Visiting 7th Graders Share Picture Book Projects

A special treat today! Our 7th grade friends at the Middle School joined several of our classes to read and talk about original picture books they had written. For the past several weeks, 7th graders have been reading and examining children's books, planning their own stories to tell, and creating illustrations to support their stories.

Throughout the day, seven sections of 7th graders met with nearly 175 Dallas Center Elementary students to share their writing! DC Elementary students also had the opportunity to share their own writing and read favorite children's books with their older buddies.

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The Story Behind The Story of Ferdinand

In February for World Read Aloud Day, one of the blog posts was about books we loved as children. Mrs. Ellis's favorite book was The Story of Ferdinand, by Munro Leaf. (You can read about World Read Aloud Day post HERE.)

The Spanish Civil War was the historical backdrop for this story, and after the book was published, people tried to find meaning in the characters and plot as related to that war. In Spain and in Germany, the book was actually banned! It grew in popularity after the banning, and over 80,000 copies were ordered to be published.

Even Pete Wentz from the rock band Fall Out Boys says that Ferdinand is one of his childhood favorites, and he had this to say about the book's message: "The book provides an amazing metaphor for how people can be. There's something really honorable about following your own path and not doing what's expected of you."

Here's a page from the book:

If you want to read the full story behind the book, you can CLICK HERE to learn more. 

Library Display: Chews a Good Book!

It was time to take down my fireplace display and put up a new one. I like to create a display that the students can help build. I also like that it encourages conversations about and recommendations for great books in the library. Here are some pictures.....adding more gumballs daily!

Newbery and Caldecott Winners and Honorees Announced!

The Newbery Award was given today to Katherine Applegate's book The One and Only Ivan, and the Caldecott Award was given to This is Not My Hat by Jon Klassen. Check out the summaries and information about the books from School Library Journal's blog. You can also see the honor books at their site, too. 

What do you think? Would you have chose these two titles as the award winners for the year? Or would you have liked to have seen any of the other honor books win the awards?

We Give Books. Please.

DCG families,

We Give Books is a great opportunity to combine reading with giving. It is an opportunity to inspire and teach your kids to not only be lifelong readers, but lifelong givers as well. We Give Books makes it easy to experience the power of giving and reading with your child.

We Give Books has 150 titles for kids to choose from and read!

What is it?

We Give Books is a free website that allows those of us with access to the Internet to put books in the hands of children who don’t have them, simply by reading online.

When you go to the website, you choose the charity you want to donate books to and then select the books you want to read. For each book you read online, We Give Books will donate a book to a leading literacy group on your behalf. There are many very worthy charities on there to choose from.

Who is behind it?

Penguin Group and the Pearson Foundation. The Penguin Group is one of the world’s premier global consumer trade book publishers. Pearson Foundation is the philanthropic arm of Pearson. They are aiming to donate one million books in the first year.

The more you read, the more they give.

Click here to go to their website.