Module 7- Ivy + Bean Break the Fossil Record

Module 7- Ivy + Bean Break the Fossil Record (Book 3)

Summary

Ivy and Bean are two 2^nd grade girls that are come up with a plan to be the youngest paleontologist.  The two girls come up with a plan to dig in Bean’s own backyard. They found bones but they were bones that the dog had buried.

Reference of Book

Barrows, A. (2007). 3 Ivy Bean: Break the Fossil Record. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books.

Impression

This is a great book for young girls. This book is a realistic friction that will encourage girls to try anything. It also encourage the children to try something new and think out of the box.  

Professional Reviews

KIRKUS REVIEW

A charismatic duo makes their debut in this new chapter-book series. Barrows provides a fresh take on the standard odd-couple tale of friendship, with a caveat to readers of not judging a book by its cover—or the new girl by her seemingly goody image. Bean, an energetic girl with an inclination for mischief, just doesn’t see the appeal of her new neighbor Ivy, whom her mother extols as such a “nice girl,” which Bean readily translates to mean dull. However, when she needs to escape the wrath of her bossy sister Nancy, Bean discovers a whole new dimension to the quiet girl next door. Together Ivy and Bean concoct a plan to cast Ivy’s fledgling dancing spell on Nancy, with unexpected and hilarious results. With a hearty helping of younger sibling angst, a sprinkling of spells and potions and a dash of nosy neighbors, Barrows has the perfect recipe for solidifying a newfound friendship. Blackall’s saucy illustrations detailing the girls’ hijinks and their calamitous outcomes are liberally featured throughout the text. Readers are bound to embrace this spunky twosome and eagerly anticipate their continuing tales of mischief and mayhem. (Fiction. 6-10)

Kirkus Reviews (2006). Retrieved from https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/annie-barrows/ivy-bean/

Rhiannon and I selected our first Ivy and Bean book, Ivy + Bean Break the Fossil Record for three reasons. First, the cover had two girls on it; second, the cover illustration was very funny, and third, the book promised to be about fossils and paleontology. Rhiannon at six years old (she will be seven by the time this review is published) already styles herself a “junior paleontologist,” and rightfully so I suppose. She identified her first fossils correctly, molluscs from the Pliocene Pinecrest Formation of Florida, when she was only three! And for the past two summers she has worked as a paid assistant in the paleontology lab at the California Academy of Sciences (earning money for rubber snakes and Barbie dolls). So, she was naturally intrigued by a book that claimed to tell the story of the world's youngest paleontologists, and also one that claimed to break the Fossil Record. The book is the third in the Ivy and Bean series by Annie Barrows, and features second grade best friends Ivy and Bean. The pair are that often-used, but perhaps all too true odd couple. Ivy is studious, well-mannered and a little shy, while Bean is outspoken and a bit bored with her age. Any parent of a young girl reading this might recognize both characters immediately!  This installment of the series opens with a classroom independent reading session, in which Bean is absolutely bored until the teacher gives her a special book, a book of world records. Meanwhile, Ivy is engrossed in a book about a character that should be familiar to all paleontologists, Mary Anning. Mary Anning was a young girl of the 19th century living in southern England. She is most famous for her discovery of the first complete ichthyosaur fossil at the age of 12, though she went on to have an illustrious career, also discovering the first species of plesiosaur. Bean entertains the class with hilarious stories of various record breakers (our favourite being the boy who stuck fifteen spoons to his face), but Ivy is entranced by Anning's story. Bean eventually decides to be a world record holder, and embarks on several unsuccessful but hugely entertaining attempts at various records, including Rhiannon's favourite, the stuffing of the most straws in one's mouth. (Thankfully, my co-author decided that this was not a good idea, though the straws had already been purchased). It is at this point that the story comes together: Ivy and Bean decide to break Mary Anning's record as the world's youngest paleontologist. What follows is a series of bone discoveries, childrens' misadventures, and the opening of a new museum. All in a single backyard! This book could be dismissed as just another copy of a Cleary story, or as a silly pun on paleontological matters, but we think that it has more to offer. Ivy and Bean are both portrayed as believable characters, exhibiting all the charm of children at the brink of their ages of discovery. It is hardly ever obvious what the spark will be for any particular child. For Bean it was the discovery of world records, while for Ivy, it was that topic that many PE readers will identify with, paleontology. Barrows is clearly a keen observer of interactions among children, and that's what this book is all about. Never mind the scientific inaccuracies which crop up here and there; you'll also find those in every well respected popular news publication, and even, gasp, scientific journals. For Rhiannon, the summary of the book is simple: It features girls, the title is funny because “Record” means both world and fossil record, Ivy and Bean remind her of her own friends, and they built a museum with their own fossil discoveries. For me, the book was perfect bedtime reading with the little one, and was a funny and precious thing to share as a paleontological parent (I look forward to someday being a fossil parent). That's a lot of positive gain from a small and simple book. Epilogue: Mary Anning's career as a paleontologist is noteworthy because of her discoveries, the contribution of those discoveries to our understanding of extinction, and her gender. She was able to support her family as necessary with fossil sales and patronage. She was eventually granted an annuity by the British Association for the Advancement of Science and was made an honorary member of the Geological Society of London. She never, however, held a paid position, nor was she elected to full membership in these associations, most likely because of her gender. She died of breast cancer at the young age of 47.

