Featured New Materials - June, 2008

Archives: Featured Materials of Past Months

Picture Story Books

     Katie Smith Milway’s ONE HEN: HOW ONE SMALL LOAN MADE A BIG DIFFERENCE (Kids Can Press, 2008) is set in a small town in Ghana, West Africa, where Kojo and his mother make just enough money to get by. The families in the village decide to save a little extra money, pool their savings, and give it as a loan to each family. Each family can then use the money to buy something important for their future—cartloads of fruit to sell, a sewing machine—and pay back the loan so the next family can borrow. Kojo’s mother uses the money to buy a cart to take more firewood to the market to sell. She gives Kojo some of the profit, which he uses to buy a hen that will lay eggs for him to sell at the market. Gradually, Kojo is able to buy more hens so he can sell more eggs. Soon, he has enough money to go to school, which requires fees and a school uniform. Kojo obtains a scholarship, is able to go to college, study agriculture, and he eventually operates the largest poultry farm in West Africa. The text explains that the taxes he pays are used by the government to improve the conditions in their country—“and it all started with one small loan to buy one brown hen.” Lengthy endnotes tell how the story is based on a real person, how readers can help provide microloans to people wanting to start a small business, other success stories, and a glossary of African  and economic terms.

              This is a lengthy text with many mind-expanding ideas, making it an ideal picture book for use with intermediate and upper elementary students.   The illustrations, by Eugenie Fernandes, are acrylic paintings. The expressionistic paintings have larger than life and  flying people and comical chickens everywhere, but also realistic pictures of village life. Each double-page illustration has a caption running across it in the style of “This is the house that Jack built”—“This is the farm that Kojo builds using the lessons he learned at college and a loan from a bank.” For ages 8-12.

Fiction

     THE KAYLA CHRONICLES by Sherrie Winston (Little Brown, 2008) tells the story of Kayla Dean, a 15 year old African-American girl who is seeking her identity amidst pressure from family, peers and sometimes even her own expectations.  She likes gymnastics, writing for the school newspaper, strong, intellectual black women, and cool shoes.  Like her recently deceased grandmother, Kayla is a strong supporter of women’s rights and Kayla’s best friend Rosalie is a brash and vocal feminist. The girls conceive a plot to undermine the school’s hip-hop dance squad by having flat-chested, Kayla try out, figuring she will be rejected by “girls like that” who only consider looks and large breasts. Kayla can then write an expose for the school newspaper about their practices. Actually, it is more Rosalie’s idea; Kayla is a bit reluctant, but willing to go along. Imagine her surprise when she actually makes the team. Even more surprising, she finds she really likes it! The girls are nice, dancing is fun, and they aren’t all just dumb, girly-girls at all.  A wedge is driven between Rosalie and Kayla as they come to terms with who they are, what they value, and what they expect from life and from each other. 

     This light-hearted and fast-paced read is sure to be enjoyed by female, middle school readers. Even though most of the characters are Black or Latina, the focus is not on race issues or being under-privileged, but rather on just growing up and being true to self. It is about empowerment and decision-making and learning to be a woman.  Recommended for Grades 5-9.

Nonfiction

     Several books have been published this year about the restoration of the wolves to Yellowstone National Park. Dorothy Hinshaw Patent’s WHEN THE WOLVES RETURNED: RESTORING NATURE’S BALANCE IN YELLOWSTONE (Walker, 2008) features photographs by Dan Hartman and Cassie Hartman. This is a dual-level text, with a brief text in framed boxes that explains the history of the wolves in Yellowstone, why they disappeared, the problems of the park becoming overrun with elk and coyotes, and how scientists decided that “returning the wolf might help solve the park’s problems,” how some people fought the proposal, and how bringing the wolves back has changed Yellowstone. The second set of text on each spread provides a great more detail.

This is an outstanding informational and environmental book with a single large photograph on each spread and several smaller photographs as well. They are stunning. The book ends with websites for more information and an index. The final endpapers have small photographs of the animals mentioned in the text with lines connecting them   to each other, and the question, “Can you remember how these living things are impacted by the wolves’ return to Yellowstone?” Ages 6-9, 40 pages.

