INTERVIEW WITH WHAT REALLY HAPPENED TO HUMPTY AUTHOR, JEANIE RANSOM

1. Joe Dumpty's voice is fantastic. Please tell us what strategies you used to create such an authentic voice.

Thank you! Unfortunately, I don’t know that I have any strategies for creating an authentic voice --- not anything I do consciously anyway. I do know that for me, writing a story in first person seems most natural. I’ve heard editors say that if your story doesn’t seem to be working in third person, try rewriting the story in first person, and vice versa.

2. How did you decide which Mother Goose characters to include and which characters to exclude?

When I first starting writing the book, I included just a few basic Mother Goose characters. But as the plot thickened, as they say, I made a list of other characters I could weave into the story. From that list, I played around with which characters would best help advance the story. Of course, I couldn’t use everyone, but that’s what sequels are for.

3. I love that spider turns into a good guy, and Miss Muffet turns out to be corrupt. Was it your intention to switch their roles?

I really didn’t have any intentions when I started the story. In fact, these two characters were pretty much true to their traditional roles in the Mother Goose tales. But somewhere in the revision process – and it was quite a process! --these minor characters wrote themselves into major roles. I’m a strong believer in letting my characters take the lead in creating the story. It’s fun to see what they come up with, but I must admit, Little Miss Muffet took me totally by surprise!

4. Having a deadline of five o'clock definitely ups the ante. Are many mysteries races against the clock?

I can’t really speak with any authority, since this is the first mystery I’ve written, and I tend to read more suspense novels than I do mysteries. However, I knew that because I was writing a picture book, I had to get a whole mystery set up and solved in just 32 pages. I decided that having a deadline was one way to accomplish that.

5. Is there anything else you'd like to tell us?

I’m happy to say that this past summer, WHAT REALLY HAPPENED TO HUMPTY became available in paperback. As for Detective Joe Dumpty, he’s busy working on his next big case. I’m not at liberty to discuss it right now, but I’m sure you’ll be reading about it at some time in the not-so-distant future.

I MUST GO DOWN TO THE BEACH AGAIN AND OTHER POEMS

By Karen Jo Shapiro
Publisher: Charlesbridge
ISBN 978-1-58089-143-1

FROM THE FLAP: I must go down to the beach again, where there’s water, sand, and sky…

It sounds familiar, but it’s not quite what your parents memorized in school.

In this delightful collection of poetic parodies, Karen Jo Shapiro has taken 23 classic poems spanning nearly five centuries and given them a kid-sized twist. Channeling wordsmiths from Shakespeare to Blake, Dickinson to Poe, this celebration of poetry and parody is sure to spark your imagination.

KATE’S TAKE: A whimsical introduction to the classics.

CLASSICS TIMELINE: Verbal/Linguistic, Interpersonal, Visual/Spatial
Karen Jo Shapiro introduces fifteen classic poets in English and American Literature. Break the class into pairs and give each pair an index card. Ask each pair to write down some basic biographical information on a specific poet, including date of birth which can be found in the back of Ms. Shapiro’s book. Have students arrange themselves in chronological order without speaking. Then ask each pair to present their poet’s biographical information to the class.

GUESS WHO: Verbal/Linguistic, Interpersonal
Ask students to dress up as one of the fifteen classic poets, memorize the classic poem mentioned in Ms Shapiro’s book, and prepare five clues to read out loud to the class. Invite each student up to the front of the class to recite his or her poem and read his or her clues. Ask the audience to guess which poet the student is imitating.

MACBETH MADNESS: Interpersonal, Verbal/Linguistic, Visual/Spatial
Break the class into small groups, and ask each group to act out a scene from Macbeth. If you have more time, put on a class play of Macbeth complete with scenery.

PERSONAL PICKS: Verbal/Linguistic and Visual/Spatial
Ask students to choose one of Ms. Shapiro’s poems and write their own poetic parody of her work. Have them illustrate a picture to go along with their poem.

BOOK BUDDIES:

-Come Fall by A.C.E. Bauer
-Macbeth by William Shakespeare
-My Letter to the World and other Poems by Emily Dickinson
-Shakespeare’s Secret by Elise Broach
-Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson

CANDY BOMBER: THE STORY OF THE BERLIN AIRLIFT'S “CHOCOLATE PILOT"

By: Michael O. Tunnell
Publisher: Charlesbridge
ISBN: 978-1-58089-337-4

FROM THE FLAP: This is a true story of chocolate, bubble gum, and hope. World War II was over, and Berlin was in ruins. US Air Force pilot Gail Halvorsen wanted to bring some happiness to the children of the city—but what could one man in a plane do?

KATE’S TAKE: “From little things come big things.” Author Michael O. Tunnell shows readers how one pilot, Gail Halvorsen, took one small action that brought a large gift, hope, to thousands of children.

