ACROSS THE ALLEY

By Richard Michelson
Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons
ISBN: 0-399-23970-7

FROM THE FLAP: Abe and Willie are next-door neighbors. During the day they don’t play together, because Abe is Jewish and Willie is black. But at night, when nobody’s watching, they’re best friends.

All summer long, Abe and Willie open their windows across the alley to play catch. Abe lends Willie his violin, while Willie shows Abe how to throw a real big-league slider. Then one night, Abe’s grandfather catches them—will Abe and Willie have the courage to cross the alley and bring their friendship out in the open?

Set against a backdrop of old-time Brooklyn, E.B. Lewis’s haunting watercolors and Richard Michelson’s stirring prose capture both the fun and the danger of having a secret best friend. Across the Alley, like E.B. Lewis’s timeless classic The Other Side, is a powerful story of overcoming prejudice that will strike a chord with readers of all ages.

KATE’S TAKE: A celebration of music, baseball, and most importantly friendship.

BASEBALL (Kinesthetic)

It’s almost summer! Take the kids outside for a scrimmage. If an adult pitches, the game will move quickly.

FAMILY FUN (Verbal/Linguistic and Interpersonal)

Have students prepare interview questions for their grandparents. Have them find out what kinds of activities their grandparents did when they were in elementary school. If possible, kids could invite their grandparents into the classroom for the interview. This is a fun Grandparents’ Day activity.

MUSIC MEDLEY (Musical)

Invite students to be like Willie and prepare a piece of music to sing or play in front of the class. Invite them to partner up if that helps them gain the courage to perform.

SEE-SAW FRIEND BOOKS (Verbal/Linguistic, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, Visual/Spatial)

Michelson compares and contrasts Abe and Willie to one another throughout the book. Ask students to write their own books comparing themselves to one of their friends or a family member. So the pattern would proceed like this: I have _______________ (color of eyes or other physical description). My friend has ______________ (color of eyes or other physical description). My favorite food is __________________. My friend’s favorite food is ______________. My favorite activity is _____________. My friend’s favorite activity is ____________. The last page would read, “We are friends.” Ask students to illustrate each page of their books.

SOMEDAY CLASS BOOKS (Verbal/Linguistic, Interpersonal, Intrapersonal, Visual/Spatial)

Abe’s grandpa tells him someday, “You’ll be the next Jascha Heifetz.” Give each student an 8x11 sheet of paper that says, “Someday I’ll be the next ___________________.” Have them fill in the blank with a famous person’s name or a specific occupation and draw a picture of themselves doing that activity. Bind the pages together and send the book home with a different student each day.

BOOK BUDDIES:

-As Good As Anybody: Martin Luther King and Abraham Joshua Heschel’s Amazing March Toward Freedom by Richard Michelson
-Mis Amigos/My Friends by George Ancona, Alma Flor Ada, and F. Isabel Campoy
-Someday by Eileen Spinelli
-The Other Side by Jacqueline Woodson
-Those Shoes by Maribeth Boelts

INTERVIEW WITH MY HEAR T IS LIKE A ZOO AUTHOR, MICHAEL HALL

KN: My Heart Is Like a Zoo is a great blend of creativity and emotional intelligence. How did the idea for this book develop?

MH: While in San Francisco for my brother’s wedding, I was inspired by a public art exhibit called “Hearts in Union Square.” On the plane ride home, I started to put together a story about the wedding that moved from one heart illustration to another. One of the pictures in the story was an elephant seal — a sight to see in the San Francisco Bay area. From there, I instinctively began making other animals out of hearts without any idea of what they might become. Four years later, I began to picture them in a book called “My Heart Is Like a Zoo.”

KN: Why did you choose to focus on hearts instead of another shape?

MH: I have little collections of pictures made from many different shapes. The heart is particularly effective because it has circular, straight and pointy parts within it.

KN: How did you decide which animals to include?

