For fourteen years, I've shared books in classrooms with fidgety children. I know the secret of great read-alouds. First, you've got to hook your audience with humor, or powerful emotions. Seek books with style -- unusual word choices, energetic flow, and strong voice. Find books that are unique and prompt feelings, thoughts, and discussion and you'll have a winning story. Here are this year's read-aloud hits.
The hands-down winner for four to seven-year-olds was Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems (Hyperion, $12.99). Willems, who has won six Emmy awards for his writing on Sesame Street, won a Caldecott-honor for this book. There are several reasons for its success. The first is Pigeon, an intriguing main character with a bizarre motivation -- he wants to drive a bus and is willing to do anything to accomplish his goal.
Pigeon is little more than a stick figure, but Willems' simple line drawings have remarkable emotional strength. Willems reaches readers from the very start when a bus driver leaves and tells readers, "Don't let the pigeon drive the bus!" Instantly listeners are transformed into active participants in the pigeon's fate. Children chorus "No!" when the pigeon asks ("Hey, can I drive the bus?"), coaxes ("My cousin Herb drives a bus almost every day."), and tries to charm ("I'll be your best friend!) This interaction brings children so far into the story; they actually become characters in the book!
Willems' new book, The Pigeon Finds a Hot Dog (Hyperion, $12.99; ages 4-8), co-stars a duckling who comes upon Pigeon soon after the bird has discovered an unclaimed hot dog and proclaimed it "a celebration in a bun!" The duckling has never tasted a hot dog...or has he? This book has the same strong emotional tone, fabulous dialogue, and a buried message about sharing. While I miss the audience participation, I'm eager to share this book with pigeon fans in classrooms next year.
Seven to nine year-olds enjoyed Patricia McKissack's The Honest-to-Goodness Truth (Aladdin, $6.99). When Libby lies to her mama about watering the horse, Ol' Boss, the lie slides "out of her mouth, like it was greased with warm butter." When Mama demands the truth, Libby's "stomach felt like she'd swallowed a handful of chicken feathers" and she swears she'll never lie again.
So Libby tells a friend she has a hole in her sock, rats on a friend who doesn't do his homework and by day's end has angered her classmates and neighbors. When Mama's customer calls Ol' Boss "older than black pepper, an "old flea-ridden sway back", Libby understands truth's sting and learns how "the truth is often hard to chew. But if it is sweetened with love, that it is a little easier to swallow."
This book makes its point with vivid examples that sparkle with imagery. Instead of a typical character education treatise on honesty clothed in story, Libby shows children the difficult gray areas that come when one puts an ideal into practice.
Picture books for older audiences need strong feelings to help students crawl into the skins of characters and experience the ambiguity of issues. Three new historical picture books moved readers, ages 9-11.
Slave child Henry Bell knows his master will "take an ax to the finger of any slave who touches a book", but he's driven by a love of learning in Up The Learning Tree (Lee and Low Books, $16.95) by Marcia Vaughan. When Henry walks his young white master to school, he listens to Miss Hattie teach and carves the words he learns into a tree outside the classroom window. Miss Hattie's determination to teach Henry is as strong as his passion for learning and they risk everything to fulfill their desires. Strong writing and images dilute the message quality of this book.
Barbara Morrow's A Good Night for Freedom (Holiday House, $16.95) finds Hallie facing a quandary when she discovers two runaways in the in 1839 Indiana home of Katy and Levi Coffin. Coffin, referred to in history as "President of the Underground Railroad" is seldom studied in classrooms and the setting is surprising to most students, but Hallie is who will grab children. She must decide if she will mind her Pa who doesn't like slavery, but fears "meddlin'", or help these young escaping slaves.
The book's most poignant scene occurs when Hallie drops a coin she's earned and wants to spend on ribbons. One of the slave children traps it under her foot, Hallie demands its return, and is told, "When I get to freedom, aim to get me a payin job. Gonna earn buckets of coins."
When Hallie asks "What you fixin on buyin'?" The young black woman sucks in her breath and answers "Mama". While Hallie's inner conflict is a powerful discussion point, so is how one word can change your perspective forever.
Tony Johnston's The Harmonica (Charlesbridge, $15.95; ages 9 and up) is based on the real story of a young Jewish boy in WWII who has lost his home in Poland as well as his parents whose love was as "warm and enfolding as a song". What he has left is the music they once shared and a harmonica given to him by his father. When he plays Schubert to keep his hope alive in the concentration camp, he's discovered by the commandant who orders "Play, Jew!" This savage order is one of the few lines of dialogue in this lyrically-told shocking story.
There is a terrible mix of feelings in the poignant spare text and dramatic pictures. One illustration shows the commandant, transported by the music, with a blissful smile. He holds one hand over his heart and a whip in his other and is described as wearing "ugliness and death upon his shoulders/ like epaulets". How can this boy play for the brutal man's pleasure? All changes when a prisoner's whispered blessing "grazes his ear". This is a book that needs context and mature listeners who can see how skillfully the author portrays the stark setting with minimal words and a bounty of images.
Great read-alouds are portals to pleasure, feelings and thoughts. Most of the time you can accomplish all three of these lofty literary goals with one fabulous story!
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For 4-8 year olds
Read-Alouds for ages 8 and up