Roopnarini, P., & Roopnarine, S. (2008). Palaeontologia Electronica. Retrieved from http://palaeo-electronica.org/2008_3/books/ivy.htm

Librarian Use

After students read the book they can make a book trailer. Students could write a script about the book.  

Module 6 - Creepy Carrots

Module 6- Creepy Carrots

Summary

Jasper the rabbit loves carrots. He likes to stop at Crackenhopper field and snack on carrots. Then one day Jasper thought that creepy carrots where following him. Jasper saw them in the bathroom, storage shed and on the way home. Jasper came up with a plan to build a fence around the field with a moat. Jasper no longer saw creepy carrots. The creepy carrots were behind the fence.

Reference of Book

Reynolds, A. (2013). Creepy carrots! New York, NY: Weston Woods Studios.

Impression

This book was fun to share with children. Peter Brown, the illustrator, made the pictures are creepy but with a twist. What Jasper really saw was just a figment of his imagination.  

Professional Reviews

Kids know vegetables can be scary, but rarely are edible roots out to get someone. In this whimsical mock-horror tale, carrots nearly frighten the whiskers off Jasper Rabbit, an interloper at Crackenhopper Field.
Jasper loves carrots, especially those “free for the taking.” He pulls some in the morning, yanks out a few in the afternoon, and comes again at night to rip out more. Reynolds builds delicious suspense with succinct language that allows understatements to be fully exploited in Brown’s hilarious illustrations. The cartoon pictures, executed in pencil and then digitally colored, are in various shades of gray and serve as a perfectly gloomy backdrop for the vegetables’ eerie orange on each page. “Jasper couldn’t get enough carrots … / … until they started following him.” The plot intensifies as Jasper not only begins to hear the veggies nearby, but also begins to see them everywhere. Initially, young readers will wonder if this is all a product of Jasper’s imagination. Was it a few snarling carrots or just some bathing items peeking out from behind the shower curtain? The ending truly satisfies both readers and the book’s characters alike. And a lesson on greed goes down like honey instead of a forkful of spinach.

