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Change is in the air. Days are getting shorter; schools are opening and there are new starts everywhere. Some kids can’t wait to start school, others have the heebie-jeebies; some take unusual critters or even a parent to school. Regardless, you’re sure to enjoy these books beyond the first days of school!
Bill Martin Jr’s Brown Bear, Brown Bear book is almost required reading for parents of young children. In video clips below from A Visit With Bill Martin Jr (1996), he talks about his “jazzy” writing. Bill Martin Jr also corresponded with Reading Rockets in an e-mail interview in which he answered questions about his writing career and famous “bear books” illustrated by Eric Carle.
Brian Selznick feels that his illustrations are more authentic when he immerses himself in his subject matter. For the picture book Amelia and Eleanor Go for a Ride, Selznick spent six months in Washington, DC conducting research at libraries and museums. For his Caldecott-Honor-winning illustrations in The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins, he traveled to London to sketch, photograph, and climb inside the famous dinosaur replicas. For his best-selling 533-page illustrated novel, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Selznick watched old French films, interviewed experts, and traveled to Paris three times. That book won the 2008 Caldecott Medal for its groundbreaking “cinematic” illustrations.
Exposing young children to informational text early on can help them to handle the literacy demands of fourth grade and beyond. Practical instructional techniques can be used to promote understanding and enjoyment of informational texts. The three techniques described here — Text Impression, Guiding Questions, and the Retelling Pyramid — can help children become familiar with the language and structure of non-fiction books.
Carmen Agra Deedy is a New York Times bestselling author and has been writing and traveling around the world telling stories for more than 20 years. Her books, including 14 Cows for America, The Rooster Who Would Not Be Quiet, The Yellow Star, and Martina the Beautiful Cockroach, have received numerous awards and honors. Carmen has performed in many prestigious venues, but children are her favorite audience. Born in Havana, Cuba, she came to the United States as a refugee and like most immigrants sees the world from multiple perspectives.
Acclaimed authors and illustrators for young people — Jeannine Atkins, Ekua Holmes, Rita Williams-Garcia, Heather Lang, and Katherine Paterson got together to talk about women and girls in fiction and nonfiction books — and what makes a heroine.
The model that underlies CIERA’s research efforts acknowledges many influences on children’s reading acquisition: readers and texts, home and school, and policy and profession. CIERA’s task goes beyond finding answers to persistent problems in reading through research to disseminating those solutions to people who impact children’s early reading achievement: teachers, teacher educators, parents, policymakers, and others.
