Did You Say Pears? by Arlene Alda

Colorful photographs pair homonyms or homophones (and a page at the back explains the difference) while the text plays off the sound and meanings. Sometimes the text surprises like "blew" for candles and "blue" for a swath of sky and other times it's the striking photographs: a spiral staircase for "stair" and a carved wooden face for "blank stares." A delightful choice for language arts and perhaps a model for creative writing.

Grades 2-4

Strange Happenings: Five Tales of Transformation by Avi

A bored boy trades bodies with a cat who once was also a boy, a princess is born invisible because of her mother's wish for a flawless daughter, a curious boy realizes too late that the identity of the team mascot is better left unknown, a shoemaker reneges on a bargain with his cat and discovers that the devil will have his due, and a selfish hunter finds forgiveness and a new life from the golden bird he killed. The five short stories in this slim volume show versatility in style and tone, with some reading like timeless folktales ("Babette the Beautiful", "The Shoemaker and Old Scratch", "Simon") and others like present-day fantasy ("Bored Tom" and "Curious"). Although the amount and density of symbolism varies from story to story, each tale has at least one moral to teach. It would be exciting to read and discuss this title with fifth-graders or middle-schoolers.

Meow Ruff: A Story in Concrete Poetry by Joyce Sidman

A little tan dog zooms out of the front door of his home; a white kitten is pushed from a car by the side of the road. Through the magic of concrete poetry, their stories meet and merge in the park during a thunderstorm. The poet and the illustrator/designer combine talents to create a book full of verbal and pictorial imagery that is charming and inventive. Spiky-topped green letters form the grass in the park and read "PATCHWORK, RABBIT-NIBBLED, MOWER-CROPPED, WIND-WHISPERED GRASS". On the "nosetrail" of the cat, the dog's singlemindedness is momentarily waylaid: "catcatcatcatcat...catcatcatcatCHIPMUNK! The clouds grow from "WISP" to closely layered "SNOW-WHITE ROLLS AND DOLLOPS STUPENDOUSLY SWELLING". The multiple fonts and perfect color palette make this digitally-created book a treat. The poet has had experience teaching children how to write concrete poetry; this amazing little book will inspire others to creativity.

Runaway by Wendelin Van Draanen

Holly is a 12-year old homeless child (she prefers the term "gypsy") of a dead drug addicted mother. After a caring teacher gives Holly a journal, we join her for five months in her unsuccessful efforts to find a stable environment in which to live. Through her angry but often very amusing journal entries, the reader experiences a gritty, physically, and emotionally painful way of life living on the streets of "beautiful Los Angeles, CA".

Holly is a tempermental but sensible, real and believable twelve year old girl. The ending is plausible but possibly a bit too tidy.

Van Draanen shows a new but powerful rough edge to her writing.

Max's Words, by Kate Banks

Pictures by Boris Kulikov.

Max decides to collect words: small words, bigger words, words that make him feel good, things to eat, favorite colors, and words he doesn’t know. Unlike his brothers’ stamp and coin collections, his words can form thoughts and once he has a story started, his brothers want to join in the fun. Words that appear cut out of newspapers and magazines take shapes on the pages: pancakes, crocodiles, alligators, and iguanas and build into stories. It will be hard not to give students scissors and magazines and let them find their own words and stories.

Grades 1-4

Bats at the Beach by Brian Lies

On a full-moon night, the bats in the attic go to the beach, taking with them everything that human beach-goers do: towels, beach bags, books and plenty to eat. The fun is in how the bats adapt our notion of a beach trip to their own situation and preferences--Bain de Lune moontan lotion, toasted marshmallows with protruding insect legs, sand caves, and much, much more. The story is told in rhyme. The superb illlustrations are detailed and add gentle humor to a story with which any family beach-tripper can identify.

Winter is the Warmest Season, by Lauren Stringer

A young child shares how winter is the warmest season: hats with earflaps and fuzzy boots, grilled cheese and hot chocolate, and hot baths and pajamas with feet. Ice and snow frame the warm inside scenes of fireplaces, friends, and curled up cats in bright acrylic doublespread illustrations. The rich descriptive language contrasts the warmth of winter with summer cool downs. A delightful seasonal choice for sharing. Classrooms could use the book for a model for another book: "Summer is the coolest season," or other creative fun with opposites.

Flotsam, by David Wiesner

A young boy discovers a camera in the surf at the beach and when he develops the film, he finds fantastic images of underwater creatures. But the most amazing photo is the last one that shows a boy holding a photo of another child holding a photo and so on until a microscopic examination reveals the original boy on a beach decades ago. Completely wordless, the amazing illustrations, some double-spread convey the story and an imaginative journey underwater and back in time.

http://www.amazon.com/Flotsam-David-Wiesner/dp/0618194576/sr=1-1/qid=1166110744/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/103-5407193-2823855?ie=UTF8&s=books

This Blog does have a tag feature. When you are in compose, it's called "labels." We could use as subject headings. See the bottom of this post.