The Stories Julian Tells -- Ann Cameron

Julian's father ''is a big man with wild black hair. When he laughs, the sun laughs in the windowpanes. When he thinks, you can almost see his thoughts sitting on all the tables and chairs.''
In these six brief stories told by Julian, father is a tremendous presence. He's unpredictable, electrifying when angry, and almost as imaginative as 6- year-old Julian himself.
When Julian's father makes a wonderful pudding to surprise Julian's mother, it tastes like ''a whole raft of lemon...like a night on the sea.'' Naturally, Julian and his little brother Huey can't resist tasting it, then evening it out, then tasting a bit more. When father discovers the empty bowl, he roars that ''There is going to be some beating here now! There is going to be some whipping!'' as Julian and Huey tremble. Huey, it turns out, must beat the yolks for a new pudding and Julian must whip the whites.
The Stories Jullian Tells, originally published in 1981, about this vivid African-American family are exhilarating and touching. Cameron's particular strength is to capture, in revealing snatches of dialogue, the subtle eddies and undercurrents of feeling in normal family life. Yet her magically intense, almost poetic prose is simple enough for the youngest reader.
Tender and funny, the Julian stories are so insightful, suffused with love and the excitement of imaginative play, that they will never lose their universal appeal or their power to enchant.

This is a good book for a multicultural classroom because it shows an underrepresented people as its main character. This would be a good read aloud, since it is a quick read and easily understood by your students, no matter what reading level they may be on.


Cameron, Ann, and Ann Strugnell. The Stories Julian Tells. New York: Knopf, 1997. Print. ISBN:  0-394-82892-5

Review courtesty of: http://www.ew.com/ew/article/0,,317973,00.html

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1.03.01

Selavi--Youme

The true story of Selavi ("that is life"), a small boy who finds himself homeless on the streets of Haiti. A man by the name of TiFre helps him. He brings him to his home, a banyan tree near a market square. There he finds other street children who share their food and a place to sleep. They all tell their stories of their lives and what they have seen, and find comfort in one another. Most mornings, they rose early and tried to find work doing any odd job and asking people for money and food. One day Selavi comes home to the tree to find many angry men there who claim to have ran all his friends off. After running from the men, Selavi found himself in a church, where a couple offered to keep him as their son. He was worried about his friends, and the churchgoers got together and decided to build a house where street children who looked out for one another could live. Someone set fire to this new house, leaving the children homeless, yet again.  Together they proclaim a message of hope through murals and radio programs. Now in paper, this beautifully illustrated story is supplemented with photographs of Haitian children working and playing together, plus an essay by Edwidge Danticat. Included in the 2005 ALA Notable Childrens Book List and the Texas Bluebonnet Award Master List.

This book would be a great book to demonstrate hope as a characteristic of a main character. The children in this story are a very good example of not giving up on something they want, no matter what happens to them. Many students in classrooms these days could benefit from reading a story like this one.


Youme. Selavi, That Is Life: a Haitian Story of Hope. El Paso, TX: Cinco Puntos, 2004. Print. ISBN: 0-938317-84-9.

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To Kill a Mockingbird--Harper Lee

