The TeachingBooks Blog
I have been asked quite often how Stella and Sam became TV stars. What was my role in their transformation? How did I participate in this transformation? Am I happy with the results?
Every year we ask an illustrator we work with to share their non-book art as a gift to our customers. Yuyi Morales kindly provided the following images and reflections. Please enjoy.
Recently I've been watching and listening to elementary school students as they engage with nonfiction. The range of topics that excite them is extraordinary and their conversations about their reading remind me how powerful a stimulus books can be to exploration and critical thinking.
At the end of last year, the UK media reported the pretty disturbing fact: nine percent of British children are leaving primary school with the reading skills of a seven-year-old. As it happens, I’ve met seven-year-olds who are well into the novels of J. K. Rowling, Roald Dahl, and even J. R. R. Tolkien, but the media was talking about thirteen-year-olds—and boys are the worst offenders, naturally—who can’t struggle their way through much more than a tabloid newspaper.
Would you like to listen to this year's award-winning authors and illustrators on their inspirations and influences? In this post, enjoy brief TeachingBooks.net recordings with the 2011 John Newbery, Randolph Caldecott, Michael L. Printz, Robert F. Sibert, Coretta Scott King, Pura Belpré, and Theodor Seuss Geisel medalists.