Picture Book Review - Bluebird

Author/Illustrator: Bob Staake
Publisher: Random House (April 9, 2013)
Source: Purchased Copy
Audience: Ages 4 to 10
Wordless * Friendship * Bullying

Description from the publisher:
In his most beautiful and moving work to date, Bob Staake explores the universal themes of loneliness, bullying, and the importance of friendship. In this emotional picture book, readers will be captivated as they follow the journey of a bluebird as he develops a friendship with a young boy and ultimately risks his life to save the boy from harm. Both simple and evocative, this timeless and profound story will resonate with readers young and old.

Bob Staake has been working on this book for 10 years, and he believes it is the story he was born to write. 

My thoughts on this book:
Each year, I look for what I can say is the best of the best in picture books.  Some years, the Caldecott Committee and I are in sync on the choices of outstanding picture books and other years we diverge and travel down different paths.  We are about one-third of the way through 2013 and I have already looked at a few hundred picture books.  Some are beautifully illustrated but lack the strength of a powerful story.  Other books have amazing text, but fail to wow readers with their pictures.  A few have text and illustrations that compliment and enhance one another.  Yet, for me, the leader of the pack is a book that tells a powerful story without a single word.

Bluebird by Bob Staake is one of the most powerful picture books that I have seen in a long time.  I first saw this book as an F & G (folded and gathered) and knew that I had to have it.  I have looked at it multiple times since and with each reading I see a new element that I missed in a previous read through.

I lack the words or the technical understanding to express what Staake communicates through a limited, but intentional color palette.  How do I convey the subtle but important details revealed in each frame? Staake is brilliant in his artistic layout and storytelling that for the observant reader the lack of words is never an issue.

Staake's story of a lonely boy, a small bluebird, a special friendship, and how the choices of various individuals can have significant impacts on the lives of others is a story that won't be quickly forgotten.  I, seriously, hope that this year's Caldecott committee will agree with me that Bluebird deserves to be recognized with a shiny medal.  If not, I am going to make my own shiny medal for this powerful story that will move every reader young and old.
      
Check out the official book trailer:


Interview with Bob Staake on Random Acts of Reading, click here

More information about Bob Staake: website | twitter | facebook |

It's Monday! What are you reading? From Picture Books to YA - 4/22/13

It's Monday! What are you reading? is hosted by Sheila of Book Journey. Jen & Kellee from Teach Mentor Texts have adapted this to focus on Picture Books to Young Adult Books.

I had a strange reading week.  I wasn't able to get to the library or to Vroman's to check out the latest picture books.  And for the first time in several years, I didn't even make it to the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books.  It was just one of those weeks.

However, I did read 3 books in the Black Dagger Brotherhood series (an adult urban fantasy/paranormal series by J.R. Ward).  I am blaming @fishgirl182 for my current addiction.  

I am very close to finishing Dare You To (Pushing the Limits #2) by Katie McGarry (Harlequin Teen, May 28, 2013 - ARC courtesy of NetGalley) - Contemporary Young Adult fiction is not my usual reading choice but I had heard good things about McGarry and thought I would give it a try.  This is definitely a book for older teens.  I'll post my review in the near future.

I am just about to start Al Capone Does My Homework by Gennifer Choldenko (Penguin, August 2013)

I am also interested in meeting Kate Atkinson this week at Vroman's and reading her new book Life After Life (Reagan Arthur Books, April 2, 2013) - The reviews for this one sounded amazing.

I am certainly looking forward to a better reading week and dying to get back to a stack of picture books.

So, what are you reading?

The Best Part of Me...Poetry Project by Jan Tappan

This past weekend, Jan Tappan, a teacher friend of mine shared about a class poetry project that she did recently with her 4th graders. 

From Jan...

I got the idea for the "Best Part of Me" poems from Carol Raby, an Elementary Librarian & a source of a great number of really terrific ideas. Hope Anita Smith visited Carol's school to conduct poetry workshops with the students there. The poetry project I was interested in was the one where the students used paint colors as metaphors for aspects of themselves (physical characteristics, emotions: "When I'm mad, I'm Maine Lobster," for example) and then illustrated the poems with torn white core scrapbook paper collage.

When Readers (a monthly book group comprised of teachers and librarians) visited her school, Carol showed me her photo album of the paint color poems, and I had great success with those last year. As I looked through her scrapbook, I found the photos (see example above) with poems displayed in a very unusual way. The sign on that bulletin board said that the poems had been inspired by Hope Anita Smith, but I later learned about the Wendy Ewald book, The Best Part of Me: Children Talk About Their Bodies in Pictures and Words and Literacy and Justice Through Photography: A Classroom Guide, the source for the original idea. Carol told me that the poems celebrated the "best part" of each student and that they used one metaphor, one simile, and one other kind of figurative language. The poems started and ended with "The best part of me is.."

I asked my students to write poems about what they felt was their best visible feature. The kids had a great time thinking up similes and metaphors to go with the body part that they had chosen, a process they found not as easy as they first thought! They shared their poems with each other for help with editing, revising, and ideas for metaphors and the "other figurative language" line. We took closeup photos of the kids' faces and of the body parts they wrote about. The kids used our word processors to type their poems, we formatted them so they looked the same and mounted them so the photos stood out from the board. It was a great success at our open house!

