American Grub

Title: American Grub
Author: Lynn Kuntz and Jan Fleming
Illustrator: Mark A. Hicks
Number of Pages: 77
Publisher: Scholastic
Copyright Date: 1997
Grade Level: All Ages (K-6)
Honors/Awards: None
Type of Book: Picture Book/Informational

Synopsis:
In American Grub, there are 50 recipes, one for each state in the United States of America. Along with recipes, though, there is also a paragraph including interesting facts about each state, a picture of the state, the nickname of the state, and the capital of the state. In the back of the book, there is an index listing all the different dishes that are described in the book under different categories. There are also some science implications when possible, such as Illinois’ pizza, which includes yeast. We learn that yeast is a fungus and how it makes bread rise.
Examples of Dishes:
New York Delish Deli Duo
Iowa Popzacorn Balls
Arizona Powwow Wow Bread

Commentary:
Even if you’re not going to use this book when teaching, it’s a great book to have on a bookshelf for kids to thumb through in their free time. Although it isn’t a story or a book that you would ever expect a child to read from cover-to-cover, this book has a lot of facts about individual states, interesting cooking ideas that the kids can try out at home, and lots of fun pictures! Kids can learn a lot from reading just one page of this book.

Teaching Ideas:
· Teach about the 50 states
· Talk about the differences between foods in our own country, then expand that to a discussion about the differences between foods in the USA and foods in other countries around the world
· Have students chose one state and give a presentation on it (including state bird, flower, etc. and an example of that state’s food)
· Measurement of ingredients, and learning about the art of cooking
· A lesson on Americanization and immigration
· Talk about taste buds, using the information from page 59
· When talking about Nevada, bring in a Spanish lesson because Nevada means “snowy” in Spanish.
· Talk about trade, and how different places in the world are better suited to produce different products (like oranges from Florida)
· Kitchen and cooking safety, following pages 10-12

Related Books:
Books about the United States:

Books about cooking/food:

The Boxcar Children

Title: The Boxcar Children

Author: Gertrude Chandler Warner

Number of Pages: 154

Publisher: Albert Whitman & Company

Copyright Date: 1942

Grade Level: Intermediate Grades (3-6)

Honors/Awards: None

Type of Book: Chapter Book/Easy Reader

Summary:
Henry, Jessie, Violet, and Benny are siblings who, when their parents passed away, decided that they didn't want to live with their grandfather. Insisting that he wouldn't like them because he didn't like their mother, they make a home for themselves in an abandoned boxcar. The children make this boxcar a home for themselves, taking silverware, a tea kettle, and cups from a junkyard. They build a dam in the stream, making a swimming pool, and make a fire pit so they can cook food and boil water to clean their dishes. Henry finds work at a doctor's house and the other children find a stray dog, who they name "Watch," because he becomes their watchdog.

One day while working for the doctor, Henry enters a race and wins. He doesn’t know it, but the man who gives him his prize is actually his grandfather, from whom he and his siblings have been hiding. Of course his grandfather doesn’t know that this is the boy that he has been frantically looking for.

One night the children hear a noise in the woods, and Watch starts to growl. We find out at the end of the book that the noise was the doctor coming to check on them. Henry enjoys his work with the doctor, and the girls and Benny enjoy making the boxcar a home. Henry makes enough money to buy some essential foods, such as milk and bread and meat. Once he even brought home butter! Benny tries to cut Watch’s hair like Jessie cut his and he writes a “J” on his side, representing that Watch belongs to Jessie. The children love the new life they made for themselves, until one day when Violet gets sick. They aren’t able to nurse her back to health, and afraid that they will be found out if they bring her to the hospital, Henry runs to get the doctor that he works for. Without asking where to go, the doctor drives to the boxcar and brings Violet and her siblings back to his home.

