Raymie Nightingale

Title: Raymie Nightingale 
Author: Kate DiCamillo 
Publisher: Candlewick Press 
Publication Date: April 12th, 2016 
Genre/Format: Realistic Fiction/Novel 
GoodReads Summary: Raymie Clarke has come to realize that everything, absolutely everything, depends on her. And she has a plan. If Raymie can win the Little Miss Central Florida Tire competition, then her father, who left town two days ago with a dental hygienist, will see Raymie's picture in the paper and (maybe) come home. To win, not only does Raymie have to do good deeds and learn how to twirl a baton; she also has to contend with the wispy, frequently fainting Louisiana Elefante, who has a show-business background, and the fiery, stubborn Beverly Tapinski, who’s determined to sabotage the contest. But as the competition approaches, loneliness, loss, and unanswerable questions draw the three girls into an unlikely friendship — and challenge each of them to come to the rescue in unexpected ways. 
What I Think: It's a good sign when a book is filled with too many wonderful snatches of text that I can't list them all! Kate DiCamillo has done it again with Raymie Nightingale. Her words are magic spun onto the page. As a writer who is constantly thinking about show don't tell and how to get deeper into the perspective of my main character, Kate is a dream mentor text. She brings the harsh reality of life honestly to life with her words. This is not easy to do! 
     As a mentor text, Raymie Nightingale is wonderful for character development, dialogue, descriptive writing. Use a graphic organizer to build character maps for Raymie and her friends and the rest of the cast of characters. Students can practice making connections and making inferences about the different characters. 
     Part of bringing characters to life is using dialogue meaningfully. Depending on what tense we're writing in, we don't always get to see into a character's head but with dialogue, we can get some insight. Dialogue is a great way to set a character apart from others just based on what words they use. Have students compare what different characters say and how their words help us understand them better. Then ask students to try focusing on dialogue in their own writing. 
     Finally, look at the description in her writing as a whole. She writes as if describing a movie frame by frame. Notice the words she picks. Have students make a list of strong words from one page of text or ask them to underline the powerful words she uses. Kate uses every single word purposefully and powerfully. My favorite activity for keeping writing concise is to take a piece of writing and then to try and cut half of the words. It's amazing how sentence combining (such as Jeff Anderson recommends!) is a learning experience in how to make writing stronger. Lisa Graff says she does this and I wonder if it's part of Kate's revising process. Either way, your students will grow from the challenge!
Read Together: Grades 4 - 8 
Read Alone: Grades 5 - 8 
Read With: Because of Winn Dixie by Kate DiCamillo, The Penderwicks by Jeanne Birdsall, Okay For Now by Gary D. Schmidt, The Lions of Little Rock by Kristin Levine, Love, Ruby Lavender by Deborah Wiles, Crenshaw by Katherine Applegate
Snatch of Text:  
     "The sun was very high in the sky.
     It hadn't moved.
     It seemed like someone had stuck it up there and then walked away and left it." (p. 6)

     "The three of them stood there looking at one another. 
     Raymie felt something expanding inside of her. It felt like a gigantic tent billowing out.
     This, Raymie knew, was her soul." (P. 17)

     "And then she thought about how in fairy tales people go three wishes and none of the wishes ever turned out right. If the wishes came true, they came true in terrible ways. Wishes were dangerious things. That was the idea you got from fairy tales. 
     Maybe it was smart of Beverly not to wish." (p. 91)
Book Trailer:

Writing Prompts: Write about a time in your life when something happened that you had no control over. How did it feel and what did you do about it?
Topics Covered: Friendship, Family, Determination, Loyalty 

I *heart* It:

*Thanks to Candlewick Press for 

a copy of Raymie Nightingale n exchange for an honest review!*

Who Lives in the Sea?

