My first and second graders
have cast their votes for the
"The Irma Simonton Black and James H. Black Award for Excellence in Children's Literature (Irma Black Award) goes to an outstanding book for young children - a book in which text and illustrations are inseparable, each enhancing and enlarging on the other to produce a singular whole. The Irma Black Award is unusual in that children are the final judges of the winning book."
The students read and explored the four finalist books:
The students read each book with the book award questions in mind:
Who was their favorite character and why?
Were there other characters that they liked that were important to the story?
Even if they liked the story, were there parts that they didn't like, or didn't understand?
How did the book make them feel? Was it funny, sad, silly, realistic, etc?
How did the pictures relate to the text? For example, were the illustrations essential to their understanding of the story, or did they just highlight particular moments or characters?
Were the illustrations consistent with the tone of the story? For example, if the story was funny, did the pictures capture that mood? If not, did it matter?
Why do they think the author wrote the book?
So, how did they vote?
I think that we may have to call it a tie between You Can Do It, Bert and It's Only Stanley. We've submitted our votes to Bank Street and now await to see how their votes line up with the other first and second graders participating in the award program. Regardless of the voting outcome, all four books are winners and have 180 new fans!
I love how some students took it upon themselves to decorate their ballots!
To understand their thinking and see how the questions guided their thinking, I asked the students to explain their choices:
The second grade teachers want to tie this book award unit to their opinion writing piece. I'm looking forward to next year already!
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