Are You Ready to Play Outside? by Mo Willems is a great story for beginning readers. The message about  making the best of a situation is invaluable. The friendship between Elephant and Piggie shows that differences don't need to adversely effect friends.

The Legend of Sleeping Bear by Kathy-jo Wargin was enjoyed by our upper elementary students this week. Our students were better able to understand what a legend is through this tragic, yet mesmerizing story.

~Deb

Miss Smith's Incredible Storybook by Michael Garland

This book is a wonderful book for March is Reading Month!
I wish I had a magical book like Miss Smith!

Zach is an uninterested reader in Miss Smith's class.
Miss Smith reads a story everyday from her special big book.
The storybook characters come to life as she reads the stories!
See what happens one day when the principal reads from her book
when Miss Smith gets stuck in traffic.
"Who would ever have guessed that reading could be so much fun?"

I love this book!
Ms  Dawn
:-)

Written & illustrated by Mari Takabayashi and published in 2004. 'I live in Brooklyn' explores the life of six year old Michelle with her family, friends, and schoolmates. How wonderful to be living inside an international city and Michelle surely enjoys it. Students at GR Montessori have been enjoying this story during our first week of March is Reading Month!

Paul Dear
GR Montessori






 The students at Stocking School were able to learn about some less known African-Americans in Portraits of African-American Heroes by Tonya Bolden. This book touches on the lives of twenty African-Americans, giving enough information to draw you in to want to learn more about each of them.

~Deb

  A Picture Book Of Jesse Owens by David Adler paints a sublime picture of the life of Jesse Owens. It covers everything from his life as a child to his death in 1980. It tells how he came to be known as Jesse and of the obstacles he had to overcome. This book will inspire you to learn more about the man, Jesse Owens.

Virginia Hamilton retells 24 black American folk tales in animal tales, supernatural tales, fanciful and cautionary tales, and slave tales of freedom. Published in 1985, awards include Coretta Scott King for Authors. Genres are Anthology and Children's literature. Students enjoy the tales.
 
Paul Dear
GR Montessori
 

 Winter Friends by Mary Quattlebaum is a book of enjoyable winter-based poems. There are poems about winter breath to snow angels to active winter animals. It ends with

More Snow

Listen!

The wind

is 

whispering

a thousand

tiny 

promises.

~Deb

Freedom River by Doreen Rappaport

 
One thousand feet across the Ohio River lay Ripley, Ohio and freedom. 
 Before  the Civil War, Kentucky was a slave state,while Ohio remained free. A man named John Parker, an ex-slave, led Kentucky slaves across a stretch of river to their freedom. These journeys demanded a tremendous amount of courage, careful planning, and faith.
    Freedom  River is based  on a true story of one man's determination to help an African American family escape from slavery along the Underground  Railroad.
    A good read for 4th grade and up.~ Mary Jo Fox

Harlem Renaissance Great Reads for young readers featuring Jacob Lawrence and Langston Hughes

While searching the database and shelves for our library display for Black History Month, I came across some great books about or by Harlem Renaissance writers and artists.

One is called The Great Migration : An American Story with paintings by the very famous Harlem Renaissance artist Jacob Lawrence.  His paintings chronicle the historic and heroic journey of blacks from the rural South to the North around WWI in search of work in factories.  His 60 paintings series is held between two collections at the Museum of Modern Art in New York and the Phillips collection in Washington DC.  This books pulls them together with a narrative telling a history of the Great Migration.  It is a great way to also share the work of this renown artist.

  

I also found Gwen Everett's book John Brown, One Man Against Slavery with paintings by Jacob Lawrence.




Also found some great picture books about Harlem Renaissance writer and poet Langston Hughes.  One is Langston's Train Ride by Robert Burleigh with illustrations by Leonard Jenkins.  Another is Coming Home: from the Life of Langston Hughes by Floyd Cooper.