The doctor calls the children’s grandfather, who had sent a flyer out looking for his grandchildren. When he comes, the doctor insists that he get to know the children before telling them that he is their grandfather. After a few days of getting to know each other (and the children growing to like him), he reveals his identity. When Violet regains her health, they all move in with the doctor. Watch becomes their dog for good, as the man who owned him had sold him to another woman, and the woman says that they can keep him.
Commentary: A great book about children making it on their own. It’s every child’s dream when they think about running away from home. It would be a good idea to talk with the students about the fact that this is a fictional book, and in real life the children probably wouldn’t have had such an easy time trying to make it on their own. Talking about strangers may also be essential, as Henry walked up to a stranger and asked him if he could work for him. This story is one that most people in my generation have read, and it will continue to be a classic for ages. It is very well written, especially for a chapter book. It could be considered a novel, but I have listed it as a chapter book for its simple language, large font, and pictures.

Teaching Ideas:

• Talk about strangers, as Henry approached a stranger to ask for work


• Talk about the differences between life in the 1940’s (when this book was written) and today.


• Talk about how the story might be different if the children were running away from home today


• Have students write their own fictional story about making it on their own

Related Books:
Books by Gertrude Chandler Warner:
Blue Bay Mystery
The Boxcar Children Mysteries
Books about Orphans:
Thirteen Orphans by Jane Lindskold
Anne of Green Gables by L. M. Montgomery
Books about Adventures:
My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George*
The Snail and the Whale by Julia Donaldson

The Moon Book

Title: The Moon Book

Author: Gail Gibbons

Number of Pages: 30

Publisher: Scholastic Inc.

Copyright Date: 1997

Grade Level:

Type of Book: Picture Book/Informational

Synopsis:

This picture book tells everything you ever wanted to know about the moon. We learn about the moon's orbit around the earth, history about what people thought the moon was, the phases of the moon, scientific names of the phases, the solar and lunar eclipses, and how the moon effects the weather. We also learn about astronomers, and how they look at the moon from earth (telescopes, binoculars, and observatories). Gibbons describes what the moon looks like up close, and tells us the history of how we came to know all this information about our moon. She describes Luna 3 and Surveyor 1 and Apollo 8. Finally, she tells us about Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin in the Apollo 11 mission. At the end of her book, Gibbons has a list of "Moon Milestones" and "Moon Legends and Stories," as well as "More Moon Facts" for those who still want to know more.

Commentary:

This book has all the information a teacher could ask for about the moon. It answers many questions about the moon that children may raise when talking about the solar system. Teachers will learn from the book just as much as the students will! It is also an especially good book for the classroom because there are so many practical applications to teaching in it.

Teaching Ideas:
- A: Have students make a solar eclipse project like the one in the book
- S: Record the phases of the moon as they happen, ask students if they saw the moon last night

- S: Use binoculars to look at the sky and try to find the moon during the day, or send them home with one student per night so they can examine the moon at night
- SS: Watch a video of the first steps on the moon

- ELA: Have each student write their own legend about the moon

Related Books:

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Sarah, Plain and Tall

Title: Sarah, Plain and Tall
Author: Patricia MacLachlan
Number of Pages: 58
Publisher: The Trumpet Club
Copyright Date: 1985
Grade Level: Intermediate Grades (4-6)
Honors/Awards: Newbery Medal
Type of Book: Chapter Book/Multicultural

Synopsis:
Anna lives with her Papa, Jacob and her younger brother, Caleb on a farm. Her mother died when Caleb was born. Ever since she died, Papa didn't sing. Papa sends out for a wife, feeling that his children need a mother. The response that he gets back is from Sarah. Sarah has been living in Maine with her brother, but now that her brother is getting married, she feels it's time to move out. They set up a time when she can come to visit and see how she likes the farm. Her last letter before she arrives says, "Tell them I sing."
When Sarah arrives with her yellow bonnet and her cat, Anna and Caleb are overjoyed to see her and get to know her. Sarah tells them about the sea, and Anna and Caleb show her their sheep. Sarah brings them seashells, and Anna and Caleb help her pick wildflowers to dry in the winter. Sarah and the family sing together, and Papa sings too. The whole visit, Anna and Caleb wonder if she will marry Papa and stay with them or go back home to the sea she loves so dearly.
Sarah insists that Jacob teach her how to drive by herself, and Anna and Caleb are nervous about why she wants to go into town by herself. They don't want her to leave, but they aren't naive to the possibility. When Sarah goes into town, they spend the day waiting for her to return. When Sarah finally comes back, she brings blue and gray and green colored pencils: the colors of the sea. She tells them that she will always miss the sea, but she would miss Anna and Caleb and Jacob much more than she could ever miss the sea.

