The Women Who Civilized the West

Author:  Juddi Morris

 

Many people now days do not think twice about the establishments that we choose to dine at.  This was not always the luxury of a westward traveler.  The notion of high quality and fine dining in the west was the product of a young man named Fred Harvey.   Only fifteen when he arrived in America from England a passion for food emerged to the young man while working in restaurants in New York and other large elegant cities.   The Harvey house revolutionized railroad dinning, an everlasting impression was placed on western civilization.  Rules for working at the Harvey house were stringent and consistent.  A sane is said about Fred Harvey, “He kept the west supplied in food and wives.”  Many Harvey girls married men in the west. They not only married but brought manors and quality of life to the towns in which the Harvey Hotels and Dining rooms became part of.  Her in New Mexico we were fortunate enough to have four houses built along our rails.  Las Vegas, Albuquerque, Gallup and Belen were the locations of these fine eating establishments.  The Alvarado transportation center was rebuilt in replication of the original Harvey house, which once graced the presence of down town.  In Belen, one can visit a living monument of a Harvey House.  The historical site has been restored and is used as a museum and education center for visitors and residents of New Mexico.

 

Juddi Morris is an amazing historical author who takes time to review and verify her facts on every subject that she writes about.  In her books for younger students she is vigilant about putting in source notes and bibliography's; which are both included in this wonderful historical book.

 

 

Judy Garland in The Harvey Girls (1946)

Little Red’s Autumn Adventure

By: 

Sarah Ferguson

The Duchess of York

Illustrated by:

Sam Williams

 

This quaint little story starts out on a windy day.  We find Little Red and Little Blue playing with fallen leaves, while the children are heading to the Great Harvest Festival.  Little Red finds herself face to face with tiny little mice.  Realizing that the mice are quite scared of her, she decides to shrink herself to their size using magic dust.  She is happy to realize that the little mice are heading to the Great Harvest Festival also.  She decides to help the little mice find the Festival.  All the while, Little Blue is looking for Little Red.  During the search for Little Red, the search party realizes that the forest is turning some splendid but unnatural colors.  They soon see a squirrel with Little Red’s sack of magic smiles.  The magic dust was spilling all over the forest. Finally, Little Blue was able to get the sack away from the squirrel and return him and Red to their normal size and the Great Harvest Festival continued with glee.   

 

 

Personally, I did not enjoy the book it was culturally to different for me.  It seemed to be all over the place without a single them.  However, the book about Little Red and her adventures are best sellers.  So don’t take my word for it try one for yourself and see if Little Red fits your taste.

This sight has a whole list of picture books including “Little Red’s Autumn Adventure".

http://www.embracingthechild.org/picturebook.html

 



Maria Martinez

by

Juddi Morris

 

Maria Martinez is a savior of the people of San Ildefonso.  As a child, Maria mimicked her mother and other village women.  She first learned to make pottery at eight years old.   Her passion for the art or necessity of pottery continued to grow throughout her life.  When she was a young woman already married, she started to sell her pottery at the museum in Santa Fe.  To compliment her amazing life many of her children and their children study and keep the tradition alive. Maria was born in 1887 and passed away in 1980.  Within her 93 year life she fell in love, sadly buried three children, and created a living legacy for her children and her Pueblo.  Her pottery sold originally for $1.75 (small pieces) to $3.00 (large pieces); now days a piece of Maria’s pottery sales from the mid-thousands to the 100-thousands.  She is famous for the Black-on-Black pottery her and her husband revived after visiting an archeological dig. 

 

Maria Martinez ... San Ildefonso Pueblo Pottery  

Tending the Fire is an amazingly historically accurate read.  Morris uses an easy read style to convey extreme concepts, while be accurate and engaging the reader to want to know more about Maria’s Life. 

This book is a great way to introduce schoolchildren to New Mexico History.  Some amazing things can be learned from the life of an amazing woman like Maria Martinez. 

    

Lesson Plans

New Mexico history and MariaMartinez

 

 

 



Gathering Blue

To what lengths would a society go to become perfect? 

What types of things make society imperfect?

 

In the world in which Kira  lives the week and the elderly are not valued they are outcast.  Kira is an orphan born with a twisted leg that does not allow her to do a large portion of work that is required in her community.  Kira is then summoned to the gathering hall where she is told that she has been choose to live out the rest of her life.  Along her journey to finding out the secrets of her village and the mystery’s that surrounded her mother’s death; Kira encounters new friends and courage with-in that she never knew she had.

Lois Lowry is an amazing author who uses rich language to entice children to read.  The settings in Gathering Blue are so realistic that when you open the book you are transport to a different place and time.  The book also includes a reading guide that allows any person to ponder on the depth of the story.   The AR reading level is a 7.0, I was able to use this with a mature group of readers in 6^th grade.  The students really enjoyed the book and responded well to the activities.