Smith, V. Kirkus Review (2012) Retrieved from https://www.kirkusreviews.com

A children’s librarian is half media specialist, half psychic. It isn’t enough to have to know the books in your collection. You have to know what that pint-sized patron standing before you REALLY wants when they say they want “a scary book”. For a while there I had this very persistent three-year-old who would beg me for scary fare and wait as I dutifully pulled picture book after picture book for him. After a while I’d begin to wonder what would happen if I actually gave him what he said he wanted. What if I’d handed him Alan Schwartz’s Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark? Would it have scarred him for life? Fortunately the shelves of your average children’s room abound with titles that are “scary” enough for a small fry. The trick is to find something that manages to balance the funny and the frightening in equal measures, never overplaying its hand. Had Creepy Carrots! by Aaron Reynolds been available when I met that kid, it would have been the first thing I’d have pulled from the shelf. With pitch perfect illustration by the increasingly talented Peter Brown, this beautifully shaded creation is a great example of how to get the tone of a picture book exactly right. Strange and wonderful and weird in all the right places.
Jasper Rabbit. You average everyday hare. Jasper has a penchant for carrots. Stands to reason. He’s a rabbit. Every day he plucks them from the Crackenhopper Field. Never has a care in the world either. But one day Jasper has a suspicion. Carrots in his tummy he understands, but carrots in his bathtub? In his bedroom? In the tool shed? Seems that Jasper is being stalked by vegetation. Without realizing it, Jasper Rabbit is crossed out of his everyday existence and into . . . the carrot zone.
Before we get into anything else, let’s talk text. As difficult as it may be, I tried reading this book without paying attention to the accompanying illustrations (no small feat) to get a sense of what author Aaron Reynolds is doing here. What I discovered when I went through it on a word alone basis was that Reynolds has penned a really good read aloud. There’s a great inherent drama to lines like, “Jasper was about to help himself to a victory snack, when he heard it. The soft… sinister… tunktunktunk of carrots creeping. He turned… but there was nothing there.” This passage is just begging to be read aloud with Vincent Price-esque cadences. The inherent ridiculousness of creeping carrots being scary is paired with the rather effective “tunktunktunk” sound. It reminded me of the sound of the dead son in that old short story The Monkey’s Paw. It speaks of unnatural slowness, always creepy to kids who move at lightning speeds themselves. Reading this book you hit that dichotomy of potentially frightening and potentially funny over and over until, at last, you reach the end. The book’s finale is one of those twist endings that some kids will get while others just enjoy the visuals. I love a picture book with a good twist, and so do child audiences. Particularly when they don’t see where the story is going.
It’s interesting that though Reynolds has specialized in child lit noir for years (his Joey Fly Private Eye comic books practically typify the genre) there’s nothing ostensibly nourish about the text for Creepy Carrots! Just the same, Peter Brown saw something atmospheric there to be plundered. The decision was the right one and Brown cleverly culled from not a single noir source but from many. There are hints of Hitchcock, Wells, Twilight Zone, and other influences (Vertigo being the most direct reference of them all). The result is a picture of psychosis running rampant. Kids are naturally afraid that there might be monsters under their beds, so they understand paranoia. Only a few books think to take advantage of that fact. Meet one of the few.
Atmospheric black and white, when done right, yields picture book gold. Think about the Caldecott Honor winner The Spider and the Fly as illustrated in a 1920s movie house style by Tony DiTerlizzi. Brown’s work isn’t wholly black and white, of course. He allows himself a single color: orange. This is a deep dark orange though. One that goes rather well with the man’s copious shading. Previous Brown books like The Curious Garden had fun with the borders, filling them with creeping smog around the edges. In Creepy Carrots! the borders now teem with encroaching darkness. Each picture is enclosed in a black border that seeps a fog like substance into the images. It’s like watching a television show or a movie where you know something’s gonna get the hero sometime. You just don’t know when.
Fair play to Brown with his carrots too. As you can see from the cover alone, he takes care to make them funny and scary all at once. They have a random smattering of gappy teeth like jack-o-lanterns, crossed eyes, and a variety of tops. They’re like The Three Stooges in vegetable form, only more intimidating. Brown also makes the rather interesting decision to give much of this book a cut out feel. His style consists of drawing in pencil on paper and then digitally composing and coloring his images. The result is that he can give his scenes some real depth. That first shot of Jasper sitting merrily among the carrots really makes it look as if he’s cut out from the scene, nearer the audience, much like the tufts of the trees behind him. And finally there’s Jasper himself. You’d think the book would just feature the regular emotions like happy and frightened, but Brown does a lot more than that. The scene where Jasper laughs at himself for being so ridiculous to think that the carrots were following him is a triumph of mixed emotions. Worried eyes, smiling mouth, uncertain eyebrows, and hubris-filled ears. Beautiful stuff.
Though it has absolutely nothing to do with Halloween, thanks to its black, white, and orange palette (to say nothing of its subject matter) expect to see this book read aloud in many a Halloween story time for years and years to come. There are worse fates. I would simply remind everybody that scary books aren’t seasonal. That kid who requested them of me asked me for them month after month, never tiring of what I put before him. Kids love to be scared within the safety of their parents’ arms. Happy endings and gorgeous art are just a nice plus at that point. More fun than it deserves to be and thrilling to the core, expect to be asked to read this one over and over again and to willingly acquiesce so that you can pick out more details on a second, third, fortieth reading. A masterpiece of the scary/funny balance.
Bird, E. (2012) Fuse 8 Production, School Library Journal. Retrieved from http://blogs.slj.com/afuse8production/2012/09/20/review-of-the-day-creepy-carrots-by-peter-brown/#_

