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Partly Cloudy: Poems of Love and Longing

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Partly Cloudy: Poems of Love and Longing

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a. Genre/Text Type: Poetry, Non- Fiction

b. Bibliographic Information: Title: Partly Cloudy: Poems of Love and Longing  By: Gary Soto  Published by: Graphia (n.d.)

c. Brief Plot Summary: A collection of poems that help young adults, tweens, and teens connect with emotions related to falling in love.

d. Critical Response and Analysis: Recommended and featured on Colorin Colorado’s site. Colorin Colorado is a national multimedia project that offers a wealth of bilingual, research-based information, activities, and advice for educators and families of English language learners (ELLs) that I rely on heavily in my career. This surprisingly tender hearted and light book facilitates an appreciation of various ethnicities viewpoints as a male or female in a very fragile stage of development.

e. Connections: Diverse Voices, Poetry for Teens, Hispanic Heritage, Love Stories, are all themes that readers will connect with as they wonder if there is a poem that understands how they feel. I will facilitate an author study, as the site has opened the door to many more wonderful compositions of a well-decorated author Gary Soto, Caldecott Award-winning illustrator David Diaz, and Pura Belpré Award-winning illustrator Rafael López.

f. Awards won:
none

g. Picture of the book’s cover

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a. Genre/Text Type: Poetry, Non- Fiction

b. Bibliographic Information: Title: War By: Lisa M, (a teenaged guest author from Earlville, NY) featured in Teen Ink magazine  Published by: www.teenink.com/Past/2001/January/Poetry/War.html, October 27, 2003.

c. Brief Plot Summary: A poem written by a teen girl who seems to be the daughter of an actively enlisted military parent.

d. Critical Response and Analysis: A teen writes a poem using two voices telling her perspective of a war. The poem’s message become more powerful when read with two voices. A reader can hear the variation in tone and draw connections that range between loneliness and concern, to patriotism and duty to her country.

e. Connections: After teaching the structure of a poem with 2 or more voices, I would allow students to work individually or in pairs to write their own poem. Giving students freedom in their partner choices enables them to make unlikely or unexpected connections with peers and to strengthen bonds for students with similar challenges or interests.

f. Awards won:
none

g. Picture of the book’s cover

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a. Genre/Text Type: Poetry, Non- Fiction

b. Bibliographic Information: Title: Honey, I Love By: Eloise Greenfield  Published by: Harper Collins, 1978.

c. Brief Plot Summary: A poem written by a young girl who finds love and joy in all the little things that matter most.

d. Critical Response and Analysis: This poem reminded me of hot, humid days in the neighborhoods down South, where I am from. It brought back so much nostalgia of the best days of our lives growing up. Honey, I LOVED reading this poem and honey, I LOVED reading it to my son, who once got passed chuckling at my attempts read it in a little girl’s soft voice with a southern, African-American accent, that I imagined it told in, honey he LOVED the story it told. He made personal connections with every experience she described on every line.

e. Connections: I look forward to reading this book to my students and I know just which girl I am going to ask to read this aloud to my class so that they too can fall in love with poetry reminding them of the simple things that mean the most.

f. Awards won:
Reading Rainbow Book

George C. Stone Center for Children's Books Recognition of Merit Award

ALA Notable Children's Book

Included in Brightly.com's 2017 list of recommended diverse poetry picture books for kids

g. Picture of the book’s cover

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a. Genre/Text Type: Poetry, Non- Fiction

b. Bibliographic Information: Title: Meet Danitra Brown Written by: Nikki Grimes Illustrated by:  Floyd Cooper  Published by: Harper Collins, 1994.

c. Brief Plot Summary: A series of poems that tell the story of a young African-American girl who helps a friend cope with bullying, acts a best friend who praises everyone despite of and often because of their quirks.

d. Critical Response and Analysis: An emotional connection can be made for many for readers from this collection of poems that rhyme separately and deliberately, but while illustrated with distinct vignettes, together they tell a story of life whether it be for race issues, feminism, varying family structures, poverty, and behavioral oddities.

e. Connections: Once we have read and analyzed the illustrations from the book, students will work in groups of two to four partners to create double bubble word maps to identify common characteristics between the two main characters, Zuri Jackson and Danitra Brown. Younger students or less proficient readers and Engish speakers can create a stanza or short narrative with illustrations. As a challenge to my more proficient English speakers and readers, mostly 3rd-5th graders, I will assign each group a theme of either feminism activist/advocate, racism, bullying, friendship and loyalty, and see how they apply the themes, and what they like about Meet Danitra Brown  to create a rhyme about their assigned topic.

f. Awards won:

Coretta Scott King award, 1995

g. Picture of the book’s cover

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The Little Red Cat Ran Away and Learned His ABC's (The Hard Way)

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The Little Red Cat Ran Away and Learned His ABC's (The Hard Way)

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a. Genre/Text Type:
Non- Fiction

b. Bibliographic Information: Title: The Little Red Cat ran Away and Learned His ABC’s (The Hard Way)
By: Patrick Mc Donnell  Published by: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers; September 5th 2017

c. Brief Plot Summary: A hilarious, high energy alphabetical adventure.

d. Critical Response and Analysis: An alphabet book that is nearly wordless encourages readers to admire the pictures but also to ‘’read” quickly. Students should read it at least twice in a row, as it is a fast moving story that comes together piece by piece, letter by letter.

e. Connections: The best means for teaching the alphabet, is reading an alphabet book.  They provide instruction on the relationship between sound and symbol, and teach vocabulary by creating connections between a representation of a word with a photograph or illustration. I would extend instruction after reading this book aloud by creating an alphabet book as a class, with guidelines that include detailed illustration of the different settings (snow & ice, jungles, mountain tops, etc) visited by our red cat hero.

f. Awards won:
A Nerdies 2017 Selection ALA-ALSC Notable Books for Children List 2018
A New York Times Notable Children's Book of 2017
A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 2017
An Amazon Best Book of the Month (September 2017)School Library Journal's Best Picture Books of 2017
A Horn Book Fanfare Best Books of the Year 2017
Huffington Post's Best Picture Books of 2017
Chicago Public Library Best of the Best Books of 2017

g. Picture of the book’s cover