Teach Mentor Texts: Diverse Books

Showing posts with label Diverse Books. Show all posts

Friday, July 7, 2017

World Pizza

Title: World Pizza
Author: Cece Meng
Illustrator: Ellen Shi
Publisher: Sterling Children's Books
Publication Date: June 6th, 2017
Genre/Format: Fiction/Picture Book
GoodReads Summary: When Momma spots a wishing star, she starts to ask for world peace—but a sneeze changes “peace” into “peace-AH-AH-AH-choo!” World PIZZA! Suddenly, yummy pies of every kind come drifting down from the sky. That’s not exactly what Momma hoped for . . . or is it? With humor, warmth, and heart, this delicious picture book celebrates the things that truly bring us together.
What I Think: Oh, if only it was so easy to bring peace to the world! As an adult, I understand the complexities of so much more than a child would reading this text. Looking at it through the lens of reading this with a child or a group of children, I can see how it would definitely be a way to start conversations. Food is a part of culture but at the same time culture is so much more than food. And food brings people together. I love that World Pizza brings our attention to this. Right away the 5 F's of culture came to mind: food, fashion, famous people, festivals, and flags. Too often, these are the elements of culture that we see and understand without seeking to know more. Using World Pizza, we can see how food is different in different parts of the world and we can start a discussion about how each of us might like different kinds of pizza. I like a good veggie deep dish, no cheese and my younger son likes his pizza with bacon. Starting with something like pizza, that might be familiar to most kids, is a great way to start to recognize that we might have common tastes or we might have different tastes and that's okay. We can have our own opinions about foods and still get along. But then this discussion can turn into discussions about other things and still come back to the idea that we might be similar or different but we can still get along.
As a mentor text, I would read World Pizza and have students think of what they like on their pizza. They can draw and/or write about kinds of pizza they like. They can discuss things like their favorite pizza place, favorite type of crust, favorite sauce to cheese ratio, favorite toppings, etc. But there might be some kids who've never tried pizza or don't like pizza and that's okay too. It might be really neat to have each student write about their connections with pizza on a "slice" of paper and then the slices can be fit together into one pizza or a few smaller pizzas to show how our opinions can connect.
Snatch of Text:

"There was spicy pepper pizza, salty seaweed pizza,

chocolate cherry pizza, and extra-cheesy-with-pickles pizza.

None of the pizzas were the same, but they were all delicious."

Writing Prompt: Why do you think the author decided the pizzas would all be different? And why do you think that she said, "...but they were all delicious"?

Wednesday, July 9, 2014

Schneider Family Book Award 10th Anniversary Blog Celebration Tour and Giveaway!

To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Schneider Family Book Award, Alyson from Kidlit Frenzy asked me to talk about my favorite of the winners. I will always have a place in my heart for my students who are deaf and hard of hearing so I'm sharing thoughts about Five Flavors of Dumb, Hurt Go Happy and Wonderstruck because they tell great stories of characters who are deaf and hard of hearing.

Five Flavors of Dumb by Antony John stands out to me because the main character, Piper, has such a spitfire attitude and she doesn't let her disability get in her way. I love that readers can see how determined she is and that when she sets her mind to something, she can get it accomplished and learn about herself and make friends along the way. Students who are deaf and hard of hearing usually have to work on developing good communication skills and strategies for how to navigate difficult listening situations. Piper definitely shows readers how she deal with these situations and how she doesn't let her hearing loss stand in her way. As an added bonus, this book is also great for music lovers or musicians. Oh, and did I mention, it's got an absolutely amazing title that doesn't just poke fun but jabs away at the misconception that people who are deaf are unintelligent.

Hurt Go Happy by Ginny Rorby is a book that both Kellee and I love. Kellee will be sharing more about Hurt Go Happy at her blog Unleashing Readers on the 18th so be sure to check it out! Hurt Go Happy is one of my favorite Schneider winners again because of the strong main character. Joey, like Piper from Five Flavors of Dumb, learns a lot about herself as the story goes on. Reading Joey's story gave me an even stronger sense of how isolated it might feel to not be able to participate easily in conversations. Students who are deaf and hard of hearing often need to watch facial expressions and read lips to participate in a discussion and/or they may rely on using sign language to communicate. It's not always easy for hearing family or friends to remember this even when they have the best intentions. I was constantly talking to my students about advocating for themselves. By the end of the book, we see how Joey grows and gains confidence in advocating for herself and I loved to share this with my students.

Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick was a book that surprised me and fascinated me at the same time. I wasn't expecting this book to be about characters with hearing loss at all so I was excited when I realized it and even more so because of all the artwork that drives so much of the story as well. While this is a super-thick book, it's definitely a book I could recommend to students to read because of the blend of text and artwork. Many students who are deaf and hard of hearing experience a delay in language development which impacts their reading skills. One of the strategies for working with students who are deaf and hard of hearing is to offer visual support. Selznick's style of including text with pictures makes Wonderstruck a great recommendation for students who are deaf and hard of hearing.

I'm so excited to be part of this celebration of the 10th anniversary of the Schneider Family Book Award! Recently the #weneeddiversebooks hashtag garnered attention on Twitter. When I saw the #weneeddiversebooks hashtag, I didn't think about books with characters with disabilities as being part of that but it makes so much sense. In reading Alyson's post about her experience with the Schneider Award, I was happy to see this: "As we think about the need for diversity in books, let us remember that children and adults with special needs should also see themselves portrayed positively among the pages of the books that we read." I know that Five Flavors of Dumb, Hurt Go Home, and Wonderstruck helped me gain a deeper understanding of what it might be like to be deaf and hard of hearing and that they also hold characters my students could identify with. It really makes a difference to see yourself reflected in the pages of a book.

And now...to really celebrate, Alyson has a giveaway! One person will win a set of all 3 Schneider Family Book Award Winners from 2014. Participants must be 13 years or older and have a US or Canadian mailing address. There will be one winner but you can enter from any of the blogs as part of this celebration.