MH: I began with about 75 animals and grouped them according to the kinds of feelings they might represent. I wanted to represent a wide variety of feelings and characteristics. I chose animals that I liked visually and that seemed unique in some way. Toward the end, as I was tweaking the text, I had to change a number of animals because the rhythm just didn’t work. For example, one of my favorite animals was a sneaky raccoon. But “sneaky as a raccoon” didn’t flow well because the beat is on the wrong syllable in raccoon.

I wrote a blog post about the animals that didn’t make the cut for the Greenwillow blog:
http://greenwillowblog.com/?p=56

KN: The sparse text rhymes and is alliterative at times. Were those poetic elements always part of the text, or did you add them over time?

MH: Initially, I didn’t plan to use rhyming text, but as the book unfolded, I could see that I needed to break the long list of animals into sections. The rhymes help to emphasize this.

The alliteration occurred naturally. I like that it is there, but I didn’t change any words in order to create that effect.

KN: Is there anything else you’d like to tell us?

MH: A few weeks before I planned on showing the book, I noticed that about a third of the animals were overworked to the point that they seemed lifeless. I rebuilt them from scratch so that they were less animal and more heart.

Anyone interested in learning more can visit myheartislikeazoo.com.

KN: Thanks for the interview!

MH: Thank you.

MY HEART IS LIKE A ZOO

By Michael Hall
Publisher: Greenwillow Books An Imprint of Harper Collins
ISBN: 978-0-06-191511-6

FROM THE FLAP: Welcome to the zoo! Twenty animals are waiting for you—some are familiar, some may be brand new. What are they doing? How are they feeling? Are they friends of yours? Come on in and say hello!

KATE'S TAKE: A bright, emotional intelligent book that's sure to spark creativity.

ALPHABETIZED ANIMALS (Kinesthetic and Verbal/Linguistic)

Give each one of your students a different heart animal. Make sure the name of each animal is visible. Ask students what the first letter of the alphabet is and ask that student to come in front of the class. Continue until all of the students are in alphabetical order in front of the class.

ANIMAL YOGA (Kinesthetic and Interpersonal)

Gather the students on the rug and give each child a chance to physically emulate an animal. The other students will try and guess which animal the child is mimicking.

HEART COLLAGES (Visual/Spatial)

Place a variety of hearts of all shapes and colors at the art table. Give each student a large sheet of black paper and ask them to create a heart collage. They could choose an animal or they could choose to create a different object.

HEART GRAPHS (Logical/Mathematical)

Make a graph of how many hearts Hall used to create each animal or make a graph of the how many hearts there are of each color.

OUR HEARTS ARE LIKE A ZOO CLASS BOOK (Intrapersonal, Interpersonal, Verbal/Linguistic, and Visual/Spatial)

Give each child a 8x11 piece of white paprer and ask him/her to complete the sentence ________ heart is as ____________ as a ____________ when ______________________________________________________. Have them illustrate
their sentegnce. Bind the work together to create a class book to send home with a different student every few days. If you’re working one-on-one with a child, he/she can easily make their own book which contains five or six pages that each talk about a different emotion and animal.

BOOK BUDDIES:

-Circus Ship by Chris Van Dusen (November 22, and November 25, 2009 posts)
-Color Zoo by Lois Ehlert
-Mouse Shapes by Ellen Stoll Walsh
-Quick as a Cricket by Audrey Wood
-Wild About Books by Judy Sierra

THE MYSTERIOUS HOWLING: THE INCORRIGIBLE CHILDREN OF ASHTON PLACE SERIES

By Maryrose Wood
Publisher: Balzer and Bray, An imprint of Harper Collins
ISBN: 978-0-06-179105-5

FROM THE FLAP: Of especially naughty children, it is sometimes said: “They must have been raised by wolves.”

The Incorrigible children actually were.

Discovered in the forests of Ashton Place, the Incorrigibles are no ordinary children: Alexander keeps his siblings in line with gentle nips; Cassiopeia has a bark that is (usually) worse than her bite; and Beowulf is alarmingly adept at chasing squirrels.