Librarian Use
Share the illustrators you tube about illustrating the text. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dzrohtbd0iw
The children could write about how they would get rid of the creepy carrots. Using different shades of orange and black the illustrator made the illustrations look creepy. Children try to illustrate using just different shades of the same color.   

Suzy Red has written several activities for Caldecott books.

Red, S. ( 2007) Library. Retrieved from http://suzyred.com/library2.html

Module 5- Goin' Somplace Special

Module 5- Goin' Someplace Special

Summary
The story is of a young African-American growing up in the south during the 1950’s. The girl wanted to go someplace special by her self with out an adult accompanying her. The story is the journey to the special place. The girl encountered people that were not nice to African-American’s or obeying the ‘Jim Crow’ signs. The someplace special was very surprising. The place was the Nashville’s Public Library. The library directors voted for integration. It was one of the places that there were no  ‘Jim Crow’ signs and blacks were welcomed.

Reference of Book
McKissack, P., & Pinkney, J. (2001). Goin' someplace special. New York, NY: Atheneum Books for Young Readers.

Impression
This book really made the reader understand what it was like for children in the 1950’s that were African-American. The author talked about how other children didn’t care that she was black. But adult and older siblings made sure that younger children didn’t associate with African-Americans. This is a great book to help discuss segregation.

Professional Reviews
Author Patricia McKissack uses childhood memories of growing up in the segregated South to create this enlightening and touching story of one very special place. Young 'Tricia can't wait to make her very own journey to Someplace Special (her destination is revealed only at the end of the story). Her grandmother reluctantly lets her baby out on her own, but not without some words of advice. "Hold yo' head up and act like you b'long to somebody."

As we soon find out, these powerful words will sustain Tricia during a rather disheartening journey through her native city as she encounters the harsh reality of segregation. As she enters the bus, she is forced to sit in the COLORED SECTION of seats in the back. When she spots a friend of her Grandmother, Tricia voices her anger. "It's not fair," she asserts. But as Mrs. Grannel points out, it's just the way it is. When Tricia gets off in downtown Nashville, she admires the Peace Fountain and looks to rest on a nearby bench. She quickly jumps up, as the bench graphically reads: FOR WHITES ONLY. As she makes her way through town she bumps into Mr. John Willis, the doorman at Southland Hotel. As he bestows compliments on the lovely girl, she is accidentally pushed into the lobby. Amidst all the hustle and bustle, Tricia can't get out. And the manager yells at her in front of every one, "No colored people allowed!". Just as Tricia is about to give up her voyage to Someplace Special, she runs into Blooming Mary, an older woman who tends to the Mission Church garden. Mary reminds here that Tricia can find strength in the words of her grandmother. Tricia takes heart from this encouragement and feels able to go on. But one more battle lies ahead. As Tricia passes a theater, a young white boy casually asks her if she's going to the show. Before she can reply, the boy's older sister angrily says, "Colored people can't come in the front door. They got to go 'round back and sit up in the Buzzard's Roost." Tricia keeps her head high, announcing that she'd never sit there -- she's headed someplace special. Readers finally learn where Tricia's journey has led her -- the library. The glorious building is large and imposing, its steps overflowing with people of all colors. And Tricia excitedly reads these special words: PUBLIC LIBRARY: ALL ARE WELCOME.

