STARTED & FINISHED:

McNaughton, Colin. (2004,2005). Once upon an ordinary school day. New York: Farrar Straus & Giroux.

[Satoshi Kitamura's illustrations are what initially drew me to this one. Black ink smudgy outlines with light watercolors inside. The story, of an inspirational new teacher, kept me reading. I tried a similar tactic (having kids listen to music and then draw/write down how it made them feel) with some 1st graders once and it kinda worked! If only this kind of activity could be explored in all classrooms - but, in this day of "No child left behind" (yeah, right!) and standardized tests, creativity is thrown out the window. THIS is why I bailed on teaching and am now doing the librarian thing.]


Lender, Ian. (2005). An undone fairy tale. New York: Simon & Schuster.

[This one was a bit of a let down. Cute premise: the illustrations to the story aren't quite done yet, so an aside guy keeps urging the reader not to turn the page. In the end, corners are cut and the story is altered to make up for the changes. In the end, it came off as a bit forced and silly. Kind of reminded me a bit of the Grover book where he doesn't want you to turn the page because there's a monster at the end...]

STARTED:
Clements, Andrew. (2007). No talking. New York: Simon & Schuster.

[Reading for ACL, to see if I think it is OUTSTANDING. So far, it's pretty great.]

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