Picture #20 -- Bear Feels Sick

TITLE: Bear Feels Sick

AUTHOR: Karma Wilson


ILLUSTRATOR: Jane Chapman

GENRE:Comedy, Humor

THEMES: Compassion, Kindness, Friendship

AWARDS: None

PUBLISHING DATE AND COMPANY: Scholastic, 2007

SUMMARY: This book is a great book to teach children how to have compassion and love for each other. All of Bear's friends want to go out and play, but Bear is coughing and sneezing, because he has a cold. They realize that they need to be good friends and take care of him so that he can feel better. They bring him blankets and sing to him, hoping to make him feel better. When they finally succeed in doing that, they all end up with the same cold, so in the end, Bear ends up taking care of all his friends. He says he does it because they took care of him, so now it is his turn to take care of them. This is a great book to read to kids to help them learn compassion and understanding, just because they want one of their friends to come out and play, doesn't mean they can. But if they are helpful and then they get sick, their friends may just return the favor and help them feel better. 

Picture Book #19 -- Cat Heaven

TITLE: Cat Heaven

AUTHOR: Cynthia Rylant both wrote and illustrated this book.

GENRE: Rhymes

THEMES: Pets, Creativity, Death

AWARDS: None

PUBLISHING DATE AND COMPANY: Blue Sky Press, 1997

SUMMARY: This book helps to children to understand what happens when a cat passes away. While it is completely made up, I feel that it could really help a child that is grieving the loss of their pet. It discusses a cat treat filled heaven (my apartment must be heaven on earth, but that is a different story), and the cats are even aloud on the counter in cat heaven. I think that this would be a great book to use in a classroom after maybe a class pet passes away, because that can be traumatic. A great way to use it would be to read it to the kids, and then have them imagine what the class pet's heaven is like, even if it is a hamster! We can discuss where all the animals go to have fun after they pass on.

Picture Book #18 -- Comet's Nine Lives

TITLE: Comet's Nine Lives

AUTHOR: Jan Brett (She also illustrated)

GENRE: Adventure, Animal Stories

THEMES: Animals, Courage, and Honor

AWARDS: None

PUBLISHING DATE AND COMPANY: 1996, Scholastic

CHARACTERS: Comet and Waffles

SUMMARY: This book is about a cat, Comet, who is loving life on the East Coast of the United States, when after taking a nap wakes up and finds out that he had lost his first of his nine lives due to his choice of sleep. When this happens, he realizes that he needs to find somewhere safe to live for the rest of his life, so that he doesn't waste any more of his nine lives. He faces many trials and tribulations, like falling off a boat and falling off of a bicycle, he ended up loosing seven more lives. After loosing that many more lives he found a light house, and a cat that lived there with an easy simple and safe life, and Comet decided that is where he wanted to spend the rest of his life. This is a good book to get students writing creative stories about what Comet would do if he was their cat, and where he would go. This is a great story because the pictures also show some foreshadowing that Jan put into her books. 

Picture book #17 -- The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain -- Robert F. Sibert

TITLE: The Wall : Growing up Behind the Iron Curtain

AUTHOR: Peter Sis( He also illustrated the book)

GENRE: Auto-biography, General Fiction

THEMES: International Relations, European History

AWARDS: Caldecott, Robert F. Sibert

PUBLISHING DATE AND COMPANY: Straus and Giroux 2007

SUMMARY: This book is an amazing auto-biography that Peter Sis wrote of his life growing up in the time of communism in Czechoslovakia. During each of the different 'time periods' of his life, there is a different artistic element that show through. When he was young and there was heavy communism in his life, the pictures were very dull, with black and white and some red mixed in. The red represented the communism in his life. At the very end, representing the freedom from communist Russia, there is the most colorful picture that represents the spring in Prauge, and shows that the people are no longer oppressed, but can fully express themselves. This is a great book for uper elementary scoool all the way into beginning of highschool, because it can show so much just through the art, and the higher the learning level, the more a student can get out of it.

chapter book #8 -- The Pity Party: 8th Grade in the Life of me, Cass

TITLE:   The Pity Party: 8th Grade in the Life of me, Cass
AUTHOR: Alison Pollet
GENRE: General Fiction, Comedy
THEME:   Middle school, friends, courage
 AWARDS: None
 CHARACTERS: Cass, Penelope, Tillie, Rod
PUBLISHING DATE AND COMPANY:Orchard Books, 2005
SUMMARY: This book is another great book about the hardships that girls face when they are in middle school. The story deals with the problems of group work (when teachers assign the groups and kids don't get along) as well as a child who goes missing. When Rod goes missing Cass goes on a mission of sorts to try to find him. This is another great book about dealing with growing up, and issues that face many young adults today. This is a great book to have the girls in a fifth grade or sixth grade class read because they could start learning about being a better person when in middle school.

chapter book #7 -- Nobody Was Here : 7th grade in the life of me Penelope

TITLE:   Nobody Was Here: 7th Grade in the Life of me Penelope
AUTHOR AND ILLUSTRATOR:   Alison Pollet
GENRE: General Fiction
THEME:   School, growing up
 AWARDS: None
 CHARACTERS: Penelope, Stacy, Penelope's parents, Cass
PUBLISHING DATE AND COMPANY: Orchard Books, 2004
SUMMARY: This book is set in 1981. This book is all about a middle school girl who is going through changes in her life, and she is unsure how to cope with a lot of them. This book covers having to deal with bullies, loosing friends, and parents fighting (which I think can be the hardest). I think that this book could be a good one for middle school girls to read because of all the topics covered in here, even though it is set in the early 80's. This is a great book for girls who may wonder how to cope with some things, but not want to ask in fear of being bullied or rejected. By reading this book they could learn a thing or two before leaving middle school. This is a great book for all children to read, though it is 99% of the time best for girls.

chapter book #6 -- My Fabulous New Life

TITLE:   My Fabulous New Life
AUTHOR: Sheila Greenwald
GENRE: Realistic Fiction
THEME:   Moving away, new friends, growing up
 AWARDS:None
 CHARACTERS: Alison, KJ, Alison's parents
PUBLISHING DATE AND COMPANY: Harcourt Brace & Company, 1993
SUMMARY: This story is all about growing up. When Alison has to move from the home she has known all her life, to New York City, she grows up tons. She goes from being a sheltered little girl, to an understanding young woman. She learns about what can cause homelessness, as well as many other things. By the end of the book, I feel that the title is no longer that of an attitude filled pre-teen, but that of a respectable young woman who really does think her new life is fabulous. 
When using this in a classroom I think I may use it more on a case by case basis, for example if I knew that one of my students was going to be moving away to some where completely foreign to them I would recommend this book to them and their parents. I feel that this would be a great book for a girl who is moving to read, so that she would see moving isn't all bad.