AVIATION TIMELINE: Verbal/Linguistic, Visual/Spatial, and Kinesthetic

Have each student research a different plane from 1903 to the present. Write a brief summary of each plane on the lined side of a 4x6 index card and draw a picture of the plane on the back. Ask students to line up in front of the class in chronological order and present their reports to the class.

FROM LITTLE THINGS COME BIG THINGS: Verbal/linguistic, Intrapersonal, and Interpersonal

Gail Halvorsen gave thirty kids two sticks of gum and started a movement that borought hope to thousands across the world for decades. Think about a time you did something simple that brought hope, joy, or happiness to someone else. Write an essay about this incident.

INTERESTING INTERVIEWS: Verbal/Linguistic, Interpersonal, and Intrapersonal

Author Michael O. Tunnell learned about the candy bomber, when Gail Halvorsen came to Mr. Tunnell’s church to speak to a youth group. Ask students to interview a senior citizen about his or her life. Have students choose one interesting fact they learned from their interview with the class.

PAPER AIRPLANE PRAISE: Verbal/Linguistic , Visual/Spatial, and Interpersonal

Give each student five ten-by-ten squares of paper. On each paper have the student compliment another student, but do not have the author sign his or her name. Hand the compliments into the teacher so that he or she can make sure the comments are appropriate. Give the squares back to the students after you have proofread them. Then, ask them to fold each one into a paper airplane and write the name of the student he or she complimented on the airplane's wing. When you’re done reading Candy Bomber, ask students in groups of five to fly their five airplanes from the top of playground equipment. Students collect their individual compliments. This is a great way to build community.

UNCLE WIGGLY WINGS MATH: Logistical/Mathematical

Here are some Candy Bomber math word problems you can put out at your math center.

1. Easter Sunday, 1949, a plane landed almost every sixty seconds in Berlin for twenty-four hours. Approximately how many U.S. planes landed in Berlin that day?

2. The American Confectioners Association donated 6,500 pounds of candy in one month to Operation Vittles. If there were thirty days in that month, on average, how many pounds of candy were donated each day? How many tons of candy were donated each day?

3. Lieutenant Halvorsen told German children that a C-54 could carry 200 sacks of flour weighing a total of 20,000 pounds. How much did each sack weigh?

4. U.S. Citizens donated 1,100 square yards of linen to make parachutes. If each parachute was one square foot, how many parachutes did Operation Vittles make out of that linen?

5. Lifesavers Corporation donated 200 boxes of Lifesavers to Operation Vittles, totaling 4,000 rolls. How many rolls of Lifesavers were in each box?

BOOK BUDDIES

-Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl
-Life as a Fighter Pilot by Brian Williams
-Mercedes and the Chocolate Pilot by Margot Theis Raven
-The Two Great Wars by Janine Scott
-World War II for kids: a History with 21 Activities by Richard Panchyk

SUBWAY RIDE

By Heather Lynn Miller
Publisher Charlesbridge
ISBN: 978-1-58089-111-0

FROM THE FLAP:
Pay the fare.
Turn the gate—
Take a subway ride.

People rush.
Music blares.
Doors slide shut.
The train roars down the track.

A wondrous trip through the world’s subway stations brings five children together, showing how travel through different cultures creates community.

KATE’S TAKE: Celebrate transportation and multiculturalism with Heather Lynn Miller’s Subway Ride.

MOVE AND GROOVE (Kinesthetic, Musical, Interpersonal)

Take your class outside or to the gym. Form a train. Have the engine pick a movement such as skipping, hopping, or galloping and ask the rest of the class to follow him. Keep changing leaders until everyone has had a chance to be the engine. Play train music in the background such as Dan Zanes’s “Catch That Train.”

RHYME AND MATCH (Verbal/Linguistic and Interpersonal)

Draw two train cars on an 8 ½ by 11 sheet of paper. Make ten copies. Then, write one word from the story in the top car and its rhyming pair in the other car. Pass out one train car to each child and ask them to pair up with their rhyming partner. Follow up with a worksheet that has the rhyming pairs separated in two columns and ask them to draw a line to the word that rhymes with the word in the other column.

SIGHT WORD SEARCH (Verbal/Linguistic)

Miller’s text repeats these sight words often: we, our, up, and down. Type out the short text and list the four sight words at the top of the page. Ask each student to circle all of those sight words on her page. Then give students another page that has the text without the sight words. Ask them to write in the missing words.

TICKETS FOR SALE (Logical/Mathematical)

Miller’s book takes readers to ten different subway stations throughout the world. Ask ten of your students to be ticket sellers and the other ten pretend to be customers. Both customers and vendors will need pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters. Ask each student to go to one vendor to buy a ticket. You can have the tickets be different amounts so that each child is buying or selling a ticket at his or her math level. After the ten students have bought their tickets, ask them to find a train seat on the rug. Extend the math by adding up the cost of the tickets in each row and on the whole train. Then have the sellers become the buyers and visa-versa and repeat.

