Reading is one of the most important activities children, and their parents can do together. From day one, reading helps children learn words, the cadence of language, and how to construct sentences. Not only that, but reading enhances learning through story and connection with caregivers. This reading list is designed for families to read together, especially to children aged 0-5. In celebration of Read Across America Day, each one is meant to be enjoyed no matter where families are around the country. Contributed by: Mary Lanni
In this story within a story within a story, is the little hedgehog and his mother reading a bedtime story about a sleepy bear, or is the little bear and his mother reading a bedtime story about a sleepy hedgehog?
Baby Owl agrees to read a story to Tiny Chick, but before he can start reading, Tiny Chick’s numerous brothers, sisters, cousins, and friends join in and test Baby Owl’s patience.
Given blank books by their mother, Seymour, Fiona, and Wilbur let their imaginations fly, then put their stories, poems, and pictures together in a single, shared book.
The Jellybeans–four friends who have different strengths and talents–discover a shared love of reading when Anna persuades the others to go with her to the library.
A child who has not yet learned how to read looks out at the world and sees language as lines and squiggles that don’t exactly make pictures but don’t seem to make anything else either. Then, when the child starts to go to school and begins to learn his letters, his way of seeing begins to change.
When Lily, her sister Sam, and their mother move in with her sick grandmother, Lily traps a magical tiger and makes a deal with him to heal Halmoni.
The UKLA Book Awards seek to celebrate children’s books in order to encourage teachers to increase their professional and personal knowledge of recently published high quality children’s books, and to promote the place of books for young people in all educational settings from nursery to key stage 4. The books selected for the award will be titles that teachers can share with pupils as part of their regular classroom experience.
Twelve-year-old Omar and his brothers and sister were born and raised in the beautiful and bustling city of Bosra, Syria. Omar doesn’t care about politics – all he wants is to grow up to become a successful businessman who will take the world by storm. But when his clever older brother, Musa, gets mixed up with some young political activists, everything changes. Before long, bombs are falling, people are dying, and Omar and his family have no choice but to flee their home with only what they can carry. But no matter how far they run, the shadow of war follows them – until they have no choice but to attempt the dangerous journey to escape their homeland altogether. But where do you go, when you cannot go home?.
The story of Nicu and Jess, two troubled teens whose paths cross in the unlikeliest of places. Nicu has emigrated from Romania to England and is struggling to find his place in his new home. Meanwhile, Jess’s home life is overshadowed by violence. When Nicu and Jess meet, what starts out as friendship slowly blossoms into romance as the two bond over their painful pasts and their hope and dreams of a better future. But will they be able to save each other, let alone themselves?
You can go around the world without leaving the country. How? By reading books, of course. This list of fiction and nonfiction books takes readers on a global adventure. Whether finding out what other children are doing around the world at a specific time or falling in love in another country, this list is sure to give you a taste of the international. Includes picture books and YA fiction.
Grace recounts how she, her parents, and her brothers spent an entire winter travelling completely around Australia in a camper. Stops on their trip include Perth, Turquoise Bay, and the Outback.
This title gives young students a glimpse into what life looks like to Hayley, an eight-year-old Canadian. Hayley lives with her family in Toronto, Canada and describes where she lives, how she likes to play, and what she enjoys eating. She talks about the school she attends and the different subjects she is learning.
Presents a typical day for a child in a rural village in Brazil, including meals, school, play, family life, and celebrations. The book teaches us about the Brazilian way of life by mixing elements of the culture with a sprinkling of the Portuguese language. After Cassio’s day ends, the book provides more information about Brazil, including a glossary of the Portuguese vocabulary that appears throughout the story.
From rooster crow to bedtime, a Kenyan boy plays and visits neighbors all through his village, even though he is supposed to be watching his grandfather’s cows. Readers will enjoy picking out the unique details that highlight the differences between cultures, such as munching on a bug for a snack, or the little bush baby critter that follows the boy. They will also identify many things they have in common with him, like playing ball or forgetting to do one’s chores. Notes at the front of the book contain information about Swahili, including a pronunciation guide and a glossary.
I Live in Tokyo
By: Mari Takabayashi
Illustrated by: Oliver Jeffers
Seven-year-old Mimiko gives the reader a year-long introduction to life in Japan, highlighting traditional Japanese holidays and celebrations. The story is narrated in English and intersperses Japanese words and phrases; each month of the year appears in English, Japanese, and Kanji. The glossary contains Japanese words, numbers, phrases, and months.
