23 Books to read (and gift) in 2023

For the littlest ones (babies/toddlers!): 

1. How We Eat by Shuli de la Fuente-Lau - we love food in our families (and together as a duo)! This book nails it for us for the content and especially for the inclusion, the real photos of sweet kiddos and their diverse families enjoying food in so many ways. This one is fantastic for the baby who is enjoying looking at faces AND will be fun and has tons of content to talk about together for years to come. (The 4 year old has this book memorized and went through a phase where he read it almost every day before bed!)

2. Dog’s First Baby/ Cat’s First Baby by Natalie Nelson - We were gifted these last holiday season and I love them. POC mamas, cute brown little babies, simple images, simple text that delivers and adorable message. Refreshing from what has been out in the board book market and a great gift for the families you know with pets! 

3. Mama Loves You So by Terry Pierce - board books that nail tempo, loving messages, and provide enjoyment for adults too are gold standard. This one always hits right with me when I read it to my little. It’s not too long and it also lands in POC single mama rep if you are looking for that, too! 

4. A Beautiful House for Birds by Grace Lin - a board book that includes Math/STEM AND has a fun/relatable story? Clearly, only Grace Lin could pull this off. The Math tie is about patterns and problem solving, so very age appropriate.

Picture books (these works as gifts for really any age):

5. Let’s Do Everything and Nothing by Julia Kuo - got this for two of my single mama by choice friends and they both loved it. It is my current favorite single mama rep <3, so important.

6. The Surprise by Zadie Smith and Nick Laird. Disclaimer-- I love Zadie Smith. This picture book she created with her husband (illustrator) is weird and an acquired taste (a hamster who loves martial arts), but hey, I am weird and I enjoyed how it was different from the slew of picture books I typically see/read. 

7. My Name by Supriya Kelkar - Nina has already recommended this one as it is just that great of a book! Beautiful, relatable, and engaging for readers of all ages, especially those who have felt marginalized in the past.

8. I’m From by Gary Gray Jr and illustrated by Oge Mora - another one that was on Nina’s back to school new books list for good reason! Gorgeous illustrations and message. Really would be a wonderful gift for anyone you know! 

9. The Great Banned Books Bake Sale by Aya Khalil - the last one that was on Nina’s back to school new books list for obvious reasons. We are huge Aya Khalil fans and have loved and used all of her books. This one is sadly more and more relevant to kids today and also a good reminder that we have agency and can always speak up and take action.

Early Reader:

10. I have been revisiting Kate DiCamillo books especially the Deckawoo drive crew (My personal favorite is Eugenia Lincoln and the Unexpected Package with close runner up being, Where are you going, Baby Lincoln?  and The Magician’s Elephant, Edward Tulane etc. Raymie and Louisa and all her books from each girls’ perspectives are also so beautifully written. Kate really pokes at the push and pull of connectedness and loneliness as part of the human experience and I love her for that (and for our kiddos). If you haven’t done a Kate DiCamillo deep dive, I highly recommend it. If you don’t believe me, you can read Ann Patchett’s essay from her new essay collection, These are the days and find the one entitled “Reading Kate DiCamillo”. She’ll convince you! 

11. Heartwood Hotel by Kallie George- this is a series so maybe cheating to only count it as one book! But it’s such a sweet story and achieves the unicorn status of excellent writing maintained through the series while still being an early reader level. Highly recommend, great for reading aloud too.

Middle Grade:

12. Frizzy by Claribel A. Ortega - this graphic novel was highly recommended to me by a 5th grader so can’t really argue with that. I love the representation and the message about learning to love your hair.

13. Duel by Jessixa Bagley - yes, another graphic novel, but I couldn’t help myself as this one is just so great - brown sisters who fence? Say no more.

14. The Lost Library by Rebecca Stead and Wendy Mass - this book almost seems too good to be true as we are both huge Rebecca Stead fans and she is teaming up with Wendy Mass? With a ghost, cat, and library? So much to love.

