jin woo is a heartwarming book about what happens to a family when they get a new baby from Korea. It talks about the stuggles it takes for the little boy to adjest to someone new in his home. The reason that I liked this book is because it focused on the how the little boy was going to feel becoming a big brother and all the changes he would have to make. He didn't like having the baby until he held him and started to learn more about the little guy. He becames a real central part of his life. my favorite part of the book was at the end when the parents read a little that was supposed to be written from his little brother about how happy he was and how he knew that would become good friends.

This book is just great. it does have a lot of text to it which is ok for this book. I didn't care much for the pictures but i was drawn in by the story line. I love this to use as a resource for families that are adopting. I think that it can be hard for some and easy for others. I know a family that the partens have 2 adopted kids and 2 that are not. So this story got my thinking about how it makes each of the children feel. I wont if they feel different towards each other or their parents at all because of this. I also wonder whena good age is to address this. I think that this book made me want to go and look more into this topic.

This book is realyl just beautiful illustrations of a variety of flowers. It goes in order of the alphabet so there is a flower for all 26 letters and there is also a name. If you are hoping to get a story out of this book, you won't. It really is about the pictures themselves. Each flower is given to a person whos name starts with the next letter in the alphabet. So as I said, not a complicated text. I don't know that I have much to say about this book. It certianlly is pretty but in a way it reminds me of going to a store ans seeing the mass produced prints of paitings. I guess if I were an art teacher I could use this to give my children ideas and show them how different colors go together. There might even be a science connection to this book I am just really not a fan escepially after having read several books below that I just love.

Our library is about a group of animals that want to save their library before it gets closed forever. To find out what they can learn, they read a variety of books they found in the library. They end up raising money and finding other locations for the library to be.

I really wasn't a fan of the plot to be honest. I do like Eve Bunting a lot but not this book. On a positive note, it sent a good message on how important having a library and books are to reading and learning.

I loved the pictures. they are very bright and playful. They are also very detailed. I found myself looking at the pictures more than the rest of the book but that was ok because I liked those better.

This book made me think of my library back home. I remember being so excited the days when my mom took me to the library. I wanted to get enough point to advnaced on the reading board and get a prize. We would go all the time and I couldn't imagine not having that place in my life. It would be a shame for any child to grow up and not have a library.

This picture book is acutally a poem written in picture book format. It is about a girls grandmother ho as you can tell is a little bit of a hippie. She still does things like she did in the 60's even thought this book is from 2003. She is a free spirit which is why her granddaughter loves hanging out with her.

The pictures in this book are fantastic. They are colorful and flowy which helps the poem run smooth. It is also an easy poem with basic formating. Every other line has the last word that rhymes.

As I said, this book is acutally a poem with 4 lines written on each page. It also rhymes which makes the whole poem flow and make it easy for younger readers to read. This would be a great book to introduce poetry to a class with. I could show the class how even if they think that poetry is a hard topic, they will be able to see how they can relate to real life.

I would reccomend this book to people who want a fun light and easy read. to me it was funny because I understand the references made and the little jokes like having plants growing in the bathroom but i am not sure younger readers will really understand it.

This book is a little how to for getting married. It reminds me of what I would ask a little kid what they think has to do in the process of getting married. It was so adorable. The main character (girl on cover) looks like she made a notebook about the things that she wants for her wedding and then tore out the sheets and taped them to the pages. I thought that was clevar way of adding to the text.

This book is very comical. It is like a little girl who is imaganing her wedding day. But it has some great messages for example, it was girl proposing to the man which was a little power to the female image there. Also, the beginning talked about how you can marry a variety of things and it didn't matter so that was a nice message. iIt could either mean that you can have interracial marriages, marriges to the same sex, different religions, different personalilites anything which I thought was a good little moral message. It was cleary written recently (2009 to be exact) because this is modern view on the concept of marriage.

I chose this book because I was drawn to the title and the cover picture. This silly way or illustrating was all throughout the book and I am a HUGE fan. It made perfect sense for the book. They are funny yet details and believable. Sometimes I think that pictures don't really go with the text. They can be really good but not fit the mood of the story but these pictures definatly did.

This adorable book is what Mr putter, tabby, Mrs teaberry zeke do on a hot summer day to stay cool. They end up taking a trip to the pond and renting a row boat.

