Bella at Midnight by Diane Stanley

This novel was about a girl named Isabel who is a peasant in a medieval village. She happens to be the daughter of a knight in the King’s palace but she is unaware throughout her life. She is raised by adoptive parents who teach her to be respectful. The story is an alternative Cinderella with a King Arthur twist. Bella’s adoptive mother is a wet nurse for the Prince so he often comes over to visit her and he becomes friends with Bella. During the war that is going on, Bella is forced to go back to live with her father in the palace but finds that he is cruel and she is treated badly by her stepmother. Julian is captured during this war and held hostage. When he is freed he returns how to find that Bella is not in the village. She returns later from the war wounded, and Julian asks for her hand in marriage. This alternative fairy tale is great because it shows the girl as the hero in the story. Often times the male figure is shown as the hero who saves the life of the girl, but in this story Bella goes out of her way to save her childhood friend, now fiancé.

Lon Po Po by Ed Young

This Chinese version of “Little Red-Riding Hood” is about the wolf coming to the home Shang, Tao, and Paotze on a day when their mother has left to go see their grandmother. She tells them not to let anyone in the house. The children let the wolf into the house and find that he isn’t their grandmother so they think of a way to get rid of him. They tell the wolf that the nuts in their tree taste delicious so they will climb up there and pick some. The wolf cannot climb the tree so they make a plan to pull him up in a basket. After dropping him when only one of the children are pulling, and when two of the children are pulling they promise that all three of them will try the next time. After dropping him from a very high distance he falls to the ground and doesn’t respond. This version of “Little Red-Riding Hood” is similar but has many differences than the American version.
I really enjoyed this book when I was in elementary school and remember thinking that it was scary at the end when the wolf dies. I liked the illistrations throughout this book and felt like they did a good job of showing the lifestyle of the Chinese characters throughout the book.

Somebody and the Three Blairs by Marilyn Tolhurst

This story was about a family who decides to go to the park for the day and while they are gone a “somebody” who is shown as a little bear comes into their home and makes himself at home. He eats the breakfast on the table, plays with the little boys toys, and even takes a nap in his crib. When the Blair’s arrive home from the park they find their home a disaster. They finally find the bear in the little boys crib but are unable to catch him before he runs out the window. This book is an interesting alternative because when I first picked up the book I read the title as the three “bears” from habit but found on the first page the family’s last name was Blair. It is a great book to turn the story around and see that the little bear is the one breaking into the house opposed to the little girl. This book is also intended for younger audiences with a lot of the text being repetitive and several of the words being repeated throughout the book.

The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs by Jon Scieszka

This version of the Three Little Pigs portrays the wolf as being a helpless old man who was only going to his neighbor’s home to get a cup of sugar to bake his grandmother a birthday cake. He had a cold and continued to sneeze every time he was at the door of his neighbor which ended up knocking down their whole house. He says that he wouldn’t want to just leave a ham dinner sitting in the debris so he eats the first and second pig. He tells that the newspapers wanted to make their story more interesting so they added that the wolf was a bad guy and had killed the first two pigs. This version of the three little pigs is great to use in a text set to see how the author turned the story around to make the bad guy into the good guy. This is a great book to show that there are always other sides to a story. In most traditional "Three little pig" stories the wolf is portrayed as the bad guy who knocked down the houses of the three little pigs in order to eat them. In this story it makes the audience think about the wolf's point of view and how the story may have been told wrong in the first place, although it is unrealistic.:)

Cinder Edna by Ellen Jackson

This story includes the traditional Cinderella but also adds another story to compare to Cinderella’s “happy ending.” Cinder Edna also lived with her two step sisters and stepmother but contrary to Cinderella, when she was done with her work she mowed lawns and fixed parrot cages to make extra money. When the ball was coming up Edna had money to buy a new gown, while Cinderella had to rely on her fairy godmother to do all the work for her. At the ball they both fall in love with a prince, but have to leave in a hurry. When their prince’s finally find them by the shoes they had left behind and the knowledge they had learned about the girls we see that Cinderella leads a boring life following her prince. Edna, on the other hand, lives happily ever after with the prince who didn’t care about his image but more about being a good husband. This teaches a great lesson showing if Cinderella wasn’t worried about just money and fame she would have lived a happier life.

