Condolences

I saw the horrific news of the Connecticut tragedy yesterday while sitting at my desk. Outside my window our students played at recess; their happy, carefree expressions amplified the loss experienced at Sandy Hook Elementary School. My thoughts and prayers are with the families of those who lost loved ones, the survivors, and all the people of Connecticut. Our nation mourns.

SpeakWell, ReadWell Interview with Jim Averbeck

It was another rainy week at Redwood Elementary, at least it began that way, and by Wednesday the students were feeling a bit squirrely – too much time indoors – so when I asked a kindergarten teacher if I could share a book with her class during my lunch break, she jumped at the opportunity. A roomful of five year-olds who have been cooped up all morning can be a challenge to engage but when I pulled out, OH NO, Little Dragon! I had them captive. My motives weren’t entirely selfless; I enlisted the students to help me interview the author and illustrator, Jim Averbeck.

Welcome Jim. My students and I think Little Dragon is adorable. We’d all like to know, what inspired you to write his story?

I began writing the story while I was traveling in China to see a solar eclipse of the sun. Our Chinese guide told us his name was Frankie. But I knew he only said that to give me a name easy for me to pronounce.  I asked him what his real Chinese name was and he told me it was Xiao Long, which he said meant “Little Dragon.” I thought that would be a good name for a book.  He also told me that in imperial China it would have been illegal for him to have that name, punishable by death. Only the emperor could bear the name “Dragon.”

No wonder there aren’t many dragons left in China! How long did it take to create the book -from initial inspiration to publication?

The eclipse happened in July of 2009. The book was published in August of 2012. So it was three years from first inspiration to published book.

That may sound like a long time to my students but it sounds like a speedy turn-around to me. Will Little Dragon make an appearance in future books?

Right now I am writing a story about Little Dragon’s relationship with Papa Dragon. Little Dragon likes to sleep in Papa’s bed, but when he “phooshes” during a bad dream and burns up the book Papa is reading, it’s time for him to get a big boy bed!

What a clever idea! When did you first become interested in writing and illustrating children’s books?

I lived in Cameroon in Western Africa from 1990 – 1994. During that time I had a sort of dream that inspired the first story I ever wrote. It was a visual story, so I knew it needed to be illustrated.

Wow - you’ve seen a lot of the world! What were some of your favorite books from childhood?

I was just thinking about that the other day. I remember loving “Bread and Jam for Frances.”  It was the book I had to have read over and over, until it fell apart from use.

FROM THE KINDERGARTEN CREW:

Bryson asked, “How hard was this story to make?”

Harder than making your bed but easier than making up for lost time.

Peter didn’t have any questions but he wanted you to know he loves the story.

That makes me very happy Peter. Every author wants someone to love his story.

Leo wondered, “How did you make the dragon?”

Little Dragon is made up of basic shapes. His head is an oval. His body is a circle. His tail is a big triangle and he has thirteen small triangles that run from the top of his head to the tip of his tail. After I draw those shapes, I trace over them and add arms, feet and a face.  Then Little Dragon is ready to face the day.

Skylar had no questions although she wanted me to tell you she has a pet dragon and a little baby fish.

Oh my! What does she feed her dragon?  Mostly they eat princesses and warriors, but some are vegetarian and others like hamburgers. I hope her pet dragon doesn’t eat princesses.

Skylar said he eats chips and dip. April liked all of the illustrations and she asked, “How did you draw the bathtub?”

I looked at a lot of pictures of bathtubs.  I liked the old ones with feet best.  I decided a dragon would have a bathtub with feet made out of bones.

The kids spotted the bones right away and a few wished they had similar tubs. I shared the book with a first grade speech group and Jared asked, “Why do dragons really have hats with horns on their bathtubs?”

Dragons often fight with Viking warriors.  When they win, there is nothing left of the Viking except for a hat with horns and possibly a badly dented or melted sword. Dragons get to keep these things. They are called the “spoils of war” and dragons use them to decorate their homes.

Joden informed me that dragons are half-bird and half-fireplace because they fly and have flames. He wanted me to tell you that he writes stories for his little brother and they are about dragons too.

I think Joden must be right about that. I think they have a little bit of dinosaur in them too. If Joden could be half-boy half-something-else, what would the something-else be?

Joden was happy to answer your question. If he could, he’d be half-boy and half-fireplace so he’d be the only fire-breathing boy.