Readers get to see different aspects of China in this picture book, which follows a young girl as she journeys from her rural home on the Island of Putuo Shan to Shanghai to visit her aunt. Traditional aspects of Chinese culture, such as tai chi (an internal martial art), mah jong (a game of strategy), and Kwan Yin (the female aspect of the Buddha), are touched on, in addition to examples of modern China, including its towering skyscrapers, cosmopolitan department stores, and global business practices. Presented in both English and Mandarin Chinese.
The Adventures of Bella & Harry is a picture book series that chronicles the escapades of a pup named Bella, her little brother Harry and their family, who travel the world exploring the sights and sounds of new, exciting cities. There are currently over 20 titles in the series. In this book, sibling Chihuahuas Bella and Harry travel to Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, to taste the local cuisine and visit Copacabana Beach, Christ the Redeemer, and Sugarloaf Mountain.
Part of the Looking at Countries series that includes books on such countries as Canada, Japan, Russia and Spain, this newest offering brings the country of Ireland. Short chapters include topics like landscape, people, housing, and schools. Includes lots of pictures and simple sidebars.
A zany white-haired granny is going on an adventurous shopping spree around the world in this rhythmic, rhyming counting book. She soars on a flying carpet to visit exotic countries. At each place she stops, she buys something especially related to that country, such as two temple cats in Thailand, three fierce masks in sunny Mexico, four paper lanterns in China, five cowbells in beautiful mountainous Switzerland, and six booming drums in Africa where the wild tigers roam. Then it is on to Russia for seven nesting dolls–eight, nine, and all the way to ten. Children will enjoy counting along with Granny as she ventures around the world.
This beautiful photo book follows the course of one day in our world. Sunrise to sunset is captured in the essential things we all do daily, wherever we live in the world, and in the diverse ways we do them. The first meal of the day will take on a whole new dimension for American kids as an American pancake breakfast is contrasted with porridge in North Korea and churros in Spain.
Guide Jean-Paul introduces housing, his cole (elementary school) with its odd schedule (by American standards), the working district, city markets, and, of course, some of the tourist attractions. The back matter includes a glossary, internet and bibliographic references, and an index.
Four Scottish children take you through a year in the life of children in Scotland. The book shares information on celebrations, foods, school, free time activities, and the landscape, with simple color illustrations that show children engaging in a variety of activities. This book is part of a series that examines life for children in other countries.
A young tourist narrates the visit she and her mother have in London. They ride a double-decker bus, walk through St. James Park, see the changing of the guard at Buckingham Palace, and more. Trivia facts are scattered on each page and a fold-out shows the skyline of London with labeled landmarks.
Presents a pictorial guide to travel around the world, featuring color photographs and descriptions of more than two hundred countries, along with key facts, maps, cultural insights, and travel tips for each nation.
When seventeen-year-old Ginny receives a packet of mysterious envelopes from her favorite aunt, she leaves New Jersey to criss-cross Europe on a sort of scavenger hunt that transforms her life.
During their first summer apart, four teenage girls, best friends since earliest childhood, stay in touch through a shared pair of secondhand jeans that magically adapts to each of their figures and affects their attitudes to their different summer experiences.
Seventeen-year-old Pippa Preston, sent to Italy for a three-month art history program, decides instead to see the country on her own, armed with a list of such goals as eating an entire pizza and falling in love with an Italian, but soon finds herself attracted both to a dangerous local boy and an American archaeology student.
Let’s take one more vacation before returning to school. This vacation will take us all around the world without even leaving our home. Well, except for a trip to the library. With summer break winding down and days spent at the pool numbered, it’s time to reflect on a wonderful summer. Did you relax by the pool? Spend days with friends or family? Go on a vacation? Participate in your library’s summer reading program?
Regardless of how you spent your summer break, there is still time for a little exploring. While exploring the world can be expensive and take quite a bit of planning, you can explore different continents through the books at your library. Imagine having breakfast in Brazil or walking with family through the streets of Paris. You can imagine both through literature and this week’s reading list lets you explore different countries. Within this list you can read about different customs, lifestyles, and cultures.
Books about other places allow us the ability to consider a different life than our own. For children, it is a positive way of showing them that while globally we may be different, we all share in the human experience. Children can read about other children, on the other side of the world, who share in their own same experiences, such as going to school, riding a bike, eating meals with family.