The story takes place during three years of the Great Depression in the fictional "tired old town" of Maycomb, Alabama. The narrator, six-year-old Scout Finch, lives with her older brother Jem and their widowed father Atticus, a middle-aged lawyer. Jem and Scout befriend a boy named Dill who visits Maycomb to stay with his aunt for the summer. The three children are terrified of, and fascinated by, their neighbor, the reclusive "Boo" Radley. The adults of Maycomb are hesitant to talk about Boo and, for many years, few have seen him. The children feed each other's imagination with rumors about his appearance and reasons for remaining hidden, and they fantasize about how to get him out of his house. Following two summers of friendship with Dill, Scout and Jem find that someone is leaving them small gifts in a tree outside the Radley place. Several times, the mysterious Boo makes gestures of affection to the children, but, to their disappointment, never appears in person.
Atticus is appointed by the court to defend a black man named Tom Robinson, who has been accused of raping Mayella Ewell, a young white woman. Although many of Maycomb's citizens disapprove, Atticus agrees to defend Tom to the best of his ability. Other children taunt Jem and Scout for Atticus' actions, calling him a "nigger-lover". Scout is tempted to stand up for her father's honor by fighting, even though he has told her not to. For his part, Atticus faces a group of men intent on lynching Tom. This danger is averted when Scout, Jem, and Dill shame the mob into dispersing by forcing them to view the situation from Atticus' and Tom's points of view.
Because Atticus does not want them to be present at Tom Robinson's trial, Scout, Jem, and Dill watch in secret from the colored balcony. Atticus establishes that the accusers—Mayella and her father, Bob Ewell, the town drunk—are lying. It also becomes clear that the friendless Mayella was making sexual advances towards Tom and her father caught her in the act. Despite significant evidence of Tom's innocence, the jury convicts him. Jem's faith in justice is badly shaken, as is Atticus', when a hopeless Tom is shot and killed while trying to escape from prison.
Humiliated by the trial, Bob Ewell vows revenge. He spits in Atticus' face on the street, tries to break into the presiding judge's house, and menaces Tom Robinson's widow. Finally, he attacks the defenseless Jem and Scout as they walk home from the school Halloween pageant. Jem's arm is broken in the struggle, but amid the confusion, someone comes to the children's rescue. The mysterious man carries Jem home, where Scout realizes that he is the reclusive Boo Radley.
Maycomb's sheriff arrives and discovers that Bob Ewell has been killed in the struggle. The sheriff argues with Atticus about the prudence and ethics of holding Jem or Boo responsible. Atticus eventually accepts the sheriff's story that Ewell simply fell on his own knife. Boo asks Scout to walk him home, and after she says goodbye to him at his front door, he disappears again. While standing on the Radley porch, Scout imagines life from Boo's perspective and regrets that they never repaid him for the gifts he had given them.

This book is used in many American classrooms and is taught in many high school English courses. This book is a classic, and could be used in many different ways. It could be used to show how morals are different with different people. The lessons behind this book make it a good whole class read for discussion.


Lee, Harper. To Kill a Mockingbird. New York: HarperCollins, 1960. Print. ISBN: 0-446-31078-6

Talkin' About Bessie--Nikki Grimes

One of the most remarkable women aviators is gone and her friends and family are all together mourning her loss and celebrating her life and the joy that they experienced in knowing her. We hear their words as each one speaks about Bessie, lady of the skies who dared to break the rules and show the world that a black woman could do anything she put her mind to.
  The author has done a masterful job of recreating the "voices" of all the people present at Bessie's last goodbye. There are different accents, different tones, different personalities for each one and with E.B. Lewis's evocative paintings it is as if we are transported back in time to the times in Bessie's life that are described by the speakers. We see her as the little girl reading the bible to her illiterate mother; we are with her as she cuts her hands picking cotton; we are there when she is doing mounds of laundry to help support her family and to pay for her education; and we are there when a fan describes what it was like to watch Bessie fly her plane making it do "spirals and fancy flips."
  Perhaps best of all we get to hear Bessie's own voice as she describes the very first time she flew and how flying made her feel. With lyrical and almost magical text we are taken up into the clouds with Bessie and her loss does not seem so sad as we read about the joy that she experienced in her life and the joy too that she had in making the world see that a black woman had something to offer the world.

This is a good book to demonstrate craft. Since this book is written in a verse form, it is a good example to show to students. Some students are intimidated by verse and seeing it in this form can make it a little less overwhelming. Understanding this book is very easy, and enjoying it is even easier. Students will be able to relax a little when reading since they realize they can understand it. 

Grimes, Nikki, and E. B. Lewis. Talkin' about Bessie: the Story of Aviator Bessie Coleman. New York: Orchard, 2002. Print. ISBN: 0-439-35243-6.

Review by: lookingglassreview.com

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1.03.01

Blacker the Berry--Joyce Carol Thomas

The Blacker the Berry features twelve poems complimenting different shades of skin color and connecting those colors with similes and metaphors of foods—mostly berries.

While the actual content of the picture book is far from tense, there is building in the sense that the final poem incorporates all of the children previously described.

Issues explored through the poems include the ideas of ‘passing’ as white, ethnic identity, connection to the past, ways of peacefully resisting negative perceptions, etc. All of these could become points to discuss with a class.