Malachi wants you to know he ate peppers and his eyes didn’t water but flames blew out of his mouth for two years. He wants to know if you ever ate hot peppers and did a lot of fire come out of your mouth?

When I lived in Africa, they had peppers so hot if you breathed out you would catch the trees on fire. That’s how the Sahara Desert was created.

I'm glad I wasn't there at the time! Jared asked, “Did you use crayons to make the hot red flames?”

Actually I used a computer program called Photoshop. The flames have many different layers- one for the yellow, one for the white, and so on.  There were over 15 different layers. How many can Jared count?

Jared counted only four – he was surprised by all the layers. Hailey wanted me to mention she writes every day and she wondered why you don’t. I assured her, there is every possibility that you do too, but we don’t get to see everything you write. I think she was implying, she wants to see more Little Dragon stories. Would you like to comment?

I try to write every day too.  Sometimes I can’t though, because I have to walk the dog or visit a school to speak to a class. But I try to write every day. 

My students wanted to share some of their artwork. Esmeralda, who did the blue dragons kissing, wanted your opinion on her art.

All the art is beautiful. The dragons kissing makes fine use of a monochromatic palette, which means it used only- or mostly- one color. In this case blue. Please tell Esmeralda that the most famous artist in the world, Pablo Picasso, also went through a time when he used mostly one color. It is called his “blue period” and his art is worth a million dollars.

Here is an example:

Ariel, who created the yellow dragon wanted me to tell you she is an artist too.

The yellow dragon I also like a lot, because he is yellow like fire.

And I like the dragon in the bathtub. This is an example of a contour line drawing. Tell Zayd, that Picasso, that famous artist I mentioned, also had a time when he did line art like this.

Here is a Picasso camel:

And here is a Picasso wiener dog:

I like the brown dragon too, but he scared me a little because he is so fierce!

Do you have any last words of advice for future writers and illustrators?

The best way to learn to write and illustrate is to read a lot of books. Read every day. Read, read, read, read, read, read, read!

What good advice, and you’ve given children a great place to start with OH NO, Little Dragon!

Thank you, Jim Averbeck!

I received more artwork from Mrs. Douglas’ kindergarten class after the interview so please take a look below.

An Extraordinary Story Brings Music to the Speech Room

 We are in the midst of a storm in Northern California and my students had to brave the weather to make it to the speech room this week. Our classroom doors open to the outside and the sheltered walkways don’t provide protection from a downpour when it comes in horizontally and pelts us from the side. The kids didn’t complain – it was an adventure. They were happy to borrow my umbrella and fight the wind and rain. One group was especially thrilled when the wind caught the underside of my umbrella and turned it inside out. When we got to the speech room, I cranked up the heat, circled our chairs and pulled out a book: The Extraordinary Music of Mr. Ives, written and illustrated by Joanne Stanbridge.

It tells the story of composer, Charles Ives, who hears music in almost any sound he encounters, from the click, click, click of an adding machine to the ear-splitting whistle of the ocean liner, Lusitania.

           “He grabs that big sound with both hands and shapes it into a song.”

My students and I had fun with that line. We whistled and hooted into our own hands, then held them to our ears to see if we could really grab sound. We couldn’t. But we all agreed it was a lovely idea.

Next we read,

          “He writes music that is as busy as a city street. There are train whistles in it, and football games and rowdy picnics and cars rushing past.”  

One of my students, Deigo, thought hard on that passage and began to sing, “Ding, ding, pucka, pucka, choo, choo. Ding, ding, pucka, pucka, choo, choo.”

“Do you know what that is?” he asked. Before I could answer he said, “the train.”

It did sound a lot like our local Skunk train, but with a better rhythm and Diego had all the rhythmic moves to go with it. Then he started chanting, “boom, shhh, shhh, shhh, boom, shhh, shhh, shhh. That’s the music a chimney makes when you have a fire.” The other students looked a bit confused, but impressed.

The kids became very attentive when I read about the Lusitania sinking in 1915. They poured over the four, two-page spreads of the tragedy and caught the mood in the words,

          “The news spreads from office to office like fire. It hangs over the city like smoke, and it tastes of war. When it reaches Mr. Ives, his music goes away. An awful loneliness seizes him, and his heart stretches out across the ocean – out into a dreadful silence.”

* * *

           “Mr. Ives listens for the old familiar music of the office, but it has gone away. Even the city streets are hushed.”

And they remain hushed until Ives hears a hurdy-gurdy player spinning out an old hymn, In the Sweet Bye and Bye. One by one, people on the street start singing until it seems as if the whole city is singing.

