Great New Titles

Greetings!
I have a few new wonderful titles to share with you this week.

The first book is a true story about the American Revolution titled Henry and the Cannons by Don Brown. In the winter of 1775, the British held the city of Boston and the Americans were none too happy about this. General Washington wanted cannons, but he didn’t have any. However, Fort Ticonderoga had some cannons Colonel Benedict Arnold had captured from the British. The problem was that they were 300 miles away from Boston and the terrain was difficult and it was winter. Henry Knox said he could bring the cannons to Boston and Washington believed him. I really like the vocabulary in parts of the story. One part says “the modest American army had scant chance against the world’s best soldiers.” What a great opportunity to discuss the meanings of the words “modest” and “scant”. The simple illustrations help make this a book to span the younger elementary grades while the story will be very appropriate for the older students when studying the Revolutionary War.





Red Kite, Blue Kite by Ji-li Jiang, illustrated by Greg Ruth is a story of a small boy and his father who are living during the Cultural Revolution in China. They love to fly kites together and when Baba, the father, is taken away to work in a labor camp, the small boy is sent to live with a friend, Granny Wang. Each week Baba travels many hours to visit his son and they continue to fly their kites. One day Baba tells his son that he won’t be able to visit for a long time because he would be very busy and they come up with a plan. Each morning the son will fly his red kite and Baba will see it from the other hill. Each evening Baba will fly his blue kite and the son will see it. They will have a secret signal and be able to see each other every day. One day the small boy does not see the blue kite and after three days he wants to go find his father. In the night Baba comes to see him. Baba had escaped and run to see his son before being sent to another labor camp much farther away. Baba hurriedly gives his blue kite to his son and asks him to fly it for him because he wouldn’t be able to fly it for a long time. One day Baba does return and the father and son are reunited.
Many books like this have an author’s note that really helps to flesh out a story and give more meaning to it. The author is telling the story of a family friend who had to follow his father to a labor farm during the Cultural Revolution.




Too Hot? Too Cold? By Caroline Arnold, illustrated by Annie Patterson. This book helps explain body temperature, warm-blooded, cold-blooded, fever, sweating, sweat glands, goose bumps, hibernation, migration, and ways to keep warm or cool in just 32 pages! There is so much information in this book. Many small watercolor paintings help to illustrate each bit. This book also is appropriate for nearly all grades. Younger children will enjoy just looking at the pictures and older children will appreciate that the text is not too large and childish. Also, there are inset illustrations to further explain things like sweat glands.



I hope you enjoy these books. I also hope you have a great spring vacation and come back refreshed and ready to finish the school year with a bang.
Audrey