The Wolf Who Cried Boy by Bob Hartman

This story was about a little wolf who was tired of eating the same “lamburgers,” “three-pig salad,” and “sloppy does” every night and was hungry for boy. His parents explained that boys never came around the woods anymore so he was going to have to make do with their supper unless he found a boy walking in the woods. The next day he told his parents he saw a boy so they both rushed out to catch him. After they came home empty handed their supper was ruined so they had to eat snack food. The little wolf liked the outcome of this so he said the same thing the next day. After his parents caught on they would not listen to him when he saw a whole boy-scout troop outside, and the little wolf learned his lesson of telling lies. This story has a great lesson to learn on its own but would be great to compare and contrast to the original version of “The Boy Who Cried Wolf.”

So Far From the Bamboo Grove by Yoko Kawashawa Watkins

This book was a great book on it's own but when paired in a text set with "A Year of Impossible Goodbyes" the story has a deeper meaning. These books both talked about the occupation of Korea by the Japanese during World War II. Each story was told from the point of view of a child from each of the countries. There were many differences between the way the eleven year old in this story viewed war compared to the way that myself and many other people in the United States view war. I have never lived in the country where there was a war being fought which makes a drastic difference. There are many times I forget that there is even a war going on since it is going on so far away from home. The little girl in this story loses family members and many belongings because of this war which is hard for anyone to handle, especially someone so young. There were many times while reading this story that I tried to put myself into her shoes and imagine how hard it would be to lose family and I thought about how important family is to me. The video we watched in class of the children talking about these two books really shows how important it is to look at both sides of a situation and realize that while you may side with the "underdog" narrator in one of the stories, there is always a different side and it may not be easy for those on that side either.

Love That Dog by Sharon Creech

I thought this book was adorable. I was laughing the whole time I was reading it! I was recommended to read this by the little girl I work on my child study with so I was excited to read it for class. I liked the book because as I was reading the book I was trying to read the book from a child's perspective like I do with most of the other books we read for class, but I was finding myself looking at the book from a teacher's perspective. The teacher was giving the little boy great encouragement throughout his journaling which shows that with the support of the teacher the little boy went from thinking that poetry was for "girls" to enjoying poetry and even being interested in a particular poet that he had read. I agreed with the little boy that this book was easier to read because it had shorter lines. It felt like it was easier to keep my thought going like the little boy said it was for him. The only problem I had with his idea was that it may be hard for him to change his writing someday when he is forced to write in full lines someday. Overall I thought that this was a great example of the relationship that builds confident writers between teachers and students!

Gingerbread Friends by Jan Brett

This book caught my eye from the cover. I know you aren't suppose to "judge a book by it's cover" but the illistrations were very detailed and reminded me of gingerbread houses I have made in the past. We see that this gingerbread man lives in a beautiful gingerbread home in the room of "Mattie" and he has lots of toys and treats but he is missing something. The gingerbread man wanted a friend because he got really sad when Mattie would go out with his friends. Another thing I liked about this book was that on each page there was a different quotation by the gingerbread baby that goes along with the traditional gingerbread story. "I'm the Gingerbread Baby, Peppy as can be, I'll be friends with you, If you'll be friends with me."

The illistrations, like the cover, were so pretty and reminded me of Christmas. They included the main image for the text, but on every page of the story there was a boarder of Christmas decorations, candy, candy canes, and other items that would be around the house around Christmas time. Every page was filled from one side to the other with images and designs that made each page feel full of holiday spirit.

This book would be great to use in an unit on Christmas or holiday themes or to use in contrasting stories of the same idea by different authors. This book is similar but different than other Gingerbread stories that I have read in the past.

