Tikki Tikki Tembo

Retold by: Arlene Mosel

Illustrated by: Blair Lent

Multicultural/Folk Tale

~This is a classic tale set in China about two young boys. At this time in China, it was custom for the first born son to be given a long and honorable name, while the second child was given a very short and not so honorable name. There was a mother who named her first born son Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-chari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo, meaning the most wonderful thing in the whole wide world, while her second born son was named Chang, meaning little or nothing. One day the two little boys were playing by the well and Chang fell in. Tikki tikki tembo went to tell his mother, and then got The Old Man With The Ladder to save Chang. The Old Man got to Chang, and pumped water out of him and put air in, leaving Chang as good as new. The brothers stayed away from the well for while until one day the boys played on the well again. This time Tikki tikki tembo fell in and Chang had to go tell his mother. Tikki tikki tembo's name was so long and Chnag was so out of breath she could barely understand him. Finally she understood and Chang went to get The Old Man With The Ladder. The Old Man was dreaming and Chang had to say Tikki tikki tembo-no sa rembo-chari bari ruchi-pip peri pembo's name so many times for The Old Man to understand what was going on. Finally he realized what Chang said and they went to save Tikki tikki tembo, but by the time they got to him he had been there awhile and it took a long time for tikki tikki tembo to get back to normal. From that moment on, the people in China started naming all their children with short names.

~Tikki tikki tembo would be a great book to read to introduce children to Chinese culture. Read this book and then talk about Chineese customs and traditions, or have someone who is Chinese to come and talk to students about this. Later, have students research the Chinese New Year, and then celebrate that in the classroom.

Small Steps

By: Louis Sachar

Fiction

*I chose to read this book because it is somewhat a squeal to the book holes, in that it has two of the characters from the book, Armpit and X-Ray and how they are continuing their life after Camp Greenlake. One of the students in the field was reading it, and I loved the book Holes so I thought I would ready it. It talks about drugs in parts and has some young adult content so I would not recommend this books to younger grades.*

~This book was about a young man named Theodor or as his friends called him Armpit. He has gotten out of a juvenile correction facility called Camp Greenlake where his punishment was to dig holes all day long. He now works for a landscaping company digging holes, but he is good at it and likes making good honest money. He is going to summer school also because he wants to get his high school diploma and has to make up for the time he was at Camp Greenlakc. His therapist told him to just take small steps, one day at a time, and he does just that. One day his old buddy X-Ray, who was also at Camp Greenlake, comes by and wants Armpit to make some money by buying tickets to the Kiara DeLeon concert and selling the tickets for more than what they bought them for. Armpit reluctantly agrees and X-Ray sells all the tickets except for two. Armpit decides to take a girl Tatiana from school to the concert but she backs out last minute, so he takes his best friend and neighbor, Ginny who has cerebral palsy to the concert. Armpit didnt know, but X-Ray had given him 2 counterfeit tickets so he could make money off the two he was going to give to Armpit. Ginny ends up having a seizure and the police try to arrest armpit for counterfeit tickets and for drugging Ginny. Luckily, they finally listen to armpit and let him help her. They end up getting to meet Kiara DeLeon and they all become friends. They start a big investigation on the counterfeit tickets to catch the guy who sold them. Kiara starts to like Armpit and wants to have breakfast with him. They really start to like eachother and Kiara writes him letters. Finally Kiara offers to fly Armpit to San Fransisco to see her. While in San Fransisco, Kiara and Armpit get in a fight. He see's that her door is open when he gets back to the hotel and walks in to see her getting beaten with a bat by her manager and stepfather El Genius. He wanted to kill her so that he could take all of her money. Armpit stops El Genius and calls the police, everyone ends up being ok and El Genius is put in jail. Armpit does not here from Kiara but her new song "Small Steps" says everything.

~This would be a good book to do a character analysis of. Have students talk about Armpits character and if his actions reflect on his character. Also have students talk or write about whether or not they think X-Ray is a good friend to keep around. X-Ray seems to always find a way to get Armpit in trouble. Talk to students of how important it is to have good friends that are good influences on you. It would also be good to just do reading comprehension questions and have a book club conversations about the book. It has some good real life learning situations that would be good for students to understand.

