A new year! Time for new books! And maybe some wonderful older ones… Wishing you a good year and hope every teacher’s resolution is to read more books in the classroom!
Miss Malarkey Leaves No Reader Behind, Judy Finchler and Kevin O’Malley. This picture book is the story of a kid who does not like reading. He loves video games but not books. But when his school sets out to to read 1,000 books this year, his librarian tries her best to make readers of all students. Slowly, most kids end up with their nose in a book, because who can resist these great books. No matter how much he does not like reading, Miss Malarkey eventually manages to put the perfect book in his hands and the school principal has to dye his hair purple! ISBN 0-8027-8084-9, Walker & Company
Class Trip is a new title by the indefatigable Robert Munsch and Michael Martchenko. Stephanie and Sean and their entire class embark on a trip to the museum. The guide shows them chicken eggs that are about to hatch and, indeed, they watch a little chick come out of its shell. “Fantastic,” say the kids, “do you have any bigger eggs?” As the size of the eggs increases, so do the things that hatch. Until they are shown an enormous shell in the museum’s basement. Will a teacher fit in a shell? And how can eggs do math? A fun, new read-aloud in typical Munsch style with lots of repetition and an unexpected ending. ISBN 978-1-0397-0224-0, Scholastic Canada
What I Like! by Gervase Phinn British author Gervase Phinn has written fun picturebooks for kids, including What I Like!, a collection of poems for the very young. Ranging from food to pets to runaway trains these poems are great for sharing out loud in Kindergarten. They include rhymes as well as tongue twisters and guessing games. ISBN 978-1904-5501-29, Child’s Play
Raina Telgemeier wrote successful graphic novels that kids love, like Ghosts, Smile and Drama. How do writers and illustrators use their own life to come up with great stories? In Share Your Smile, she shows readers, and kids who like to doodle, how to create the best stories from real experiences. Losing a tooth as a kid, may not be fun. But writing and drawing about it, turning it into a universal story, can help yourself as well as others. Telgemeier takes the reader through all steps of remembering, recording, and sketching stories. A great book to encourage others to write your own story. ISBN 978-1-338-35384-6, Scholastic Graphix
Margriet Ruurs loves reading. She also writes books for children and conducts author visits at schools around the world.