Category: Intermediate Grades

2022 CLA Breakfast

10/31/2022

by Angela Wiseman & Ally Hauptman (2022 Co-Chairs)

We invite you to join us for our annual Children’s Literature Assembly Breakfast at the 2022 NCTE Convention featuring the award-winning author-illustrator Jerry Craft! Our breakfast is on Sunday November 20th, starting at 7am (PST) and takes place in Ballroom D at the Anaheim Convention Center.

The CLA breakfast is not to be missed! As you have seen in other blog posts, we will present awards, have an art auction and book raffle, and then Jerry Craft will speak and sign books afterwards! You need a ticket to the CLA Breakfast to attend. If you have already registered for the NCTE conference, but would like to purchase a ticket to the breakfast, the easiest way to do this is to call NCTE directly at (877) 369-6283.

2022 CLA Breakfast at NCTE on 11/20/22 @ 7 am

We would like to present some background on the esteemed, award-winning author-illustrator, Jerry Craft. As Publishers Weekly described in a book review about New Kid, Jerry Craft masterfully creates realistic stories that feature real life characters, “deftly weaving discussions of race, socioeconomics, colorism, and solidarity into an accessible narrative.”

We were first introduced to his work when we read New Kid, which was published in 2019. New Kid is part of a trilogy; Class Act is the second book and the third will be released in the near future. This fantastic book about Jordan Banks describes his experiences dealing with life as an adolescent while attending a private school where he doesn’t always fit in. He’s one of the only students of Color at this school and experiences prejudice and racism as he realizes how both race and socioeconomic factors impact the way people treat each other. Jerry Craft is motivated to show realistic portrayals of children in his books, but he also really wants children, particularly children of Color, to see themselves in his stories.

Before Jordan Banks, Jerry Craft wrote the comic strip Mama’s Boyz, which features the Porter family. It depicts the experience of Pauline Porter, a mother who is single-parent to two teenaged sons named Tyrell and Yusuf. While depicting real life experiences of a family, it was important that he had characters that he could imagine his own sons reading and relating to. If you visit his website, the first thing you see next to his profile and books is a quote that says “I make the books I wish I had when I was a kid.”

(Image from https://www.lambiek.net/artists/c/craft-jerry.htm)

If you regularly attend the CLA Breakfasts at NCTE, you know what a wonderful experience they are! But if you haven’t, we welcome you to join us! It’s a great opportunity to meet other people who are passionate about children’s literature, hear an amazing author-illustrator, purchase raffle tickets for wonderful books, and possibly bid on art from children’s illustrators! We hope to see you there!

Angela Wiseman and Ally Hauptman

Ally Hauptman is a CLA Board Member and co-chair of the 2022 CLA Breakfast Committee. She is an associate professor at Lipscomb University in Nashville, TN.

Angela Wiseman is a CLA Board Member and is co-chair of the 2022 CLA Breakfast Committee. She is an associate professor of literacy education at North Carolina State University.

Exploring the New Frontier of Uncharted Space Stories in Children's Nonfiction

5/10/2022

By Suzanne Costner

I headed to Houston in November 2018 to attend the NCTE Annual Convention and moderate a panel presentation for a group of children’s nonfiction writers. I was also looking forward to the Children’s Book Award Luncheon, never realizing that it would change my life. As the presentation of the year’s winners was winding down, an announcement was made encouraging attendees to apply for a place on one of the award committees. My sister nudged me and whispered, “You could do that.” Two months later, I was beginning my term on the Orbis Pictus committee and immersing myself in children’s nonfiction.

From January 2019 through December 2021, we read over 1,300 books on topics ranging from amoebas to world history. As we reviewed, debated, and voted, my favorite topics involved astronomy, aviation, and aerospace, although I enjoyed all of them. The titles that combine those topics with a picture book biography make wonderful entry points into the study of science and history. Even though my time with the Orbis Pictus has ended, I am still searching out those sorts of books to add to my school library collection. I would like to share two of those titles with you and suggest related areas your students might enjoy investigating.

Book cover: Classified: The Secret Career of Mary Gold Ross, Cherokee Aerospace Engineer

Classified: The Secret Career of Mary Gold Ross, Cherokee Aerospace Engineer by Cherokee author Traci Sorell and Métis illustrator Natasha Donovan is an excellent example of a biography that features a woman in a STEM career. The book shows Mary’s love of mathematics and traces her path from teaching, to becoming Lockheed’s first female engineer, and then a member of the Skunk Works division working on satellites and spacecraft.

Extensive back matter includes a timeline, photos, an author’s note, an explanation of the Cherokee values mentioned in the text, source notes, and a bibliography. Illustrations showcase some of the aircraft Mary worked on such as the Lockheed A-12 and the Starfighter F-104C, as well as equations related to the projects.

To learn more about her amazing career, try the following:

Read the Smithsonian article “Mary Golda Ross: Aerospace Engineer, Educator, and Advocate.”
Read the Smithsonian article “Mary Golda Ross: She Reached for the Stars.”
Watch the Reading Rockets video: “Traci Sorell: Classified: Mary Golda Ross, Cherokee Aerospace Engineer.”
Access the author’s website for additional materials that explore the Cherokee values Mary personified.
There is also a Classified Teaching Guide which contains many activity ideas for experimenting with the forces of flight.

Blast Off! How Mary Sherman Morgan Fueled America into Space written by Suzanne Slade and illustrated by Sally Wern Comport is another of the untold stories of the space program. Working with two engineers as her assistants, Mary Sherman Morgan created the rocket fuel hydyne which powered the launch of the first American satellite into space. This biography explores Mary’s late start in school, her determination to pursue a career in chemistry, and her work at North American Aviation.

This book also has plenty of back matter with photos, a timeline, a selected bibliography, and more details about Mary, the Juno 1 rocket and the Explorer 1 satellite. The author’s note includes an explanation of how difficult it was to find information. She states, “Mary Morgan’s history is not well-documented. Unfortunately, that is true of many women who have made meaningful contributions to science and other fields.” Thanks to the author’s persistence in reaching out to family members, people from Mary’s hometown, and aerospace experts, she was able to create this inspiring story.