Commentary:
Sarah, Plain and Tall is a beautifully written book that, in the midst of its simplicity, gives the reader countless reasons to fall in love with Anna, Caleb, Papa, and Sarah. Caleb's inquisitiveness, Anna's gentle heart, Papa's quiet spirit, and of course Sarah, plain and tall touch the reader's heart and allow the reader to relate to each of the characters on a personal level.

Teaching Ideas:

• Have children make a table of contents with the chapter titles (shows the theme/main ideas of the chapter) à Idea from Fountas & Pinnell
• Character Web
• Bring seashells in for children to explore, do crafts with them, identify their names from a seashell resource book
• Venn Diagrams comparing and contrasting (the sea and the cow ponds, the sea and the prarie)
• Study about prairies
• Make a habitat shoebox
• “Virtual field trips”
• Adding with sea animals or prairie animals (could also tie in algebra with two different kinds of animals – because you can’t combine letter numbers and regular numbers)
• Practice writing letters (perhaps get a pen pal in another class)
• Brainstorm about traveling to a different place (talk to a partner and make a chart)
• Talk about one-room school houses (and perhaps a field trip to Genesee Country Museum)
• State projects on Maine and Kansas

Related Books:

Books by Patricia MacLachlan:
What you Know First
Baby
Journey
More Perfect than the Moon
Books about the Sea:
Time of Wonder by Robert McClosky
One Small Square Seashore by Donald M. Silver
Books about Family:
Mama One, Mama Two by Patricia MacLachlan
Books about living on the Prairie:
The Little House Cookbook by Barbara M. Walker

Just Ella

Title: Just Ella
Author: Margaret Peterson Haddix
Illustrator:
Number of Pages:
Publisher:
Copyright Date:
Grade Level: Intermediate Grades (4th-6th)
Honors/Awards:
Type of Book: Novel