Young Adult:

15. Imposter Syndrome and Other Confessions of Alejandra Kim by Patricia Park - this one also came highly recommended and has so much going for it! It’s a perfect book for high schoolers and as private school teachers we are always here for stories about students who feel alienated by their school settings. This book tackles hard topics with a beautiful tone and story.

16.  We Are All So Good at Smiling by Amber McBride - magical realism, fantasy, mental health, poetry and more (extra gorgeous cover) all in one book! 

17. Where You See Yourself by Claire Forrest - coming of age, romance, and disability representation - please gift this book to anyone in your life who is thinking about next steps after high school.

Adults:

18. Women Without Shame: Poems by Sandra Cisneros - beautiful poems by the one and only Sandra Cisneros. 

19. These Precious Days: Essays by Ann Patchett - beautiful essays by Ann Patchett. Please gift to an unexpected friend! Essays and poems are great gifts for people who don’t have a lot of time to read as they can be enjoyed in tiny bursts. 

20. Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin (at least so far!) is a super fun read and perhaps worth the buzz!? (Goodreads choice award 2023 and so many more awards.) Give it to anyone who loves reading! 

Grandparents (we love you, but find you hard to shop for - we can only give you so many photo themed gifts!):

21. Drawn Together by Minh Lê is such a beautiful book on so many levels. We have recommended it to everyone we know and think it would be such a beautiful gift for anyone, but especially a beloved grandparent.

22. A Grand Day by Jean Reidy is another gorgeous picture book that celebrates grandparents (and all kinds of families) in the loveliest way. 

23. Global Baby Grandparents by Maya Ajmera - if you don’t know the Global Babies series, run to the bookstore and discover it! Who doesn’t love photos of babies? Add loving grandparents to the mix, and it gets even cuter. Both of my (Nina’s) babies loved these books as the photos of babies/people really intrigue them.

Happy reading and gift giving!

Baby Books I'm Giving this Spring

BABY BOOKS I LOVE THEM BABY BOOKS I LOVE THEM 

Baby baby baby books.. I looooooove them. 

(sung to the unicorns I love them song from Despicable Me) No one will get this reference but this is how my brain works, alas. 

We’ve had 3!? New babies in our lives this Spring. All nearing the 2 month ish mark and I feel that means it is officially time to start overwhelming their parents with board books. I joke!! Sort of. 

In the world of all the baby crap and the ways people can be supportive postpartum, baby gifts can be more fraught/annoying/clutterful than helpful. Quick tips if you are gifting to postpartum loved ones (from my perspective and my perspective only!) 

Food- always helpful. (groceries, bagels & fixings delivered to their house, Spoonful of comfort soup, a takeout place with an order of stuff you’ve had with them before,a gift card to one of the many delivery food service apps...) 

Beyond that- I think books, while not helpful in at all the same way especially in the first year, are a solid forever fair game gift that won’t make your minimalist or multi child loved ones fighting clutter feel overwhelmed. And who knows, you just might give them a real memory making treasure of a book. If not, it is easy for them to regift it, pop it in a little free library or enjoy the duplicate because the baby chewed up the first one. Yay for books. 

As a general overview: my favorite baby books tend to have: 

POC, art I love, solid rhythm/text, are enjoyable for all ages (baby to toddler to adult reading them). 

Below are a few of the ones I have been gifting this Winter coming into Spring season.

For your loved ones who refer to their pets as their baby’s siblings (this is not me, I’m sorry I just won’t do it, but we do love our pets and love these books) 

Why: brown! Playful! modern/vibrant art. Spot on narrator voice and amount of text per page. Content is growable/applicable/enjoyable for all the ages. 

Dog’s First Baby  (cover pictured above)

Cat’s First Baby 

For our friends who love music - my family gifts board books from each person in our family along a chosen theme. Our most recent favorite music related board books to our friends were the ones below. 

Jazz Baby - fun, funky, genuinely jazzy 

Woodland Dance - I never tire of this one. A lovely imaginative place to be taken to, great music vocab, great tempo and musical in itself. 

Snuggle Puppy- we’ve made a lot of versions of this one in our house musically and it is just a jam, what can I say. Sandra Boynton is a classic for a reason. 