Book Cover: Blast Off! How Mary Sherman Morgan Fueled America into Space

Students may find helpful information in the following:

The book trailer shows the important launch Mary was working toward with her rocket fuel.
This NASA video tells more about Explorer 1 and its lasting legacy for space exploration.
NASA/Jet Propulsion Laboratory has a web page on Explorer 1 with links to photos, videos, and other information.
In this short BBC video George Morgan talks about his mother and Rocket Girl, the book he wrote about her work developing rocket fuel.
To make experiments of their own about the perfect fuel ratio for a rocket launch, students might enjoy working with fizzy rockets and trying out different proportions of water to Alka-Seltzer tablets to power the launch. SciTech Labs has posted a how-to video.
There is also a lesson plan with instructions available from the Civil Air Patrol.

When I was a child visiting my school library, all the biographies were about famous presidents and other men. We still have a long way to go to balance the representation of women and other marginalized groups, but knowing there are authors and illustrators bringing these stories to life for today’s students is encouraging. Reading these stories of dreams achieved and challenges overcome may inspire young readers to pursue their own passions in life, or even introduce a topic to spark that passion. I hope everyone finds some nonfiction to engage their hearts and minds.

Suzanne Costner, School Library Media Specialist at Fairview Elementary School (Maryville, TN) member of NCTE, CLA, ALA, AASL, ILA, NAEYC, NSTA, ISTE, CAP, AFA, AIAA

Exploring the Vulnerable Heart of Verse Novels with Children

3/22/2022

By Ted Kesler

I have just completed my position as chairperson of the NCTE Poetry and Verse Novels for Children Committee. Our list of notable poetry and verse novels that were published in 2021 as well as other information about the award can be found on the NCTE Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children page.

In the post Exploring Notable Poetry Books for Advocacy with Children published on 3/15/2022, I presented three notable poetry piturebooks from this list that promote advocacy and offered lesson plan ideas to do with children. In this second post, I discuss three notable verse novels that promote resourcefulness and the strength of family bonds in the face of overwhelming adversity. All three verse novels featured– Samira Surfs (Ruhksanna Guidroz), The Lost Language (Claudia Mills), and Red, White, and Whole (Rajani LaRocca) – feature 12 year-old girl protagonists. Therefore, I recommend these books for grades 5 through 7 readers.

First, it is important to establish what constitutes notable verse novels for children. Our committee’s definition is:

A narrative told predominantly in poetic forms, with strong poetic elements.
The poetry forms and elements are integral to the telling of the story.
Excellence in writing and emotional impact. We ask: does the poetry "create images, express feelings, and stir emotions" (Cullinan, Liang, and Galda, 2016)?

We look for purposeful and aesthetic uses of such poetic elements as metaphor and other figurative language, pattern, imagery, and evocative word choice. Verse novels often use free verse, but might also include other poetic forms, such as rhyming couplets, enjambment, concrete poems, personification, and rhythms that represent the voice of strong characters.

The verse novels I present in this blog post certainly meet these criteria to heighten each protagonist’s encounter with adversity. An example is from Samira Surfs. Samira, her older brother, Khaled, and their parents are now living as unwanted refugees in Bangladesh, after escaping religious persecution in Burma (now called Myanmar).

“Escape”

I covered my ears from the pa-pa-pa
and the screaming.
Who did they shoot?
I’m too scared to open my eyes.
Soldiers torched homes
our mosques
our market.
Smoke curled around our throats,
squeezing.

So we fled with neighbors
into the blackness of night,
terror biting down hard.
I glanced behind
to see if it was all true.
“Samira, keep your eyes ahead,” Baba called out.

This excerpt expresses the power of poetry to convey this harrowing experience. Guidroz uses onomatopoeia, personification, strong imagery and word choice, metaphor, line breaks and stanzas to "create images, express feelings, and stir emotions.”

This book invites so many analytic and creative responses that will heighten students’ intentions for social justice. Here are some suggestions:

The teacher might photocopy each poem across the novel that describe the family’s escape from Burma. Reading across these poems, students then might bullet information they learned about Samira’s family’s life in Burma. This would create lively discussion. The teacher might then photocopy the first excerpt of the Author’s Note that explains this refugee crisis (page 404 to top of page 405). Students might then revise and elaborate their thinking.
The teacher might photocopy some poems that describe conditions that Samira and her family face as unwanted refugees in Bangladesh and do similar comparative work with the excerpt of the Author’s Note that describes these conditions (middle of page 405 to middle of page 406).
Similarly, the teacher might photocopy poems that describe Khaled, Samir and her friends learning to surf. Students might synthesize what they learned about surfing across these poems. They then might research the real-life empowerment of girls who learned to surf at Cox’s Bazar (the setting of this novel) using an online site such as The Surfer Girls of Cox’s Bazar.

In The Lost Language, Bumble and her best friend Lizard, in an effort to gain the attention and respect of Bumble’s mom – a linguistics professor who studies vanishing languages – try to “save” a vanishing language. Teachers might share Know & Think Tube's video Linguistic Diversity, which provides an overview of linguistic diversity and why it matters. Students might then visit the Endangered Languages Project website that Mills provides in the “Author’s Note” to investigate and report on a vanishing language. The language they study could perhaps be from a country where their families come from or from here in the United States. Students can share information about the language and present reasons why it is vanishing. Finally, the class might watch Karen Leung's TEDx video Embracing Multilingualism and Eradicating Linguistic Bias in which she talks about linguistic diversity and language biases. Students can discuss ideas for practicing linguistic accommodation and acceptance.

In Red, White, and Whole, Reha contends with being the only Hindu girl with brown skin, dark eyes, and black hair, from India in her private middle school in Louisville, Kentucky in the mid-1980s. As teachers read-aloud this book, students might keep a “Parking Lot” of new learning about Indian culture, as so many poems are rich with descriptions of their foods and dress and celebrations. These notes would support rich discussion. Students then might use some of these poems as mentor texts to write their own poem that is steeped in one of their own cultural practices for a class book celebrating diversity.