Christmas Farm by Mary Lyn Ray

I love Christmas and I loved how the character "Wilma" decided that Christmas began whenever she chose the right Christmas tree and put it into her home. I always put my Christmas tree up right away after Thanksgiving and can't wait to decorate and get ready for the season. The images in this book by Barry Root were beautiful and went with the text very well. They use of paints made the landscapes in the book come alive. Wilma decided that she had grown petunias all of her life and wanted to start to grow something else. She decided to grow evergreen trees in her backyard for those people who didn't have a back hill like she did to pick a Christmas tree. Wilma has the neighbor boy help her plant the trees on her land like he had helped her grow the sunflowers and petunias in the past. This book was great to show children how long it takes for some plants to grow. Some children are only exposed to the growth of vegetables in their backyard or the flowers in their garden, but this book shows that for the evergreens to grow to the size needed to be a Christmas tree they took many seasons and several years! I also found this book interesting because the farmer in the book was a woman. Almost all books portray farmers or planters to be men and this book rids that stereotype.

"A Year of Impossible Goodbyes" by Sook Nyul Choi

This novel written by a Korean author is set during the Japanese occupation of North Korea in 1945. Written from a Korean child's viewpoint we see the struggles that this young girl and her family are put through during World War II. This book was very sad and made me as a reader appreciate everything I have in my life that I take for granted. There are many things that the little girl wishes she had or was able to do that I have and do everyday without thinking of it as a luxury. The little girl is put in a very mature position towards the end of the book when they are running to freedom and she is in charge of her younger brother. I connected to this part of the book because I am the oldest of three daughters in my family and would have done the same thing for my younger sisters if I were put in this situation. I could feel her frustration of being responsible for her younger brother and how she was passionate about making sure he was safe. Although this is a very sad book I think it is a great book to teach kids about war with. We can see the feelings and how war directly affects families and children contrasting to the political aspect we often times see in current events about war that children see in the newspapers everyday.

Anticipation Guide for "A Year of Impossible Goodbyes"- Elizabeth McIlwee, Brian Hudson, and Jessica Anderson

"A Year of Impossible Goodbyes"

*Notice when the image of the laughing Buddha appears in the story.

*Imagine the scent of pine and notice the significance of the pinetree in the story.

*Imagine the bond of a young girl taking care of her little brother during war time.

*Take note of the little things that were taken away from the Koreans by the Japanese during this war that we take for granted in our everyday lives.

*Keep this image and the importance of the hair pin as you read.

Night of the Gargoyles by Eve Bunting

I chose to read this children's book after a classmate did their author study on Eve Bunting and her books interested me. This book was a great book to use in an unit around Halloween time. The illistrations are in all black and white which make the book seem mysterious and scary. On the first page of the book there is the definition of a gargoyle. The definition says that gargoyles are "a watherspout in the form of a grotesque human or animal figure projecting from the roof or eaves of a building." This is different than than how the gargoyles are portrayed throughout the book. The gargoyles are seen as scary creatures that roam around during the night and hate the birds who sit on them and the humans who made them. They are seen moving off of their walls and are sneaking up on humans when they are not aware. Overall I think this, along with many of Eve Bunting's other books, is a great book for children.

Piggies by Audrey Wood and Don Wood

This is a another great book by Audrey Wood who I did my author study on. This is a great book to read to children around bedtime because the ending of the story talks about how the "little piggies" on each finger of the child finally go to bed. This book doesn't have much text so it is great for young children who are just learning how to read. It would be easy for children to read the text, but also great for them to look at the pictures and analyze what is going on in the illistrations. Each page adds one piggy on each finger and then in the end we see the piggies giving a good night kiss to the piggie on the same finger on the other hand. It also shows the piggies in different situations such as in the bathtub, in the cold, in a mess, etc. The piggies are dressed up in creative outfits that are funny for children to look at!

Letter to the Lake by Susan Marie Swanson ande Peter Catalonotto

I love going to the lake in the summer and have always been around the water every summer. The beginning of the book is a letter from a little girl saying how much she misses the lake and how what she remembers about it. The little girl goes on to say that she misses the summer now because it is winter and very cold. This reminds me of harsh Iowan winters and how much I look forward to the summer during these times. She notices that he mother is stressed out because her buttons are crooked and this is a great example of how observant children are. The illistrations in the book are very creative such as when the illistrator shows the little girl eating her breakfast and her mother in the background stressing out about a bill in the reflection of the toaster. Another example of this creativity is when the illistrator shows the little girl smiling at her mother in the car through in the reflection of the car window.

