A Chair for my Mother

A Chair for My Mother
Written and Illustrated by Vera B. Williams
Publisher: Greenwillow Books, 1982
Grade Level: K-2
Themes: family, love, support and tough times

Summary: Rosa is a young girl who lives with her mother and grandmother. A fire destroys everything they own. Rosa and her family decide to save all their pennies until they can buy a new chair for her mother. It is a beautiful, nice soft chair that her mother can come home to after she has been waitressing all day. Rosa wants to do this for her mother because she appreciates all she has done for her and how hardworking she is.

Reflection: This is a sweet book about a loving family and community support. The plot is simple, but it has a great lesson, if you work hard even when times are tough you can get what you want eventually. This is a Caldecott Medal Winner. The illustrations are beautiful and they support the text perfectly. 

Pre-Reading: I will ask students to talk about their favorite possessions and how much they enjoy having them. The main characters in the story we are going to read lose all their favorite possessions in a fire. In what ways could you help someone who experiences a tragedy? Could you donate some of your toys to children who lose theirs? Could you and your family collect money to donate to other families?

Post-Reading: I will ask students to draw pictures of the objects that they pick for Rosa to buy and write their sentences under their pictures.

About the author: 

Vera B. Williams lives in New York City. She went to Black Mountain College and in 1949 got her degree in Graphic Art. She started writing after her divorce at the age of 46. She enjoys writing children's books, but also writes and draws for adults. She writes short stories, leaflets and posters.

Mama Miti

Mama Miti
Written by Donna Jo Napoli and Illustrated by Kadir Nelson
 Publisher:Simon and Schuster/Paula Wiseman Books
January, 2010
Grade Level:K-3
Themes: Love and Multi-cultural

Summary: Wangari listened to the stories of how creatures suffered, plants wilted and people fought. Men held ceremonies under the Mugumo, a sacred fig tree. The tree helped them to find peace during a tough time in Kenya. Wanagari knew she could do something for the people of Kenya. Women came to Wangari for help with problems such as little food, if they couldn't find firewood, their cows were sick or their goats were starving. She gave each woman a seed. The women were instructed to plant the seed and a tree would grow to help them with their problems. Wangari knew what tree would help with each of the women's problems. The trees brought peace to the women's lives, but also helped with the deforestation in Kenya.

Reflection: This is a great multi-cultural book! This book is based on a tree story. Wangari Muta Maathai was the first African American woman to win the Noble Peace Prize. She started the Green Belt Movement to combat the deforestation in Kenya. This landed her in prison. In 1976, she came up with the idea of planting trees for peace to Kenya citizens. 30 million trees were planted in Kenya. In the back of the book the author will find more information about her life. Kadir Nelson is the illustrator, he is a Caldecott Honor Winner. His illustrations are so life-like. They are beautiful. I highly recommend this book. It is very touching!

Pre-Reading: Talk about the different problems in Kenya especially deforestation

Post-Reading: What problem would you like to fix? What seed would you plant to help this problem? It does not need to be a real seed. You can make one up. The children can answer these questions in their journal. They need to be creative and draw a picture.


About the Author:

Dona Joe Napoli lives with her husband and children. She is an award winning author of children's books. A number of her books have been selected as ALA Best Books. She is head of the Linguistics Department at Swathmore College.

The Umbrella

The Umbrella
Written and Illustrated by Jan Brett
Publisher: Putnam Juvenile
September, 2004
Grade levels: K-3
Theme: Multicultural and Rainforest

Summary: A young boy named Carlos enters into the Cloud Forest in hopes to finds all sorts of animals. He leaves his umbrella at the base of the Fig Tree and climbs up it to get a better look. Carlos doesn't have much luck at the top of the tree. He can't seem to find any animals because they have all one by one hoped into the umbrella.The umbrella then toples over because there are so many animals trying to fit and they all run away. Carlos climbs down the tree gets his umbrella and heads home, but he is determined to try again the next day.

Reflection: My favorite part of this book are the illustrations. The colors are beautiful and there is so much detail. There is not much of a plot, but I think this book is great way to begin teaching children about a Cloud Forest and the animals in it.

Pre-Reading: We will begin by talking about somethings you might see in a Cloud Forest. I will explain to them that a Cloud Forest is like a Rainforest. I will show the students some of the pictures in the book and we will talk about what they notice.

Post-Reading: We will be making our own Cloud Forest in the classroom. Students will have a choice to either make animals, plants or flowers. To make our plants, animals or flowers we will use all different colors of paper.

About the Author:

Jan Brett lives in a seacoast town in Massachusetts, close to where she grew up. As a child Brett loved drawing and reading. She was a student at Boston Museum school. She loves traveling with her husband and gets many ideas for her stories. Brett has over thirty seven million books in print.

Henry's Freedom Box

Henry's Freedom Box
Written by Ellen Levine and Illustrated by Kadir Nelson
Publisher: Scholastic Press
January, 2007
Grade Levels: 3 and 4
Theme: Multicultural and Slavery( Underground Railroad)



Summary: Henry's Freedom Box is a picture book based on a true story. Henry Brown is a slave.  As a young boy he forced to leave his family to work in a warehouse. Henry meets another slave, they get married and have children. He is devastated when his family is sold in the slave market. Henry decides that if he ever is going to gain freedom he needs to mail himself where slavery doesn't exist. Henry mails himself north. 


 Reflection: This is such a great story! This picture book is simple to read, but provides a real life story about a slave and how brave he was. The illustrations are very nice.

Pre-Reading: I would complete a KWHL Chart with students. What they know or think they know about slavery. What they want to learn, how they can learn more and then after we read, what they learned about slavery from the book.

Post-Reading: We will go back and discuss the KWHL Chart and add to it. We will discuss the book.  Then the students will go back to their seats and write about their own escape from a slave's perspective.  The students will use descriptive words to describe their emotions leading up to the escape or during the escape.
About the Author:
Ellen Levine was born in New York City. She loved reading and that inspired her to become a writer. She studies at Brandie's University, University of Chicago and New York University. Besides writing she likes sculpting, illustrating and photography. She loves using her background and interests as topics for books.