Luckily, Miss Penelope Lumley is no ordinary governess. Only fifteen years old and a graduate of the Swanburne Academy for Poor Bright Females, Penelope embraces the challenge of her new situation. Though she is eager to instruct the children in Latin verbs and the proper use of globes, first she must eliminate their canine tendencies.

But mysteries abound at Ashton Place: Who are these three wild creatures? Why does Old Timothy, the coachman, lurk around every corner? Will Penelope be able to civilize the Incorrigibles in time for Lady Constance’s holiday ball? And what on earth is a schottische?

Penelope is no stranger to mystery, as her own origins are also cloaked in secrecy. But as Agatha Swanburne herself once said, “Things may happen for a reason, but that doesn’t mean we know what the reason is—at least not yet.”

KATE’S TAKE: A deliciously old-fashioned novel laced with foreboding.

CASSIOPEIA CHALLENGES (Logical/Mathematical and Interpersonal)

Cassiopeia creates her own math problems. Ask students to create their own math problems based on scenes in the book. Have each student prove the problem is solveable before challenging another student to solve it.

CHARACTER ACROSTIC POEMS (Verbal/Linguistic and Interpersonal)

Ask each student to pick a character from the book and write an acrostic poem to describe each character. Students should describe physical and personality traits of the character as well as the person’s role in the book.

FOLK DANCE FUN (Kinesthetic and Interpersonal)

Miss Lumley and the children learn to dance the schottische, a popular folk dance of the time. Teach your class how to do a folk dance. This website has great teacher support for this activity: http://www.uen.org/Lessonplan/preview.cgi?LPid=16243

TABLEAUX VIVANT (Visual/Spatial and Interpersonal)

Ask groups of three or four students to perform tableaux vivants for the class. Students will design sets and props and dress up as characters from a book the class has studied over the year or from a classic tale. The rest of the class will guess which story the students are portraying.

TASTY TREATS (Verbal/linguistic and Interpersonal)

Alexander, Beowulf, and Cassiopeia indulge in many delicacies such as petites madeleines at the Christmas ball. Ask each child to bring in a favorite recipe from home and correlate the recipes together to create a class recipe book.

BOOK BUDDIES:

-The Witch’s Guide to Cooking with Children by Keith McGowan
-The Witch’s Guide to Hunting with Children by Keith McGowan
-Werewolves by Stephen Krensky
-Werewolves Don’t Go to Summer Camp by Debbie Dadey
-Werewolves Don’t Run for President by Debbie Dadey

Interview with Poop Happened! author, Sarah Albee

KN: The humorous voice is strong and consistent throughout the text. How did you accomplish this feat?

SA: It wasn’t always easy to remain light and irreverent, because a lot of the information in the book covers episodes of human history that weren’t very funny—like plagues and poverty and overcrowding. I didn’t want to come across as uncaring or flippant. But usually I was able to find something light-hearted to focus on. My ultimate goal was to help kids appreciate the amazing ability humans have to cope with bad situations. I also thought it was important for kids to appreciate that the field of public health has only been a priority for civic leaders for the past hundred years or so.

KN: I love the TMI(too much information) sections in the book. Did you plan those out or did the book designer come up with that idea?

SA: It kind of evolved, actually. In an early draft I had a few boxes that I had called “Probably more than you wanted to know” and my editor changed it to TMI. Then we culled out more from the body text and made a few extra TMI boxes.

KN: In order to write this book, you had to do a tremendous amount of research. How much time did you spend researching and how did you organize all of the information?

SA: I did read a lot of books, in whole or in part, as I researched. The research part took about two years, although I wasn’t working exclusively on POOP that whole time. The biggest challenge was organizing it all and then deciding what information was most relevant and/or fun for kids. A good friend of mine who is a writer read an early draft that was perhaps twice as long as the finished manuscript. She gently pointed out to me that not everyone is as excited about sanitation as I am, and that I really had to cut out some of the information. Which I did. And then my editor asked me to make further cuts. Cutting the text forced me to consider what was truly essential to me to keep, and that made it a stronger book.