For the soon to be 1 year old

Peek-a-Who? It’s simple, it’s fun, it has the right amount of text (read: barely any!) for how fast their little chubby hands turn pages without you being upset that you didn’t get to read the words before they turned the dang page! I’ve tested this one on many a pre/1 ish year olds and it lands. They dig it. 

Hands On! -brown, single mama rep, perfect tempo, and just around where this age group is at. I love this one (if I was the editor I’d change the title and then it would be *chefs kiss* perfect). 

For someone missing a morning book

There are so many bedtime books (and we LOVE those) but it is nice to snuggle and read a morning themed book sometimes too. Below are our current two faves in the morning. 

Llama Llama Wakey Wake - again, tempo! I don’t love the art (just a stylistic preference, do love the scenes depicted), but I think otherwise this book is perfect. 

Too Early - POC, sweet dad time, brown fam, a special slice of time, art nails it. 

For spring time prepping 

Planting a Rainbow - we are about to do this in my house and my little loves the colored pages at the back and I love the specific plant names 

Leaves - found this at Goodwill and lost myself in it for the 1 minute read. It’s almost exactly perfect. If I were the editor I would get rid of the very last page and have the second to last page be the end. But it’s lovely all the same. 

ABC Insects - I’m the person who takes my child to arthropod exhibits so for me, what a treat. But the pictures are big, it is a bigger than average board book (fun!) and we’ll grow into this one. I love reading about each insect and then going on my own rabbit holes later about them. 

For the loved one who wants the book my 1 year old actually currently loves 

ABCS Xavier Deneux- she flips fast, she touches the indents, she moves on. We like the Robot page best. 

For loved ones pushing gender and its wonkiness 

The Pronoun Book - great art, simple, joyful, brown, celebratory-- I honestly love just seeing it out of the corner of my eye- great colors. 

For the mama 

Mama Loves You So - nothing like a book full of I love you to bring peace to a mamas insides too. 

Our next themed board book gift batch to friends with babies, theme: favorite board books about food!

Monster Food

The Very Hungry Caterpillar - they likely have it but it truly is a perfect board book. The flaps, the colors, the simple plot, the butterfly at the end. Bravo. 

How We Eat - we’ve featured this one before but its so great. 

I’ll never grow out of board books. All recs always welcome.

March Book Madness

Happy March! I usually find there is so much to look forward to this month: spring, Women’s History Month, spring break (at my school at least), more sun, and MARCH BOOK MADNESS! March Book Madness is exactly what it sounds like. It is March Madness, but for books! There are 3 categories: picture books, middle grade books, and young adult books. Each gets its own bracket and anyone can vote on the website for each round. They start with 16 books (“Sweet 16”) and have “games” between two books and slowly go through rounds until we reach the championship. 

When I taught 5th grade, we followed the middle grade bracket, and in 3rd we follow the picture book bracket. It is so much fun and gets students excited about reading in so many ways. Often, students who are resistant to trying out a new genre are happy to expand their reading horizons when they get to vote on books. Also, it encourages social reading habits and joy around reading. Students love to explain why you should vote for a certain book and often get into passionate debates about which book(s) should win. So much critical thinking about comparing literature is fun and also essential practice for being a lifelong, thoughtful reader. 

We have collaborated with younger classes in the past. One year when we had Kindergarten reading buddies (we haven’t been able to reinstate this due to the pandemic), we introduced March Book Madness (MBM) altogether and buddies had the option to read MBM books when they read together. We’ve also worked with 1st grade and shared our predictions and books. We usually start by explaining the contest, looking at the map of participants on the website and adding a pin for our school. Students love that this is an international activity. We always take time to go over what a bracket is and how it works. There are usually a few March (basketball) Madness fans who are happy to share their knowledge!

Last year, we gave our students their own copies of the bracket so they could make their own predictions or follow along as they wished. They loved having their own copies and took each round of voting very seriously. We also used MBM as an opportunity to review genres of books as we worked together to figure out what genre each book fit into and explain why. Some students even asked to write book reviews to include in the book or to share when voting came around again. 

