Special Edition Literacy Café: Author Visit with Danika Dinsmore


As our Literacy Café has been growing, we have been offering up some specials on the menu.  For our latest Café Special, we hosted author Danika Dinsmore for a Creative Writing Workshop around World Building.  Danika is the author of Brigitta and I will be posting a review of her Middle Grade Fantasy novel, Brigitta of the White Forest shortly. 

On Tuesday, students welcomed Danika to the Cafe and learned about her book.  After an initial introduction, Danika creatively read several pages from her book to draw the children in and to set the stage for learning about World Building.


Danika has a very energetic and creative reading style.  She nearly acted out all of the scenes.  After she read the passage, she asked the children questions about what they had discovered about Brigitta and her sister.  Children learned that one important thing in writing is to show rather than tell.
 

When she talked about world building, she began to help students understand where you can start and what are critical things to remember when building your world.  First she helped them understand three different kinds of worlds:
Children then had to decide whether the world they were creating for their books was imaginary, an alternate reality, or a portal to another world. She set them the task of working as partners or table groups to share their ideas.  With heads together, students excitedly chatted about their ideas.  So much so that at times it was hard to bring them back.  How cool that a topic being discussed is so excited that they wanted to keep going.

After the children had created their worlds, they learned about about creating their characters. Would their characters be human?  Human with powers? Or completely made up?  Each table group had a challenge to create a new creature by combining to other creatures.  So what would you call a snake/eagle?  Or a scorpion/giraffe? 

Students also had a chance to see Danika's special notebook.  One of the pictures she showed students were her sketches for the wings of her faeries.  She encouraged them to keep their own notebooks of ideas, and sketches.

Danika's brought along a special Felt Faery that she had made in a workshop.  

Thanks Danika for visiting our school and providing students with such great information about writing.  Students generated such amazing ideas about their world and main character and what would happen in their stories.  I am certain we have some budding writers in this group and your visit will be something they remember for a long time.

Hot Off The Press! New Picture Books (6)

This is a feature that I do weekly called Hot Off The Press!  based on my weekly visits to Vroman's Bookstore and checking out their wall of new picture books.  This week there were so many recent releases that I was unable to get through them all in one visit. Here are the 5 new releases that stood out from the pile this week:

Queen Of The Falls
Author/Illustrator: Chris Van Allsburg
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children (April 4, 2011 - available now)
Audience: Grades 2nd to 5th

I never really thought about who was the first person to go over Niagara Falls in a barrel.  However, this book gave me a lot to think about.  VanAllsburg retells the real life story of Annie Edison Taylor in a way that will fascinate young readers.  VanAllsburg's illustrations are beautiful. This takes top honor this week and will be one that I recommend.

Click here to watch a video of Chris Van Allsburg talking about the book.  


The Loud Book!
Author: Deborah Underwood
Illustrator: Renata Liwska
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Books for Children (April 4, 2011 - available now)
Audience: Ages 2 to 6 years old

I really loved The Quiet Book and have given it out as gifts.  I wasn't expecting to love The Loud Book even more, but I think I do.  I laughed and smiled at all of the examples of being loud.  Liwska's illustrations are charming and compliment the text wonderfully.  Underwood has a successful companion book on her hands with this one.  I think I will be giving the pair of books as gifts now.




The Cazuela That The Farm Maiden Stirred
Author: Samanatha R. Vamos
Illustrator: Rafael Lopez
Publisher: Charlesbridge Publishing (February 1, 2011)
Audience: Ages 4 to 8

Books that introduce words in another language can be tricky.  Is it just randomly inserting these words into the text or is there a specific purpose.  Vamos's play on The House That Jack Built does so in a wonderful manner.  After each word is introduced in English, the next time it is used it is then given in Spanish.  First, the Farm Maiden stirs a pot and then a cazuela, and it continues in this manner.  Lopez' illustrations are colorful and festive.

Birdsong
Author/Illustrator: Ellie Sandall
Publisher: Egmont, USA (March 22, 2011)
Audience: Ages 4 to 8

Sandall takes a simple, familiar concept, adds in bright fun illustrations, and then executes it well. A bird sits on a branch and sings. He is then is joined by another and another...all with different songs. They are having fun and finally they are joined by one very loud bird who knocks them all off, but it is something very small that makes the biggest change of all.  This one gets the smile award for the week.

The Loopy Coop Hens
Author/Illustrator: Janet Morgan Stoeke
Publisher: Dutton Juvenile (March 17, 2011)
Audience: Ages 4 to 7

I don't usually say this, but I want a book trailer for this book.  I searched but couldn't find one.  Someone make one fast...*waits* Okay, so it isn't happening.  This wins the "make me laugh a lot" award for the week.  The hens in this book are certainly loopy.  They wonder why rooster Sam can fly.  They try.  They see other creatures that fly and wonder why they can't.  Finally, they discover a little secret but realize maybe it doesn't matter after all.   I anticipate that children will get a chuckle out of this one.

Claudia Gray's Afterlife Review & Giveaway!

Author: Claudia Gray
Publisher: Harper Teen (March 8, 2011)
Audience: YA
Source: For Review (Dark Days Supernatural Tour)

Description from GoodReads:
The fourth book in this electrifying vampire series has all the romance, suspense, and page-turning drama that have made Claudia Gray’s Evernight books runaway successes.