Ready for that trip around the world now? Now is the perfect time to get in that one last trip with the family. A trip that costs next to nothing, yet takes everyone around the world. In addition to exploring the many books at your library, why not engage in the trip even more by sharing in culturally diverse meals and a little foreign language learning. How about hanging up a world map and pinning the different countries you are reading about, including Post-it notes with the most fascinating fact you learned about each country? While hanging out at the house you could have some ambience music from one of the countries. By the time your world wind trip is over, your kids will have lots of new facts to share.
“Won’t you be my neighbor” is the familiar line from Mr. Rogers’ opening song on his popular television series. Many children live in neighborhoods and have interactions with those in their communities. This list focuses on how neighbors help each other in diverse ways to build each other up or improve their community. We’ve also thrown in a few funny neighborly titles. The books selected are ideal for primary and elementary grades.
A little boy promises his beloved friend, an elderly lady, that one day he will fix up her old house–and his words inspire the other people in the neighborhood to pitch in and get it done.
A young girl makes her way through an urban neighborhood filled with children playing, men debating, women cooking, and jazz music playing as her community gathers to celebrate “Neighbors’ Day.”
When seven-year-old Bean plays a mean trick on her sister, she finds unexpected support for her antics from Ivy, the new neighbor, who is less boring than Bean first suspected.
Cornelia, eleven-years-old and lonely, learns about language and life from an elderly new neighbor who has many stories to share about the fabulous adventures she and her sisters had while traveling around the world.
When a saxophone-playing dog moves in next door to a young girl, the girl is thrilled, but her parents, who do not like the noise or the other animals the dog attracts, feel otherwise.
Sheila comments on her neighbors’ energy-saving habits, like using a wood stove in the winter and drying clothes on a clothesline instead of in the dryer, but she likes their home-grown fruits and vegetables and enjoys making popcorn on the wood stove with them.
A series of portraits describe a narrator’s whimsically eccentric neighbors, from Mrs. McQueen and Fifi LaPointe to Johnny Deck and Lightfingers Louie.
When Mr. Happy moves next door to Miss Grimm and begins planting gardens and making friendly gestures, Miss Grimm is not pleased but soon, she feels something strange taking over her bleak little house.
A cheerful repairman fixes squeaky doors, leaky roofs, and crumbling fences for his neighbors, who return the kindness when he catches a terrible cold.
LaRue is the handiest rabbit in Westmore Oaks, and when he grows an enormous carrot, he uses it to help his neighbors.
On June 8, 2018, theaters will be showing the documentary film Won’t You Be My Neighbor?, which focuses on children’s television icon Fred Rogers. What is so significant about the film is viewers get a chance to hear about the life of children’s programming creator Fred Rogers and his idea to bring love and kindness to television. Rogers used the television format to help children learn that love and respect for each other is the key to their well-being.
While he would open the show with It’s a Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (Won’t You Be My Neighbor), Mr. Rogers would end his show with the song Good Feeling, telling viewers that by being themselves they are making the day special. Mr. Rogers was always respectful of children and didn’t treat them as less-than adults or inferior, but as human beings who had valid feelings and deserved love above all else.
As a child, I fondly remember thumbing through the television stations and finding PBS showing Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. I would stop on the station to see what adventures Mr. Rogers was taking in the episode. While some children enjoyed the Neighborhood of Make-Believe (the home of the puppets), I enjoyed Mr. Rogers’ field trips most. I remember him visiting a zipper factory. He walked around to different employees and was fascinated by how important each employee’s work was to make a zipper. Maybe it was these little field trips that peaked my interest in reading nonfiction. If I couldn’t go on field trips to find the answers, I could read about it in books.
Mr. Rogers format may have been different from the one we discuss- books. However, children’s literature needs to be viewed through the same Fred Rogers lens. He used television to teach and nurture children just as children’s literature strives to do the same. Children’s literature is much more than just a cute story. Yes, there are plenty of cute stories in children’s literature, but even a cute story can teach so much to a child. It can teach love, compassion, kindness, sharing, respect, equality, and so much more.
Every two weeks Read and Shine spotlights children’s literature. With author interviews, reading lists, book awards, and lesson ideas, we are working together with you to teach and nurture children. Literature can be powerful in the life of a child. It can assure him that there are others like him. It can validate his feelings and thoughts. It can help him understand uncertainties. As we bring literature into classrooms and homes, we are feeding a soul not just sharing a story.
The Jane Addams Children’s Book Award annually recognizes children’s books of literary and aesthetic excellence that effectively engage children in thinking about peace, social justice, global community, and equity for all people. The award is announced in April each year.