This book is a good one when you start to introduce chapter books to kids. It shows how a text can be broken up into pieces. It would also be a good book for lesson plans since you can easily stop and discuss or a time filler because you don't have to read the whole book. You just have read a chapter or two.

This book made me happy because as the weather is getting warmer, it makes me think off the hot summer days of summer I spent cooling off in my boyfriends lake at his lakehouse. It brings good memories to life and good feelings.

It is also a good book to talk about about adjectives. It focuses on just one main idea that it is hot out but Rylant states that in a variety of ways so that would be a good example if students are working on their writing.

All the Mr. Putter books have great pictures. Howards pictures have a little comedy to them because they make the characters a little goofy looking like Mr. Potter has glasses on that fall down to the end of his nose and Mrs. teaberry has a hat with real cherries on it. It is clevar since the book is a litte silly, the pictures reflect that.

Bunny Bungalow is a book about a bunny family that finds a perfect home for them to live in and they make it their own. It takes them through a day in their life almost and how bunnies do things. It personified bunnies because everything they did was like people and how they did them. They played with dolls, had picnicks, took baths in bath tubs, and slept in beds. It was very cute because bunnies are such an innocent little animal that it makes this book a "soft read" it is just something nice I could see being read to a child at bed time.

It is funny to me to read a bunny book because when I was little bunny was the first animal word that I had learned so my mom tells me that I would call every animal bunny. that een stuck to one of my toys. my grandma got me a very very cute stuffed animal raccoon and I called it bunny and so that stuck. So i have a stuffed animal names bunny. haha.

I very much like Hayashi's illustartions in this book. They look like water colors with lines. They are sweet and soft just like the book itself. I also like the imagination used because they made a bunny version for every household item like the weather vein is a carrot and they played with little baby bunnies for their dolls. It was very nice. They were also somewhat detailed pictures. not too simple and not so overhelingly detailed so that you focused your attention both on the story and the pictures.

Glogster

Dog heaven is about what possibly happens to a dog after they pass away. She really paints a beautiful picture about doggie heaven that would make the death of a pet easier for any child. It provides happy thoughts about them going to a place that is just perfect for them.

When I chose this book I wanted to read it because it was both written and illustrated by Cynthis Rylant which isn't foudnin too many of her books. At the end she says that the pictures were done with acrylicas. I like the simplicitly of the lines and pictures on the pgae. There is something beautiful about that. There is a sense of movement also created in the lines. Your eyes move around each page following the lines. There is definate color seperation on every page. Most pages have muted blues with spalshes of brighter colors.

The story is very sweet as well. I bought my own dog abut a year and half ago and he has truly become part of me. It is a bond people wont' understand unless they do have a pet. Paisley is a yorkie so he is very tiny and is a lover. He wants to be by me at all times. Although he is still only 2 years old, I can't imagine life without him. This books calsm my nerves about losing him at some point a little bit because it is easier when I think that he would be going to a good place.

I would liek to mention that is someone has a problem with god being used in a book and the idea of heaven as an after life then this book isn't going to be for you. God is mentioned a lot throughout the book. I however think that the spirtual side of this story is what makes it very good. We dont' usually think about pets going to an after life, at least I don't, so it kind of got me thinking.

I must say that I almost teared up reading this book. It as VERY personal to me. We just recently moved out of our lake avenue home which was built by my dad. It was our dream home. But we are all growing up and it was time to move away. This book is another dedication to something other than a person, her childhood home on lake street (ironic!). The book uses all 5 senses to bring to life what makes a home special. It starts off by emphasizing that a home is made by the important things on the inside. This was a calming thought to me because the move was very hard on our family and we have to remind ourselves of just this fact.

The pictures in this book are to die for. There is so much detail I coudln't even describe one page. This also reminds me of my own home. There are certian things that stand out to us in each room. Like in the book is was a green refrigerator. I remember the stone tiled wall behind the stove. There are alos so many personal objects. If I were to write this book about m home, Sally fish our candy jar would stand out. She was bought for me when I was really little and I guess I named her Sally the fish. This was shortened to sally fish but she has stuck with us all these years. She has been dropped and crack open and super glued back together because we can't give her up. The whole story brought back memories like this from that home.