The wonderful thing about MBM is that it can be as big or small of a deal as you want! If you can’t buy the books you can get them from the library or just watch video read alouds of them and put up photos of the covers if you want a display. Our former school librarian would make a MBM bulletin board recreating the bracket and students loved seeing it in the hall and sharing what was happening with other classes. 

This year (as always), the books look wonderful. There are many I already like under picture books, but some that I am excited to discover. MBM always ends up being an opportunity for me to genuinely model and share my love of books and constant quest for new books I love to my students. They love hearing about how I am torn and can’t decide what book to vote for and sometimes even suggest ways to help me make up my mind. Everything about this activity makes reading (even more) fun and exciting. If you are interested in participating, 1st round voting is open today (March 2nd) and closes on March 8th at 7PM. We usually vote as a class, but students could also vote individually. Happy reading!

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Anti-Oppressive Education in "Elite" Schools is here!

We wrote about this last spring, but wanted to share that Anti-Oppressive Education in Elite Schools: Promising Practices and Cautionary Tales From the Field is out (Nina received her copy!). We co-authored a chapter and it’s very exciting to see our words in print.

You can read more about the book and enjoy some excerpts (including our chapter and an interview with us) here. We’ve been lucky enough to work with Katy Swalwell in the past and Gabby knows Ayo Magwood who we hope to collaborate with in the future. They are both doing really important work and are definitely worth following, but really the whole book has so much to offer. Please let us know what you think!

Book Review: From the Desk of Zoe Washington

I just finished From the Desk of Zoe Washington by Janae Marks and this book has so much potential for classroom use! It is a delightful read and a wonderful middle grade novel to share with kids in many ways. The main character is having both friend and family drama which will be so relatable to many upper elementary students and middle schoolers. Also, she loves to bake and wants to be a pastry chef so the descriptions of cupcakes alone will pull some students in. I’ve always loved books that included letters between characters, and Zoe (the main character) exchanges letters with her biological father, Marcus, who is in prison. Many students (and adults) don’t hear any humanizing stories about people who are incarcerated or the toll our massive incarceration rates has on families and children. 

Zoe’s father, Marcus, says he is innocent, and Zoe talks to her grandmother about how that could even be possible. She connects this new information with what she knows about Black Lives Matter and systemic racism. The connections are clear and not overly simplified, yet also at a kid-friendly level. She also learns about The Innocence Project and grapples with the mystifying fact that innocent people can go to prison. The author doesn’t shy away from the fact that this knowledge is heavy and many parts of what Zoe is learning are scary for her. Her parents and grandma try to shield her and forbid her from following up with what she has learned and the depiction of the frustration of being dismissed as just a kid is very accurate and would strike a chord with many students.

This book could be a wonderful whole class read aloud or book group book, as the chapters are a good length for both of these formats. Students could learn about wrongful conviction, the toll of incarceration on families (at least 5 million children have had a parent behind bars), advocacy and representation, systemic racism, justice system reform, and more. Zoe’s choice to defy her parents’ and grandma’s restrictions would also be a wonderful discussion point with students. At one point, Zoe thinks to herself, “All of the lying was wrong, I knew that. But maybe it was okay to do something wrong if you were doing it for the right reason.” (p.180). I’ve talked to students in the past about when it’s okay to break the rules and how you might still have to accept the consequences of your actions, but you choose to break the rules because of something more important. Zoe models this as she gets in trouble and apologizes for lying and breaking her family’s trust, but her actions end up setting some changes in motion.

While this book ultimately has a happy ending, it still talks about the reality that appealing a wrongful conviction takes years and is very difficult and complicated and that many people who get out of prison (whether they are innocent or not) have trouble finding jobs and struggle financially for a variety of reasons. There are educational resources available through the Equal Justice Initiative to help you give students more background and understanding of the scale and scope of the issues. The Marshall Project is also a great resource. It’s targeted towards adults, but will help you have the background you need to have these important conversations with students. If you haven’t read this book yet, run and get a copy! It belongs in the hands of readers!