All three verse novels also contend with issues of trauma. I pointed out the issues in Samira Surfs. In The Lost Language (spoiler alert), Bumble and her father contend with her mother’s mental breakdown. In Red, White, and Whole (spoiler alert), Reha and her father contend with her mother’s leukemia. Here is one excerpt:

Under hospital lights,
a bag of fluid drip drip drips
through a plastic tube into Amma’s arm.
One evening when Daddy and I visit,
a nurse comes in behind us,
and what she hangs on the metal pole near the bed
is not a bag of fluid,
but a bag of blood.
I see it and
the world turns gray
with specks of light floating in the corners.
Reha! Amma cries.
The next thing I know,
I am lying on the floor of Amma’s hospital room
Daddy holding an ice pack to my neck,
the nurse bending my legs.
Are you all right, kanna? Amma asks.
Even though
she’s the one who’s sick.

Under hospital lights,
the world is upside down.
The world of medicine,
the one I’ve always wanted to join,
is scary.
And I begin to question
whether I really want to be a part of it.

Here I turn to The Vulnerable Heart of Literacy (Dutro, 2019) for guidance. After reading this and other poems in the novel that focus on Amma’s illness, teachers might open invitations for students to share and write their own entries of times that they faced fear of illness or injury or hospitalization for themselves or loved ones that would open the vulnerable heart of literacy in the class community. These kinds of invitations are also possible for poems that describe the traumatic situations in Samira Surfs and The Lost Language. By making our classrooms sites of testimony and critical witness, we create “literacies of connection, of love, and of respect for the knowledge that comes from pain, from struggle, and toward the power of bringing that knowledge to learning” (p. 113).

Ted Kesler, Ed.D. is an Associate Professor at Queens College, CUNY and has been a CLA Member since 2010. He served as chairperson of the NCTE Poetry and Verse Novels for Children Committee from 2019 to 2021.
www.tedsclassroom.com | @tedsclassroom | www.facebook.com/tedsclassroom)

2021 Notable Children's Books in the Language Arts Award Books

3/30/2021

BY JEANNE GILLIAM FAIN ON BEHALF OF THE NCBLA 2021 COMMITTEE

The NCBLA 2021 committee has the following charge as a committee:

The charge of the seven-member national committee is to select 30 books that best exemplify the criteria established for the Notables Award. Books considered for this annual list are works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry written for children, grades K-8. The books selected for the list must meet the following criteria:

1. be published the year preceding the award year (i.e. books published in 2021 are considered for the 2020 list);

2. have an appealing format;

3. be of enduring quality;

4. meet generally accepted criteria of quality for the genre in which they are written;

5. meet one or more of the following criteria:

deal explicitly with language, such as plays on words, word origins, or the history of language
demonstrate uniqueness in the use of language or style; and/or
invite child response or participation

Books transport us into new places and sometimes take us out of the craziness of the world. This was one of those years where we experienced unexpected challenges. I led this committee as we navigated some of the real challenges of the pandemic. To be perfectly honest, in September when we didn’t have the normal number of books, I panicked.

I am truly thankful for this thoughtful committee that continually encouraged me to keep going as I contacted publishers in hopes of obtaining more physical copies of books. Many publishers returned from turbulent times and physical copies of books were difficult to obtain. However, as a committee member, it’s just easier to dig deeper with a text when you have a physical copy in front of you. Thankfully, publishers started returning to sending physical copies of books at the end of January and in February. We continue to be so thankful for the support many publishers extended to us as they worked diligently to send our committee books. However, that meant, that we had to read on a rigorous schedule and we often had to meet more than twice a month in order to have critical conversations around the literature.

Here’s a figure that highlights our process as a committee:

Recurrent Themes from the 2021 NCBLA List

This year, we talked about the importance of story and our criteria. We felt that students in K-8 classrooms needed joyful and hopeful stories. We also came to consensus that sad stories are important also. We felt that the readers needed to see themselves in the pages of picture books and novels. We see the strengths of each book and the themes that stand out across books.

These themes capture the outstanding books on our 2021 NCBLA list. We are still working with publishers to collect all of the books' covers. But here are a few book covers that highlight some of the incredible books from our list.

Some of the 2021 NCBLA Books

Book cover: Black Brother, Black Brother

We invite you to see the power of literature across our 2021 NCBLA Book List!

Jeanne Gilliam Fain is s a professor at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee and Chair of the 2021 Notables Committee.

2021 Notable Children's Books in the Language Arts Selection Committee Members

Vera Ahiyya (Brooklyn Arbor Elementary, New York)
Elizabeth Bemiss (University of West Florida)
Janine Schall (The University of Texas Rio Grande Valley)

Jennifer Summerlin (University of Alabama-Birmingham)
Kathryn Will (University of Maine, Farmington)
Fran Wilson (Madeira Elementary, Ohio)

Midwinter Book Awards Beyond Newbery and Caldecott- Part I: Children's Books

2/9/2021

BY WENDY STEPHENS

Editorial Note:
This post is the first in a 2-part series by Wendy Stephens discussing the rich landscape of book awards announced over the winter months. In this first post, Wendy focuses on ALSC awards and awards by ALA affiliates recognizing books for children or books for a wide spectrum of age groups. The second post, which will be published next week, will present awards for YA literature administered by YALSA, as well as several other notable awards.

When we talk about budgeting for materials, I always advise my school librarian candidates to be sure to save some funding for January. No matter how good their ongoing collection development has been throughout the year, there are always some surprises when the American Library Association's Youth Media Awards (YMAs) roll around, and they'll want to be able to share the latest and best in children's literature with their readers. These are the books that will keep their collections up-to-date and relevant.

From our own childhoods, we always remember the "books with the medals" -- particularly the John Newbery for the most outstanding contribution to children's literature and the Randolph Caldecott for the most distinguished American picture book for children. These books become must-buys and remain touchstones for young readers. In 2021, Newbery is celebrating its one hundredth year. Some past winners and honor books are very much a product of their time, and many of those once held in high esteem lack appeal today.

For those of us working with children and with children's literature, the new books honored at Midwinter offer opportunities to revisit curriculum, update mentor texts, and build Lesesneian "reading ladders." Each award committee has its own particular award criteria and guidelines for eligibility, and its own process and confidentiality norms.

