"Pink and Say" - Historical Fiction

The following link contains a video of five students acting out the story of Pink and Say, which is historical fiction.

http://cedvideo.ncsu.edu/view_video.php?viewkey=43755a79ee5f6a73050a

"Flood!" - Non-Fiction

"Flood!"is one of the six non-fiction books in the Nature's Disasters series. John Waters, the author, did an amazing job of breaking this natural disaster into eleven chapters. Chapter one focuses on how floods have been viewed by society over time. It speaks of the biblical example of Noah and the ark, all the way to the Missouri River flooding in St. Louis during 1986. The second chapter focuses on what a flood is. The display of vocabulary words begins in this chapter, and can be identified by the bold font for the words. The third chapters explains how floods can be created by tropical storms. Real life examples are told in this chapter. Chapter four continues to explain floods by describing seasonal flooding. The author continues the book by describing to the reader that flash floods can result from tropical storms, dam failures, or from the combination of rain and melting snow in chapter five. There is great vocabulary found in the sixth chapter, Earth Dams and Levees. The Vaiont and the Aswan dams are described in the next chapter. Not only are there great pictures shown in chapter eight which covers coastal flooding, but there are also very detailed diagrams that explain the information given. The next chapter explains the different types of warning systems. I found the tenth chapter to be very important, because it helps to clearly explain not only flood prevention but also flood control. The last chapter listed past famous floods, and told when they occured and brief information about each. I found this book to be very informational. It could be used at any level in elementary school as a resource or as an informative read. Prior to reading this book I only had a low level of knowledge about floods, but after reading and reviewing the information that the author provided, I feel that I have a much better understanding of floods.

"The Wright Brothers: The Birth of Modern Aviation" - Biography

"The Wright Brothers: The Birth of Modern Aviation", written by Anna Sproule, is an amazing biography that explains the lives of Wilbur and Orville Wright. This book takes the reader through the journey of the two brothers' lives and their flight accomplishments. The book begins with the two brothers as children. They were fascinated by the toys they called Chinese flying tops. These flying tops were powered through the air by a rubberband. The boys grew older and continued playing with bicycle parts and using them to design flying machines. This book paints a beautiful picture of the hard work and dedication the two put into the development of the aircraft. Not only does the author do an wonderful good of explaining Wilbur and Orville's journey, but there are also many pictures and sketches included in the book. This book would be appropriate for anyone to read that wanted to learn more about the Wright brrothers' lives, or the development of the aircraft. I would defanielty reccomend this to any of my students if they were working on a Wright brother project or paper.

"Mercury" - Non-Fiction

"Mercury", written by Seymour Simon is an excellent non-fiction book. Although, the book is not very long, it does contain quite a bit of information about the planet Mercury. The book first begins by discussing Mercury and how its relation to Earth. The reader learns that Mercury is hard to see from Earth, even though it sometimes looks brighter than any of the stars in the sky. The book continues by explaining when the planet is visible to us. When studying planets it is important to know the background, and origin of its naming. We learn that the Romans named Mercury after the messenger of their gods because it appeared to move more quickly through the sky than any of the other planets did. Many facts very given to explain the orbit of the planet. Not only were there many facts but there were also very detailed diagrams to help explain the information provided. The book concludes by explaining that all of the information that we know about Mercury comes from one probe Mariner 10. We only know about one side of the planet, and will not know about the other half until we send a space probe to photograph the other half. The author did a excellent job of covering the basic facts about the planet Mercury. Because this book only focused on the main points I would recommend it primarily to students in the younger elementary grades.

"Buffalo Bill and the Pony Express" - Folktale

Debbie Dadey's "Buffalo Bill and the Pony Express" brings to life the folktale of the legendary character, Buffalo Bill. The reader is first introduced to the story with a sketch of a map depicting the route of the pony express from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Sacramento, California. This is important for the reader because they are able to have a clear image of the route that Billy Cody, Buffalo Bill, rode for his job with the Pony Express. They book explains that the only problem with Billy working for the Pony Express is that he is only fourteen years old. Throughout the book the reader is able to take the journey with Billy and learn more about the struggles and differnt situations that he encoutered over his two-thousand-mile route acrosss the country. While riding across the country Billy encounters three Paiutes and has to out run them inorder to stay alive. The author does an amazing job with describing each situation throughout his journey. By being so discriptive, the reader is able to visualize the story more and feel more apart of it. Billy's captain, Captain Slade, gives him a hard time for the majority of the story. Captain Slade complains about everything that Billy does, saying that he is unexperienced and does not know how to do anyting. I think that the younger readers can associate with this and gain a better understanding of how to deal with others when they look down on you because of your age. I would reccomend this chapter book to students that were on a third grade reading level and any levels above that.

"Skippyjon Jones" - Multi-Cultural

Judy Schachner's "Skippyjon Jones", is an extremely fun and entertaining multi-cultural book. This story tells the reader about a Siamese cat with an overactive imagination. Skippyjon Jones would rather be El Skippito, who is a great sword fighter, than anything else. There are many Spanish words used in the text along with many Spanish references. As the story builds so does the chaos in the drawings. The drawings get more complex and out of control. We, as the reader, learn that even thought Skippyjon Jones is young and small he is still able to help others. I think that this is a key topic that should be discussed with students in elementary education. I would recommend this text to any of the students that I teach. This book would provide a great opportunity to discuss character analysis.

"The Legend of the Poinsettia" - Multi-Cultural

The multi-cultural book "The Legend of the Poinsettia" is a beautiful story about the Mexican legend of the poinsettia, written by Tomie de Paola. I would recommend this book to any student that wanted to learn about a culture other than their own. Throughout the text the reader can find my words written in spanish. This is a good for the students to be exposed to the culture but not even know it. This book was a similprier read and therfore could be a great resource for students that are either on a low reading level or have some type of reading disasvantage.