          “To Mr. Ives, the sound is as beautiful as raindrops falling together to make a river. Up the song flows, into the evening sky, rolling out across the ocean . . . ”

When we read those words, rain was beating our rooftop and wind rattled our windows. It was easy to imagine raindrops falling together to make a river and I couldn’t help but envision a torrent.  But when I asked the students what kind of music the rain seemed to make, one student, who has autism, started singing in a high sweet voice. She sang about her heart, her school and her perfect day. I liked her song and I especially liked her attitude. With a storm raging outside, we still didn’t need more than a warm room, charming company, and a good book to have a perfect day.

Thanksgiving Reflections

Thanksgiving may be over but the spirit of Thanksgiving lingers on; a few things I’m thankful for – the week-long holiday from work, the ability to travel and spend time with family, stories told around the Thanksgiving table, the books read, good food, safe travels (surviving almost unbearable traffic!), a job to return to tomorrow morning, the children I’ll see bursting through my speech room door with their own stories and -

Flowers in our garden

Flowers on our table

Leaves in the birdbath

A morning walk with my husband

The rocky beach

Autumn foliage on the trail 

Sunlight on the headlands grass

I’m also thankful for readers who take the time to visit my blog.

Stuck on Books for Kids

I had fun reading the book Stuck to my students this week. They loved Oliver Jeffers’ absurd story. It started believably enough,

“It all began when Floyd’s kite became stuck in a tree. He tried pulling and swinging, but it wouldn’t come unstuck. 

      The trouble REALLY began when he threw his favorite shoe to knock the kite loose . . . and THAT got stuck too!”

Things got a bit crazy when he threw his cat, Mitch and crazier still, when he threw the ladder into the tree. By the time Floyd sent a Titanic-sized boat flying, the kids were giggling with their own ideas –  “I’d throw the universe!” said one precocious first-grader. 

This book worked well as a speech activity. We talked about the sequence of events, cause and effect, answering “wh” questions and, for an articulation group, we thought of all the “l” objects Floyd could throw into the tree, like a lunging lion and a lady lounging on the lawn.

As often happens, one of my students wanted to take the book home. I couldn’t let him because it belongs to our public library but I suggested we take a look at our school library to see if we could get him a copy next week. Speaking of our school library, our librarian, Allison Brown, is a creative woman who goes to herculean efforts to keep the kids supplied with good books. Most recently, she created intricate paper stars to sell as a fundraiser so she could buy more books for our shelves. Here is the star I bought:

My students love our school library, but some kids, who don’t have any books of their own, wish they had a few with their names on the inside cover so I keep a shelf in my speech room full of give-away books. Most have been given to me and I, in turn, give them to my students. I know there are kids all over the world who don’t own a book but I was surprised to find out that this is also also true in my own community. I’m all for changing that, even if it’s one child at a time. 

I’m not alone in this quest. Our local bookstore, Gallery Bookshop & Bookwinkle's Children's Books, promotes books for young readers in a program called, “Book Angels.”  They collect the first names of children (along with their age and interests) who might need a book and display the pertinent information on a “book angel” so customers can become that angel and purchase a book for the child.

Over the years, I’ve had young students with grownup-sized problems: a mom lost to cancer, a father in prison, children abandoned by parents, homeless families, abused children. When life gets complicated, sometimes kids need a little help getting unstuck. Humorous stories often help that process, as do others, like those with characters children can relate to. I wish every child in the world had at least one book in which he could write his own name. There are worldwide organizations with that goal in mind. What are some of your favorite methods and organizations for getting books to children? I’d love to hear about them. 

Trimester Testing & Kidlit Treasures

This has been a grueling week at school. I have 56 students and I love working with each one, but when report cards come due, that’s a lot of progress reports to write. And to prepare for those reports, I test each student to see how they’re coming along on their goals. It’s worthwhile; however, tedious for all of us.

On Tuesday, when I walked a first grade student to my room for testing, he asked if we could read the story about the kid with a really, really big voice. I wish you could have seen his excitement when he asked. He twirled once, squatted and hopped frog-like a few times and then started skipping backwards, all within about fifteen seconds. Landon does everything fast and when he is excited he speeds up. I hated to disappoint him, we’d have no time for a story, but all the same, I was happy to know he remembered Holler Loudly, by Cynthia Leitich Smith, illustrated by Barry Gott. I read it last spring when he was in Kindergarten - I’ll have to get it from our school library again.

