Children's Book Week and the Interconnectedness of Literature

It's Children's Book Week, an annual celebration of children’s books and reading. Children's literature, like all literature, has the power to help shape us as thoughtful, empathic, and courageous human beings. It also has the power to help show the interconnectedness of life.

On Monday we celebrated the power of picture books. Today, we started a literature quilt by connecting books across multiple areas of our library.  

First, we started in the Poetry Neighborhood and read The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams.

The Red Wheelbarrow

William Carlos Williams

 so much depends

upon

a red wheel

barrow

glazed with rain

water

beside the white

chickens.

The students shared what they thought the poem meant. Their thinking was pretty deep. 

"it shows the simplicity of things"

"it talks about how we should notice little things"

"it's a bit like the USA - red, white, and blue (water)"

"it's about how the wheelbarrow helps on the farm"

"its about recognizing things value"

We then traveled to the Fiction Neighborhood and read from Love That Dog by Sharon Creech. I read the first three entries and stopped where Jack, the character, talks about not understanding The Red Wheelbarrow poem. We then talked about the book and all the poems and connections one could make from it. 

From here, our literature thread connected us to the Biography Neighborhood and A River of Words by Jen Bryant and illustrated by Melissa Sweet. 

The loved this poem!

While reading the biography, we made connections to Naomi Shihab Nye, other authors, other poets, and the students' own writing, but our thread was leading us onward. We read the author and illustrator notes and spent time exploring more of William Carlos Williams' poems. We finished with a final reading of The Red Wheelbarrow.

We finished our literature quilt by heading back to the Poetry Neighborhood to read a poem from Out of Wonder: Poems Celebrating Poets. 

We read No Idle Days by Chris Colderley and explored the themes in the art by Ekua Holmes.  The students understood all the subtle things that Chris did to capture William Carlos Williams. We also learned about enjambment and a variable foot, two things that William Carlos Williams used in his poetry. This was a really cool literature quilt to create!

The students loved the last lines of the poem, 

having read This is Just to Say.

I wonder where this literature thread will head now?

How are you celebrating Children's Book Week?

About Children's Book Week

Children's Book Week is the longest-running national literacy initiative in the country. The theme this year is One World, Many Stories and there is a challenge to read books that feature characters, history, locations, and cultures from around the world. It is administered by Every Child a Reader and the Children’s Book Council (CBC) is the anchor sponsor.

ReedALOUD: OUT OF WONDER and the Fifth Grade Explorers

It was #booklove at first site.  

Out of Wonder: Poems Celebrating Poets, written by Kwame Alexander with Marjory Wentworth and Chris Colderley and illustrated by Ekua Holmes is one of those books that should be in every elementary, middle, and high school library. Its appeal and impact are far-reaching. If the cover is not enough to grab your attention, the design, art and poems surely will. The mixed-media art and original poems weave a canvas that captures the essence of the celebrated poets in ways that are astounding. 

This book is not just a stand alone package, I see multiple ways to connect it with Common Core Curriculum standards as well as with other books and other literacy initiatives. The natural connection lies with any poetry unit or poetry month, but I see a connection with Gene Luen Yang's Reading Without Walls Challenge. As National Ambassador for Young People's Literature, he is encouraging children to: read books about people that don't live like them or look like them; read books in a different genre; and/or, read books about things they don't know. By sharing the poems in Out of Wonder, students are introduced to poetry in a way that engages them and makes them think. They are also introduced to poets whose work they might not know and poets whose lives vary considerably.

In part one, the book focuses on poets whose style was a defining characteristic of their work. I chose to focus on the celebratory poem about Langston Hughes and use this as an opportunity to read from two neighborhoods of our library.

We started by reading Langston's Train Ride by Robert Burleigh:

We stopped before the poem and switched to this recording of The Negro Speaks of Rivers:

And reread the poem in this book:

We then listened to I, Too, sing America:

And reread the poem with this book:

And finished with this book:

With this context and exposure to Langston's Poetry, it was time to turn to Out of Wonder and read Jazz, Jive, Jam by Kwame Alexander. 

And appreciated Ekua's amazing art.

We talked about the poem - its themes and style --  and how Kwame celebrated Langston's work. It was cool stuff.

Who's Got Style? 

Langston's got style and 

Kwame and Ekua have style!