Having become what they feared most, Bianca and Lucas face a terrifying new reality. They must return to Evernight Academy, Lucas as a vampire and Bianca as a wraith. But Lucas is haunted by demons, both personal and supernatural. Bianca must help him fight the evil inside him, combat the forces determined to drive them apart—and find the power to claim her destiny at last.

Readers have fallen in love with Bianca and Lucas, and they will be thrilled to read this exciting conclusion to their romantic adventure.

Claudia Gray's Afterlife is the highly anticipated final chapter to her best-selling Evernight series, a young adult series about vampires and humans living together at the reclusive Evernight boarding school. Personally, I was really looking forward to seeing how things would end for Lucas and Bianca and how the mysteries surrounding the school would resolve, and I wasn't disappointed.

This is a spoiler free (!!) review of Afterlife, but it does reference events from the first three books in the series, so you have fair warning.

Afterlife lived up to expectations for me. At the end of Hourglass, book 3, Bianca had become a wraith and Lucas was turning into a vampire, the one thing he had been resisting for the whole series. This brought a new dynamic to the duo as they adjusted to their new bodies... or forms, in Bianca's case as a wraith. I loved watching Lucas struggle with what he had become and how that affected his relationship with Black Cross, especially his mother. I also loved seeing Lucas and Bianca back at the academy. I enjoyed them being on their own, out in the real world in Hourglass, but it felt great to have them back on familiar territory, readjusting to life now that they were both so different.

There were many unpredictable plot twists, especially with Mrs. Bethany and her relationship to the vampire/human/wraith populations at the academy. There was also some interesting Balthazar moments in there for fans eagerly awaiting Balthazar's spin-off novel. It's difficult to discuss the novel without giving too much away, because so much of this book ties up loose ends. I will say that I loved how Claudia Gray ended Bianca and Lucas' romance. I was worried about how they would work everything out, but I was more than satisfied with their ending. Overall, I really liked this one -- lots of action, romance, and drama to make it a real page-turner.

Now, on to the fun part: THE GIVEAWAY!

Here are the rules:
1. Please do not enter any personal information in the comments section, you must complete the Entry Form to officially enter the contest.
2.  The Contest runs from 12:00 a.m. on March 26, 2011 to 11:59 p.m. on March 31st.
3.  You do not need to be a follower of this blog to enter, but if you are it will earn you an extra entry.
4.  You must be 13 or older to participate in this contest.
5.  If you are selected as a winner, I will notify you by e-mail.  If you do not respond within 48 hours, I will select a new winner.
6.  This contest is only open to UK participants .(Sorry U.S. and International Followers...there will be another contest for you coming soon)

Good luck!!

Literacy Café: Tortilla Sun Redux

Last July, I discovered Tortilla Sun by Jennifer Cervantes.  (To read my review, click here.)  There truly was something magical about this book.  When I finished reading it, I just knew that I had to share it with my students.  As I read the book aloud to one of our fourth grade classes, I became excited about the connection the students were making to the characters in the story.  I then started giving copies way to teachers and parent volunteers who in turn became excited about the book.

Of course, one thing led to another and before you knew it, we were planning a Literacy Café.  Our Café first opened it's doors on Monday, November 1, 2010.  We welcomed 34 fourth graders into our Café.  We were well prepared and had many enthusiastic volunteers to assist us with the activities.

Our hosts led children through activities that pulled out key concepts in the book and allowed children to interact with those ideas at a different level.  Children used their senses while nibbling on apple empanadas to talk about sensory adjectives.  At another table, children played with the symbols in the story in order to create a visual representation of the book.  And at yet another table children wrote poems about the characters.  When they finished, each child received a homemade tortilla with butter and honey just like Izzy eats them.

However, we weren't through with Tortilla Sun or with Literacy Cafés.  We learned so much from that first experience and have since put on over a dozen more Cafés centered around different books.  When word got out about the success of Tortilla Sun, I had requests from other teachers to read the book aloud to their classes and to hold another Café.  While I read to the students, my Literacy Café partner Angie busily revised activities.  We discussed other ways to explore the themes.  Tweaked activities that didn't work as effectively and tried to add in some other ways to work with the concepts in the book.  This time we even added in a session of folklorico dancing.  And of course our bakery bought apple empanadas became homemade empanadas, and Angie perfected her tortilla making.  Nana would be proud.

What we also learned through the experience is that paying attention to details is critical.  When children arrive in the Café, we want them to be transported into the book.  A piñata hanging from the ceiling or black crepe paper hanging from the door or even the smell of tortillas warming help children feel more a part of the story.

Was this Café better than the first one?  Yes, and no!  Both were wonderful on their own.  Both inspired children and helped them see books in a new way.  And also both times we learned things that would help us make another Café even better.  Take a look at this short video to get a better feel for the whole event.



Here is Jennifer Cervantes reading from Tortilla Sun at an author event in Glendale, CA.  I had a blast meeting her and telling her how much I loved her book.

For more information about our Literacy Cafés, you can check out my blog post here.  To visit Jennifer Cervantes website, click here.