Every year, the YMAs seems to be peppered with small surprises. Does New Kid winning the Newbery means graphic novels are finally canonical? Is Neil Gaiman an American? What about all the 2015 Caldecott honors, including the controversial That One Summer? Did the Newbery designation of The Last Stop on Market Street mean you can validate using picture books with older students? How does Cozbi A. Cabrera's much-honored art work resonate at this historical moment?

In Horn Book and School Library Journal, Newbery, Caldecott and Printz contenders are tracked throughout the year in blogs like Someday My Printz Will Come, Heavy Medal, and Calling Caldecott. Other independent sites like Guessing Geisel, founded by Amy Seto Forrester are equally devoted to award prediction. Among librarians and readers, there are lots of armchair quarterbacks, and conducting mock Newbery and Caldecotts, either among groups of professionals or with children, have become almost a cottage industry. There are numerous how-tos on that subject, from reputable sources like The Nerdy Book Club and BookPage. But there are numerous other awards announced at ALA Midwinter almost simultaneously that deserve your attention, too.

Among the Association for Library Services for Children (ALSC) awards are: the Robert F. Sibert Medal, the Mildred L. Batchelder Award, the Geisel Award, the Excellence in Early Learning Digital Media Award, and the Children's Literature Legacy Award.

Robert F. Sibert Medal

The Robert F. Sibert Medal for the most distinguished informational book for children, ALSC's version of the Orbis Pictus, offers great books to support a wide variety of content areas.

2021 Sibert Medal Winner

Mildred L. Batchelder Award

The Mildred L. Batchelder Award is given to the most outstanding children’s book originating in a language other than English in a country other than the United States and subsequently translated into English for publication in the United States, supporting publishers who bring an international perspective to U.S. readers.

2021 Batchelder Award Winner

Geisel Award

The Geisel Award recognizes an exceptional text for beginning readers.

2021 Geisel Award Winner

Excellence in Early Learning Digital Media Award

The Excellence in Early Learning Digital Media Award recognizes noteworthy apps, DVDs and streaming media. This year, it went to a podcast.

2021 EELDM Award Winner

Children's Literature Legacy Award

The Children's Literature Legacy Award, formerly the Wilder Award, honors an author or illustrator whose books, published in the United States, have made a substantial and lasting contribution to children's literature through books that demonstrate integrity and respect for all children's lives and experiences.

2021 Children's Literacy Legacy Award Winner: Mildred D. Taylor

Aside from the award winners, each year annual ALSC Children's Notable Lists are produced in categories for Notable Children's Recordings, Notable Children's Digital Media, and Notable Children's Books. If you want to see the machinations behind the designation, those discussions are open to the public this year via virtual meeting links.

Outside of ALSC, many of ALA’s affiliates have their own honors for children's literature. These include the Ethnic and Multicultural Information Exchange Round Table (EMIERT) which sponsors the Coretta Scott King Book Awards; the Association of Jewish Libraries which sponsors the Sydney Taylor Book Awards; and REFORMA: The National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish-Speaking which sponsors the Pura Belpré awards. In addition to these affiliates, others such as the Asian/Pacific American Librarian Association and the American Indian Library Association also present awards.

The awards are always evolving to reflect the abundance of literature available for young people. Like the Association of Jewish Libraries and the Asian/Pacific American Librarian Association awards, the American Indian Youth Literature Awards were first added to the televised YMA event in 2018. And this year was the first year for inclusion for a new Young Adult category for the Pura Belpré.

Two awards of particular significance are the Stonewall Book Award – Mike Morgan and Larry Romans Children’s and Young Adult Literature Awards are given annually to English-language works found to be of exceptional merit for children or teens relating to the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender experience, and the Schneider Family Book Awards, honoring authors or illustrators for the artistic expression of the disability experience for child and adolescent audiences, with recipients in three categories: younger children, middle grades, and teens.

Coretta Scott King Awards

The Coretta Scott King Books Awards honor African American authors and illustrators of outstanding books for children and young adults as well as professionals who support that valuable work. Of particular note is the Coretta Scott King/John Steptoe Award for New Talent.

2021 John Steptoe New Talent Award Winner: Tracy Deonn

Sydney Taylor Book Awards

The Sydney Taylor Book Awards, named in memory the classic All-of-a-Kind Family series author. The award recognizes materials for children and teens that exemplify high literary standards while authentically portraying the Jewish experience, designating Gold and Silver medalists and Notable Books of Jewish Content in categories including Picture Books, Middle Grade, and Young Adults.

2021 Sydney Taylor Gold Medal for the Middle Grades Category

Pura Belpré Awards

The Pura Belpré Awards honor Latinx authors and illustrators whose work portrays, affirms, and celebrates the Latino cultural experience.

2021 Pura Belpré Young Adult Award Winner

Asian/Pacific American Librarian Association Awards

The Asian/Pacific Librarian Association's Awards for Literature designates award and honor titles in Young Adult, Children's and Picture Book categories for authors and illustrators whose books promote Asian/Pacific American culture and heritage.

2021 APALA Children's Winner

American Indian Librarian Association Awards

One award we didn't see this year: American Indian Youth Literature Awards. Awarded biennially, this award identifies and honors writing and illustrations by Native Americans and Indigenous peoples of North America.

202o AILA Picturebook Winner

Stonewall Book Award

The Stonewall Book Award - Mike Morgan and Larry Romans Children's and Young Adult Literature Awards are given annually to English-language works found to be of exceptional merit for children or teens relating to the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender experience.

Book Cover: We Are Little Feminists: Families

2021 Stonewall Book Award Winner

Schneider Family Book Awards

The Schneider Family Book Awards, honoring authors or illustrators for the artistic expression of the disability experience for child and adolescent audiences, honor recipients in three categories: younger children, middle grades, and teens.

2021 Schneider Family Younger Children Award Winner

Odyssey Award

This is an award that considers materials for a wide spectrum age groups in their decision-making. The best audiobook production for children and/or young adults are chosen for the Odyssey Award. The Odyssey alternates administration between ALSC and YALSA.