KN: Reading this book made me really grateful that I live in modern times in a country which has a good sanitation system. You mention that many of the sanitation problems of medieval Europe still exist in developing countries today. Did you visit any of these countries to have a better idea of what it must have been like to live in London or Paris over a hundred years ago?

SA: I lived in Cairo, Egypt for a year, and there I witnessed a great deal of poverty and poor sanitation, both in the urban center and also in the countryside. During the course of my research I also read an amazing book called The People of the Abyss, by Jack London (the writer of White Fang and Call of the Wild). In 1903, London left his comfortable lodgings in the west part of London and traveled to the East End, purchased second-hand clothing, and went to live in a London slum, to experience firsthand what the life was like. He walked the streets, starving and homeless, and then wrote about it. Because he’s such an amazing writer, his account really helped me understand what it must have been like to be poor at that time, when there were virtually no social safety nets. Unfortunately similar situations exist today in many developing countries.

KN: Is there anything else you’d like to share with us?

SA: I hope this book will get kids excited about history. I’m working on a follow-up book about the history of clothes, especially some of the funkier fashions like corsets and codpieces and ruffs and bound feet and bathing costumes and arsenic wafers. I hope the next book will be another fun way for kids to learn a little history—the kind that isn’t in their social studies textbooks.

KN: Thanks for the interview.

SA: A pleasure!

POOP HAPPENED!

By Sarah Albee
ISBN: 978-0-8027-2077-1
Publisher: Walker & Company

FROM THE FLAP: Throughout the ages, the most successful civilizations were the ones who realized that everyone poops and they’d better figure out how to get rid of it! From the very first flushing toilet (invented way earlier than you would think) to the efficient Roman aqueducts (possibly inspired by the goddess of sewers!) to castles in the Middle Ages whose moats used more than just water to repel enemies, Poop Happened! traces human civilization through this revolting yet fascinating theme. Disgusting details about human hygiene give kids down and dirty answers to some enduring questions like:

Did lead pipes cause the fall of the Roman Empire?
How many toilets were in the average Egyptian pyramid?
How did a knight wearing fifty pounds of armor go to the bathroom?
Was poor hygiene the last straw before the French Revolution?
Did Thomas Crapper really invent the modern toilet?
How do astronauts “go” in space?

History will finally come out of the water closet in this exploration of how a human necessity shaped civilization from ancient times to the present. Bathroom reading has never been so engrossing!

AQUEDUCT RELAY RACES (Kinesthetic and Interpersonal)

Rome, and Edo(modern day Tokyo) used aqueduct to keep their water supplies free from waste which made their cities much cleaner and healthier than other cities in history. Divide the class into five teams. Give each person a twelve to eighteen inch piece of PVC pipe cut in half lengthwise. Each group should have one tennis ball. Each team needs to transport the tennis ball from the start line to the finish line without having the ball touch their hands or the floor/grass. If the ball falls or if it touches their hand, the team needs to go back to the start line. Special thanks to Matt Ettinger for this activity.

CITY PLANNERS (Visual/Spatial and Interpersonal)

Pair up students and ask them to pick a city mentioned in the book. Have one student draw a map of the city from the time period mentioned in the book while the other student draws a map of the modern day city. Maps should include information about waste treatment. Have the students present their maps and compare and contrast the two.

DIRTY DISEASES (Verbal/Linguistic, Visual/Spatial, and Interpersonal)

Poor hygiene and unsanitary conditions spread disease throughout Europe. Divide the class into five small groups and have them each research a specific disease during a certain time period. Ask them to create a poster about the disease that includes information on how the disease spread and how that specific civilization dealt with the public health threat. Posters should include a map. Afterwards have them present their posters and ask class members to provide constructive critique on the group’s poster and presentation.

FAVORITE FACT TIMELINE (Logical/Mathematical, Kinesthetic, and Interpersonal)

Important facts and dates are sprinkled throughout the text. Ask each student to write down their favorite fact and the date it happened on a piece of paper. Then have them line up in class in chronological order.