To Dance: a ballerina's graphic novel

By: Siena Cherson Siegel

Illustrated by: Mark Siegel

Realistic Fiction/Graphic Novel

~This was a really cute book about how a little girl followed her dreams to become a ballerina. The little girl in the book is from San Juan Puerto Rico and she loved to dance especially when there are big open spaces. When she was 6 the doctor said she had flat feet and so her mother enrolled her in dance lessons to help her flat feet. She was too young for ballet so she did more gymnastics in her dance classes. She the moved to Boston for a year when she was 9 and took ballet lessons there and loved it! She then moved back to Puerto Rico and got to perform in the Nutcracker there. That summer she flew to NY t attend the American Ballet Theatre summer program. She wanted more than anything to be a real ballerina. When she was 11 she auditioned for the School of American Ballet in NY and was accepted. Almost all she did all day was ballet and she finally got her first set of tap shoes but they hurt her feet so bad. She kept on dancing. She finally got into her first ballet and her feet were no longer flat. When she was 16 her mom and dad divorced, and dancing was all she had to keep her mind off things at home. Dancing was her entire life until one day she got hurt. She decided she should go to college and she did. But ballet was still in her soul. She still danced in open spaces.

~This would be a great book when studying character traits. The girl in this book never gave up on her dreams and that is an important trait to teach students. Have write about their goals in life and create an outline of how they are going to accomplish these goals. Then have them drawl pictures along with the outline of the steps towards their goals.

~This was a

The Family Under The Bridge

By: Natalie Savage Carlson

Illustrated by: Garth Williams

Realistic Fiction

This is a great book about an old hobo man named Armand who lives on the streets of Paris. He makes his home under a bridge, until one day he goes home to the bridge to find three children and their dog there. The children beg him not to leave and so he stays. The children's mother, Ms. Calcet, works during the day so the children are left under the bridge. The children beg Armand to take them with him during the day. They go to visit Armands friend who is dressed as Santa Clause, and they ask Santa for a house for Christmas. Armand has the children sing in the streets and he collects money to get them some pancakes for breakfast. When they get back to the bridge they tell their mother about their day. Ms. Calcet is very upset that her children begged for money, because she does not want her children to be beggars. Ms. Calcet makes Armand leave, but he decides to come back the next morning and finds the children terribly upset. Two rich woman came by and saw the children by themselves and was going to get someone to take them away to a proper home. Armand decides to take the children to a gypsy camp to keep them safe and he will go back to get Ms. Calcet when she gets done working. The children love the gypsy camp because there are other children, and they have a bed to stay in. The gypsys live in tents and and a house on wheels. The children decide they want a house on wheels and want Santa to bring them one. Armand tells them that Santa is going to bring them a house, but that it was being built and would not be ready in time for Christmas. The next day, they gypsys take off and leave because they thought one of the gypsys was going to get arrested. Then, Armand has to tell the children they are not getting a house, but tells the children he will get a job and he will help pay rent to get them a house. The children and Ms. Calcet clean Armand up and trim his beard to get him ready to apply for a job. He finds a job as a house keeper, which has live in quarters. So he found a job and a place for the children to live.

~This is a great book to teach children about socioeconomic diversity. Talk with students about what their lives would be like if they were suddenly forced to leave the places where they now lived. Where would they go? How would they find shelter? How would they prepare their food, clean their clothes, and do all of the other tasks that make up their daily life? Work with students to outline some of the most important problems to solve, then help them establish several likely strategies for dealing with those problems.

