August 10 for 10: Picture Book Event is Here 2013

Good Morning Everyone, it's going to be a great day!  It's August 10th, 2013 and that means Cathy at Reflect and Refine Learning Building a Learning Community and I are here to host our fourth annual 10 for 10 Picture Books blog sharing event.  If you could see my laptop right now, I have four screens opened for my blog.  One tab has my list from the inaugural August 10 for 10.  The second tab has the second collection of picture books I put together in 2011.  The third tab is 2012.  I really thought I would put a new spin on my list - Cathy even requested this spring a list of math books.  It sounded like a really fun idea.  However, I am a creature of habit.  I've decided to look at my previous lists and think critically to see what I must keep, what might I let slide off the list because something new has just touched my heart.

My list is not in a ranking order, I've just numbered them to make sure I stop at 10!

1.  Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see? by Eric Carle changed my life in college and has to STAY for a fourth year!  I was sitting in my reading methods course at SUNY College at Buffalo when Dr. Phelps read this book in class.  I was introduced to a predictable pattern, shared reading, Eric Carle, collage hand made papers, turning the page slightly ahead of the text to encourage student participation and I'm sure much more.  I remember thinking this was much more fun and engaging than the basal readers and reading groups I grew up with.  I've never had a group of students who didn't fall in love with this book.  It has to stay because reading this book is one of my fondest memories to each of my three daughters who are now bigger and I'm sure took turns reading it to each other at some point in our journey together.

2.  Suddenly, is a book I found a year ago and think it needs to stay on my list for another year.  Suddenly! by Colin McNaughton is perfect for helping kindergarten students think about predicting.  The text is larger in size.  The illustrations are very supportive to the text and using our picture clues to understand the story is essential.  The text also has a pattern and would allow us as writers to think about the word suddenly and what happens following that word each time.  The rest of this post was written November 10, 2011.

3.  The Three Bears by Byron Barton has to STAY for a fourth year!  I just enjoy reading this book to students.  The text is simple and repetitive and for whatever reason my inflection is at it's best reading this book. I think the simple collage technique is an easy one for students to see and replicate.  I love to help children figure out there's one color for each character that gets repeated in clothing and objects.  My two classes shared creating retelling murals this year using Byron Barton has a mentor and then we interactively wrote our text.   These were beautiful pieces of collaboration and fostered so much literacy learning.

4.  Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge by Mem Fox is about older people, it's about spending time with them, it's about memories.  I want it to STAY for year four!  Memories give us ideas for writing.  As in this story, memories help us remember.   I think we need to work harder and bridge the gap between our young and old.   I think we need to work harder as a profession to help students make writing easier by writing about memories and what is known to them.

5.  Rosie's Walk by Pat Hutchins. In the past I've used it for mathematics, when we were working on directional words.   The students enjoyed it so much we retold it through painting the different places Rosie goes.  We were building a map and created labels through interactive writing.  When we mounted our mural for a retelling, we used Velcro for Rosie and she could move along the mural as she does in the story.

6.  Me Hungry! by Jeremy Tankard is a complete delight to read and use with students and has to return.  I reviewed Me Hungry earlier a couple of years ago and it was a hit in our room right away.  I instantly thought this book would be great for my boys and found out boys and girls would both enjoy it.  I find it's easy for me to pick books in general for the entire audience and easy for me to pick books for girls in mind.  My three daughters make that easy.  However, this is probably the first picture book that wasn't nonfiction I thought my boys would like.

7.  I can't believe I removed this book for a year and am so glad it is staying.  Ish by Peter Reynolds is a must have for any classroom to embrace the arts and the differences between artist capabilities.  It encourages the reader to look at things in a different way, with a different lens.  Looking at things with a different lens is essential for 21st century learning.  Glad you, stayed, Ish!

8.  Cornelius P Mud, Are You Ready for School?  by Barney Saltzberg is a book to return from an older 10 for 10 list. As we reread this book we really noticed humor within the illustrations and had to infer.  Cornelius is a great character for young students, they can connect with him.  He has three books, a little series for young readers. Which opens doors for more books for my readers.  I think I'm in a back to school mode with this title returning.

9.  Mouse Views, What the Class Pet Saw by Bruce McMillan is a great photo essay about perspective.  It's also a question/answer format.  It's a great mentor text to create your own from a tour in your classroom or the library.  I shared this book with my librarian years ago and he made his own version of our library to introduce the students to different things in our library.  I bet students would love taking a photo just like Bruce McMillan and compiling a class book for the classroom.

10. I'm bringing back, Pete the Cat by Eric Litwin for one of my ten.  I have let other Pete the Cat books take a spot on my top ten list and I still adore these but sometimes the first one holds a special spot.   The predicting and participation from students is invigorating.  The tune is uplifting and the message is a good one for all of us to embrace daily.  Life has ups and downs.  Schools have ups and downs.  In the end, we all try our best and it's all good.

I'm so glad you stopped by.  If you have a post, please leave your link and a quick sentence in the comment section.  You can let us know via twitter @cathymere or @mandyrobek but the only way to make sure you go on a Jog with us is by leaving the link for your post in the comment section.  We will then connect all of our comments via a Jog.  Make sure you settle in with a large class of water to stay dehydrated, I think the Jog will be a long one with lots of interesting things to view.  Thank you for participating.

PS - Next year will be our 5th anniversary and I think I will start thinking now to break the habit of sharing those that are near and dear to my heart.  It's never too early to start planning.