Synopsis:
The story of Cinderella... the real story of Cinderella... after the not-so-happily ever after. We learn about how Ella (called "Cinders-Ella" by her stepsisters) really made it to the ball, won the prince, made it to the castle, became a princess, and after a stunning turn of events, was able to find her real happily-ever-after.
Ella was just a normal young girl whose father got remarried to a stuck-up woman who had two stuck-up daughters. Ella was slowly turned into a servant in her own home as Lucille (her stepmother) came to convince her father that Corrimund and Grizelda couldn't do the hard labor that Ella was so fortunate to be capable of. When her father passed away while crossing the Sualan border to buy books, Ella began to be treated even worse. So when the invitation came inviting all eligible young ladies to a ball in honor of Prince Charming, Ella saw it as an opportunity to gain some independence from Lucielle and the "Step-Evils," as she called them. She would try to find work as a tutor.
Out shopping one day, she found a glass blower who, wanting to show off, agreed to make glass slippers for her. She found her mother's wedding gown in the attic and, after helping the Step-Evils off to the ball, scrubbed herself down and was off!
When she entered the ballroom, she was taken into one ballroom while the girls she entered with were escorted into another ballroom. She spent the night dancing with the prince, and lost track of the time. When the clock struck twelve, she ran out of the ballroom, remembering that she had to clean the attic before the others got back home.
The next day, the prince found her and whisked her off to the palace, where for months she took lessons (which she hated) to learn how to act like a princess (which she was very bad at). When one of her teachers has a stroke, his son, Jed, is sent to teach the class in his place. Immediately, Ella and Jed become great friends. Ella also befriends a servantgirl, Mary. And in the midst of her making friends in the castle and her boring lessons about how to be a princess, she is able to see Prince Charming ("Charm," as she refers to him in her imagination) only once in a while with a chaperone.
Ella soon falls out of love with the prince, realizing that he is a mindless man who wouldn't know how to dress himself every morning if his attendants didn't tell him how. She decides to break the engagement, but when she talks to the prince about it, he doesn't take the news lightly. He ties her up, and calls in his royal advisors to "tell him what to do." When they come in, they leave Ella bound and basically tell her that she can't break the engagement. When she insists that she will never marry the prince, they throw her in the dungeon, where she is treated like a prisoner until (according to their threats) she either agrees to marry the prince or her wedding day arrives and she is forced to marry him.
Ella's connection with the servantgirl, Mary pays off when Mary finds her and brings her food stolen from the kitchen, as well as a shovel. Ella decides to dig her way out of the palace through the "crap hole" in her cell. Mary informs Ella that Jed has been sent to work with the Sualan refugees, which as Ella knows has been Jed's dream for longer than she has known him.
When Ella is able to escape, she travels to the Sualan border to meet Jed and ask him if she can work for him. When she finally arrives, he proposes, confessing his love for her.
Ella was taken by surprise, and asked that they wait a while so she could think about it. Jed is called back to the palace when he receives the news of his father's death, and Ella remains at the campsite doing the work Jed once did. Jed writes to Ella telling about how the prince married her stepsister so as not to cause a scene, and also to tell her that with the connections that he now has he thinks he could end the war against Suala. The book ends with Ella making up her mind that she loves and wants to marry Jed.

Commentary:
This is a wonderfully written book that opens up the reader's mind to possibilities that the original farytale stories don't allow you to believe. A completely fictional book, Just Ella sparks the reader's imagination and encourages creativity in imagining alternate endings to the normal "happily ever afters" that we are so accustomed to. For girls, this book shows the importance of friendship over romance, and unlike other farytales, shows that there isn't always "happily ever after" with "Prince Charming."

Teaching Ideas:

- Before reading the story, have students come up with their own not "happily-ever-after" ending to the Cinderella story

Related Books:

Slender Ella and her Fairy Hogfather, by Vivian Sathre, Chapter Book

The Princess School Let Down Your Hair, by Jane B. Mason & Sarah Hines Stephens, Novel

The Frog Princess, by E.D. Baker, Novel

Rapunzel, by Paul O. Zelinsky, Picture Book, Caldecott Medal

There's an Alligator Under my Bed

Title: There's An Alligator Under My Bed

Author: Mercer Mayer

Illustrator: Mercer Mayer

Number of Pages: 29

Publisher: Dial Books for Young Readers

Copyright Date: 1987

Grade Level: Primary Grades (K-3)

Honors/Awards: None

Type of Book: Picture Book

Synopsis:

In this picture book, the narrator is a young boy who, when it was time to go to bed, had to be very careful because he had an alligator under his bed. Whenever he called his parents into the room, they couldn't find the alligator, so the boy decided to take matters into his own hands. He went downstairs to the kitchen and took all the food that he thought alligators would like, then made a trail of "alligator bait" from his room to the garage. Then, all he had to do was wait. The alligator came out and ate everything. The boy followed him through the hall, down the stairs, and when he reached the garage, the boy slammed the door shut! After he returned to bed, the boy realized that he should leave a note for his parents letting them know about the alligator in the garage.

Commentary:

This is a very simple, yet very entertaining book. Mercer Mayer does an exellent job describing the thoughts and imagination of a young boy. It addresses the issue of children being afraid of "monsters under the bed" without being scary. The book gives the illusion that there is nothing to be afraid of, even if there really were an alligator under the bed. It encourages bravery as well as imagination.

Teaching Ideas:

Related Books: