Picture books aren't just for little kids. They are powerful and engaging texts that can help all middle school students succeed in language arts, math, science, social studies, and the arts. Picture books appeal to students of all readiness levels, interests, and learning styles. Featuring descriptions and activities for fifty exceptional titles, Mary Jo Fresch and Peggy Harkins offer a wealth of ideas for harnessing the power of picture books to improve reading and writing in the content areas. The authors provide a synopsis of each title along with discipline-specific and cross-curricular activities that illustrate how picture books can be used to supplement--and sometimes even replace--traditional textbooks. They also offer title suggestions that create a "text set" of supporting resources. By incorporating picture books into the classroom, teachers across the disciplines can introduce new topics into their curriculum, help students develop nonfiction literacy skills, provide authentic and meaningful cultural perspectives, and help meet a wide range of learning needs.

Exploring the profound impact of the experience of reading to children, Spitz discusses well-known children's books and reveals how they transmit psychological wisdom, convey moral lessons, shape tastes, and implant subtle prejudices. 23 illustrations.

A new, interactive approach to storytime, The Whole Book Approach was developed in conjunction with the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art and expert author Megan Dowd Lambert's graduate work in children's literature at Simmons College, offering a practical guide for reshaping storytime and getting kids to think with their eyes. Traditional storytime often offers a passive experience for kids, but the Whole Book approach asks the youngest of readers to ponder all aspects of a picture book and to use their critical thinking skills. Using classic examples, Megan asks kids to think about why the trim size of Ludwig Bemelman's Madeline is so generous, or why the typeset in David Wiesner's Caldecott winner,The Three Pigs, appears to twist around the page, or why books like Chris Van Allsburg's The Polar Express and Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar are printed landscape instead of portrait. The dynamic discussions that result from this shared reading style range from the profound to the hilarious and will inspire adults to make children's responses to text, art, and design an essential part of storytime.

Book advocate Colby Sharp presents more than forty beloved, award-winning, diverse and bestselling authors and illustrators in a creative challenge! Colby Sharp invited more than forty authors and illustrators to provide story starters for each other; photos, drawings, poems, prose, or anything they could dream up. When they received their prompts, they responded by transforming these seeds into any form of creative work they wanted to share. The result is a stunning collection of words, art, poetry, and stories by some of our most celebrated children book creators. A section of extra story starters by every contributor provides fresh inspiration for readers to create works of their own. Here is an innovative book that offers something for every kind of reader and creator!

"A picture book about the fall season, centering on Bella, a little girl who has outgrown but does not want to give up her favorite coat made by her grandmother, and how she deals with the inevitable change to something new"--

When a BIG, lovable, does-it-her-way dog wiggles her way into the heart of a loudmouth pipsqueak of a boy, wonderful things happen that help him become a bigger, better person. Perfect for fans of Wonder and Because of Winn-Dixie. Timminy knows that moving to a new town just in time to start middle school when you are perfect bully bait is less than ideal. But he gets a great consolation prize in Maxi—a gentle giant of a dog who the family quickly discovers is deaf. Timminy is determined to do all he can to help Maxi—after all, his parents didn't return him because he was a runt. But when the going gets rough for Timminy, who spends a little too much time getting shoved into lockers at school, Maxi ends up being the one to help him—along with their neighbor, Abby, who doesn’t let her blindness define her and bristles at Timminy’s “poor-me” attitude. It turns out there’s more to everyone than what’s on the surface, whether it comes to Abby, Maxi, or even Timminy himself.

A Wall Street Journal writer’s conversation-changing look at how reading aloud makes adults and children smarter, happier, healthier, more successful and more closely attached, even as technology pulls in the other direction. A miraculous alchemy occurs when one person reads to another, transforming the simple stuff of a book, a voice, and a bit of time into complex and powerful fuel for the heart, brain, and imagination. Grounded in the latest neuroscience and behavioral research, and drawing widely from literature, The Enchanted Hour explains the dazzling cognitive and social-emotional benefits that await children, whatever their class, nationality or family background. But it’s not just about bedtime stories for little kids: Reading aloud consoles, uplifts and invigorates at every age, deepening the intellectual lives and emotional well-being of teenagers and adults, too. Meghan Cox Gurdon argues that this ancient practice is a fast-working antidote to the fractured attention spans, atomized families and unfulfilling ephemera of the tech era, helping to replenish what our devices are leaching away. For everyone, reading aloud engages the mind in complex narratives; for children, it’s an irreplaceable gift that builds vocabulary, fosters imagination, and kindles a lifelong appreciation of language, stories and pictures. Bringing together the latest scientific research, practical tips, and reading recommendations, The Enchanted Hour will both charm and galvanize, inspiring readers to share this invaluable, life-altering tradition with the people they love most.