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Read Aloud Ideas for Back to School

While “teacher new year,” as I call the beginning of the school year, is normally my favorite time of year, I am having a hard time with the uncertainty surrounding the beginning of the school year and am still processing everything that happened last year. I’m sure many others are feeling the same way (including lots of our students!). However, it is August already, so back to school is around the corner. So I am thinking about books I want to read to my students at the beginning of the year or have read in years past as sharing books with kids is always something I enjoy, whether it’s done at a distance, virtually, or side by side! 

These are books that came to mind or that I’ve used in the past, but obviously the possibilities are endless. Hopefully this list will help you with some back to school planning (more beginning of the school year ideas here and some that are specific to distance learning here) and introduce you to or remind you of some wonderful books! I find reading a book to students is always a good place to begin and choosing excellent literature to share is one thing we can control right now.

Chapter Books (You can use these as a longer read aloud or read an excerpt.)

• Save Me a Seat by Gita Varadarajan and Sarah Weeks: love this book! We started the year with this read aloud and students were hooked. You can read more about how we used it in our class here.

• The Top Ten Ways to Ruin the First Day of School by Ken Derby: we read the first chapter of this book on the first day of school and had students make top ten lists (the top ten things to know about me are..). We had examples about ourselves to share, it was a fun community builder! 

• 100 Dresses by Eleanor Estes: great read aloud and a relatively quick one for a chapter book. It’s also an amazing book club book! This story really sets the tone for respect and inclusion.

• House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros: in the past, I’ve used an excerpt from this book as a mentor text when students write their name stories.

• Brown Girl Dreaming by Jaqueline Woodson: I’ve found you can use individual poems for almost anything! Also a great whole class read aloud, you can read a poem or two whenever you have a minute.

• My Name is Maria Isabel by Alma Flor Ada: also a relatively quick read aloud for a chapter book, but so much potential for community building and respect. Also a great names tie in.

Picture Books for Welcome to School/Names/Get to Know You

• First Day Jitters by Julie Danneberg: great for the first day, reminder that everyone can feel nervous!

• My Name is Yoon by Helen Recorvits: use for name stories or a create or share your name activity

• Becoming Vanessa by Vanessa Brantley-Newton: covers start of school jitters, introducing our names, best for K-1st age range

• Thunderboy Jr. by Sherman Alexie: we read this and then “created” our names to be displayed on the bulletin board

• Milo Imagines the World by Matt de la Peña: reminder not to make assumptions about people, but get to know them!

Picture Books for Hopes & Dreams/Goal Setting

• Jabari Jumps by Gaia Cornwall: this is a great book for all ages, but especially little ones! I’ve used it before having students write their hopes and dreams for the school year with this framing: Jabari accomplishes his goal with a plan and some support and love. What goals do you want to work towards this school year? Also, now there is a sequel called Jabari Tries which is on my want to read list!

• Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney: I had this book as a child and it still resonates with me. It’s also a great way to start thinking about goal setting and hopes and dreams for the upcoming year.

• The Curious Garden by Peter Brown: A gorgeous book with an environmental message, Liam, the main character, sets a goal of taking care of a struggling garden and is wildly successful. I’ve never used it for goal setting, but have always had it as an option.

Picture Books for Creating Class Contract (Rules)/Setting Expectations

• The Day You Begin by Jaqueline Woodson: we used this before we brainstormed what to include in our class contract and asked how we could create a class community where everyone felt comfortable sharing their stories

• What If Everybody Did That? By Ellen Javernick: helps to get to the purpose of rules and working/living together as a community.

• No David! By David Shannon: great for younger kids, helps them focus on what we should do instead of what we should not do.

• Interrupting Chicken by David Ezra Stein: funny story that is a real hit with students - use for introducing participation norms, being a good listener, dealing with frustration - oh so many applications!

• Each Kindness by Jaqueline Woodson: I could really only read Jaqueline Woodson books all day, every day, but limited myself to 3 for this post! The title of this book says it all, great for beginning of the year or anytime as a reminder.

• The Wedding Portrait by Innosanto Nagaro: talk about when is it okay to break rules? Also great to tie in to protests and the purpose of our class contract.