2021 Odyssey Award Audiobook

Wendy Stephens is an Assistant Professor and the Library Media Program Chair at Jacksonville State University.

20 Biographies for 2020

9/22/2020

BY MARY ANN CAPPIELLO on behalf of The Biography Clearinghouse

As we approach the final quarter of 2020, fires rage along the West Coast. Many regions of the United States face drought conditions. Gulf communities are inundated by Hurricane Sally while a string of storms line up in the Atlantic, waiting their turn. The impact of climate change is evident.

COVID-19 continues to wreak havoc on our lives, our health. We bear witness to the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on minoritized groups, including Black and Latinx communities, Native Americans, and the elderly.

Across America, Black Lives Matter protests carry on, demanding that our nation invest in the essential work necessary to achieve a more perfect union through racial justice.

In 2020, we remember moments of historic change, commemorating the 30th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act and the 100th anniversary of the 19th Amendment.

The intensity of this moment can’t be denied. It’s demanding. It’s exhausting. Whether you are a teacher, librarian, or university faculty member, you are likely teaching in multiple new formats and modalities, facing daily logistical challenges. Caregivers also face new hurdles in supporting young people’s learning.

How do you meet the needs of students and the needs of this moment in history? How do you find hope in literature?

Perhaps one way is to turn to the people of the past and the present who are working on the edges of scientific knowledge. Or, to turn to the people of the past and the present who have acted as champions of social justice. Their life stories offer young people models of agency and action, blueprints for change.

To that end, The Biography Clearinghouse shares 20 biographies for 2020, a list of recent picturebook and collected biographies to connect with the challenges of the moment. This list is not comprehensive. It is simply a starting place. We hope these recently published biographies of diverse changemakers can become part of your curriculum or part of your read aloud calendar, in-person or over video conferencing software.

Biographies About Scientists

A Sporting Chance: How Ludwig Guttman Created the Paralympic Games (2020) by Lori Alexander, illustrated by Alan Drummond

Born Curious: 20 Girls Who Grew Up to be Awesome Scientists (2020) by Martha Freeman, illustrated by Katy Wu

Buzzing with Questions: The Inquisitive Mind of Charles Henry Turner (2019) by Janice Harrington, illustrated by Theodore Taylor

Mario and the Hole in the Sky: How a Chemist Saved Our Planet (2019) by Elizabeth Rusch, illustrated by Teresa Martinez

Ocean Speaks: How Maria Tharp Revealed the Ocean’s Biggest Secret (2020) by Jess Keating, illustrated by Katie Hickey

Patricia’s Vision: The Doctor Who Saved Sight (2020) by Michelle Lord, illustrated by Alleana Charris.

Queen of Physics: How Wu Chien Shiung Helped Unlock the Secrets of the Atom (2019) by Teresa Robeson, illustrated by Rebecca Huang

The Secret Garden of George Washington Carver (2020) by Gene Berretta, illustrated by Frank Morrison

Sharuko: El arqueólogo Peruano Julio C. Tello / Peruvian Archaeologist Julio C. Tello (2020) by Monica Brown; illus. by Elisa Chavarri; trans. into Spanish by Adriana Domínguez

The Vast Wonder of the World: Biologist Ernest Everett Just (2018) by Melina Mangal, illustrated by Luisa Uribe

Biographies About Champions for Change

All the Way to the Top: How One Girl’s Fight for Americans with Disabilities Changed Everything (2020) by Annette Bay Pimental, illustrated by Nabi H. Ali

Althea Gibson: The Story of Tennis’ Fleet-Footed Girl (2020) by Megan Reid, illustrated by Laura Freeman

Finish the Fight: The Brave and Revolutionary Women Who Fought for the Right to Vote (2020) by Veronica Chambers and the staff of The New York Times, illustrated by Monica Ahanonu, Rachelle Baker, Kristen Buchholz, Alex Cabal, Noa Denmon, Ellen Duda, Shyama Golden, Johnalynn Holland, Hillary Kempenich, Nhung Lê , Ella Trujillo, and Steffi Walthall

I am Not a Label: 34 Disabled Artists, Thinkers, Athletes and Activists from Past and Present (2020) by Cerrie Burnell, illustrated by Lauren Mark Baldo

Lifting as We Climb: Black Women’s Battle for the Ballot Box (2020) by Evette Dion

Lizzie Demands a Seat! Elizabeth Jennings Fights for Streetcar Rights (2020) by Beth Anderson, illustrated by E.B. Lewis

She was the First! The Trailblazing Life of Shirley Chisholm (2020) by Katheryn Russell-Brown, illustrated by Eric Velasquez

Soldier for Equality: José de la Luz Sáenz and The Great War (2019) by Duncan Tonatiuh

Spotted Tail (2019) by David Heska Wanbli Weiden, illustrated by Jim Yellowhawk and Pat Kinsella

The Teachers March: How Selma’s Teachers Changed History (2020) by Sandra Neil Wallace and Rick Wallace, illustrated by Charly Palmer

If you have any picture book or chapter-length biographies or collected biographies for young people that you would like to recommend, please email us at thebiographyclearinghouse@gmail.com. We’re also interested in hearing more about how you’re using life stories in the classroom this year.

Mary Ann Cappiello teaches courses in children’s literature and literacy methods at Lesley University, blogs about teaching with children’s literature at The Classroom Bookshelf, a School Library Journal blog, and is a former chair of NCTE’s Orbis Pictus Award for Outstanding Nonfiction K-8.

From the 2020 Notable Children’s Books in the Language Arts

8/25/2020

BY JEANNE GILLIAM FAIN

Reflecting on the 2020 NCBLA List, our seven-member committee believes in the influence of each individual book and the power of the books grouped together to offer another layer of meaning. After reviewing over 400 titles with 2019 copyright dates appropriate for readers in K-8th grade, the members of the 2020 Notable Children’s Books in the Language Arts Committee met online to decide upon our final list of 30 titles. We read books multiple times and learned from each other as we carefully considered the craft of each book.