Mounting directions: Fold the 8 1/2" ends of letter size paper to the center line, creating two side flaps. Glue the student's face picture to the outside of the right flap, and the student's body part photo on the side facing the center line so the two photos are glued back to back with the body part photo facing the poem. Mount the poem's final copy in the center between the two flaps. I laminated the poem/photo display to make the photos stand out and to protect the display which is in a crowded hallway. When I put the bulletin board up, I backed each of the poems with a contrasting paper and re-folded the flaps on the poetry frame.

Additional Resources:

Check out this "Best Part of Me..." Resource on Scholastic.

Click here for an article about Wendy Ewald's work.

Thanks Jan for sharing about this great project...I can't wait to try it with students. - Alyson

Nonfiction Picture Book Wednesday - The Beatles Were Fab (and They Were Funny)

Authors: Kathleen Krull; Paul Brewer
Illustrator: Stacy Innerst
Publisher: Harcourt Childrens (March 19, 2013)
Source: Bought
Audience: Grades 2nd to 5th
Biographical * Rock Musicians * England

Description from GoodReads:
Q: How do you find all this business of having screaming girls following you all over the place?
George: Well, we feel flattered . . .
John: . . . and flattened. 

When the Beatles burst onto the music scene in the early 1960s, they were just four unknown lads from Liverpool. But soon their off-the-charts talent and offbeat humor made them the most famous band on both sides of the Atlantic. Lively, informative text and expressive, quirky paintings chronicle the phenomenal rise of Beatlemania, showing how the Fab Four’s sense of humor helped the the lads weather everything that was thrown their way—including jelly beans.

My thoughts on the book:
When I saw that there was a picture book biography on The Beatles, I thought that someone was being a bit gutsy.  Of course, until I saw that it was Kathleen Krull and Paul Brewer.  At that point, I figured if anyone could pull it off, then they could, and I wasn't wrong.  I read this book on an evening where there was little excitement radiating out of the stack of picture books that I was reading.  However, The Beatles Were Fab (and They Were Funny) shone as brightly as its vibrant yellow cover.

Krull and Brewer take readers on a journey that begins with how the Beatles formed through their rise in fame in England and then the United States and beyond.  The text provides young readers with the highlights of the Beatles career that one would expect and does so in a readable manner mixed with just the right amount of detail and a twist of humor.  The question and answer section was particularly funny with a page dedicated to each one of the Beatles demonstrating something unique about that individual.  

Stacy Innerst's paintings compliment and expand the text in a way that brings the book to the next level.  His attention to detail, and the small touches on many of the pages reflect the personality and music of the Beatles.  Resulting in a book that not only works on a written level, but can be enjoyed just as thoroughly from its images.  

There are important dates in Beatles History and additional sources listed at the end of the book.  The only thing that I might have wished for was an author's note or even an illustrator's note.  Regardless, this book is outstanding and would be a great gift for any fan of Rock Music history or for a classroom or school library collection.      

Don't forget to link up your nonfiction reviews:
 

It's Monday! What are you reading? From Picture Books to YA - 4/15/13

It's Monday! What are you reading? is hosted by Sheila of Book Journey. Jen & Kellee from Teach Mentor Texts have adapted this to focus on Picture Books to Young Adult Books.

I read through a stack of picture books this week and re-read a few that are finally out in the wild that I may have mentioned before and I am going to mention again because they really are just that good.

New reads and new favorites:

The Black Rabbit by Philippa Leathers (Candlewick, January 22, 2013) - A fun read about a rabbit, a wolf, and a surprising hero.  I enjoyed this a lot.

Tea Rex by Molly Idle (Viking Juvenile, April 9, 2013) - Click on the title of this one to check out my post about having Tea with Molly Idle.

Re-reads (first read was as an F&G) and finally available for purchase:

Bluebird by Bob Staake (Random House, April 9, 2013) - OMG! I LOVE THIS BOOK!  It is going on my early Mock-Caldecott list.

Snippet the Early Riser by Bethanie Murguia (Random House, March 12, 2013) - I just love anything that Murguia does. 

Have You Seen My New Blue Socks? by Eve Bunting; Illustrated by Sergio Ruzzier (Clarion, March 5, 2013) - I had the unique opportunity this weekend to hang out with Eve Bunting - okay, I had to share her for part of the time, but I did drive her back and forth from a meeting - I am always in "awe" when I see her.  During our book group, Eve read her new book to us.  Maybe a 2014 Geisel award for this one?

The Dark by Lemony Snicket; Illustrated by Jon Klassen (Little, Brown Books for Young Children, April 2, 2013) - What a pairing of talent and what a book!

For my monthly book club meeting, we read...

Akata Witch by Nnedi Okorafor  (Viking Childrens, 2011) - A fantasy story set in West Africa.  Though the characters in the story are approximately 12 years old, the content is a bit mature.  I would recommend this for teens.