I Love That Book! Mrs. Gibbs' Awesome Book Blog for Children

  22. Ghost by Jason Reynolds Reynolds, J. (2016). Ghost . NY: Atheneum. This is the story of Castle Cranshaw-aka Ghost.  He is a middle-school, inner-city kid whose mother works in a hospital cafeteria and father is in prison.  His life seems to be headed in a troublesome direction because his is always in trouble at school.   One afternoon he catches the attention of the coach of an inner-city track team by racing his fastest runner.  The coach asks him to be part of the team, and his life begins to change.  He feels apart of a family-which he hasn’t felt since the night his dad pointed a gun at him and his mother. He tries to do the right things but the temptation of a new pair of running shoes does him in.  He steels the shoes from the sporting goods store.  It almost cost him his spot on the track team when Coach finds out. He and Coach have a heart to heart about why he stole the shoes.  He didn’t want to ask him mom because she wo...

  21. It’s a Book by Lane Smith Smith, L (2011). It’s a book . NY: Roaring Brook. This is a cleaver story about reading a traditional book compared to playing on technology.  It has three characters: the monkey, the donkey (jackass) and the mouse .  The donkey has the laptop and the monkey has the book. The donkey asks questions about the book as if he has never seen one before.  “how do you scroll down?”, “can you text?  Tweet? Wi-fi?” My favorite is, “where’s your mouse?’  That is where the mouse comes in…it’s under the monkey’s hat!  The donkey looks at the book and reads a page, and he becomes interested.  “What else can this book do?”, ask the donkey.  He begins to read, and he reads, and he reads.  Monkey wants his book back, but donkey will not give it to him.  He leaves and goes to the library.  Donkey says not to worry, he will charge it up when he is done.  The closing line is the best…the monkey lifts his hat ...

  20. Bridge to Terabithia by Katherine Paterson Patterson, K. (1972). Bridge to Terabithia . NY: Crown. This is the story of Jess Aarons.   He is the only boy in the family, with two older sisters and two younger sisters.   They live a simple life on a farm in a rural area near Washington DC.   One day he discovers they have new neighbors. He meets Leslie Burke and his whole life is turned upside down.   Leslie and her family are intellectuals that move from the city.   She and Jess become friends.   She opens up a world of imagination when she has the idea to create Terabithia, their secret kingdom in the woods near their homes.   Jess has a secret love for art.   He loves to draw and paint; but is afraid to admit it to his family or classmates for fear of being made fun of.   One Saturday he is invited by his teacher to visit a real art museum in Washington DC.   His gone before his parents realize he left.   He enjoys a w...

19. Mirror, Mirror: A Book of Reversible Verse, by Marilyn Singer Singer, M. Mirror, mirror . NY: Dutton. There are two sides to every situation.  This book shows two sides to popular fairy tales-in an unusual way.  It’s called reversible verse. This poetry reads the same moving down the page as moving up the page..  She sets up each page spread with the two versions of the poem.   Each version of the poem shows a different point of view of the popular fairy tale characters.  The fairy tales featured in the book include: Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel, Little Red Riding Hood, Ugly Duckling, Snow White, Jack and the Bean Stalk, Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Hansel and Gretel, Rumpelstiltskin, The Princess and the Frog, and Beauty and the Beast. This is an excellent book to teach perspective.  Was Cinderella mistreated or did the stepsisters have a bad reputation?   Students can look at beloved fairy tale characters in a completely dif...

  Planting Stories: the Life of Librarian and Storyteller Pura Belpre', By Anika Denise Denise, A. (2019). Planting Stories . NY: HarperCollins. This is the story of New York Public Library’s first children’s librarian from Puerto Rico, Pura Belpré (for whom an American Library Association literary award is named.)    Her Puerto Rician influence in the children’s section began to bring more and more Spanish-speaking children to the library.   She would tell them the folk tales form Porta Rico at story time.   She created puppets to help her tell the stories.   One day, she wrote a book of the stories and it was published.   She planted seeds of stories throughout New York City where she worked, introducing children to tales from her homeland in Spanish and English. This is an excellent book to introduce young readers to biographies.   It is written in story format so young or inexperienced readers will understand about Pura Belpre’ and he...

  17. Brown Girl Dreaming by Jacqueline Woodson Woodson, J. (2014). Brown girl dreaming . NY: Penguin This story is a memoir of Jacqueline Woodson growing up in 1960’s and 1970’s America during the Civil Rights Movement.  The story begins when Jacqueline is born in Ohio to Jack and Mary Ann Woodson.  She has two older siblings-Hope and Odella.  When she is one, her mother leaves her father and moves her and her siblings to South Carolina where they all live with her parents.  Their mother moves to New York City to begin a new life.  After a time, she goes back to South Carolina to bring Jacqueline and her siblings to New York.  She is also pregnant with Roman, their last sibling.  The story continues about Jacqueline and her siblings’ life in New York.  They go back and spend summers in South Carolina until their grandfather passes and their grandmother moves to New York with them.  This book is not only a memoir, it is a poem written in...

  16. Rules by Cynthia Lord Lord, C. (2008). Rules. NY: Scholastic. This is a story about 12-year-old Catherine. All she wants is a normal life, but her brother has autism.   She and her parents must watch him constantly, which makes it hard for her to do normal pre-teen activities.   She spends a lot of time teaching David rules to keep him from embarrassing her.   The story centers around the summer she meets Jason and Kristi.   Jason is mute and in a wheelchair.   she meets him at the doctor’s office where David does his Occupational Therapy.   Kristi is her new neighbor and the potential neighborhood friend she always wanted. Catherine is so caught up in her own worries, she doesn’t realize her own behavior is what is driving her new friends away. This story has good conflict/resolution elements.   The one major conflict in the story is presented at the beginning-how does Catherine be a normal teenager with an autistic brother? As the stor...

  15. The List of Things That Will Not Change by Rebecca Stead Stead, R. (2020). The list of things that will not change . NY: Wendy Lamb Books. The heroine in this story is Bea.   She is telling the story of how her life changed between the ages of 8 and 11.   At age 8, her parents got a divorce.   The twist is that her dad realizes he is gay. He meets a man named Jesse, they fall in love and want to get married. The story follows Bea’s everyday life of her relationships with her parents and going back and forth between her two homes, her relationships at school and with her cousins, her visits to her therapist, and the fact that she will be gaining a sister after her father and Jesse marry. Bea has a lot going on mentally. She has bad eczema, which flairs up when she is upset or stressed.   She also has bad anxiety, hence the visits to the therapist. The story paints a picture of Bea’s thoughts and feelings and how she deals with the worry and stress of her ...