 

Be adventurous open the book and travel to the perfect society in Gathering Blue.

Lesson plans for Gathering Blue  

Hero Dad

 

Have you ever received a letter in the mail that made you want to tell all your friends how important your dad is?  If so you’ll love reading Hero Dad by Melinda Hardin. 

 

 

This is a heartwarming story about a boy who knows his dad is a super hero.  His dad is not a metaphoric super hero he is in the military, which makes him a real super hero.  The reading in this book is very simple.  There one sentence on each wonderfully illustrated pages by Bryan Langdo.  I would recommend that this book be used to show students that have family in the military that the job they are doing is important.  You could use it on the approach of Veterans Day. 

 

Active Duty Solider Reads Hero Dad

The reading level of this book according to accelerated reader (AR)* is a 0.5 and 2.00 for Bilingual readers.   The sentence structure in this book could facilitate in teaching kindergarteners what sentences are and how they should look.  There are several other books about child father relationships on this scholastics page. 

*Accelerated reader gives you reading levels for most any book.  You simply need to type in the title of the book.

The Magic Hummingbird A Hopi Folktale

Introduction:

The importance of oral tradition is unfathomable.  However, in today’s fast paced society the traditions of storytelling are taking back seat to all else.  It is ironic that the world of reading dedicates so much time and effort to “multicultural” literature but rarely is a well-rounded multicultural book written.  In the fifth edition of Children’s Literature, Briefly the authors  attempt to help determine what a will written multicultural children’s book should contain, they say these books need to be cultural authentic and free of stereo types.  Mean while other groups tend to believe that a person outside of that culture cannot write an authentic book. 

 

*Sugestion* Open the Hopi Flute Music prior to reading about the story.

The Magic Hummingbird

A Hopi Folktale

Three artists worked on this book:

Collection and translation by Ekkehart Malotki

Narrated by Michael Lomatuway’ma

Illustrated by Michael Lacapa

 

In the very begin of this book the authors go into great detail about how pain stacking and hard it was to find a way to publish a story that was so close to the original oral story.  There was a great deal of politics that had to be overcome.

The Story

****This will be a very brief overview of a wonderful story.

There was a great people who lived in a Hopi village.  This people had ran out of food.  The people of the village decided to leave in search of food.  A couple decided it best to leave there two children in the village as the foraged for food.

They brother and sister rummaged around the village looking for food and could not find nothing.  The boy found a stalk of a sunflower and began to play with the marrow inside.  He fashioned a small hummingbird for his sister to play with. 

The Hummingbird comes to life while the sister is playing with the handmade toy.  It is because of the bird that the brother and sisters life is spared from starvation.

The illustrations are extremely culturally centered, they represent the Native American communities history with art. 

This is a wonderful and inspiring read.  In order to understand the true cultural effect of The Magic Hummingbird you must read it.

In the classroom

I would use this in a class to teach about the importance of passing on family history. 

 You can also teach how in many cultures there is a specific meaning for different symbols.

 

MoreHopi and other Native Folktales

Interesting Siteto learn more about teaching using Folktales



Author Julie Danneberg

Illustrator  Judy Love. 

Every student is nervous on the first day of school.  There is no exception for Sarah.  Sarah  is the main character in this comical fiction book.  When Mr. Hartwell tries to get Sarah up and ready for her first day at a new school it is a struggle.  He questions her about what everyone would think if she was not there.  This is a prime example where the pictures facilitate in the reading of the story.  Excuse after excuse is presented until they arrive at the school where the principle escorts Sarah to class and introduces her.  The ending is a real laugh-out-loud shocker.

I enjoyed this book all the way through it is a must read for the first day of class.

The depth of the characters in this book is amazing since you do not know until the end of the book who it is.  

Lesson Plans: http://www.charlesbridge.com/client/client_pdfs/downloadables/FirstDayJitters_ActivityGuide.pdf

This link is amazing!

The Story is read aloud on you tube.

Five Live Bongos

 

By George Ella Lyon

Illustrated by Jacqueline Rogers

Five Live Bongos is an extra LOUD story there is so much noise in this book that you should NOT read it for bedtime.  Kids everywhere will want to get up and dance and make sounds that you have never heard before.  When a painter’s five children decided to turn household items into musical instruments, it is almost impossible to stop them.  Until, they are sent to the garage to build a magnificent contraption, which leads the five children on a wonderful trip to the dump. 

If you like LOUD books this book is great!!

 

Beware this book does not rhyme.

*****I intend to use this book in my classroom for music.  It could also be used to show children that you can be creative with whatever you have on hand.  The illustrations in this book are done in a watercolor style and are amazing to see.  This may be a good time to introduce the students to the Blue Man Band.   Lesson plans.

 

You can make your very own musical instruments.  Fallow the instructions on the link.

 

Image Credit:

Amazon.com: Five Live Bongos (Paperback) (9780590466554): George Ella ...