• The Girl Who Never Made Mistakes by Mark Pett and Gary Rubinstein: taking risks, being kind to yourself

Picture Books related to Managing Emotions/Uncertainty 

• Saturday by Oge Mora: used this to talk about managing our disappointment during the pandemic

• The Day the Crayons Quit by Drew Dawalt: we’ve used this before creating our emotions continuum and to introduce letter writing (if you have students write a letter to you or to themselves the first day or week of school)

• What Do You Do With a Problem? By Kobi Yamada: how could some of the restrictions we might still experience this year be a proble-tunity? Or just challenges in general. (Also, by the same author, What Do You Do With an Idea?)

What are your favorite back to school read alouds?

Asian American Heritage Month

Oh how we love representation, it is so essential and of course, it benefits all of us. As we typically note, designated 'months' for any given demographic of humans is not something we follow-- every day is a day to learn about communities and cultures you do or don't belong to! However, we do appreciate the added push for elevating underrepresented voices and perspectives!
 

Representation was our focus this month, ensuring that as many API perspectives were integrated into our daily learning as possible. Here are a few resources that our students especially loved during "API Heritage Month"!

1. Representation through awesome characters:

Aru Shah and the End of Time and The Serpent's Secret (both pictured above) are both great adventure novels were tons of fun, and both were packed with mythology and had bright heroines! We felt like we learned a lot and the world building in both was strong and captivating.

The Alvin Ho series (first book also pictured above) is one that we have come love and deeply appreciate as elementary educators. It is at the right level for so many of our readers, it has solid representation of a Chinese family, strong girls characters (We love Flea and his little sis Annibelly!), and it talks openly about Alvin struggling with anxiety, talking with a therapist etc. Of course, it is also goofy and appeals to 'boys' so Alvin runs away from his piano teacher, tries to miss school, and tries out Shakespearean curses on his therapist. We'll take it for the way it brings our students in, and the conversations we have been able to have through it. This one is great to unpack with students and led to some thoughtful conversations about gender and mental health in our classroom. It's exciting that this is a series because a few of our reluctant readers can't wait for the next one, which is the perfect way to send them off to the summer (prepped for their next book!).

There are also of course other great resources besides fiction, like Newsela's API Text Set that can provide some great resources for continuing learning and staying up to date!

2. Representation through music:

We love starting the morning calm and and centered and we always have music playing. It has been especially fun to play all sorts of different music from different countries in Asia. We have been more partial to Chinese music we've found, likely because we have both been there and we have been able to find some really calming pieces. It's also likely that my (Gabby's) attempts at learning Erhu and Guzhen make it even more exciting to share with the students! They love looking at the different instruments, learning facts (like how the guzhen has a history that is over 2,500 years old), and comparing it to instruments that they may play or know (the guzhen was compared to a sliding guitar so we did some compare and contrasting the other day!).

3. Representation through Images:

We always start the morning off with a projected image. This gives us the easy lean into a conversation we may want to have with students, or a way to pre-assess and see what they know (or are excited about). This month, all of our images were pictures from different Asian countries. Be warned, these images made us all yearning for some serious travel! The students always wanted to know where the pictures were taken, and it always got us talking, which leads us to….

4. Representation through maps, statistics reminders:

The morning images usually brought us to looking at the given country on a map! We would talk about where it was nearby (if we had already discussed a neighboring country) and it got us thinking about population, too. We love to remind students (not just in May!) that the continent of Asia has over half the world's population (we are talking over 4 billion humans!!!). We love this video if the world were a village of 100 people, because we think it helps bring some perspective!  

5. Representation through…. GIFS! (because we are oh-so trendy and cool!).

James Curan's Tokyo Gif-a-thon has hands down been one of our student's favorite activities and breaks this month. We earn it (sly teachers!) by getting cleaned up early or having an extra moment before we need to start the next class. We love doing the reveal of the next gif, and then we all stare in wonder at what he created. The students have endless (actually endless, the DETAILS they notices surprise us all of the time!) observations of how he made the gif, why he made it that way, and the most miniscule details within the art. As the reveals and months go on, they are able to make more and more connections as to what he might be referencing about Tokyo. We've been to (and love!) Tokyo, so this is also fun for us to share additional background information about why he made certain gifs and what it might be connected to in the city. We were especially intrigued about how the conversation about cherry blossoms ended connecting us back here to where we live-- DC!