In this post, I am going to highlight two picture book biographies from the 2020 NCBLA List: Soldier for Equality: Jose´de la Luz Sáenz and the Great War (2019) and Feed your mind: A story of August Wilson (2019).

Tonatiuh, D. (2019). Soldier for Equality: Jose´de la Luz Sáenz and the Great War. New York, NY: Abrams Books for Young Readers, unpaged.

Jose´de La Luz Sáenz starts his young life by fighting bullies as they call him names for being Mexican despite being born in the United States and his “abuela” arrived in the United States more than “twenty-five years ago.” His war experiences emitted mixed responses in terms of equity from his fellow soldiers as his experiences included challenging injustices with particular officers that were his “countrymen.” This book is impeccably researched and many quotes were used from specific pages of Luz’ diary. Duncan’s original style inspired by Pre-Columbian art conveyed his digital and collage-type illustrations vividly add to the powerful voice in this story.

Bryant, J. (2019). Feed your mind: A story of August Wilson. (C. Chapman, Illus.). New York, NY: Abrams Book for Young Readers, unpaged.

Jen Bryant's Website

August Wilson, born Frederick August Kittel Jr., learned to understand the power of language and reading. He grew up with the mantra, “If you can read, you can do anything-you can be anything.” This mantra moved him to overcome racial prejudice and intense bullying. This book is written in two acts and in verse. There is an extensive author’s note about research process and places where the spoken lines were based on what the author thought August might say.

Golden Line Strategy & Flip Grid

Both picturebooks feature high-quality language and there are many golden lines, lines that really resonate with the reader, within these texts. The golden line strategy involves the reader choosing a specific line from the picture book biography that causes the reader to pause, ponder, reflect, and/or question the text.

The line should purposely connect with the reader. Readers can choose the golden line from the text and post responses on Flipgrid.

Using flipgrid, the reader can record the reading of the golden line. The teacher can post invitational questions on the flipgrid. Readers can create their own response or answer one of the invitational questions and post on flipgrid. Readers can listen to their peers' golden line responses and post a response back.

Invitational Questions:

Why did you choose this golden line?
What did this golden line make you think about?
Did you make a personal connection with the line of text?
What did you learn from this golden line?
What you notice something in particular about the line in terms of the genre of the text?
What specific words stood out to you and why did these words stand out?
What inspired you in this golden line?

Read picture book, aske students to reflect on sections, readers choose a golden line. readers post on Flipgrid, peers offer responses

Golden Lines & Flip Grid Strategy

References

Bryant, J. (2019). Feed your mind: A story of August Wilson. (C. Chapman, Illus.). New York, NY: Abrams Book for Young Readers, unpaged.

Tonatiuh, D. (2019). Soldier for Equality: Jose´de la Luz Sáenz and the Great War. New York, NY: Abrams Books for Young Readers, unpaged.

Notable Children’s Books in the Language Arts

You can check out the complete 2020 Notables List (2019 copyright) on our Notables page.

There you can also access the NCBLA lists from previous years.

Meet the Notables Committee

Jeanne Gilliam Fain is a professor in the College of Education at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee. She is the current Chair of the 2020 NCBLA. Her research examines critical visual analysis in global children’s literature, critical literacy and linguistically and culturally diverse children’s and adolescents’ literature. Jeanne can be reached at jgfain@lipscomb.edu

Vera Ahiyya is a kindergarten teacher in Brooklyn, New York. She has been teaching for 14 years and in three different states. Vera has a passion for sharing books that feature diverse characters and voices. She shares her passion for children's literature on social media and through presenting to educators nationwide. Vera can be reached at thetututeacher@gmail.com.

Elizabeth M. Bemiss is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Teacher Education and Educational Leadership at the University of West Florida in Pensacola, FL. Her research examines teacher identity construction, effective literacy teaching practices, and critical literacy practices with young children. She can be reached at ebemiss@uwf.edu.

S. Rebecca Leigh is professor in the Department of Reading and Language Arts at Oakland University in Rochester, MI. Her research interests include multiple ways of knowing, writing, and teacher education. Her current research examines how access to art serves as a pathway to literacy learning and development and its impact on students as writers. Leigh can be reached at leigh23@oakland.edu

Janine M. Schall is an Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Bilingual and Literacy Studies at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. She teaches literacy courses and conducts research in the areas of multicultural literature and children’s literature with LGBT characters. Janine can be reached at janineschall@utrgv.edu.

Jennifer Summerlin is an Assistant Professor of Reading at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Her research examines construction of knowledge among preservice teacher candidates, supporting literacy best practices within the P-12 classroom, and reading intervention. She can be reached at jsummerl@uab.edu.

Kathryn Will is an Assistant Professor of Literacy at the University of Maine Farmington. Her research interests include clinically based teacher education, new teacher mentoring, and rural education. Her current research looks at the literacy practices of future teachers and how their engagement with children's and young adult literature impacts their attitudes about reading. Kathryn may be reached at kathryn.will@maine.edu.

Jeanne Gilliam Fain is s a professor at Lipscomb University in Nashville, Tennessee and Chair of the 2020 Notables Committee.

Electronic Resources to Complement Contemporary Children’s Picture Books that Feature Mindfulness Elements

5/26/2020

BY KATHRYN CAPRINO

Teachers have been thinking about how to incorporate mindfulness into the elementary school classroom for a bit now. During the fall semester, I completed a study about how children’s picture books that featured mindfulness affected preservice teachers’ mindfulness and how they were thinking about incorporating mindfulness into their classrooms.

And the recent global pandemic has only underscored the importance of having children’s picture books that feature mindfulness. We, as parents, teachers, and teacher educators, need them for ourselves. And we need them for our students.

In this post, I share a few contemporary picture books that feature mindfulness elements, and include electronic resources that complement each book - perfect during this time of remote learning. It is my hope that these titles might help us all get through these trying times and propel us into a more mindful approach to what normal looks like on the other side of all this.

Eric Carle's Calm with the Very Hungry Caterpillar

I start with the iconic Eric Carle. Carle’s title Calm with the Very Hungry Caterpillar was recommended to me by one of my students. With its beautiful illustrations of natural images that are quintessential Carle, Calm is a perfect read-aloud text that starts with an invitation that seems appropriate for what many of us are experiencing right now: “When your monkey mind feels too busy …” Young children and those who are reading the book to them will close the book with a renewed sense of calmness.

