Haley Jackson

Title: Islandborn Genre: Historical Fiction Author: Junot Diaz Major Awards: Pura Belpre Award Age Group: 7 - 10 Year olds Summary: Islandborn is about a young girl named Camillo who is from a place she calls, “the Island” (a small island in the Domincan republic.  One day at school Camillas teacher asks the cass to go home and draw a picture of where they are from. This upsets camilla because she moved away from the Island when she was just a baby so she doesn't remember it. She goes around and asks her family about the Island, its history, and asks them to help her get a mental picture of the place. As she goes from person to person they all have great things to say besides one, Mr.Mir. Mir.mir tells camilla about a scary monster that once came and tried to take over the town. Then, he tells her that the heros, who know one knows, saved the town and got rid of the mean monster. Once she goes home she starts on her drawing of her hometown. It starts as a page, then goes

Title: Henry’s Freedom Box Genre: Historical Fiction Author: Ellen Levine Major Awards: Caldecott Honor Age Group: 7 - 11 Year olds Summary: Henry's Freedom Box is about a young boy and his life as a slave. Little Henry only knows life as a slave as his mom and father are both slaves for wealthy individuals. One day Henry's fathers master explains to him that times are tough and his wife and kids will be sold at the slave market. The mans wife and kids, including Henrey are sold and sent to Slavery. One day Henry gets the bright idea to ship himself to Pennsylvania where he has family and friends. Some kind men help ship Henry and send him on his way. After a lot of traveling and hardship Henry finally makes it to his destination once and for all. Finally Henry is free and begins to learn about himself, he is finally a free man who is ready to begin his new life. I would love to use this book in my classroom especially when discussing slavery. It has a great, easy

Title: Journey to a New Land Genre: Historical Fiction Author: Kimberly Weinberger Major Awards: None Age Group: 9 - 12 year olds Summary: This book, “Journey to a New Island” is a story about a young girl and her big family that lives in northern Italy. The girls' parents were not very wealthy and struggled to feed their large family of ten each week. After years of struggling the girls father gets a job offer but it is in san Francisco all the way in the US. Her father and brother leave and go to San Francisco while they stayed back in Italy until there was enough money saved to send them all over to the US. After four years and lots of struggle they had finally saved enough money to send the rest of the family over. The rest of the young girls family traveled on a boat called the, Caserta all the way to Ellis Island in the us where her father and brother were. The ride took 18 brutal days and the family and the young girl suffered many hardships. Once they finally ar

Title: I Am Freedom’s Child Genre: Historical Fiction Author: Bill Martin Jr. Major Awards: None Age Group: 7- 10 years old Summary: I Am Freedom's Child is about a group of children celebrating their freedom no matter what their color. They are shouting out how happy they are to be free and that they are all equal no matter what their race, color, religion, or anything.They discuss the hisorty of slavery and gaining equal righst throughout the past brutal years. At the end of the book all different children of many races join hands and shout, “hooray for freedom's child!” I would love to use this book in my classroom for all levels of elementary.I believe that it has a great message that no matter what color you are we are equal and children of God. It also has some great history behid freddom and slavery. I feel like all students should read this book and that it is a great message for all. I think that this book would be great for students in any grade but espe

Title: Diana’s White House Garden Genre: Historical Fiction Author: Elisa Carbone Major Awards: None Age Group: 6 - 9 year olds Summary: This is a story about a young girl Diana Hopkins whose father is the chief advisor for Franklin D. Roosevelt. As the US was at war and hard times approach Roosevelt expresses to everyone that he’s going to need everyone’s help in order to win the world. Sweet Diana starts brainstorming ways that she can help such as being a spy and a city official but these were no good and only landed her in trouble with many. One day president Roosevelt express that he wants everyone in the White House to start growing their own food and this gives Diana a bright idea. She decided to be in charge of growing the food for the White House that would be sent to the troops fighting the war. President Franklin D. Roosevelt calls it the, Victory Garden and the President helps her keep it up and running. At the end the garden becomes extremely successful and even

