Ballet for Martha: Making Appalachian Spring

By Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan

Illustrated by Brian Floca 

Together Martha Graham, Aaron Copland and Isamu Noguchi created an American masterpiece: Appalachian Spring. This is a true story of a trailblazing choreographer, a distinguished American composer and an artist, sculptor, craftsman. Through months of planning, rehearsing and preparation on October 30, 1944 a ballet performance was performed that is now a beautiful and acclaimed classic. 

"Sometimes art is made by one artist, working alone, but sometimes it is the result of artist working together--collaborating--to forge something new. It took more than a year and the imaginations of many talented people for Appalachian Spring, the dance created by Martha Graham to be performed on stage for the first time. The result was an American classic. This is the story of how it happened." 

Martha Graham (1894-1991): Choreographer/Dancer 

Aaron Copland (1900-1990): American Composer 

Isamu Noguchi (1904-1988): Artist 

Ballet for Martha is much more than just about a dancer. It is a wonderful book that promotes creativity and collaboration. Accurate information, vivid illustrations make this an all-around lovely book.

Here is a short video clip of Appalachian Spring: 

Thomas and the Dragon Queen
By Shutta Crum and Illustrated by Lee Wildish

   


Thomas, the eldest of ten children, is however the smallest. His stature has him constantly picked on and always struggling to prove himself. When the opportunity arises for him to steal away to the castle with the possibility of one day becoming a knight, it’s all he can do to wait for morning to leave. As a squire his determination is tested in the field of battle, but nothing like that when he is sent on a quest to rescue his King’s only daughter and princess. Thomas and the Dragon Queen is a story of a boy who becomes a knight with the help of a few obstacles and friends to show him how valued he truly is. Thomas has to use all his courage and determination to overcome what others think and see him as, a son of a leathersmith. 
I thought this was a very fun and enjoyable read. It was a book full of fantasy and adventure that told a story about courage. Many people are judged and misunderstood just by their outer appearance but its not the outside that makes someone great and heroic but inside qualities such as bravery, honesty and being true to oneself. This book would be a great book for boys, although girls could enjoy it too. 

Camille Saint-Saen's: The Carnival of the Animals

By Jack Prelutsky

Illustrated by Mary GrandPre

The Carnival of the Animals is a fabulous book that takes classical music and turns it into a lively story! 

Welcome to our carnival,

Where birds and beasts and such

Behave a lot like people do, 

At times a bit too much. 

Throughout the story we are taken on an adventure and introduced to several animals and given some fun information about them!Jack Prelutsky captures Carnival of Animals through rhymes and cadence, humor and beauty, and feeling of music in catchy, fun to read poems. Mixed with the interaction of classical music the rich illustrations make all the animals come to life! Mary GrandPre's illustrations are wonderful and eye-catching that bring a magical essence to the story. 

About the Composer: 

Camille Saint-Saens (1835-1921) began his career at the age of thirteen as a composer in Paris. He composed over three hundred works and one of the first composer to write music for cinema. The Carnival of the Animals was composed in 1886. 

About the Author: 

Jack Prelutsky is a very famous poet for children's literature. He has published more than 50 books and has compiled ten poetry anthologies. He has always had a fascination with animals which are very apparent in a lot of his poems. 

   
The Night Fairy
By Laura Amy Schlitz
Illustrated by Angela Barrett

Flory, a young night fairy, lost her wings and the ability to fly due to the fact that a bat mistook her for a moth. What happens to a fairy that no longer has wings and can fly? Well Flory discovers a world that is very big and very, very dangerous. She has to create a new identity (becoming a day fairy) and do whatever it takes to survive, even if that means telling others what to do.
Honestly I thought this was a terrible book. There really was no good message or moral to the story. Flory came off as really self-centered and mean throughout the whole book and gave the message that it is okay to be rude and negative towards others to make yourself benefit from it. Although she does create two friends and saves a creature in the book the only reason Flory does this is because it benefited her. It didn't make her feel good, except that she would get something in return, and really has no emotions towards anyone but herself. This is a book I would not recommend to read.

   

Mirror Mirror: A Book of Reversible Verse
By Marilyn Singer and Illustrated by Josse Masse

About the Reverso From the Author
We read most poems down a page. But what if we read them up? That's the question I asked myself when I created the reverso. When you read a reverso down, it is one poem. When you read it up, with changes allowed only in punctuation and capitalization it is a different poem. Example
A cat                                 Incomplete:
without                              A chair
a chair:                              without                
Incomplete                        a cat.

Mirror Mirror is a book of reverso poems about fairy tales. Classic fairy tales are turned upside down, literally, giving two sides of one story. Read a poem from top to bottom, then reverse the lines and read from bottom to top.

                                                  
This book I absolutely loved! I never heard of a reverso and found the ones in Mirror Mirror brilliant! A great book to read to young children and older. There are many great activities to go along with this book pertaining to literature, such as poetry or analyzing text. A wonderful and enjoyable book!  