When I read this book it took me at least 1/2 an hour because I was staring at the pictures and absorbing the words. This is one of my favortie books by far that I have read this semester. It is one that I plan on having in my own personal collection. Every child will be able to relate to this story.

In november is another great seasonal book by Cynthia. It describes how it gets cold, animals begin to prepare for the winter, the traditions the month brings. One thing I noticed is how every book of hers is dedicated to someone else in her life even though she has written over 100 children's books. Since I was curious about the idea of dedicating over 100 books to people, I looked at some of her more recent books and saw that the dedication page isn't always in the front. I think that shows a more recent trend. Also what I find rather cleaver is that she doens't always dedicate her books to people. One of her books she dedicates to chickens. This brings me to another point. All of her books that I have read thus far and plan on reading are based off of her life and her personal experiences. Although they are fiction, I would describe them as realisitic fiction because everything could happen.

The book really uses strong description words that brings to life the month of November. I liked the repetition of the phrase "in november." It made you want to read to see what was going to come next in the month. I think that a lot of books focus on the people around the holiday time and I liked how this book also talked about the animals during the holiday season. I think that this would be a great book to read aloud when you are talking about adjectives or even poerty. I could see the class lifting a line out from this book and everyone coudl write their own poem from that. It would be cool because everyone would have a different poem.

Once again Cynthis uses a different illustrator. The pictures look like they are oil paintings. A lot for the faces aren't very defined but I think that it works for this book. Actually in my opinion, the faces of the animals are more clear than the people. I don't know if this was done on purpose or not but it is interesting,

When the Relatives Came is a caldecott honor book. It also one of her earlier books, publishedin 1985. This book is very adorable. It describes an old fashioned family reunion and how special family is even if you only get to see them once a year.
Rylant uses a lto fo different illistrators in her books. In fact, she doens't have too many books that have the same illistrator. In this book, I did not like the faces of the people. They were almost ugly in my opinion. It sort of ruined it for me because I was distracted by it. I liked the background images and the objects but I did have a real problem with the people.
This book doesn't give you a warm fuzzt feeling about seeing your fmaily though. Rylant describes the ugly broken down car they come in and even though it gross, it means it's their family. Every family has thier own traditions and I think that was evident in this book. It makes you think about the things that you do when you see your family. I remember going to my grandma's house in Wisconsin and sleeping over. She only has one extra room so my brother and I would share a bed. When my sister came along she got to sleep in our room too, in a crib. I was reminded by this when she described the funny sleeping arrangements hey had. Each house has its different sounds like the breathing described in the book. Overall, this book just really makes you feel good inside and out.

At first I was drawn to this book honestly because I opened a page and it had glitter all over it. Then I started to read it and the winter is finally ending so it seems like a topic I can read about one more time and store away until the end of the year. The way snow is written is amazing. It is full of similies and personification of snow. The whole book describes the different snows that there are and how they make you feel. There is snow like a shy friend afraid to knock, snow that is cheerful and lets you know you are not where you want to be (school), and snow that tells you it will send you home early for the day.
What I really liked about this book is that I could actually feel the different emotions that snow brings us that I had never thought about. This keeped me really focused on the book. Everytime it start to really snow all of us have the TV on hoping for cancelled classes. Sometimes there is snow so beautiful it reminds you for a little while how much you love the snow and couldn't live without it. This feeling only lasts for a few hours though.
Another favorite part of this book for me was Lauren Stronger's Illistrations. Snow is the main character throughout the whole book. She creates movement in her drawings with the snow and makes snow the focal point of all the pages. The people are secondary. I thought that was very cleaver. I didn't know you could makes something that is totally white stand out on every page.
This book would be amazing to teach personification in the classroom, especially if it is the time of the year when snow was about to come. The books really glorifies snow and makes you feel like it is your friend and someone that makes you feel so many good emotions.