 

 

 

 

 

Dedicated to The Fallen of September 11, 2001.

 

September 12th We Knew Everything Would Be All Right

 

 

Authors and illustrators:

First-grade students of H. Byron Masterson Elementary in Kennett, Missouri

 

 

This book was written by a class of first graders at the time of the 9/11 tragedy.  They present many healing allegories in this short 29-page book.  My personal favorite is “2+2 still added up to 4”.  The illustrations are amazing and all hand drawn.   September 12^th We Knew Everything Would Be All Right was a very proactive way for this teacher to help not only her class but also several other Americans heal from this tragedy.  Every person in the nation has been affected by September 11.  As adults’ we do not realize that the younger generation needs to deal with the aftermath of the situation.   I choose the genre of historical essay, because it honors the reality of what the children saw the day after a tragedy.  This book has won the Kids Are Authors Award.

 

The kids dedicated this book to their parents:
We like to feel secure and safe. Somedays, the rut is the best place to be.

 

 

 

 We honor all our fallen Soldiers, Active Duty Soldiers, Firemen, and Emergency Workers.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Children born after of 9/11

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DM6Kn3kYOpY&feature=related

 

 

 

 



The Weedle on the Needle

                                        by Steven Cosgrove, illustrated by Robin James

This Post is Dedicated to my Very Smart and Very dear nephew who lives in Seattle Washington, Johnny I Love You!

            For my book talk today I choose A Serendipity Book classic, The Weedle on the Needle.  For those of you that are not familiar with the Serendipity collection allow me to introduce you, this collection consisted of well over fifty books.  They were written by Stephen Cosgrove and illustrated by Robin James (sight links at bottom of the page).  The stories featured lovable animals or fantasy creatures with the story centered on a moral theme.

            The Weedle on the Needle that my book talk is about is the original 1974 publication.  This book has been re-released and is different from the original version, personally I enjoy the way the original story reads and the way it teaches the child to accept and accommodate the many people and creatures we have in our world.  The book is dedicated to Seattle, Washington.  The re-released copy is readily available at The Space Needle.

            Now, for a short summary of this wonderful story; a weedle lived in the Northwest.  One day a ship full of men arrived to settle Seattle.  While they were building they began to whistle.  Well the whistling hurt the poor Weedle’s ears.  So the Weedle moves far away from the bay of Seattle to Mt. Rainier.  He is finally able to sleep.  He sleeps for many years.  When he wakes the men have built right up to the edge of Mt. Rainier and were still whistling.  So the Weedle decides to stop the whistling.  He chooses The Space Needle to put his plan into action.  So the people and the Weedle have to work together to solve the whistling problem. 

            I did not give very good details at the end of the summary because the end of a book should never be given away, it should always be explored by its reader.

           

How can this book be used in the classroom?

            The Weedle on The Needle would make a wonderful and light introduction to a social studies unit about Seattle, Washington.  It would also be useful for explaining land marks such as The Space Needle.  I really love the way that this book is written it has strong paragraphs and is not just a short read.  It will challenge students to infer about what the Weedle is going to do and what the Mayor is going to do for the Weedle. 

http://stephencosgrove.com/
 http://www.robinjames.net/

THE SEEM: The Glitch in Sleep by john Hulme and Michael Wexler

 

THE SEEMS: The Glitch in Sleep Book Review

Book Title: THE SEEMS : The Glitch in Sleep

Author: John Hulme and Michael Wexler

Illustrator: Gideon Kendall

This book was about

12 year old Becker Drane leads an average life until he takes an aptitude test at the Books & Café in Highland Park.  Now there are times when his world is turned completely upside down at a moment’s notice.  If you like adventure, action and drama; this is the perfect book for you.  You will visit alternate worlds and hear and learn things that only Seemians are suppose to know.  Do you believe enough to bring the wonderful characters of the Seems to life? Read it and find out!

My favorite character in this book was Casey Lake because

She holds one of the highest positions that an outsider, from the seems, can hold. She is also very witty.  Her peers and co-workers hold her in high revere. She is a very active person in the story.

I liked this book because

There are so many different settings with something very unique going on in each and every one of them.  I loved that there was very little down time and the characters were always in action.  This book is a wonderful introduction to a series of adventure stories.

You should read this book because

This book is a quick paced read. There is adventure with the tern of every page. The words are so descriptive that the characters easily come to life and are completely amazing.

How could this book be useful in the classroom and what age group would use this book

This book should be used for high readers in 3rd grade to readers as old as you can get.  I think mostly fourth and fifth grade.  One of the fun things about this book is that you can take the seemian aptitude test, there is an appendix in the back and the for shadowing is amazing. This could very easily be the one book that gets the child who is resistant to read completely engrossed into reading.  The word choice in this book is amazing . There are endless possibilities on how to use this book in a lesson plan, this book has 254 pages and holds tones of adventure for both boys and girls.