Roald Dahl's Childhood Autobiography

Maybe it is because I am a grown-up, or maybe it is because I was never a 9 year old boy, but I was not particularly fond of this story. I read it as part of a graduate course book club. Although I think it is really cool that Roald Dahl actually wrote an autobiography about his childhood, many of the stories were mildly disgusting/gruesome.

I'm not sure which bothered me more, the story about the time he almost had his nose cut off in a car accident, or the story about how he watched as a doctor cut a large boil off of a little boy. Perhaps I am bias because I was trying to eat my lunch while I read about the latter of these incidents, and it completely ruined my appetite.

These things aside, this book does have a very distinct voice, and has a very comfortable rhythm to the words. It also taught me about what all boy British prep schools were like during the early-twentieth century. They were not fun places! Full of words like "fagging", "bog", and "nib", this book is sure to teach readers about a type of life that they cannot rightly imagine without Dahl's colorful descriptions.

Go Straight to the Source

In this book, Rosa Parks briefly tells about her life and accomplishments. Most elementary schools are required to teach about Rosa Parks at some point, and it makes sense for teachers to use this autobiography, because it tells the story in her own words. For example, when she is talking about the day that she refused to give up her seat to a white person, she says, "Some people think I kept my seat because I'd had a hard day, but that is not true. I was just tired of giving in."

Students need to have access to primary sources when they are learning about history. This book is the perfect example of one such source because it was written by the person in question, and it was specifically written for children. Sometimes it is hard to incorporate primary sources into elementary classrooms because the writing style is too foreign for students to understand. In this book, Rosa Parks tells her story in a simple but truthful way. This book is appropriate for 2nd grade and up.

Although it has more text than your traditional picture book, it does contain a number of illustrations done by Wil Clay. These illustrations help students visualize what Rosa Parks is describing.

How Do You Build a Racecar?

Do you have students in your class that love to take things apart and find out how they work? Do you have students that are addicted to graphic novels? The book series "Why Things Don't Work" capitalizes on both of these interests.

The basic idea behind each of the books is that something (train, airplane, race car, tank, motorcycle, or helicopter) isn't working, and the main character has to make it work again. In the process, the character explains all kinds of things about how the object works. There are helpful diagrams that go along with each concept.

The books are all written in graphic novel format. They are great books to have in your classroom library for individual reading time. They are probably meant for students in 3rd, 4th, or 5th grade. It might be good to introduce one of them as a guided reading book, to get students used to the format before they try to read the books themselves. The books are wonderful because they take very complex engineering and break it down into language that elementary school students can understand.

So What is a Noun?

" Hill is a noun. Mill is a noun. Even Uncle Phil is a noun."
-A Mink, a Fink, a Skating Rink: What is a Noun?

Non-fiction books come in all shapes and sizes. The book, "A Mink, a Fink, a Skating Rink" is one of a series that introduces grammar concepts to kids in interesting and fun ways. This book introduces the concept of "a noun" to children using the traditional definition of "a person, place, or thing" but it elaborates on that definition in a sing-songy fashion. Other books in this series address proper nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and pronouns. The series is written by Brian P. Cleary and illustrated by Jenya Prosmitsky.

The students of my second grade class have just started learning about nouns. The teacher introduced the concept by telling them the definition, and then having them make a list of people, places, things, and animals that they know. However, many of the students got stuck, and really had problems coming up with ideas. This book would be the perfect supplement to an introductory lesson because it provides students with all kinds of concrete examples of different kinds of nouns. The book ends with the question, "So what is a noun?" and this is the perfect lead-in a student-initiated discussion about nouns.

And the Rainforest Grew All Around and Around, and the Rainforest Grew All Around

This was a book that was recommended to me by one of my classmates. It is a great way to introduce children to the rainforest, or to wrap up a unit on the plant life cycle. Many young children have heard the song The Green Grass Grows All Around, and this book plays off of that by creating a song/book about the rainforest to the tune of "The Green Grass Grows All Around." On each page a new animal/plant is introduced, and there is a fact box on one side of the page that goes into details about the animal/plant. At the end of the book there is a "For Creative Minds" section that gives teachers and parents extension ideas for the book. There is also recipe for "Rainforest Cookies" that inclues 8 different ingredients that come from the rainforest: cinnamon, banana, sugar, vanilla, sugar, coconut, chocolate, and cashews.

This book starts and ends with "the fluffiest seed that you ever did see" and that makes it a great way to integrate music into a lesson about plant life cycles. This particular song lets students practice their fluency in a call and reply pattern while at the same time introducing them to new knowledge about the rainforest.

How Do You Raise a Raisin?

"How do you raise a raisin?
Tell me so I'll know.
They're such peculiar little things.
How do they sprout and grow?
Do raisins grow on Earth, or other planets, far away?
Do aliens collect them and space-shuttle them our way?"
-How Do You Raise a Raisin?

I have to admit, I never thought I would read a whole book about raisins, but Pam Ryan and Craig Brown really created a tummy rumbling book with this short non-fiction book about how raisins are made. On the left side of each page there is a stanza from a poem that questions how raisins are made. On the right side, there is a simple and honest explanation that answers the questions. Who knew that it took 26,280 hours to raise good grapevines for raisins, or that it takes four and one-half pounds of fresh grapes to make one pound of raisins.

To be honest with you, I never thought I would care, but the way this book is put together, you find yourself wondering what interesting little tidbit you are going to learn when you turn the page. The pictures are awesome too. Complementing the page that asks "Are they soaked inside a bathtub until their skin is crinkled?" there is a wonderful marker-and-pastel illustration of a happy raisin soaking in a tub with his rubber ducky. This book is a great way to get students wondering about how different things are created. It even includes instructions on how to make the yummy raisiny snacks "Ants on a Log", "Rats on a Raft", and "Super Balls".

I Spy....Steve Jenkins' Style

Most elementary students love I Spy books. There is one student in my second grade class who refuses to get excited about anything, except these books. He would spend hours searching through the scenery to find the hidden objects.

The book, "I See a Kookaburra!" by Steve Jenkins and Robin Page puts this curiosity to good use. It presents six different animal habitats, each with eight hidden animals. The reader has to try to find the animals, and then turn the page to see the illustration with the setting removed. The second page of each habitat tells a little bit about each animal. Not all of these animals are easy to see. In fact, there were at least two of them where I couldn't find more than six animals before I had to peek at the "cheat sheet" on the next page.

The book also contains the following note, "There are thousand of different kinds of ants. They live almost everywhere on earth and can be found in each of the habitats shown in this book. Along with the eight animals in each picture, there is an ant-somewhere. Can you see it?" This gives those expert I-Spy readers an extra challenge.

There is also a neat slide show about how Steve Jenkins makes his books on his website . It shows several of his picture sketches, and a couple pages of his original drafts. This was particularly interesting because it let the reader see how the process starts. Normally all readers get to see is the end product.