessly variable, our most memorable positive moments are dominated by four elements: elevation, insight, pride, and connection. If we embrace these elements, we can conjure more moments that matter. What if a teacher could design a lesson that he knew his students would remember twenty years later? What if a manager knew how to create an experience that would delight customers? What if you had a better sense of how to create memories that matter for your children?

This book delves into some fascinating mysteries of experience: Why we tend to remember the best or worst moment of an experience, as well as the last moment, and forget the rest. Why “we feel most comfortable when things are certain, but we feel most alive when they’re not.” And why our most cherished memories are clustered into a brief period during our youth.

Readers discover how brief experiences can change lives, such as the experiment in which two strangers meet in a room, and forty-five minutes later, they leave as best friends. (What happens in that time?) Or the tale of the world’s youngest female billionaire, who credits her resilience to something her father asked the family at the dinner table. (What was that simple question?)

Many of the defining moments in our lives are the result of accident or luck—but why would we leave our most meaningful, memorable moments to chance when we can create them? The Power of Moments shows us how to be the author of richer experiences.