CarolSimonLevin -- Program Palooza: Read Across America - 2022 - Books and Dreams

Friday, March 4, 2022

Read Across America - 2022 - Books and Dreams - 4th grade

Read: More Than Anything Else by Marie Bradley (A fictionalized story about the life of young Booker T. Washington. Living in a West Virginia settlement after emancipation, nine-year-old Booker travels by lantern light to the salt works, where he labors from dawn till dusk. Although his stomach rumbles, his real hunger is his intense desire to learn to read. - Booker (great name, kids noticed!) was born into slavery, freed at age 9 with the end of the Civil War, age 16 walked 500 miles (equivalent of distance from Bedminster to Washington DC & back!) to go to high school at Hampton Institute, later became a teacher and founder of the Tuskegee Normal School (a college for teachers) which later became Tuskegee University.)

Read: The Pink Refrigerator by Tim Egan (Dodsworth does as little work as he can, collecting items from a junkyard and placing them in his thrift store for sale, until he happens upon a pink refrigerator that spurs him to do much more with his life.)

Read: Appelemando's Dreams by Patricia Polacco (with the war raging in Ukraine, I wanted to share this book on the power of dreams from the renowned Ukrainian/Russian author illustrator Patricia Polacco. Also discussed how this author/illustrator of over 50 books had dyslexia and felt "stupid" as a child because she couldn't read didn't learn to read herself until 5th grade when a teacher figured out how to help her, a story she tells in her book, Thank You Mr. Falker. Urged the 4th graders to look for Ms. Polacco's books at the library because, though they are in the E/Picture Book section, they have long texts and are geared much more toward older students like them.)

Read: Imagine a Place words by Sarah L. Thomson ; paintings by Rob Gonsalves (Mind-blowing illustrations accompany poems that urge the reader to think beyond the ordinary - the same author/illustrator pair created Imagine a Day and Imagine a Night.)

Read: Sector 7 – David Wiesner (visual storytelling -- telling a story without words. Wiesner is an author/illustrator local boy, grew up in Bridgewater NJ, Caldecott Medal winner, fun wordless fantasy of a boy who goes on an adventure with a cloud and makes quite a stir at the cloud factory. Did you know there really is a cloud machine? Here’s a video.) – mentioned they can find this and other books by this talented illustrator in the Picture Book section.

Read: The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore by William Joyce (and a 2011 Short Film) -- view here: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x3yrl25 This is the story of a man and a magical library of flying books, and most of all, the power of stories in our lives. The film was awarded the Best Animated Short Film at the 84th Academy Awards.

Read: If… by Sarah Perry (Imagine if cats could fly, leaves were fish, mice were hair, caterpillars were toothpaste, toes were teeth, or frogs ate rainbows…then imagine what else you can imagine!)

No time for:

The Book of Gold by Bob Staake (Isaac Gutenberg isn't a curious boy . . . that is, until he meets an old shopkeeper who tells him about The Book of Gold. This special book, hidden somewhere in the world, holds all the answers to every question and turns to solid gold when opened….)

Library Lil – Suzanne Williams (a librarian with superhero strength revitalizes the towns library even convincing the head of the town’s motorcycle gang to become an avid reader)