This picture book won the Coretta Scott King Award this year for the illustrations. The pictures feature African American children with a range of skin tones in natural environments, doing a number of activities, almost always smiling. The picture book naturalizes blackness and presents as many different skin tones as possible positively. 


I could use this book in my class if I had a very diverse group of kids by having each of them write a poem about their own skin color. 


Thomas, Joyce Carol., and Floyd Cooper. The Blacker the Berry: Poems. New York: HarperCollins, 2008. Print. ISBN: 9780060253752.

When You Reach Me--Rebecca Stead

This was the winner of the 2010 John Newbery book. Miranda is a very independent sixth grader in New York City. She knows her way around her neighborhood and takes care of herself most of the time until her mother gets home from work. Miranda and Sal have been best friends ever since they were little. However, one day Sal got punched by Marcus, for what seems like no reason. He shuts Miranda out of his life after this incident. Miranda begins to find mysterious notes that talk about things that haven’t even happened yet. Miranda is puzzled by these notes and what they mean. Miranda becomes closer with Colin and Annemarie and is constantly having conflicts with Julia, Annemarie’s friend. All the characters and the story are tied together by a strange man who was writing the notes. There are many issues throughout this book involving race, ethnicity, social economic status, and many others.  This is a great story about friendship, conflict, and finding one’s self  in a middle school setting, where that can sometimes be a difficult endeavor. This book is a good read for junior high students who are somewhat advanced in their reading level. It can become a bit confusing when A Wrinkle in Time is referenced and it is sort of hard to follow. 

This would be a suitable group read-aloud and discussion book. There are lots of opportunities for discussion on different issues in middle school aged kids.

Stead, Rebecca. (2009). When You Reach Me. New York: Wendy Lamb Books. 197 pp. ISBN: 978-0-385-90664-7.

Seedfolks--Paul Fleischman

Seedfolks is told by a diverse group of characters. Each chapter is told from a different person’s point of view, each of a different ethnic group. The book follows the characters through their journey in building a garden in the middle of Cleveland, Ohio. They have to clear the big lot of all the trash that the locals throw in the empty space and begin working up the dirt. It all started with a young Vietnamese girl who planted six lima beans. It follows thirteen different characters through their garden endeavors. Each character has a very different reason as to why they want to plant in the garden. Some are only looking to make money, some are forced, and others are doing it to merely find themselves. This is a great story of people who would probably never have been connected coming together in a common place all working at the same thing, but at the same time having very different motives. 

This book would be great in a classroom setting of any kind. You could teach this book at the very beginning of your year and show the similarities between the garden’s sense of community and the classroom’s community setting. 

Fleischman, Paul. (1997). Seedfolks. New York: HarperCollins. 102 pp. ISBN: 0-06-447207-8.

Seqouyah--James Rumsford

SEQUOYAH: THE CHEROKEE MAN WHO GAVE HIS PEOPLE WRITING by James Rumsford (Houghton Mifflin) The mighty trees that bear the name Sequoyah are tall and strong, but the Cherokee man, a disabled metalworker in the early 19th century, dreamed of standing with equal authority among his people. He tried to contribute to his tribe by developing a language so that their words of would not disappear with the coming of the white man. He drew hundreds of signs to create a language, but superstitious people were afraid of his symbols, and burned his cabin down with all his work inside. This only inspired Sequoyah to create a shortcut: an alphabet. Look inside this book to see the language that he created, as well as bold and beautiful woodcuts. The writing comes around in full circle like the seed to a tree to a seed again. Well-researched and compelling, this is an outstanding contribution to the genre of children's picture book biography, as well as an inspiring tribute to both the power of the word and the genius of a man. Read this along with Susan Roth's DO, RE, MI, and have children try to invent their own language to fill a void where communication is needed! (7 and up)

(planetesme.com)

In my classroom I would read this book aloud to the class and discuss how he made a language for his own people. I would compare and contrast this language to that of the English language, and many other languages that use different symbols for their words or letters.

Rumford, James. Sequoyah: the Cherokee Man Who Gave His People Writing. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2004. Print. ISBN: 0-618-36947-3.