These are just a few of the ways we try to infuse additional representation into our classroom (we've also had a ton of fun with languages this month!), but it never ends and we are always thinking of how to do more, and do it better. If you have ideas or other things you've been trying out, we'd love to hear!

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Book Review: Save Me a Seat

Our first chapter book read aloud this year was Save Me a Seat by Gita Varadarajan and Sarah Weeks. It’s an amazing book for so many reasons, and was the perfect first read aloud for our class. While we felt it allowed for natural segues into many of the beginning of the school year discussions and activities, it’s a perfect book for anytime of the year.

There are two narrators which leads to two vastly different perspectives (often on the same event). Our students reflected often on how two people can experience the same events very differently. This helped them brainstorm ways to be understanding and empathic. One of our students referenced part of the book as an explanation of how misunderstandings happen and why assumptions are dangerous.

One of the main characters, Ravi, is a new student (and recent immigrant). His experiences helped us talk about how we want people to feel in our classroom. Joe, the other main character, feels like a target at school, and before we brainstormed agreements (rules) for our class contract, we discussed what we can do to make sure no one has to feel like Joe did  in our community. Students also really identified with Ravi’s frustration when his name was mispronounced and talked seriously about the importance of using names carefully and respectfully. The other day, when a substitute teacher was in our class, the students took it upon themselves to carefully learn her name even after she said it was a hard name and they were welcome to call her Mrs. K instead.

Save Me a Seat also teaches students about the significance of an apology. Sometimes (for kids) it can feel like saying sorry is simply a stepping stone towards moving on or getting out of trouble. But in Save Me a Seat, Joe’s father writes him a moving and heartfelt letter accepting responsibility for how he made Joe feel (instead of saying I didn’t mean to or focusing only on his intent) and acknowledging that it is okay for men (and boys) to have feelings after all. Especially with third graders who can have difficulty genuinely connecting abstract concepts, reading and discussing this part of the book was such an important lesson in apologizing, accepting responsibility, and discounting messages of how you are “supposed to” feel, act, or behave (because of gender, coolness, or something else).

Our students also learned so much and wanted to learn so much from reading this book. They asked questions (and we investigated) about Bangalore, South Indian food, Auditory Processing Disorder (APD), and more. They repeatedly asked us to share the recipes found in the book and poured over the glossaries for each main character in the back. We (teachers) also loved that there was a glossary for each main character as opposed to only one for Ravi.

Including two glossaries makes them a tool for each character to be understood more fully instead of an indication of Ravi’s foreign state. It also made me (as an Indian-American), happy because it means that readers were less likely to ask me (or other South Asian people) to explain or translate words or references in the book. The South Indian food in the book was not portrayed as foreign or weird or (my personal pet peeve) something only “adventurous” people eat. It was simply food, just like the food Joe ate.

Save Me a Seat is also a great mentor text. We will keep coming back to it all year as an example of how to develop characters, use descriptive language, write dialogue and more. The fact that each chapter ends in a cliff hanger makes it an exceptional read aloud.

Our students were so enthralled with the book that we decided to have a mini-celebration at the end complete with South Indian food. We ordered idli and sambar from Pansaari, a local restaurant, and the students were so excited to eat one of Ravi’s favorite foods. We had talked about respecting other people’s likes and dislikes and the students were quick to point out that this applies to food as well. Even students who said they don’t like spicy food or who are very picky about what they eat for lunch were excited to try the idli, sambar, and coconut chutney. While they ate, we (teachers) read aloud and finished the book. We also talked about our favorite parts of the book and looked at different locations from the book on a map.

Since we finished our read aloud, six of our students have eagerly reread Save Me a Seat independently (which works well for their development of comprehension and decoding skills in third grade). Many other students have asked if they can have the book next. They also trust our recommendations so much more! We love all of the enthusiasm around reading (and incorporating food, geography, kindness, and more). We truly couldn’t recommend this book more highly!