GUESS WHO? (Verbal/Linguistic and Interpersonal)

Fun facts about famous people abound in Poop Happened! Each student will choose a famous person in the book and write five clues about his or her person of choice. Then, the student will dress up as the famous person and read his or her clues in front of the class. The other students will try and guess who the identity of the dressed-up student.

BOOK BUDDIES:
-Canals and Aqueducts by Julie Richards
-City Planning in Ancient Times by Arthur Segal
-Sustainable Cities by Cheryl Jakab
-The Gross and Goofy Body Series by Melissa Stewart
-The World’s Deadliest Diseases by Tim O’Shei

Interview with VULTURE VIEW author, April Pulley Sayre

KN: Vulture View is filled with poetic elements such as alliteration, repetition, rhythm, and rhyme. Were all of these elements present in your first draft or did you add some as you revised your manuscript?

APS: Yes, those elements were present in the very first draft. I had been thinking, for years, about writing a book about flight and hawks. Vultures were in drafts of my hawk book. But then, one day, they took over. Or, should I say, I was watching vultures rise up over a rain forest in Panama when the words to the book came into my head. I heard, "The sun is rising, up, up. It heats the air up, up." Once I saw the connection between the sun coming up and the air rising up and the vultures rising up, I knew I had a book. The cadence and alliteration just unfolded. Of course, there were still many drafts to polish the language.

KN: On your website you talk about how in high school you took care of a young turkey vulture while working at a raptor rehabilitation center, and that later on you spotted them migrating through Panama. Did seeing the kettle migrate inspire you to write Vulture View?

APS: Yes, it started in Panama, although the book was not ultimately set in the rain forest. (Many of my other books, such as Meet the Howlers and Army Ant Parade are.)

KN: We tell students it’s important to use strong, “WOW” words while writing. Could you share some of the ways you sought out “WOW” words while writing Vulture View?

APS: Well, I do a lot of editing to eliminate fluff. So I guess my technique for writing with "wow" words is to eliminate all the "non-wow" words! I like concise, specific writing. I love active verbs.

KN: Please tell us about winning the Theodor Seuss Geisel Honor Book award.

APS: Oh, wow. What can I say? The passionate, hard-working members of that award committee helped change my life. I'd been ill for months with whooping cough, cracked my ribs because of it. I was just barely healing, and had just that day, for the first time in months, gone out of the house, to see a movie with my husband. I could barely speak because my voice had been damaged by the whooping cough. Now, just imagine, how it feels in such a vulnerable state to find a message on the answering machine that some librarians at some conference have called. Hmm...strange. Yet, how nice that they like my books! Honestly, that in itself was lovely. I had no idea that it was awards time of year. But then they had called back and left a second message. What? I have won an award? A Theodor Geisel Honor Award? What? My favorite part was when the committee erupted into cheers in the background and said "Hurray, April!" I just stood there and listened to the message and cried with joy. It was particularly sweet because it came at such a tough time in my life. Of course, another great part of it is that the award for Vulture View is for both text and illustration. You know that the illustrator is the great Steve Jenkins. So that call, and all the happy messages and award hoopla, including the ALA conference, were a pleasure. My entire family, especially my nieces, made the most out of the entire thing. They loved the silver stickers on the books. Someone locally gave me a basket of gigantic vulture sugar cookies. Since then, I have been on t.v. talking to a T.V. (turkey vulture) puppet. So we've had a ball. I think we've perhaps changed a few people's attitudes about vultures, too.

KN: Is there anything else that you’d like to share with us?

APS: Well, I think it's an exciting time for nonfiction. There are many nonfiction authors experimenting with language and format. New nonfiction awards, and awards such as the Geisel, which have welcomed nonfiction, have helped bring these books to wider audiences.

KN: Thanks so much for the interview.

APS: Thanks for helping point out quality books and bring them to educators and to readers in general!

KN:Read the April 5th post for accompanying activities for VULTURE VIEW. I won't be posting a book of the week this week because it is spring break here in Massachusetts. I'll post a new book on the 25th. Have a great week!