Making Plum Jam by John Warren Stewig and Kevin O'Malley

I connected with the book immediately when I began reading it because the little boy didn't want to go to her great aunt's house for the week. I used to have to spend a week at one of my great aunt's house in the summer and I would become so bored. Immediately when he gets to the house her aunt asks her what she learned at school that year. That is a universal question that I think every adult ask children when to begin conversation. I further connected with the book when the little boy talks about how his aunt doesn't have electricity. My family went to visit an Amish family when I was younger and I didn't understand why they didn't have lights and in place of them they used candles. I found it cute that the little boy wouldn't eat the bacon at breakfast because the big used to be his friend.
It was funny that the aunts were stealing plums from the neighbor farmer in front of their nephew. The little boy was suprised of their misbehaving! The little boy takes jars of jam back to the farmer with a thank you note that night.

The Disappearing Island by Corinne Demas

I enjoyed reading this book. The illistrations by Ted Lewin were very detailed and went along with the text very well. This book was about a real island off the shore of Cape Cod in Massachusetts, which I found out by reading the author's note at the end of the book. The book went into detail about the ocean and the boat that the little girl and her grandma ride on. This book would be great to use in a unit about the ocean or other topics concerning the coast. I liked how the illistrations were different in the story when the little girl was daydreaming. The illistrations were all in shades of orange and yellow to portray her sight from behind her eyes under the sun! This book was very helpful in explaining how the tides of the ocean work and why this particular island is slowly disappearing in the middle of the ocean.

The Bunyan's by Audrey Wood

This story begins with an author’s note explaining the background behind the story of Paul Bunyan. Audrey continues by saying that this is the true story and that Paul was married with two children. Carrie, his wife, and he were both giants decided to get married and share Paul’s wishbone after Carrie had lost hers. This story is great for learning American geography because of the analogies using American landscape. It also gives a unrealistic way of how certain landscapes came to be, but could spark interest in children for how they really did come to be! This is one book not illustrated by Don Wood, but instead by David Shannon. His illustrations work well with the story Audrey has written. Many of the images show how large the characters are by showing them in relation to wagons and houses that are very small. One illustration also shows bears crawling in “Teeny's” hair after a silo of syrup has spilled in it preceding an illustration of her showering in Niagara Falls!

King Bidgood's in the Bathtub by Audrey Wood

This is another book that is illustrated Don Wood. This book is great for showing children what a King’s palace would look like and how they would dress. The illustrations are very detailed and make the pages come alive. The king will not get out of the bathtub so each of the characters in the book try to get him out by telling him there are important things going on in the community which he needs to attend to. He tells them that their problems will have to come to him because he is not getting out of the bathtub today. They battle, eat, fish, and dance in the tub while none of them are able to get him out of the tub. Finally the page shows he knows how to get the King out of the tub by pulling the plug. If you re-read this book you notice that the page has been in all the illustrations and has shown his annoyance that the king will not get out of the tub! The illustrations could spark conversation with children that would last for a long time!

The Napping House By Audrey Wood

This book is illustrated by Audrey's husband, Don Wood. The story begins with the exterior of this “Napping House” and we see that it is raining. Right away the reader gets the motivation for taking a nap on such a dreary day! We see that everyone in this house is napping in their cozy beds. This is a book that begins to repeat the last sentence as the story moves along. For example, “and on that granny there is a child, a dreaming child, on a snoring granny, on a cozy bed, in a napping house, where everyone is sleeping.” This is a great book to use with children who are just beginning to read. They begin to pick up on the repetition and it makes them feel confident about their reading! The story moves along and we see a cat, dog and a flea appear on the bed until the flea bites the cat and alarms everyone until they get off of the bed. As each disappears we see the sun coming out in the window behind the bed. On the last page we see the exterior of the house with a rainbow behind it with the sunshine!