These
are some of my favorite books right now but the list
keeps changing. Because it has been a season of jazz with
the excellent Ken Burns PBS special still lingering in my
ears, the books with music and rhythm both as a theme and
as a tumbling cadence of words and phrases, are the best
loved read alouds for me. Rum-A-Tum-Tum by Angela
Shelf Medearis has you practically singing and dancing as
you read, and the light and movement in James E. Ransome's
pictures magically move and shimmer, along with the story.
That's the key for me. You've got to be personally drawn
by the books all by themselves, finding them so exciting
or moving or funny that you just have to share the discovery.
And books that have you spontaneously chanting the lines
are a sly welcome into the lives of those worldly 2nd graders
who think they're too old for rhyming books. But children
are also able, at this age, to explore content in more depth
and two books on my list that approach Harriet Tubman's
life from different angles are wonderful to explore and
compare. In Minty; A Story of Young Harriet Tubman
by Alan Schroeder, each child can actually feel the morning-chilled
or night-protected moments of courage and determination
in young Minty's life. Also, there are outstanding biographies
and autobiographies for children at this age and one of
my favorites is taken from the author's life when she was
a young child struggling to learn how to read, Thank
You, Mr. Falker by Patricia Polacco. The music of poetry
ends my list where jazz rhythms started it. Valerie Worth's
All the Small Poems and Fourteen More are incredibly
visual and immediate. Read the "chair" poem! After
Worth takes you through a few lines, that chair begins to
breath and move, and your pulse quickens in delighted recognition.
Happy reading. ~