     

Cloud Tea Monkeys

by Mal Peet and Elspeth Graham 

Illustrated by Juan Wijngaard 

A young girl named Tisha and her mother in in a small mountain village. While her mother works at a tea plantation, Tisha will spend her day playing with monkeys. One day her mother gets extremely sick and cannot work at the tea plantation. Tisha knows that she will have to do her mothers job or else they would have no money to pay a doctor to help her mother get well. When Tisha arrives at the tea plantation, the Overseer starts to laugh because he knows Tisha cant pick tea from bushes that are taller than her. Tisha then runs away to hide and cry because she knows she cant help her mother. While crying, Tisha's friends, the monkeys, come and take her empty tea basket and start to carry it up to the high part of the mountains. After awhile they come back down, with the basket full of tea leaves. With this, Tisha heads back to the plantation to show to the Overseer but when she arrives the Royal Tea Taster himself is there to inspect and taste the tea from the plantation. The tea taster goes through all the baskets of leaves and is not impressed until he reaches young Tisha's basket. The tea taster is overjoyed when he learns Tisha has cloud tea, a very very rare type of tea. Extremely happy the tea taster exchanges Tisha's tea leaves for a bag of money, which solves all of Tisha's problems all together. 

Authors Note: 

Many of the simple things we can buy easily and cheaply today in shops were once rare and precious. Merchants undertook hard, dangerous journeys to find and trade goods like salt, spices, sugar, cocoa-- and tea. 

Our story was inspired by this notion, and by the many tea-picking tales we found from the high mountain countries of the Himalayan region, where the finest tea grows. One tale tells of tells of monkeys who were taught to pick tea by monks. Another tells of farmers who drove monkeys away from their villages, and when the angry monkeys threw sticks back, the farmers discovered that the leaves on them made a wonderful drink.

Cloud Tea Monkeys is set in the past, but you can still buy "monkey-picked tea," though where or not it is really picked by monkeys is another story again....... 

This is a great book to talk to students about diversity and different life styles. It could be a great introduction to a history topic of how some things we take for granted and the issue of child labor and how that in some parts of the world not all children are granted the excess to education. 

Bink and Gollie 

By Kate DiCamillo and Alison McGhee 

Illustrated by Tony Fucile 

Bink and Gollie are two best friends. They do everything together but can't always agree (except for putting on roller skates, they always agree to that.) When it comes to wearing socks, venturing to the Andes Mountains or buying a goldfish a compromise is required. For Bink and Gollie, even though they might not see eye to eye, these two girls will always be the best of friends. 

This book was a wonderful read. It was comical, artistic and would be a great way to introduce students to beginner chapter books. It also is a great story on friendship and how friends can work out disagreements. The story itself is good but the illustrations are what brings it to life. Without the pictures, half of the story would be missing. The book could be considered a graphic novel, where it is read like a comic book. 

                                             

Overall I thought this would be and enjoyable, comical read for 2nd or 3rd graders. 

   
Flora's Very Wind Day
Written by Jeanne Birdsall and Illustrated by Matt Phelan

 On a very windy day, Flora and her little, annoying brother, Crispin, are forced to go outside after making a huge mess with the paints. Having her super-special heavy-duty red boots, Flora was securely glued to the ground. On the other hand, her little brother Crispin, just had regular old purple boots, which didn't secure him to the ground at all. The wind lifts Crispin into the air,who has a very frightened look on his face. Flora kicks off her red boots and is taken by the wind as well, catching a hold onto to Crispin's hand. While being taken by the wind, Flora is given the opportunity to give her pesky brother away by receiving tempting offers from a dragon fly, man in the moon and even the wind itself. Although. at times, Flora would have loved to have given her brother away, this adventure makes her realize that even though her brother makes her mad at times, she still loves him very much and could never give him away.

Flora and Crispin flew on and on until they came upon a rainbow.

Will you give me that little boy? asked the rainbow. "He could guard my pot of gold. 

"Gold!" That was tempting. 

But, though Flora, Crispin's not fierce enough to guard anything.

"No. He's my brother and I'm taking him home." 

This was a very cute and enjoyable story that also had a great lesson. There are times when you get so mad at someone, you wish to send them away but after you start to think about it and calm down you find reasons for them to stay.  This is a great lesson for children because there will be times when they get angry at their friends and will say "'You're not my friend anymore," and not really mean it. They need to know there will be times when you will get angry at friends and wish them away but there are many more reasons for you to want them to stay, instead. 

         
Mirror
By Jeannie Baker

Two cultures, two different stories. A picture book about two boys, two families and two totally different lifestyles. It follows one boy living in a city in Australia and another in Morocco, North Africa.
A unique book, in which is completely wordless, shows how two cultures looking totally different and being different can and will have similarities to connect to each other no matter where they live.
A great book that allows students to see and interpret every day life in other cultures and how they can relate it to their own life and culture. Without words, there are many ideas, understandings, concepts and meaning in which the author was able to portray just through her artwork.
A true picture book.