Nonfiction Picture Book Wednesday

Here at Teach Mentor Texts we are always looking for more ways to support teachers! We've found that teachers seem to be constantly on the lookout for great nonfiction. We know we are! To help with this undying quest for outstanding non-fiction, we are excited to participate in Nonfiction Picture Book Wednesday hosted by Kid Lit Frenzy and The Nonfiction Detectives. Every Wednesday, you'll find a non-fiction review here - although it may not always be a picture book review. Please visit Kid Lit Frenzy to see what non-fiction others have to share, too. 

Title: Who Lives in the Sea?: Ocean Animals of Hawaii 
Author: Monika Mira 
Illustrator: Monika Mira
Publisher: Lucid Publishing  
Publication Date: November, 2012 
Genre/Format: Fiction/Picture Book 
GoodReads Summary: Award-winning author, Monika Mira brings you a repetitive rhyming story about ocean animals that encourages early reading skills and answers the burning questions that the inquisitive minds of young children tend to ask about the world around us. Who Lives in the Sea? Ocean Animals of Hawaii includes children's favorite animals like whales, dolphins, sharks and starfish and introduces some more unusual animals like the endangered Hawaiian Monk Seal and the Banded Coral Shrimp.  
What I Think: First of all, I guess you can't technically call this book non-fiction! I just wrote my whole review and then stopped to think about how animals talking in complete sentences doesn't really qualify as non-fiction. The non-fiction part of this book is the all the animals that truly do live in the sea of Hawaii. While this book is in fact fiction, it can lead to an awareness of animal life and then more reading of non-fiction books about those animals.
     Maybe one reason why I was sure it was non-fiction as I was reading (besides the fact that I'm running on little sleep...) is that Little Bean is a super curious little kiddo right now so I can totally identify with Baby in this book. He wants to ask any animal he sees about other animals that live in the sea. This would be a wonderful book to introduce different animals in the sea and before visiting an aquarium. I think the rhyming text is fun for young children. 
     Because this book is repetitive, it's a great mentor text to look at both dialogue and quotation marks and adverbs. Students will see how the Baby talks and then the animal responds on every page. It's easy to point out what Baby is saying and what the animals are saying. In order to be able to rhyme throughout the book, Mira uses adverbs to describe how the animals respond. Again, the format is similar on every page so that students will be able to pinpoint the adverbs and then talk about what an adverb's job is. After reading this book, I'm ready to go spend some time talking and visiting with sea life in Hawaii!
Read Together: Grades Pre-K - 3 
Read Alone: Grades Pre-K - 3 
Read With: Brown Bear, Brown Bear by Eric Carle, I Spy Under the Sea by Edward Gibbs, non-fiction informational about sea animals 
Snatch of Text: 

"Baby asked the turtle,

'Who lives in the sea?'

The turtle replied, 

'Are you talking to me?

A playful gray dolphin 

lives in the sea

in the beautiful islands of Hawaii.'" 

Reading Strategies to Practice: Activating Background Knowledge, Making Connections,  
Writing Strategies to Practice: Adverbs, Quotation Marks, Expository, Rhyme, Dialogue
Writing Prompts: Research more information about one of the animals in the book and write an expository piece about that animal.  
Topics Covered: Integration - Science - Ocean Life, Marine Animals, Habitats, Animals

I *heart* It:

Little Owl's Night

Kellee is guest posting at The Nerdy Book Club today!

Be sure to check out her post Top Ten Ape Books!

Title: Little's Owl's Night
Author and Illustrator: Divya Srinivasan 
Publisher: Viking Juvenile 
Publication Date: September 2011 
Genre/Format: Fantasy-Animal/Picture Book  
GoodReads Summary: It's evening in the forest and Little Owl wakes up from his day-long sleep to watch his friends enjoying the night. Hedgehog sniffs for mushrooms, Skunk nibbles at berries, Frog croaks, and Cricket sings. A full moon rises and Little Owl can't understand why anyone would want to miss it. Could the daytime be nearly as wonderful? Mama Owl begins to describe it to him, but as the sun comes up, Little Owl falls fast asleep.