Malala Yousafzai, activist and youngest recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize, takes her well-known story of equal education for all and brings it to a younger audience.
Honor Book in the Books for Younger Children category
Set in 1954, the story of a young girl’s struggles and triumphs in the aftermath of World War II, while the threat of communism and the Cold War still looms over the United States.
Honor Books in the Books for Older Children category
When Fred Korematsu, a young Japanese-American man, defied U.S. governmental orders by refusing to report to prison camps during World War II, he and his allies set in motion a landmark civil liberties case. Drawing heavily on the recollections of two of Fred’s children, the book details Korematsu’s upbringing in Oakland, California, his imprisonment for resisting internment, his quest to legally marry his white wife, and his 40-year legal battle.
Rose Lee Carter, a thirteen-year-old African-American girl, dreams of life beyond the Mississippi cotton fields during the summer of 1955, but when Emmett Till is murdered and his killers are unjustly acquitted, Rose is torn between seeking her destiny outside of Mississippi or staying and being a part of an important movement
Tired of being singled out at her mostly-white private school as someone who needs support, high school junior Jade would rather participate in the school’s amazing Study Abroad program than join Women to Women, a mentorship program for at-risk girls.
(2013 Jane Addams Children’s Book Award for Book for Younger Children)
When Ms. Albert teaches a lesson on kindness, Chloe realizes that she and her friends have been wrong in making fun of new student Maya’s shabby clothes and refusing to play with her.
Social Studies: Explore ways kindness can be expressed to others in the community.
Reading: Using the subject filter in CLCD, find other books about kindness. Feature these books in your classroom library for a week and encourage students to read them after finishing classwork. Check out our Thematic Reading List- Kindness to get started http://www.readandshine.com/2017/11/14/thematic-reading-list-kindness/.
Writing: Students write about a time someone expressed kindness to them.
A town built on a landfill. A community in need of hope. A girl with a dream. A man with a vision. An ingenious idea. Ada and her family live in Paraguay in a town that is the main garbage dump for the capital city. Many in Ada’s family and her neighbors survive by recycling or selling items they find in the dump. Instead of the idea of the items being trash, Ada chooses to believe that the garbage is full of surprises. Others realize the garbage is full of surprises after the trash is transformed into musical instruments needed for children to participate in a music program.
Math: Pose a problem-solving activity for the students to solve together. Each student is asked to think of an orchestra instrument he/she would like to learn to play. The student must find out how much that instrument would cost to purchase new. Then, the class will find out how much it will cost for all the students to create a classroom orchestra. But, the students could create the classroom orchestra cheaper by purchasing used instruments. Have students now find the instruments on an online instrument selling site and then compare the used price with the new price to see how much cheaper it would be for the entire class to purchase used instruments..
Art: Following the math activity listed above, let students think creatively on how they can create their own musical instruments. Provide materials, particularly used materials, for students to create musical instruments.
Reading & Science: Provide books about environmental issues, such as those listed in our Thematic Reading List, for students to read.
The story of Wilbur the pig and his friendship with Charlotte the spider, as they live together on a farm.
Art: Use pipe cleaners to create spider webs.
Reading: By reading the inside flap of other E. B. White books, discuss with children if other books by E. B. White share themes that are present in Charlotte’s Web.
Science: In the story, Charlotte the spider teaches Wilbur about the life and life cycle of a spider. Using books from the library, compare the spider’s life and life cycle to other insects, including worms, caterpillars, etc.
Social Studies: Charlotte’s Web is a story about friendship. While Wilbur and Charlotte would appear to have very little in common, they become friends. Discuss with children how even though people have differences, referencing people from different countries or regions, they can still be friends.
Technology: Help children learn good research skills by researching the book’s author, E. B. White.
The Maxwell Medallion is given by the Dog Writers Association of America. This award, named after Maxwell Riddle who wrote a syndicated dog column for 30 years and was a past president of DWAA, is given to many forms of professional writing devoted to dogs. Nominees are announced in the winter edition of the newsletter, Ruff Drafts.
A young boy and his father adopt a dog, Toby, from a local rescue shelter. Unfortunately, Toby is having a challenging time adjusting to his new home and the father is wondering if Toby was the right dog to choose.
Jasper the dachshund wants to be in Alaska’s biggest dog sled race. He enters the race but finds he is too little. Still, size is no obstacle for Jasper as he becomes part of a team.
