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