Reflections
This class has been great so far. It has been great exposure to lots of different kids books. But what I think I will take away the most from this class is how to analyze childrens books and look at them in different lights. What I mean is that so many children's books are cute, with good pictures and have story lines. But before blogging about al these books I had a hard time distinguishing what I liked and disliked about childrens books. I didn't really know how to pick out a book that I would consider "good." Now I have some tools to use when I am browsing the shelves. When I first started this class I immediatly went right to the good old books that I remember my mom reading to me. When you mentioned that you wanted us to look at new books I thought that would be a lot of work but I found that I really enjoyed a lot of the new books that I picked out. I also like the books that deal with contemporary issues.
One of my favorite parts of the class was reading the controversial books. Some I didn't see what the big deal was and some were totally shocking. I actually liked several of them. The good thing about reading controversial books is that I now have an idea about what some parents might have problems with in my own classroom. I didn't think Tango Makes Three wasa big deal but I can see how parents could get offended. And now I realize how I can use these books to talk about certian topics that might be hard to discuss or start to discuss. They can be an ice breaker and resouce.
Another thing I liked is reading the Giver. I remember having read it in school but I didn't remember what it was about. Now I can really understand it. I can see using this is my classroom and having alot of discussions about it and connecting it to a variety of subjects. It is an easy read for our age but it is a very deep book.
I look foward to the rest of the class and exploring the A/I/P project so I can identify someone that I like in particular. I also am excited to see everyone elses.

I am still undecided how I feel about this book. It took me a little while to get into the story and in the middle I was thinking that this was getting really long because it was reallt didn't take place over a long period of time and besides being picked on, it was only about running for the school election. I just wanted the election to occur already about 1/2 into it. Like I said it took me a while to get reading the book. I was drawn in by the fact that Bobby was a tie salesman that got picked on or his friends met for sodas and fries on fridays. When I started to see their dynamic at school I started to feel sorry for them and that is when I read on and started to like it a little bit more. I did like the variety of people that were in the book. By no means were the gang of 5 a group of white middle class people that you normally think about. They were the unpopular ones, the ones who had a hard time.

I like the bravery and tolerance portrayed in the book. I bet every kid who does get picked on wished they could do what they did. It showed tolerance because of Joe being openly gay to his friends and eventually to colin. What I did want to note is that when I read that part, I didn't know at frist if he was joking because the 4 of them are always making sarcastic comments to addie and each other when they have their topics of the day so I went page a page and read it. I like how it was portrayed as something that people could live with because i PERSONALLY (not to offend) think thats how it should be.

I wouldnt say that I was someone who was picked on in school by any means but I was like Kelsey in a way. I was just very quiet until you got to know me so I was able to relate to the book. The topic of bullying in schools and the affects it has on children is something that really really is intersting to me and I would like to explore this further when I am a teacher. Even if you aren't the target of constant jokes everyone has been called a name at one point in their life and it never gets any easier to deal with. In this wasy everyone who reads the book could relate and learn how it affects someone they bully or name call.

Another thing about this book that made it go faster than I thought was the formatting of it. You don't just sit and read text but you read dialogue and it makes you feel like you are there in the story with the gang of 5 as they are trying to make some change. This creates a strong emotional tie to the book as a reader. You can't help but root for the underdog especially when you know so much about them. They aren't weird, just misunderstood.

I loved this story! It tore my heart when I read that the two penguins wanted a baby but they couldn't make one and that goes for my personal views as well. What makes this book controversial is obviously the two gay penguins but when you read the back of the book there is an authors note saying that this was a true story. That I think is reason enough to read the story even if you have a problem with the gay issue. What also makes this story cool is it's not dealing with people but just two cute little animals which delivers a message of innocence to a complex issue.

The title is the cleverist part of all. It takes two to tango was a nice play on an idea.

Today the gay/lesbian issue is a prominete issue. It is openly discussed amoung all sorts of people from rich to poor. Even affluent people discuss it like the presidents and senators. Some states not allow civil marriages. I PERSONALLY don't think that it is necessairly right to discriminate against a group of people because that brings us back to the time of slavery. We are prohibiting a right that most people have.

I also noticed when I was reading the book that they don't say mommies and daddies until you are on the penguin page. It says families. Everyone's definition of a family is different and in todays society it is an everchanging words that fits on perfect definition. 100 years ago it would be mom dad and kids. Today there are step siblings, step mom and dad, interracial, gay, lesbian, bisexual and on. Families live together and apart. Families might have grandparents or cousins living with them. There are even people who don't consider people related by blood family for personal reasons. I know that I don't call my "uncle jerry" a family member because of things he did. So although I see the issue at hand I think it needs to be taken into consideration that we are in the year 2010 and this book is only 5 years old.