Butterfly by Elvy P. Rolle

Rolle, Elvy P. (2015) Butterfly. Illus. Maksym Stasiuk. Naures Pages.

www.naturespages.com

Five Stars.

A blue morpho flutters from page to page among multi-cultured children and multi-colored butterflies. Poetry and pictures capture the wonder of nature and childhood. This picture book creates early literacy connections as each page captures the essence of word and form. Rolle and Stasiuk have created opportunities to introduce young explorers to the life-cycle of a butterfly, to listen and play with language through rhyth
m and descriptive vocabulary. The size of the print and the connection of word to picture will encourage young readers. Designed for children ages three and up, this book is also a wonder-filled lap-book for infants and toddlers.

In the pre-school to third-grade classroom, Butterly would be a wonderful addition to a cross-center curriculum. In my classroom it would have been used in the science center while watching for chrysalises to hatch. In the math and manipulatives center with butterfly puzzles and matching butterflies and children for one-to-one correspondence from page to page. In the art center paper and paints for creating new butterflies and opportunities to put paint on a ½ butterfly cut-out and then pressed with a corresponding sheet to create symmetrical butterfly wings to attach to toilet- tissue- or paper-towel-rolls to be hung from the ceiling of the classroom. In the literacy center, butterfly shaped books can be used to write and illustrate stories and poetry using a word wall with words from the book and other descriptive and color words. The computer center can include opportunities for research on butterflies by region and on the life-cycle of the butterfly, zoo cams in butterfly houses can be bookmarked for group interaction.  The dramatic play center can be turned into a jungle exploration camp. The block center can offer opportunities to build jungles and vehicles to explore them. Outdoors offers its own learning in addition to moving any and all centers outdoors by planting a butterfly bush or garden and counting kinds and numbers of butterflies to make charts and graphs.

I received a free copy of this book from the author for my unbiased opinion and review.

My Abuelita

My Abuelita

Harcourt Children’s Books

ISBN: 978-0-15-216330-3

©2009

Abuelita’s hair is the color of salt. Her face is as crinkled chile. She booms out words as round as dimes and as wild as blossoms blooming. Her grandson knows he has the most spectacular grandmother ever – with a tremendously powerful job. What could Abuelita’s job be?

Sprinkled with Spanish and infused with love, My Abuelita, is a glorious celebration of family, imagination, and the power of story.

Abuelita and her grandson swoop and dance and yodel their way through the morning, while the cat, Frida Kahlo, sings for huevos estrellados – starry eggs. The language is brilliant and the illustrations dazzling.

Don’t miss the YouTube video of Yuyi Morales and Tim and Kelly O’Meara creating the illustrations.

Let’s create a stupendous list of grandparent books.  We now have All the World and My Abuelita. 

What books would you add?

Tony Johnston

Yuyi Morales

The John Newbery Medal

In 1921 Frederic G.Melcher had the Newbery Medal designed by René Paul Chambellan. The bronze medal has the winner's name and the date engraved on the back. The American Library Association Executive Board in 1922 delegated to the Children's Librarians' Section the responsibility for selecting the book to receive the Newbery Medal.

The inscription on the Newbery Medal still reads "Children's Librarians' Section," although the section has changed its name four times and its membership now includes both school and public library children's librarians in contrast to the years 1922-58, when the section, under three different names, included only public library children's librarians. Today the Medal is administered by the Association for Library Service to Children, a division of ALA.

How the Newbery Medal Came to Be

The Newbery Medal is awarded annually by the American Library Association for the most distinguished American children's book published the previous year. On June 22, 1921, Frederic G. Melcher proposed the award to the American Library Association meeting of the Children's Librarians' Section and suggested that it be named for the eighteenth-century English bookseller John Newbery. The idea was enthusiastically accepted by the children's librarians, and Melcher's official proposal was approved by the ALA Executive Board in 1922. In Melcher's formal agreement with the board, the purpose of the Newbery Medal was stated as follows: "To encourage original creative work in the field of books for children. To emphasize to the public that contributions to the literature for children deserve similar recognition to poetry, plays, or novels. To give those librarians, who make it their life work to serve children's reading interests, an opportunity to encourage good writing in this field."

The Newbery Award thus became the first children's book award in the world. Its terms, as well as its long history, continue to make it the best known and most discussed children's book award in this country.

From the beginning of the awarding of the Newbery and Caldecott Medals, committees could, and usually did, cite other books as worthy of attention. Such books were referred to as Newbery or Caldecott "runners-up." In 1971 the term "runners-up" was changed to "honor books." The new terminology was made retroactive so that all former runners-up are now referred to as Newbery or Caldecott Honor Books.


www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/bookmedia/newberymedal/newberyhonors/newberymedal