Students asked for stories all week, trying to tempt me away from testing: I held fast and they were cooperative. When I went to the middle school, I tried to get language samples from my students to see how their speech and language skills were progressing. I asked about school and usually got one-word responses; I asked about home and got a shrug and a grunt from one student and not much more from others; I asked about friends and got a few side-ways glances so I turned the conversation to books.  That opened a floodgate of language so I got what I came for. One student told me about a book he is writing. He detailed the plot with such perfect articulation and skilled language, I found he is ready to graduate from speech therapy. I’ll miss working with him.

I may not have been able to read stories to kids this week, but at home, I was able to read about kids’ books. Earlier this week I purchased Mary Kole’s Writing Irresistible Kidlit and it reminded me of why I love reading to, and writing for kids. Take a look at what I found in this treasure:

“ . . . I also like to extol the sheer potential of children’s books:

They turn people into lifelong readers, planting the seed early.
They stay with kids (we tend to fondly remember books from our childhoods).
They help kids relate (books can guide kids through their own turbulent coming-of-age waters).
They inspire kids to become better, stronger, braver, more confident, more goofy, more artistic, more imaginative people.

                              Quite simply, kidlit changes lives.”


So true, and I get to see it every day!

A few weeks back, after I read Chloe and the Lion by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Adam Rex, one of my students came to my classroom, dragging her mother behind her. She wanted to show her mom the book we’d been reading. Esmeralda pointed to the illustration of Mac and explained to her mom, “This is author. He wrote story.” Then she pointed to Adam and explained his role in making the book. Finally, she turned to her favorite page and asked me to read it to her mom who was still learning English. We may not have communicated perfectly, since I can’t speak Spanish, nonetheless, Esmeralda clearly communicated her excitement over the book and her mother was inspired to get more books at home.

Next week my testing will be over, the progress reports will go home and we’ll get back to life as usual in the speech room. We’ll all be ready for a good story and I’ll be on the lookout for more to share with my students. Through those stories, I’ll be able to work on grammar, sequencing, articulation, and other language skills. More than that, I’ll be able to introduce my students to other worlds, other lives and inspire their own creative endeavors. And who knows where that will lead them, after-all, “kidlit changes lives.”

Priceless Politics: Vote Duck!

You can’t turn on your radio, TV, or computer without hearing news about the coming election; not to mention, all the phone calls encouraging you to get out and vote. It is such a hot topic that I decided to bring it up in a speech and language group this week. What a great opportunity to build vocabulary, practice tricky speech sounds – like “v” in “vote” – encourage correct grammar all while emphasizing civic duty to my young scholars. So, I brought in the book, Duck for President, by Doreen Cronin, illustrated by Betsy Lewin.

When a group of kindergarten students settled down around my classroom table, I asked if anyone knew the name of the president of the United States. One child looked around for clues and seeing the book in my hand, said with confidence, “Duck”.

“Well, no,” I told him, “actually, it is Barack Obama.” Then we had a nice discussion about fact and fiction. That fit in nicely with the subject of politics but I didn’t expand in that direction. Instead we talked about candidates, elections, and ballots then moved on to the book.

Duck charmed the kids but they felt Farmer Brown gave him too many chores. The cows had only to weed the garden and the sheep just had to sweep the barn, but Duck had to take out the trash, mow the lawn and grind coffee beans. The unfairness of it ruffled their feathers, as well as Duck’s,

      “Why is Farmer Brown in charge, anyway?” thought Duck. What we need is an election!”
      He made a sign and hung it up in the barn.

Farmer Brown
MUST GO!
Farm Election
Tomorrow!

Farmer Brown was furious when he found the animals registering to vote the next morning. On Election Day, the animals filled out their ballots, counted the votes and posted the results. “The voters had spoken. Duck was officially in charge.”

He soon discovered that running a farm is hard work and so he decided to move up the political ladder and run for governor. His aspirations didn’t stop there but I will. If you haven’t read this book, I suggest you get a copy. It is a fun introduction to our political process as you see Duck hitting the campaign trail, attending town meetings and giving speeches “that only other ducks could understand.”

When we finished the story, I brought up the subject of our candidates for president of the United States. I mentioned we will soon be voting for Obama or Romney and I asked whom they wanted as our next president. One student blurted, “I want three presidents, Obama, Romney and Duck.”  He may not understand our political system yet, but he understands kindergarten politics – we share, we play fair, and whenever possible, we make sure there are no losers – not a bad way to operate.