The Korean Cinderella

By: Shirley Climo
Illustrated by: Ruth Heller
Multicultural Literature
~This version of Cinderella is set in Korea, where an old man and his wife want to have a child. They planted a pear tree for good fortune, and sure enough they had a little girl and named her Pear Blossom. Pear Blossom was growing up beautifuly, but one year her mother dies. Herals father re marries a mean woman named Omoni who a duaghter named Peony. Omoni and Peony were jealous of Pear Blossoms beauty so they were mean to her and treated her as a servant. One day Pear Blossom was sent to fill a water jug that had a hole in it. They jug also had a frog in it who was majic and helped Pear Blossom fix the hole. The next day Omoni made Pear Blssom scatter a huge sack of rice over the courtyard and told her to polish each grain. Pear Blossom said "will no one in this world help me?" Then sparrows flew down and pecked the rice untill it was all polished and piled it into the corner. Next, the village was having a festival and Pear Blossom was allowed to go only if she weeded the rice patties. Pear blossom though " Who could do such a task?" and suddenly a huge black ox came through and weeded the rice patties. Pear Blossom hurried to the festival, but on her way she stopped to take her shoe off and get a rock out, when the magistrate came down the road. The magistrate yelled stop to his bearers, but Pear Blossom thought he was talking to her and she got frightened and ran down the road without her shoe. The magistrate was sturck by her beauty and went to find her. He found her at the festival and asked her to be his bride.
~This is a really gret version of Cinderlla with a Korean twist. This book contains a lot of Korean words that they use and define. This could be used during a multicultural study of Korea and talk about how this version differs from the traditional Cinderalla. You could also have students write down the Korean words that were used in the story and create their own story that contains these Korean words. Also have students compare the names of the characters and also the illustrations.

Esio Trot

By:Roald Dahl
Illustrated by; Quentin Blake
Fantasy
~Esio Trot is a fun little book about a man, Mr. Hoppy who is in love with the widow who lives beneath him, Ms. Silver. Mr. Hoppy's balcony over looks Ms. Silvers' and everyday he sees her but cannot bring himself to ask her to come upstairs. The only problem with Ms. Silver is that she gives all her love to her pet tortiose Alfie who lives outside in a little house on her boucany. One day, Mr. Hoppy is out on his boucany and Ms. Silver is out on hers feeding Alfie, she says to Mr. Hoppy that she wishes Alfie would grow! Mr. Hoppy gets a briliant idea. He writes some silly words on a piece of paper and tells Ms. Silver to recite this to him three times a day and he will grow. See tortioses speak backwards language so what Mr. Hoppy wrote was all backwards, like Esio Trot is tortoise backwards. Mr. Hoppy goes out and buys no less than 140 tortoises that are of all sizes that look like Alphie. While Ms. Silver is at work he trades Alfie out for a tortiose that is 2 ounces heavier. He does this every week for 8 weeks, making the "Alfie" grow by two ounces every week. Untill he reached 27 ounces and cannot fit in his house anymore. For this, Mr. Silver writes another saying in tortoise language and "Alfie shrinks" just enough to fit into his house. Ms. Silver cannot believe it and thinks Mr. Hoppy is the most briliant man in the world. Mr. Hoppy asks Ms. Silver to marry him, and they do and live happily ever after.
~Not only is this a fun read for students, but it can also incorporate some writing. Have students work on de-coding sentences that are written backwards, or even write their own and have students partner up to try and figure out what is said. You could also have students make predictions about what they think is going to happen in the story. For instance, how they think Mr. Hoppy will make Ms. Silver fall in love with him.

Going North

By: Janice N Harrington
Illustrated by: Jerome Lagarrigue
Historical Fiction
~This is a great historical fiction book about a black family leaving the south and moving up north. It is from the little girls point of view and she talks about how her parents say life will be better up north because her daddy can get a better job and they will be treated nicer. The book talks about their trip up north. They see black people working in the cotton fields, and they have to only stop and negro gas stations as they are heading through the south to the north. The family finally makes it to Nebraska and they see no more cotton fields and the land is green and full of opportunities. They finish they book by saying that they are poineers and will have a better life there in Licoln Nebraska.
~This would be a great book to use when teaching students about civil rights. I like this book becuase it allows students to see civil rights issues from a childs point of view. It also would be good to talk about the difference between the north and the south during that time and that black people were treated better in the north than the south. Be sure to foccus on issues like segregation and how the book shows this when they were running out of gas and were only allowed to get gas at certain places.