WE RIDE CLASS BOOK (Verbal/Linguistic, Visual/Spatial, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal)

Celebrate your classroom community with a class book. Give each child an 8 ½ by 11 sheet of white paper with the following sentence on the bottom: We ride past __________ home on __________ _________. Have the children write their name in the first blank and their street name on the second and third blank. If you have a homeless child, he or she could pick a street where they would like to live and draw their dream home. Compile the pages in a 3-ring binder and send home with each student.

BOOK BUDDIES:

-All Aboard! by Mary Lyn Ray
-Freight Train by Donald Crews
-I Love Trains! by Philemon Sturges
-Puzzle Train by Susannah Leigh
-Shortcut by Donald Crews

INTO THE DEEP THE LIFE OF NATURALIST AND EXPLORER WILLIAM BEEBE

By David Sheldon
Publisher: Charlesbridge
ISBN: 978-1-58089-341-1

FROM THE FLAP: “To be a naturalist is better than to be a king.”
—William Beebe’s journal, December 31, 1893

Pioneer in the field of ecology, father of deep sea exploration, and avid conservationist, William Beebe was a modern-day celebrity during the Great Depression—a time when Americans needed a ray of hope. His childhood love of nature spurred him to explore jungles and to brave ocean depths. Wanting to venture deeper into the ocean, Beebe and his business partner, Otis Barton, invented the Bathysphere. Through it all Beebe urged scientists and explorers to discover the world around them.

David Sheldon uses his artistic magic to transport readers to the lush jungles of South America, the volcanic highlands of Colima, Mexico, and the mysterious depths of the Atlantic Ocean. Exotic birds fly off the page and bioluminescent creatures swim into focus, much as they did when Beebe first discovered them.

KATE’S TAKE: It’s spring! Get out there and explore like naturalist, William Beebe!

CONSERVATION CLASS (Verbal/Linguistic and Interpersonal)

As a class, research three different conservation organizations. Then, come up with interview questions for a representative of each organization. E-mail the questions to the organization. After the class receives and studies the answers, vote on which organization to support and make a donation.

DEEP SEASCAPES (Visual/Spatial)

Will and Otis Barton used the Bathysphere to explore the deep sea. On black paper, have students use glow in the dark paint to create a deep sea scene. If you don’t have access to glow in the dark paint, add white to your paints. The contrast of the lighter colors gives them a glowing appearance on black paper.

GUESS WHO? (Verbal/Linguistic, Visual/Spatial, and Interpersonal)

Beebe explored various habitats. Have each student choose an animal from one of the habitats in the book. Then, ask them to write a riddle about the animal using this format:

I live in the ____________. (habitat)
I am __________. (color adjective)
I am __________. (size adjective)
I am a __________. (mammal, insect, or reptile0
Who am I?

Beneath the riddle, have them draw a picture of their animal. Then, tape a flap on top of the picture. Have each child present his or her riddle and ask the other students to guess what it is.

ROPE CLIMB (Kinesthetic)

William Beebe used rope to scale trees in the jungle. In the gymnasium, have students try to scale the climbing rope.

YOUNG EXPLORERS (Verbal/Linguistic and Visual/Spatial)

If you could explore anywhere in the world, where would you go and how would you get there? Write a story about where you would go and explain your choice. Design a vehicle on paper, like Beebe and Otis did, to take you there.

BOOK BUDDIES:

-A Picture Book of Amelia Earhart by David A. Adler
-Hottest, Coldest, Highest, Deepest by Steve Jenkins
-Mary Anning and the Sea Dragon by Jeannine Atkins
-Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11 by Brian Floca
-The Boy Who Drew Birds: A Story of John James Audubon by Jackie Davies

FACES OF THE MOON

By Bob Crelin
Publisher: Charlesbridge
ISBN: 978-1-57091-785-1

FROM THE FLAP: Do you wonder, when you see the Moon, at dusk, or dawn, or midday noon, just why her face is curved or round, or why she sometimes can’t be found?

From night to night the Moon seems to change. She grows or shrinks, or sometimes even disappears. What causes this transformation? The answer is as simple as the play of light and shadow, and as grand as the dance of the Earth and Moon in space. Open this book, turn the pages, and watch the Moon change.

KATE’S TAKE: If your science standards require you to teach the lunar phases, don’t miss this book!

ASTRONAUT BIOGRAPHIES: (Verbal/Linguistic)

Write a report on one of the astronauts who reached the moon.

LUNAR PHASES: (Visual/Spatial and Kinesthetic)

Set a lamp up on a stage and remove the lampshade. Divide the class in half and give each of the students in one half of the class an orange. Have them hold the orange out in front of them and rotate their bodies until the orange’s surface is completely shadowed (new moon). Then ask them to slowly rotate. This will allow them to see all of the lunar phases on their orange.

