Jessica Lucas's Trade Book and Resource Recommendations

PAGE-TURNING READS

Matilda by Roald Dahl
While I find that just about any Roald Dahl book is difficult to put down, Matilda is one of the most engaging that I have come across. Maybe it's her early love of books, the terrifying Trunchbull or the uncaring family so totally unlike my own, but for whatever reason this book still speaks to me. Dahl achieves humor through unlikely situations while describing how Matilda overcomes her less than desirable living conditions. It doesn't hurt that Matilda has some telekinetic powers to help her through the hard times.

I remember having such clear images of all the events in this book that nothing surprised me about the movie when it came out during my childhood. Matilda raises the issue of parental neglect, and we all know of children who don't have special powers or super intelligence to help them triumph like Matilda. Perhaps those children could find some hope in this story, or at least encounter a character with whom they can connect. Roald Dahl books take children on magical journeys from which it's difficult to walk away.

Shiloh by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor
While I'd heard of Shiloh in the past, I only encountered it in the past month. My mother, a fourth-grade elementary teacher, was reading the book aloud to her class in the afternoons. The children were so engrossed in the story that she had a difficult time stopping to move on to other afternoon activities. As an animal lover, I was intrigued by their response and decided to add the book to my own library of trade books.

The Newberry Award winner takes place in the West Virginia countryside where a boy named Marty finds a lost beagle. The dog belongs to his neighbor Judd Travers, known for shooting deer out of season and abusing his dogs. Marty is determined to protect Shiloh from ever suffering at the hand of Judd Travers again, but he must contend with the fact that Shiloh is really Judd Travers' dog.

Shiloh is a wonderful tale of country living woven with the issues of animal abuse, hunting out of season and learning to make the right choices. Children will identify with Marty's love of Shiloh and his compulsion to protect Shiloh from his abusive owner. This book is definitely a page-turner as readers continue to find out what Marty will do to save Shiloh from Judd Travers.

Diary of a Wimpy Kid
by Jeff Kinney
On a whim one day while walking through Borders, I picked up this book. I was drawn in by the informal, journaling style illustrated with cartoon stick figures. The next morning, I read the whole book in one sitting. Shortly thereafter, the book arrived at the Scholastic book fair in the elementary school where I worked. The students went crazy over this book, and the organizers of the book fair had to reorder it several times during the week. When the sequels came out later that year, they were also flying off the shelves faster than the book fair organizers could display them.

From the very beginning, readers are introduced to the life of a middle school boy whose mother bought him a diary. He emphasizes that he will be calling it a journal, not a diary because that's for girls. He continues to chronicle the school year through journal entries and his own cartoon renderings of certain events. I believe this book has become so popular because the main character is completely believable. His mother cares about his feelings, he doesn't have many friends at school, he is tormented by his older brother, he is plagued by the fear of acquiring the dreaded "cheese touch" and he's a teenager. Middle school is not kind to many, certainly not to me, so I can identify with his dilemmas and fears, though they may seem petty to an adult. The author brings out the humor in these situations, and our "wimpy kid" has his own ways with the challenges of adolescence. Kids ages 8-14 will absolutely love this series (and so will some adults!).


RESOURCES FOR INCORPORATING TRADE BOOKS IN THE CLASSROOM

Story S-t-r-e-t-c-h-e-r-s for the Primary Grades by Shirley Raines and Robert J. Canady
Both this book and the next book I've listed were recommend resources from my science education professor. I have since bought this book and am ordering the other. Story Stretchers was originally published in 1992, so there are many wonderful children's books that have been published in the last 17 years that not included. However, the books included in this resource are far from irrelevant or outdated, and I still think it is a worthwhile investment.

Personally, I do love to search the internet for resources, but I think there are many useful trade book resources in print that cannot be ignored. This such resource is divided into groups books that deal with such issues as feelings, friends, the environment, animals, adventures, etc. For each book, a picture of the cover and a brief description of the book can be found on the left hand side of the entry, and some read-aloud suggestions follow in the next column. Next are the story stretcher suggestions that provide step-by-step directions to incorporate this book's activities in mathematics, a writing center, art, music and movement, and many others. The organization of this book makes it very easy to find a book that relates to a topic one is covering in class and to find the appropriate activity related to the chosen book. There are several other books in the Story Stretchers series.

Picture-Perfect Science Lessons by Karen Rohrich Ansberry and Emily R. Morgan
I have not had the benefit of actually perusing this book yet, but my professor used one of the lessons to illustrate how it could be used in the classroom for a science lesson. The book is filled with trade books that connect to different aspects of science and provide blackline master resources to reproduce for students.

When my professor did an activity from the book with my class, she read aloud Earthlets as explained by Professor Xargle by Jeanne Willis and Tony Ross. We then discussed what Professor Xargle had observed and what he had inferred from his observations. There was a handout with a Frayer model for helping students understand the meaning of the word inference. What I appreciated the most about this activity was they way it tied in to science standards. Often teachers think of trade books as just being utilized in reading, but there are endless applications in other subjects.