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Book Review (and read-aloud plug): Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech

Walk Two Moons by Sharon Creech is our read aloud for the last few months of the school year. Aside from being an incredibly captivating story with beautiful writing, it also fits perfectly with our curriculum as we are studying storytelling (and Sal, the main character, is telling a story) and American Indian studies (Sal has Indigenous ancestors and visits sacred Native sites). We also study Health & Wellness so the budding young romance is perfect for our class to experience as well. There are also many other relevant and significant issues skillfully woven into this story (mental illness and the related stigma, family dynamics, and gender equality, to name a few).

We have a bin full of books by Sharon Creech that we only bring out of the closet (with a lot of fanfare) when we start reading Walk Two Moons. Soon, the books are fought over (especially Absolutely Normal Chaos as it features a character from Walk Two Moons) and students are excitedly announcing book “shout outs” with lots of reminders from their classmates that spoilers are not allowed!

We use Walk Two Moons as a mentor text during Writing instruction, finding examples of how Sharon Creech communicates context without explicitly saying where, when something is taking place. We also find a lot of meaning, action, and character development and dialogue.

It is also a wonderful read aloud with lots of emotions! We felt happy, sad, cried, laughed, and more as we read it together. Many chapters end in cliff hangers, and students have ample opportunities to make predictions, connections, find meaning and theme and more. It’s also a reminder that not all stories have happy endings and events don’t always work out perfectly, and that’s life. But life is also beautiful, unexpected, and hilarious as well.

We always say we don’t have time to do a chapter book read aloud, but somehow we always find the time because reading aloud and experiencing a book together is so powerful. Even our reluctant readers would get excited when it was time for read aloud, and beg us to keep reading even if we were running out of time. We finished the book on the last day of school, which felt appropriately final and anticipatory. Many of us were teary after a sad part (teachers included, to the delight and amazement of our students), and some students had questions about what happened next (to which we replied, what do you think?), but it was best described by one of our students, who said (with a huge smile), “That was so good! And sad. But so good!”

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Book Review: Crazy Hair by Neil Gaiman, Dave McKean

This is one of our favorite books! Ms. Arca reads this one, but we both relate.

Summary: This book is a rhyming text (we call it a poem) in which a little girl asks the main character why his hair is so "crazy". He responds with the most dazzling array of answers. There are beasts that live in his hair, and a circus, and hot air balloons.. The art is also phenomenal. Each stanza ends with "..inside my crazy hair" and even our 5th graders will fill in that section and join in the reading.

How we use it: We use this text in our poetry unit. We LOVE it. This is one of the last poems that we have our students write in the unit because it is more personal. The prompt for this poem is to take back ownership and claim an aspect of yourself that you sometimes feel insecure, judged, or uncomfortable about. I (Ms. Arca) then talk about how even though people ask about my hair, touch my hair without asking etc.. this poem embodies my claiming of this part of myself with PRIDE. Our students write poems about hairy arms, big feet, 'funny' ears, "being weird", 'tallness", freckles.. The list goes on. It is a hard and vulnerable poem-- but we love the social-emotional work that this lesson brings to the table and the poems are personal mantras of hard internal and academic work!

Questions / conversations with the students:

• There are always students who feel resistant to this poem, it makes them feel uncomfortable  ("I like everything about myself" or "I can't think of anything"). For these students we return back to a brainstorming list we've done in the past.

• "Crazy" is a complicated word, and we know that. One thing we talk about in this context is how since this is your poem of ownership-- you can call it whatever you'd like to. I make a point to share that I do NOT like it when other people tell me that my hair is "crazy". We talk about the difference between what you or an inner community can call itself, versus what doesn't feel okay for others to say about you. This conversation comes up again and again in our room in different veins.

• We make a point to celebrate what they share. It is brave to take something on that you don't always feel secure about and claim it with pride. We tell them how proud we are of them for doing this work and how as humans this is hard, but important work to do. We all have to be our own cheerleaders sometimes!

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