What is a real friend?

Posted on February 8, 2011 by carriegelson

Today we read My Best Friend written by Mary Ann Rodman and illustrated by E. B. Lewis. What a fantastic friendship book!

It is summertime and Wednesdays are spent at the pool. Lily has picked out her new best friend and it is Tamika. Tamika, though, already has a best friend and no matter what Lily does, Tamika is not impressed. Lily feels rejected and yet keeps trying to find something that will make Tamika take notice. Taunts by Tamika and her friend Shanice don’t seem to dissuade her from trying to get Tamika to like her best.

This book inspired us to ask: What really makes a friend? Our discussion throughout the story centered on the choices we make when choosing friends. As soon as we looked at the cover, hands were up – making connections and predictions, sharing stories and asking questions. The intensity of reactions lasted through each page and then everyone settled down with their Response and Ideas books and did some writing. As a teacher, I appreciated that this book allowed the children to come to their own conclusions. All of them deal with friendship issues daily and need chances to reflect on their choices and struggles. Students connected easily to the characters in this story and did some independent thinking on something that they regularly confront in their school and personal lives.

A sample of reactions:

Gary: Tamika was mean to Lily but not to Shanice. When Shanice was away, Lily got to play with Tamika, but when Shanice was back, Tamika was mean again. When Lily learned to dive, Tamika wasn’t looking. Keesha was. Now Lily is Keesha’s best friend. A real friend doesn’t be mean or make fun of you.

Annie: A real friend is not insulting another person. Friendship is about giving compliments when someone does something. Don’t wear of do something just to make someone like you. Be friends with someone who is nice to you.

Jenny: A real friend would share with you, play with you and stand up for you. I think the message of the book is you can’t just pick a friend to be your friend without knowing them because they might be mean to you.

Jena: A real friend is somebody who likes you for who you are not somebody who uses you when they don’t have a friend. A real friend plays with you all of the time, not just sometimes. A real friend doesn’t stick their tongue out at you, they don’t ignore you and they don’t tell secrets behind your back. I think the message of this book is that friends are nice to you all the time and they like you for who you are.

January books at my house

Posted on January 16, 2011 by carriegelson

January seems to be full of wet weather and cold days. Perfect reasons to stay in and read a book or two! In fact, I have two read alouds going with my own children. Some evenings we read from just one, other nights we read a bit of both. Both are hard to put down!

This is the third time I am reading Susan Patron‘s The Higher Power of Lucky and I continue to like it better each time. The beauty of a book is simply by opening it up at the beginning, you can experience it again. This is one of those books that deserves many readings. I first discovered it when Ms. Hong popped it into my box with a sticky note attached: “Think you will like this” I started reading it and finished it in one sitting. Last year this was a book club selection (so there are multiple copies in our school library!) Often we read really great sections out loud at our meetings – the trouble with this book, almost every sentence was so well written, it deserved to be read out loud! We shared many giggles and smiles over the text of this book.

Now I am enjoying introducing my children to Lucky – especially because there is a sequel Lucky Breaks sitting on our book shelf that I hope they will read on their own when we finish this book. This book won the Newbery Medal and many other prestigious book awards so it has many fans behind it. Pick it up and meet Lucky, a ten year old girl who lives in Hard Pan, California (population 43) with her French guardian Brigitte and her loyal dog, HMS Beagle. Lucky manages to keep very busy in this small town – collecting bugs in specimen jars, writing about the terrible fate of the tarantula when it meets the tarantula hawk wasp, chasing snakes out of the clothes dryer and spending time with her quirky friends like Lincoln (destined to be president according to his Mom) who is obsessed with tying knots. But what occupies Lucky’s thoughts most of all is the worry that Brigitte may want to abandon her job as Lucky’s guardian and return to France because, unlike actual Moms, guardians can resign. Lucky hatches a plan to keep Brigitte in California and it all begins with running away in a red silk dress in the middle of a dust storm. We love this book!

Kathyrn Lasky wrote the popular Guardians of Ga’Hoole series about a powerful war between the owls. This book Lone Wolf is the first in her new series Wolves of the Beyond. We started reading this book to see if my son may want to read it on his own but about 12 pages in and we realized that we all wanted to read the book and now! Who could read it first? There was no fair way to decide so we are sharing it as a read aloud and are equally addicted to the dramatic story. Faolon, a newborn wolf pup is born with a twisted paw. The laws of the pack are that there can be no weaknesses and the little pup is abandoned to die on an icy riverbank. He is swept down river and rescued by Thunderheart, a mother bear who has just lost her cub. She decides to raise him! A big grizzly raising a wolf pup! We are just on chapter seven and have already learned so much about wolves and bears and their survival. But we feel the story has much more in store for us as many parts of the story hint at how special Faolan is and we suspect he is going to return to the world of wolves that rejected him. This book is a fast paced adventure ideal for strong readers who like stories with lots of action and suspense.

Happy reading!

Books about relationships help us explore strong feelings

Posted on January 7, 2011 by carriegelson

Our reading group has been enjoying stories from our Connect book bin. We found two books about friendship and sibling relationships that we could really relate to as the characters had feelings just like we do: frustration, impatience, jealousy, regret and forgiveness. All such normal feelings as we interact with friends and brothers and sisters.

Matthew and Tilly, written by Rebecca C. Jones and illustrated by Beth Peck explores the feelings of friendship and forgiveness. This is a short but powerful story about best friends that argue, as friends do, but then find it easy to forgive each other when they realize that favourite activities are just not the same without a friend. We discussed the story and wrote responses.

Lisa writes: “I think Ms. Gelson put the book in the Connect bin because everyone could have an argument but then after, we say sorry.”

Kevin explains: “The message of the story was: if you get mad at each other, take a break and you will feel better.”

Judy Blume‘s The Pain and The Great One is a humourous account of a brother and sister told from each perspective. Each thinks the other is loved more by their parents and explains clearly why it is just not fair. The Great One thinks her younger brother is a messy slowpoke who is super annoying – doing things to her like singing and dancing around her when she talks on the phone. The Pain thinks his older sister is a bossy know-it-all who unfairly gets to do things that he can’t. like feed the cat just because she knows how to use the can opener. Big issues in his little world!

Catriona summarizes the book clearly: “The Pain thought The Great One was a know-it- all. And the Great One thought The Pain didn’t know anything!”