McKissack's author note at the end of the book explains just how close this tale is to her heart and her life. When Nashville's public library board quietly decided to integrate the facilities, it became one of very few places that did not feature Jim Crow signs. This touching story provides personal insight into a time that might be hard to understand for young readers. The text is beautifully written, with the perfect amount of dialogue on each page. Adding to the brilliant words of McKissack are the outstanding pencil and watercolor illustrations from the talented Jerry Pinkney. Each spread comes alive with the sights of the 1950s. The details of Tricia's face, and the family friends she encounters on her journey, speak volumes about the joy and suffering of life in segregated America. Tricia's dress, like Tricia herself, is bursting with life and optimism, providing a visual thread throughout the story.

This dynamic offering from the outstanding talents of McKissack and Pinkney is more than a springboard for conversation; it's also a stunning portrait of strength and beauty for every reader.
Barkat, A. (2002). Good Read. Retrieved from http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/948869.Goin_Someplace_Special

Every once in a while a special picture book comes along. On the shelf it calls out to you immediately. The moment you hold it in your hands you know it's a treasure you will want to read and share for years to come. Goin' Someplace Special is just such a book.

Patricia C. McKissack is one of our foremost authors for young people. Here, she tells her own story of growing up in Nashville in the segregated 1950s. Lovingly illustrated in pencil and watercolors by award-winning artist Jerry Pinkney, Goin' Someplace Special follows a girl named 'Tricia Ann as she leaves the protective comfort of her grandmother, Mama Frances, to take a big step. She is going downtown alone, to Someplace Special.

In Goin' Someplace Special we see the Jim Crow world through 'Tricia Ann's eyes. There's the sign on the bus that says Colored Section, the bench by the Peace Fountain that reads, For Whites Only and the Southland Hotel's grand lobby, where 'Tricia Ann wanders in by mistake, only to be yelled at and ousted by the manager. This journey away from her grandmother's loving arms is frightening indeed. But throughout, 'Tricia Ann is supported by friends and neighbors. In the bus, Mrs. Gannell tells her, Carry yo'self proud. And Jimmy Lee, a street vendor, helps keep her spirits up. Don't let those signs steal yo' happiness, he tells her.

In the end, 'Tricia Ann reaches her destination. And it is only then that the reader learns that Someplace Special is the Nashville Public Library, which in the late 1950s quietly voted to integrate its facilities.

Recently I asked Patricia McKissack if she had been thinking of writing this book for a long time. She responded, For years and years. But I did not want to write an angry book. I wanted children to feel they can make it to whatever destination they are trying to reach. I wanted this to be a book of triumph.
A book of triumph it is. With the love of family and the support of community, young Patricia McKissack did reach her destination and fulfill her dreams of becoming all she knew she could be. Children who read this beautiful, poignant story will be inspired to do the same.
Hopkinson, D. (2001). Book Pages. Retrieved from http://bookpage.com/reviews/2155-patricia-c-pinkney-goin-someplace-special#.VihRCaKhwo0
Librarian Use
This book would be good for a read aloud discussing segregation and how libraries are a special place. S