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.
Dave the Potter: Artist, Poet, Slave (Little, Brown, 2010) is based on the true story of Dave, a man born into slavery in 1800 who created approximately 40,000 ceramic pots in his lifetime. Dave was owned by six slave masters, but was ultimately sold to a plantation that produced large clay pots. It was on this plantation that Dave was trained to make pottery and became a master potter.
At TeachingBooks.net we believe that books belong in every K—12 classroom and strive to support reading experiences by offering multimedia resources to enliven and expand on meaningful conversations about books in the curriculum.
Students study the holidays celebrated in families and communities around the world to learn about traditions and cultures different from their own, and to honor the diversity in their own communities. For young students, literature is often a portal into these cultural explorations.
Although my books are printed on thinly sliced pieces of tree, they would be utterly impossible without the Internet. Paper Towns (Dutton 2008), for instance, is built around this weird cartographic phenomenon wherein mapmakers intentionally put fake places on their maps.
Did you know that nearly every U.S. state and Canadian province has a young readers’ choice award that allows students to vote for their favorite book? These tremendously successful reading programs lead thousands of children and teens to innumerable quality books each year.