              Jean Craighead George’s THE WOLVES ARE BACK (Dutton, 2008) uses the picture book format and is also very interesting, but her text is supplemented by paintings by Wendell Minor. George’s text is a little more lyrical and focuses on looking at the park from the perspective of a wolf pup as it grows into an adult, and how the reintroduction of the wolves changed Yellowstone for the better. It, too, includes a bibliography and websites for further information and can be used with a similar age range of children as the Patent book. Both will prove fascinating to young naturalists and animal lovers.

Curriculum

     A is for almanac : complete lessons to teach the use of reference sources in grades K-6  by Garvin, Susan L. and Annie Weissman (Neal-Schuman, 2008) contains more than 200 lessons which can be used by teachers and librarians as they collaborate to teach information skills.  Each lesson is designed to meet national standards in multiple areas including those for information literacy, language arts, science, social studies and technology.  Students will learn about the features of each reference tool and how to use it, with follow-up units in Science and Social Studies to reinforce concepts and allow students to apply what they have learned. Both print and electronic resources are considered, and the accompanying CD includes worksheets, brochures, parent-contact letters, games, contests and posters.

     Part I, “Reference Resources Lessons,” contains seven chapters, each dedicated to a specific tool: The Dictionary, The Thesaurus, The Encyclopedia, The Atlas, The Almanac, The Online Catalog, and the Internet. Part II, “Curriculum Units Using Reference Sources” includes a unit plan for each grade level, K-6.  Each unit incorporates several lessons that focus on a appropriate topic for that grade level. Students can practice information and fact finding skills by participating in contests and games which are available on the CD – there are nearly three years worth challenges, with hot links to web sites ands materials which can be made available for student us or on the library or classroom web page.

     This truly, useful resource will be a welcome addition to professional collections for elementary schools. The front matter lists the specific print and electronic resources which were used when designing the lessons.  This note about the use of  Wikipedia might be of interest:  “For this book, Wikipedia was used as a web-based reference source.”  The decision was based on a study by Jim Giles, which compared Wikipedia to Encyclopedia Britannica in 2006, and found equivalent errors in each source. Giles' study concluded that Wikipedia was accurate enough to be worth using. Also, Wikipedia articles often appear within the first five hits on Google searches and can be read without a subscription. For schools which do not have an online encyclopedia, it becomes a valuable tool. The authors of this book recommend that teachers preface the use of Wikipedia by explaining that it is a free encyclopedia which allows users to edit and change information.

Non-Print 

     JUST YELL FIRE: EMPOWERING GIRLS TO PROTECT THEMSELVES  (Just Yell Fire, 2006) is an instructional film for girls, aged 11-19, which demonstrates strategies and street-fighting techniques to help them get away from attackers, abductors and potential rapists. Dallas Jessup, at age 13, witnessed an abduction on the news that was captured by a video camera in a parking lot. She began wondering if she could put her own martial arts training to use to protect herself, and even teach her friends to protect themselves from fully-grown, male attackers. She worked with her street-fighting coach to see if strategies he routinely taught military operatives might also work for teenage girls. Techniques often thought of as  “dirty-fighting” such as eye-gouges, ear slaps, biting, and kicking, prove very effective, no matter what the size or age of the attacker.  Researchers have found that to yell “Fire” gets attention more quickly instead of a cry for “help” or “stop”  when being accosted, and “Just Yell Fire” became the title for the project.

     Dallas Jessup founded and gathered support for Just Yell Fire, and in 2006, the 46 minute film was produced. It is available for free either as a download at their web site, [ www.justyellfire.com ] or in DVD format by mail to any teenaged girl who does not have internet access.  Besides demonstrating each of the techniques, the film shows short, live-action scenarios in which young girls elude or fight off an adult male in what might be typical circumstances, such as at bus stops, in parking lots, on jogging trails, and at ATM machines. The film includes a "Dating Bill of Rights" and a discussion of date rape, how easily it can happen, and how to react if it does. According to the YWCA girls aged 11-14 face a 1 in 4 risk of sexual assault and according to the Department of Justice, there are 114,000 attempted non-family abductions for this age group each year in the US.  This film empowers young women, as it encourages them to be alert, aware and take responsibility for their own safety.