My brother sent me this great article from the New York Times Money section. Written by Ron Lieber and published on July 9, 2010, you can click here for the entire article. It’s a nicely done article when kids ask the darndest questions:
How Much Do You Make?
Are We Rich? Are We Poor?
Why Don’t We Have (fill in the blank…)? Summer Home? 2nd Car?
2010 Children’s Lit Award Winners: Caldecott, Newbery, Batchelder, Belpre, Geisel, and Silbert awards.
This novel is a thing of beauty; three parts: poetry, prose and letters to mami who remains in Puerto Rico. Short chapters, each a vignette or snippet of poetic prose or, actual poetry. Told from Maria’s perspective, we, the reader, watch Maria blossom in her barrio neighborhood of New York City to become a poet. I suspect this is Judith Ortiz Cofer’s own story as she, too, immigrated from San Juan and is now a creative writing professor.
I found this great site called Africa Access, founded in 1989, to help schools, public libraries, and parents improve the quality of their children’s collection on Africa. Africa Access Review, our online database, contains over 1000 annotations and reviews of children’s books written by university professors, librarians, and teachers most of whom have lived in Africa and have graduate degrees in African Studies. Their award, Children’s Africana Book Awards has presented more than forty awards since 1992. These are the winners for 2010 with reviews by Africa Access.
Top 100: Children’s Novels from School Library Journal, grades 3-8th, for 2010. Great classics that have stood the test of time plus newly released Newbery award winners.
Rocky Road is the perfect summer read, as appealing as hot weather and ice cream! [chapter book, ages 9-12]
Happy Birthday United States on this 4th of July! To celebrate with picture books, I hope you enjoy two picks with an Asian twist. Both families are immigrants from China. The children in each book , like all children of immigrants, straddle between two worlds trying to be “more-American-like-their-friends” while immersed in the culture and traditions from their home country. But what is lovely in both these books is an acceptance that there is no one correct way to celebrate being an American. This is a homage to the United States of America, the great melting pot nation. Happy Birthday!