Putting a twist on the bedtime book, Little Owl's Night is sure to comfort any child with a curiosity about the night.  
What Jen Thinks: Don't you just love this little owl? Owls are super cute in general, but this guy, with his super round eyes, is adorable. In this story, Owl is up all night (naturally - he's an owl) wandering the forest and visiting other animals who are up at night, too. It's amazing all the nocturnal animals there are. This book would pair really well with a non-fiction book about nocturnal animals. I just finished reading a book about nocturnal animals with my older son. His preschool class studied nocturnal animals this year. They could have read Little Owl's Night before their quiet time during that week! 
This book reminds me so much of A Book of Sleep by Il Sung Na. Both of them are wonderful bedtime stories and have a somewhat similar plot. Having students compare and contrast these two books would be perfect. Little Owl is very inquisitive while the owl in A Book of Sleep is much more reserved and stately. The words and the illustrations work together to develop differing moods in each of these books. Older students could notice what is similar, what is different, and how text and illustrations interact together. Then they could read the books to younger reading buddies or even to young siblings at home. Both are perfect bedtime books. Sometimes the simplest sentences are needed to show how these work initially so I'm always on the lookout for books that are examples so clearly. I love to take short mentor texts like these and then pull out simple sentences. Kids aren't muddled by other parts of the sentence, there are words they know and can relate to because they are embedded in the story but then as a teacher, I can show them how a sentence expands and how we can add more to a sentences and change it by adding different parts. 
In terms of being a mentor text for grammar, the two snatch of text pieces I chose stood out to me because they illustrate prepositional phrases and adverbs. 
What Kellee Thinks: The first thing that I connected with was the super cute animal illustrations. All of the animals had a cartoon-esque characteristic to them, but still were realistic enough for a child to connect with the actual animal.  I also loved the colors in Little Owl's Night.  The color scheme is perfect for a nighttime books.  Check out the book trailer here to see the illustrations. Lastly, this book is a perfect addition to any child's library to teach them about nocturnal animals and what happens after we fall asleep. 
Read Together: Grades Preschool - 5 
Read Alone: Grades Preschool - 3 
Read With: A Book of Sleep by Il Sung Na, Kite Day: A Bear and Mole Book by Will Hillenbrand, non-fiction text about nocturnal animals or owls 
Snatch of Text:  

"By the river, beavers gnawed at trees. 
Turtle hid in her shell as fireflies danced all around." (p. 13-14)

"Frog croaked softly. 

Cricket chirped smartly." (p.25-26)

Reading Strategies to Practice: Activating Background Knowledge, Asking Questions, Making Connections,  

Writing Strategies to Practice: Expository, Personal Narrative 
Writing Prompts: After reading this book, choose a nocturnal animal and do more reading about that animal. Write a paragraph to tell others about your animal. Little Owl describes his "day" and shows us all the animals he visits. Write about your day. Who do you visit or see during your day? Take note of who you see, where they are, what they are doing everyday, then write a story to share your experiences. 
Topics Covered: Nocturnal Animals, Night, Sleep

Jen and Kellee *heart* it:

  and

Where In The Wild?

Title: Where In The Wild? Camouflaged Creatures Concealed...and Revealed     
Author: David M. Schwartz and Yael Schy
Photographer: Dwight Kuhn   
Publisher: Tricycle Press 
Publication Date: September 2007 
Genre/Format: Non-Fiction/Poetry/Picture Book 
GoodReads Summary: Ten creatures await, camouflaged in artful, full-page photographs, while playful poems offer clues about each animal's identity and whereabouts. Think you've spotted one? Lift one of ten gatefolds to find out. A full page of fascinating information accompanies each animal so readers can learn how nature's camouflage serves hunter and hunted alike. Why do fawns have spots during their first year of life? How did killdeer birds get their name? What makes a crab spider so good at ambushing its prey? 
What I Think: This book is brilliant. It's fun to see animals and how they camouflage themselves but this book makes this an interactive activity in a few ways. First of all, readers have to search for an animal hiding in the photograph. There is a page opposite the picture with a poem that gives you a hint as to what you are looking for. After you find the animal, you unfold the page and find out if you did in fact find the animal you were supposed to find and then you can read a little about that animal. I had a blast reading this with my family and with students. Everyone, from my pre-k son, to my 3rd and 4th grade students, to my husband, were determined to find the hidden animals. After we did all the work to find the animals, we really wanted to read more about them. It was a great experience.
There are numerous ways to use this book in a classroom. There aren't many non-fiction text features but there are some. I have been using it to listen and then identify the main ideas of the text. The poems really make kids think because they are like riddles. It would be neat to read just the poem before even letting kids see the photograph. They could listen and decide what animal they should be looking for, then you can give them time to look. It would be good practice for making a prediction even though this is a non-fiction text. The color in this book is amazing. It really brings the ideas to life.
Read Together: Pre-K - 12   
Read Alone: Pre-K - 12
Read With: Non-Fiction picture books by Steve Jenkins like What Do You Do What a Tail Like This?, Over and Under The Snow by Kate Messner, How They Croaked by Georgia Bragg
Snatch of Text:   

