Graphic fiction and nonfiction books are increasingly being used in schools to hook reluctant readers or to present topics in a different format. The multimedia materials recommended in this month's column provide you with instructional support to integrate these graphic books into your lesson plans.
In the audio clip below, author Karen Hesse reads from her Newbery-winning novel Out of the Dust (Scholastic, 1997), which is written as a poetry cycle. Hesse shares a poem that describes a rare rain during the time of the…
In this audio clip, author Margarita Engle shares the backstory for her 2009 Newbery Honor book and 2009 Pura Belpré-winning book, The Surrender Tree: Poem’s of Cuba’s Struggle for Freedom (Henry Holt, 2008). Learn about the life of the character,…
Nikki Grimes’ book Talkin’ About Bessie: The Story of Aviator Elizabeth Coleman (Orchard, 2002)is the biography, written in 20 voices, of the first African American licensed female pilot.
Listen to Nikki Grimes share more about Elizabeth Coleman and read…
Poetry pays homage to the dead, sheds light on crimes and injustice, and helps us to explore intense emotions.
In Fortune’s Bones: The Manumission Requiem (Front Street, 2004), Marilyn Nelson created a requiem to honor “Fortune,” an 18th-century slave who…
This post was originally published in the February 2010 issue of LibrarySparks.
I met Sharon Draper in a utility closet. Maya Angelou, Angela Johnson, and Jacqueline Woodson were there, too. I talked to Kadir Nelson, Ashley Bryan, and Walter…