Quick side note: I had the opportunity of seeing a traveling Carle exhibit in Norfolk, Virginia, last summer. With pieces from The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art , the exhibit provided visitors with an opportunity to learn more about Carle’s artistic process and to see some of the most iconic images from his books. One of my favorites was one of his owls! I encourage all of you to visit the museum once things return to normal. You can ask your students to take a virtual tour of the museum.

ECM Virtual Tour 2011-Large web movie from The Eric Carle Museum on Vimeo.

Tomie dePaola's Quiet

Tomie dePaola’s passing in March was upsetting to so many of us. His Quiet has a poignant message for all (both during the quarantine and after): “Let’s not be so busy.” Taking readers along on a walk with a grandfather and his grandchildren, Quiet begs us to contemplate and admire birds, dragonflies, and other natural elements that we see. This book could inspire many walks with the intention of finding objects or creatures that amaze. If you want to hear Tomie dePaola talk about what he wants readers to gain from Quiet, you can view the video below.

Susan Verde and Peter H. Reynolds' I am Peace: A Book of Mindfulness

This book starts with a young person feeling as though they are on a boat without an anchor. The book then shows how one can breathe and take actions to reach a sense of peace that can then be shared with others. The gorgeous, colorful illustrations complement the calming text, perfect for a read-aloud. If you want to hear Susan Verde read her book or have your students engage with it during this time of remote learning, you can watch the video below.

Mariam Gates' Good Morning Yoga

This is the perfect book to start out the day! Clear, kid-friendly directions and colorful illustrations help young children - and adults - progress through a series of yoga poses. If you want to hear Mariam Gates read her book or have your students and their parents engage with it during this time of remote learning, view the video below.

Kira Willey and Anni Betts' Breathe Like a Bear

Kira Willey and Anni Betts’ Breathe Like a Bear offers thirty exercises for kids, including breathing like a bear, pretending to hold a cup of hot chocolate, and stretching like a kitty cat. Breathe Like a Bear is broken up into five major sections: Be calm, focus, imagine, make some energy, and relax. The way the book is arranged makes it perfect for those moments when you just want a short, poignant mindfulness activity. Kira Wiley’s website offers information for free and fee-based yoga events for children.

It is my hope that these five titles will be added to your physical or electronic libraries, especially during this time when it seems that all of us could benefit from mindfulness practice.

Want to hear a little about my process for selecting texts? My recommendations are informed by Shapiro, Carlson, Astin, & Freedman’s (2006) three mindfulness axioms: intention, attention, and attitude.

Intention relates to having a personal vision.
Attention relates to focusing on moments in our lives.
And attitude relates to the approach one takes to attention.

At least one of these axioms are featured in each of the books shared above.

Reference

Shapiro, S. L. Carlson, L. E., Astin, J.A., & Freedman, B. (2006). Mechanisms of mindfulness.
Journal of Clinical Psychology, 62(3), 373-388.

Kathryn Caprino is a CLA member and is an Assistant Professor of PK-12 New Literacies at Elizabethtown College. She blogs frequently at Katie Reviews Books

Creating at Home: Focusing on Pictures

5/14/2020

BY ASHLEY A. ATKINSON

As we enter another week of sheltering in place and remote learning, it is clear that COVID19 will continue to impact our educational practices for the foreseeable future. As I talk to friends and colleagues still in the classroom, they share some beautiful moments of success that should be celebrated. However, I also hear stories highlighting the difficulty of continuing to maintain student engagement. During this time of stress on a global level, we, as educators, have to reach deep into our toolboxes to find new ways to engage with our students and their families.

One silver lining that has stemmed from COVID19 is the influx of resources provided by authors and illustrators to assist parents and teachers in engaging with literacy learning at home. I have seen several blog posts, including Lora M. Dewalt's Post on this blog @Instagram’s #KidLit Community, that highlight amazing opportunities to engage with authors. In today’s post, I am going to focus on the illustrators.

Visual images are an important aspect of meaning making for young children. Often in the classroom, we focus on the words authors pen and less on ways in which the illustrator is a crucial part of the story. Larry Sipe in his book, Storytime: Young Children's Literary Understanding in the Classroom, highlighted the interplay and interconnectedness between images and text, what he called synergy. The synergistic relationship of illustrations and text makes clear the greater impact when viewed together. Giving students a chance to engage and create both text and illustrations honors this relationship and expands the possibilities for how children make meaning.

A perfect example of this powerful union is Drawn Together, written by Minh Lê and illustrated by Dan Santat. This picturebook starts with panels where images begin the story. Throughout the story as the words and images collide, they both become more impactful and moving, highlighting their synergistic relationship. Watch the video to the right as Dan Santat shares his process for creating the art in this text.

Resources for Creation

As we attempt to engage our students in rich reading and writing from afar, we can encourage families to create together. Below I have shared some new resources created by some amazing picturebook illustrators to facilitate this creation process.

Mo Lunch Doodles

You may be familiar with Mo Willems as the well-known author and illustrator of the Elephant and Piggie book series, but did you know he is also the Kennedy Center Education Artist-in-Residence at Home? In partnership with the Kennedy Center, he has created 15 episodes of Lunch Doodles with Mo Willems. In his own words, Mo Willems says, “You might be isolated, but you’re not alone. You are an art maker. Let’s make some together.” The series offers downloadable activities that focus on his creative process as well as some “how to draw” activities. In an effort to isolate together, students can tag their artwork on social media with #MoLunchDoodles. What a great way for students to see how a single image can be the seed that grows into a whole picturebook!

How to Draw Disney

Disney is offering its own how to draw series which allows students to create their own stories around some of their favorite characters.

Dav Pilkey at Home

Another great resource comes from Dav Pilkey, author and illustrator of Captain Underpants and Dog Man. He is working in conjunction with Scholastic and the Library of Congress to offer weekly video lessons that focus on a chance to read, to draw, to create, and to engage with other multimodal fun. What is great about this resource is that it offers a chance for families to have conversations around books and create art together.