Wings Outspread

flitting

darting

zigzag flight

blurry wing beats

in the night

resting

outspread

wings of white

blend with birch bark

by day’s light

Moth

"Moths are nocturnal – they fly and feed at night. Some are expert fliers who can evade even the fastest bats. But during the day, a resting moth is easy prey for hungry birds. By blending into it surrounds, a moth that is well-camouflaged can sleep undisturbed.

The larvae of certain moths are called inchworms. These moths are known as “geometers,” meaning “earth measurers.” As a larva inches its way along a twig, it seems to be measuring it.

In England more than a century ago, a kind of geometer called the pepper moth had light-colored wings that were “peppered” with dark specks. Pepper moths hid well on light-bardked tress blotched with grayish lichens. After factories began to pollute the air in industrial cities, soot from the smokestacks darkened the tree bark. In some areas, the moth populations evolved to be darker, matching the trees on which they rested. By doing this, they continued to evade birds looking for a mothy meal."

Reading Strategies to Practice: Activating Background Knowledge, Using Non-Fiction Text Features, Asking Questions
Writing Strategies to Practice: Expository, Poetry, Riddles
Writing Prompts: Choose one of the animals from the book and do some extra research on the animal you chose. Write an expository paragraph about what other interesting facts you learn about the animal. 
Topics Covered: Integration - Science, Animals, Camouflage, Poetry, Riddles

Jen *hearts* It:

 

Here's a Little Poem

Title: Here's a Little Poem: A Very First Book of Poetry   
Collected By: Jane Yolen and Andrew Fusek Peters   
Illustrator: Polly Dunbar
Publisher: Candlewick Press 
Publication Date: February 2007 
Genre/Format: Realistic Fiction/Poetry 
GoodReads Summary: Sit back and savor a superb collection of more than sixty poems by a wide range of talented writers, from Margaret Wise Brown to Gertrude Stein, Langston Hughes to A. A. Milne. Greeting the morning, enjoying the adventures of the day, cuddling up to a cozy bedtime — these are poems that highlight the moments of a toddler’s world from dawn to dusk. Carefully gathered by Jane Yolen and Andrew Fusek Peters and delightfully illustrated by Polly Dunbar, HERE'S A LITTLE POEM offers a comprehensive introduction to some remarkable poets, even as it captures a very young child’s intense delight in the experiences and rituals of every new day. 
What I Think: It’s really hard to judge a collection of poems because there are bound to be some poems that I don’t like as well as others. I do have to say that the majority of these poems I really enjoyed. I kind of like this kind of anthology because there are different authors included instead of the same author writing many poems. There seems to be more variance in the poems even though they are grouped into similar topics.

I’m starting to realize more and more the impact the illustrations have on my perception of a book. This book is warm and welcoming from the beginning. The colors are bright but muted at the same time. There is so much color in this book but a kind of color that I want to curl up in. It might have as much to do with the colors as the cover image. The image of the sun on the cover radiates the mood of the book.