MOON MATH: (Logical/Mathematical)

Find out how far away the moon is from the earth. Calculate how long it would take to get there using common modes of transportation such as cars and airplanes. Calculate the average speed of space shuttles based on how long it takes them to fly from the Earth to the Moon.

MOON PAINTINGS: (Visual/Spatial and Verbal/Linguistic)
Assign students a lunar phase. Give them contact paper and ask them to trace and cut out that shape. Place the cut-out on a 8.5 by 11(landscape format) piece of white paper. Draw a landscape with oil crayons. Paint over the landscape and the horizon with water paints. After the paint dries, remove the contact paper. Ask students to label the painting with the appropriate lunar phase stanza from the book. Special thanks to Jane Lattimore for this activity.

MOON ROUND ROBIN: (Interpersonal)
Ask students to sit in a circle. Have one student name the first phase of the moon (new moon.). The next student names the next phase of the moon (first quarter). Repeat until you’ve gotten all the way around the circle without any mistakes. Special thanks to Holly Berry for this activity.

BOOK BUDDIES:

-Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream by Tanya Lee Stone
-Apollo: Through the Eyes of the Astronauts by Robert Jacobs
-Mission Control, This is Apollo: The Story of the First Voyages to the Moon by Andrew Chaikin
-Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11 by Brian Floca
-The Man Who Went to the Far Side of the Moon: The Story of Apollo 11 Astronaut Michael Collins by Bea Uusma Schyffert

The Day-Glo Brothers

By Chris Barton
Publisher: Charlesbridge
ISBN 978-1-57091-673-1

FROM THE FLAP: An illuminating tale. Why did you pick up this book? Did it have something to do with the eye-popping colors on the cover?

You can thank Bob and Joe Switzer for those shocking greens, blazing oranges, and screaming yellows. The brothers invented a whole new kind of color, one that glowed with an extra-special intensity. It took them years of experimenting, but their efforts paid off brilliantly. Day-Glo colors helped win a war, save people’s lives, and brighten everyday life, including this book.

BIOLUMINESCENCE IN NATURE (Naturalist, Verbal/Linguistic)

The Switzer brothers developed fluorescent paints, but glow-in-the-dark sea animals, plants, and insects have been around much longer than Day-Glo paints. Ask students to write a paragraph about a fluorescent plant or animal. The first two links below have information for kids and the last one is a teacher’s guide about bioluminescent organisms.

http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngexplorer/0309/articles/mainarticle.html
http://kids.nationalgeographic.com/Stories/SpaceScience/Monstersquid
http://magma.nationalgeographic.com/ngexplorer/0810/ax/pa_teachersguide.pdf

FABRIC SWATCH EXPERIMENTS (Naturalist)

Gather up different types of white fabric swatches such as silk, cotton, polyester, nylon, and satin. As a class, predict which fabric will best take the dye. Make sure that each group of student dyes the fabric for the same amount of time, otherwise you’ll have more than one variable. Give each group of students a bucket, dye and a fabric swatch. After the swatches dry, hang them up from lightest to darkest. Which fabric worked best?

POP ART (Visual/Spatial)

Andy Warhol used Day-Glo paints. Ask students to pick a famous cultural object or person and create a symmetrical portrayal of their chosen object or person. Students can fold their papers into halves, thirds, or fourths to demarcate each block of space. After students have drawn their symmetrical objects, give them Day-Glo paint for the finishing touches. Warhol’s Campbell Soup Cans, Marilyn Monroe, and Four Monkeys illustrate symmetry.

SWITZER BROTHER TIMELINES (Visual/Spatial, Logical/Mathematical)

Use the dates and facts in the book to create a Switzer Brother Timeline. This is a fun and easy way to summarize the information in the book.

THE CAN-CAN DANCE (Bodily/Kinesthetic, Interpersonal)

A theater bought Day-Glo costumes that made their chorus girls look like dancing skeletons. Break the class into groups of five or six and ask them to do the Can-Can dance. Start off by asking each group to do it for a minute. Then, increase the time in one minute intervals to see which group can keep up the aerobic activity for the longest amount of time.


Book Buddies:

-Andy Warhol by Mike Venezia
-Girls Think of Everything: Stories of Ingenious Inventions by Women- Inventors by Glenn Murphy
-So You Want To Be An Inventor? By Judith St. George
-Stopping Bullets with a Thread: Stephanie Kwolek and Her Incredible Invention (Genius at Work! Great Inventor Biographies) by Edwin Brit Wyckoff
-TV’s Forgotten Hero: The Story of Philo Farnsworth (Trailblazer Biographies) by Stephanie Sammartino McPherson