Ready- Set- Draw

Kidlit.tv, a great resource on its own, has a subpage called Ready-Set-Draw that includes how to draw characters from several current children’s picturebooks. This is a great resource to pair with read-aloud videos and book talks

#KidsDailyDebbieOhi

Lastly, Debbie Ridpath Ohi offers daily creation challenges via her twitter that allows another way for students to work together while apart. Each day offers an art creation project that can be down with things around the house. Some recent challenges... broken crayon story/art, creating a dog character, and laundry art! Check out other children’s responses by searching for her tag #KidsDailyDebbieOhi.

These resources can offer entry into discussions of the images within picturebooks or a great springboard into students creating their own stories. They also create opportunities for students and families to engage with literacy in a new way. I hope you enjoy using these resources to help your students and families have a little fun as they imagine and create together.

Ashley A. Atkinson is a member of the CLA student committee. She is a doctoral candidate in Literacy and English Language Arts at North Carolina State University.

Imagine the Writing Possibilities!

4/15/2020

BY ALLY HAUPTMAN

One of my greatest joys as a teacher is to see students’ creativity in action. As an elementary teacher, I was amazed at the creative minds of my students, and now as a professor I continue to delight in seeing teacher candidates create lesson plans and ideas to engage their students. As I reflect on my career as an elementary writing teacher, my best lessons were the ones that involved excellent children’s literature and allowed for student writing choice. This is where the creative magic happens! If I am honest with myself, my students were their most creative as writers when I offered a great mentor text and just got out of their way.

So, I offer you a lesson complex in ideas, but simple in delivery that can be presented in person or on-line, really in any context. I have used this lesson in university classrooms, with PreK-12 students, and my own children.

The Steps

1. Choose a text. It might be a brilliantly written and illustrated picture book, an excerpt from a middle grades or YA novel, or even an interesting infographic.

2. Share the text with your students and model what writing ideas you have based on this text.

3. After reading, ask the questions, “What writing ideas do you get from this text? What are the possibilities you see as a writer?”

4. Get out of the way and let kids write and create!

5. Give students time to share and learn from each other.

That’s it...five steps that lead to important discussion and writing possibilities.

The following is an example of this writing lesson in action with two of my own children. I started by reading Malala’s Magic Pencil by Malala Yousafzai. The book begins with Malala talking about a television program she used to watch. The show’s main character was a boy with a magic pencil who Malala saw as a hero, always helping others. She dreamed of having her own magic pencil. She goes on to tell her story of fighting for girls’ education, realizing that she really did have a magic pencil all along. She was able to change the world with her pencil as she fought for educational equality. The last line in the book reads, “One pen, one teacher, one student can change the world.”

Here is the key to this lesson, and this is how I get out of the way of their creativity. I asked my children to write for ten minutes about what ideas they got from Malala’s Magic Pencil. It is as simple as that. I did not give them my prompt that might be presented from this book such as, “What would you do with a magic pencil?” I let them figure out how this book would be a mentor text for their own writing. The beauty of presenting a text and then letting students figure out their own writing possibilities is that they bring their background knowledge, voice, and writing style and combine it with the author’s ideas from the text presented. When you present a mentor text and ask the students to see the writing possibilities, the variety is astounding.

Just with my own daughters, my fifth grader, who is the youngest and always trying to prove herself to her sisters, wrote about a magic tree. In her story, no one believes her that this tree is magic and she hatches a plan to show everyone that she is right. She brought in her ideas and showed strong voice. My eighth grade daughter decided to write about the Infiniti Pen. It is worth mentioning that all of my daughters are obsessed with Marvel movies. So, the Infiniti Pen was inspired by Thor’s hammer in that only the worthiest person in the village could pick up the pen because of its persuasive powers. In this piece, my daughter chose to bring in her own voice and combine Marvel with Malala’s ideas. These writers were able to choose their ideas and use their voices. When we present possibilities through mentor texts, readers also begin to read like writers.

Try it. Read a book and ask your students to find writing possibilities, to write for ten minutes and see where it may lead!

The following list includes texts I have used to spark writing ideas over the past few years with teacher candidates, K-12 students, and my own children.

25 books with endless possibilities…

After the Fall by Dan Santat
Animals by the Numbers by Steve Jenkins
Bookjoy, Wordjoy by Pat Mora, illustrated by Raúl Colón
Camela Full of Wishes by Matt de la Pena, illustrated by Christian Robinson
Claymates by Dev Petty, illustrated by Lauren Eldridge
Coco: Miguel and the Grand Harmony by Matt de la Pena, illustrated by Ana Ramírez
Cute as an Axolotl by Jess Keating, illustrated by David DeGrand
Drawn Together by Minh Lê, illustrated by Dan Santat
Dude! by Aaron Reynolds, illustrated by Dan Santat
Dreamers/Sonadores by Yuyi Morales
Friends and Foes: Poems About Us All by Douglas Florian
Imagine by Juan Felipe Herrera, illustrated by Lauren Castillo
Jabari Jumps by Gaia Cornwall
Love by Matt de la Pena, illustrated by Loren Long
Malala’s Magic Pencil by Malala Yousafzai, illustrated by Kerascoёt
Maybe Something Beautiful: How Art Transformed a Neighborhood by F. Isabel Campoy and Theresa Howell, illustrated by Rafael López
Nope! by Drew Sheneman
The Day You Begin by Jacqueline Woodson, illustrated by Rafael López
The Girl With a Mind for Math: The Story of Raye Montague by Julia Finley Mosca, illustrated by Daniel Rieley
The Wolf, the Duck, and the Mouse by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Jon Klassen
The Word Collector by Peter H. Reynolds
They All Saw a Cat by Brendan Wenzel
Water Land by Christy Hale
What Makes a Monster? by Jess Keating, illustrated by David DeGrand
Wild World by Angela McAllister, illustrated by Hvass & Hannibal

Ally Hauptman is a CLA Board Member and is the Chair of the Ways and Means Committee. She is an associate professor at Lipscomb University in Nashville, TN.

Image by Tookapic from Pixabay

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