I really enjoy poems for children that are about common things that children can relate to. Things like birthday parties and rain and going to sleep. These poems were fun to read a loud and share with my own kids. I love how the words slipped off my tongue and sounded musical. Obviously, a poem should have some kind of rhythm to it and most of these poems really do demonstrate that. There are so many great poems to grab from this collection to share with kids and to use as mentor texts. I love Silverly for it’s use of personification and even to look closely at adverbs. This book contains a wealth of mentor texts!

Read Together: Grades Pre-K - 5 
Read Alone: Grades K - 5 
Read With: BookSpeak by Laura Purdie Salis, Julie Andrews' Collection of Poems, Songs and Lullabies selected by Julie Andrews and Emma Walton Hamilton 
Snatch of Text:   

Soggy Greens

John Cunliffe

"Oh, soggy greens, I hate you,

I hate your sloppy slush;

And if my mum would let me,

I'd throw you in a bush.

Oh, apple pie, I love you,

I love your crunchy crust;

And if my mum would let me,

I'd eat you till I bust."

Candles

Wendy Cope

"Three little candles

On a birthday cake.

Count them very carefully

So there's no mistake.

We counted three and there's no doubt -

Now it's time to blow them out."

Silverly

Dennis Lee

"Silverly,

Silverly,

Over the

Trees,

The moon drifts

By on a

Runaway

Breeze.

Dozily,

Dozily,

Deep in her

Bed,

A little girl

Dreams with the

Moon in her

Head."

Reading Strategies to Practice: Activating Background Knowledge, Making Connections, Visualizing, Predicting  
Writing Strategies to Practice: Descriptive Writing, Onomatopoeia, Alliteration, Imagery, Rhyme, Personification, Parts of Speech   
Writing Prompts: Use the parts of speech pattern from "Silverly" to write your own poem that mimics Dennis Lee's style.  
Topics Covered: Childhood, Milestones, Life 

Hottest, Coldest, Highest Deepest

Title: Hottest, Coldest, Highest, Deepest     
Author: Steve Jenkins   
Illustrator: Steve Jenkins  
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Company
Publication Date: 1998   
Genre/Format: Nonfiction-Geography/Picture Book  
Summary: This book uses artwork, maps, and diagrams to bring to life the hottest, coldest, highest, and deepest places on Earth among others.   
What I Think: I'm still exploring nonfiction text for students...when it comes to reading, I like to stick to fiction or historical fiction unless I'm reading a professional educational book.  I'm not used to reading nonfiction with pictures and all the great nonfiction text features.  I have some students who really love this kind of reading, I think those that struggle with reading and understanding stories seem to prefer nonfiction texts.  This book has definitely made me want to look for great nonfiction for my students.  I love the artwork in this book and I love the premise of looking at the -est places all around the world.  In my mind, there is just enough information about each place.  I love the diagram that puts the height, length, degree of coldness into perspective and the map that shows just were the -est might be.
     Speaking of -est, I think this book is great for teaching superlatives.  The combination of nonfiction text and the repetition of the use of superlatives make this a great way to look at comparative and superlative forms.  
Read Together: 3 - 12 
Read Alone: 3 - 12  
Read With: What Do You Do with a Tail Like This? (Caldecott Honor Book) also by Steven Jenkins; Nonfiction about any of the places in the book  
Snatch of Text: "Mount Everest is the highest mountain in the world.  Its peak is 29,028 feet above sea level."
"The highest mounts in North American is Mount McKinley (also called Denali), in Alaska, at 20,320 feet.  Mount Whitney, in California, is the highest peak in the continental United States.  Its summit is 14.491 feet above sea level."
Reading Strategies to Practice: Using Nonfiction Text Features; Activating Background Knowledge; Making Connections
Writing Strategies to Practice: Writing Expository Text 
Writing Prompts: Choose one of the places from the book, then research more information about that place and write a paragraph/essay that develops the main idea you chose using supporting details.    
Topics Covered: Geography, Maps, Adverbs - Superlatives 
Translated to Spanish: No