Title: Merci Suarez Changes Gears  Genre: Newberry  Author: Meg Medina  Major Awards: Newbery Medal  Age Group: 9 - 12 year olds  Summary:  Merci Suarez Changes Gears is about a young sixth grade girl and her challenges at home and school. Merci is a student at Seaward Pines Academy, where her and her brother, Roli are on scholarship due to the fact that their family isn't very wealthy. She lives in one of the three “Las Casitas” next door to her grandparents, Lolo and Abuela, Tia Ines, and her two little cousins, Tomas and Axel. As Merci begins a new year she is faced with new challenges as well as some old such as ,a wealthy bratty girl named Edna Santos. Another obstacle thrown her way this year is a program called, “Sunshine Buddies” in which she is assigned a new boy named Michael Clark. Michael is Edna’s crush and this only makes things even worse for Merci because Edna grows extremely jealous. Her home life isn't any better either. Merci’s b

Title: What a Good Big Brother  Genre: Contemporary Realistic Fiction  Author: Diane Wright Landolf  Major Awards: None Age Group: 3 - 6 Year olds  Summary:  This sweet story is about a young boy named Cameron, who is a new big brother to a baby sister named Sadie. Cameron is so concerned with everything Sadie does and always wants to help his parents in any way possible. Things like, helping change her diapers, comforting her when she's crying, and playing with her as much as possible. Sadie cries a lot and it is puzzling to Cameron as he never seems to know why but luckily his parents can always find a solution that normally calms her down. One night Sadie begins to cry but this time no one can figure out why. Cameron starts to talk to Sadie and kisses her toes, and to everyone's surprise she stops and smiles for the very first time! Cameron is very proud of himself and loves being a big brother to such a sweet baby girl.  I would love to use thi

Title: Why? Genre: Contemporary Realistic Fiction  Author: Richard Torrey  Major Awards: None  Age Group: 3 - 6 year olds  Summary:  This book is about a six-year-old  boy, Jack who can't seem to stop asking the question, “Why?” Little Jack as any young child, has to question everything and is upset when he can't seem to get an answer to every question he has. As the book goes on Jack asks an immense amount of “ways” to everything from clothing, hair, to games, etc his parents try to answer the best that they can but don't have an answer to everything. The book ends with Jack falling asleep asking his mother, “why do I have to go to sleep”. This young boy is full of questions as any typical six year old is.  I would use this in my classroom because it has a lot of questions I'm sure my younger students have. At this young age children are curious and trying to figure out the world as well as themselves. This book would allow them to see that

Title: A Letter to my Teacher  Genre: Contemporary Realistic Fiction  Author: Deborah Hopkins  Major Awards: None  Age Group: 4 - 10 year olds  Summary:  This book, A Letter to my Teacher, by Deborah Hopkins is about a young girl in second grade who was quite a troublemaker in school. She didn’t really like school to begin with due to “having to sit-still and listen all day” which clearly was not her thing. Despite all of her troubled ways and always interrupting her teacher always remained patient. No matter what her teacher always found creative ways to engage the little girl and understood her when she felt no one could. This young girls teacher always encouraged her to read, never stop learning, and be creative in every way she could which really impacted the girls education. At the end of the book we as readers find out that she is writing these letters way later in life as an adult to give to her second grade teacher who impacted her education tremend

Title: Alexander, Who’s Not (Do you hear me? I mean it!) Going to Move Genre: Contemporary Realistic Fiction  Author: Judith Viorst  Major Awards: None Age Group: 4 - 8 Year olds  Summary:  When Alexander’s dad gets a new job and tells him they're going to be moving  1,000 miles away to a whole new city he is mad and refuses to move. He says that he will never find a better best friend than, Paul or a better sitter than Rachel. Alexander is sad that he will have to leave his neighbors, his soccer team, his carpool, and all of the kids who know him in school. He can't bear to leave his friends and the people he knows and loves so he decides that he just won't move. Maybe he can live in a tent or a tree house? He starts thinking of all of the different ways that he won't have to move such as, hiding from his parents and even barricading his room, but these don't work. His parents finally convince him that moving won't be so bad after all

Title: The Magic School Bus Inside A Beehive  Genre: Science Fiction  Author: Joanna Cole  Major Awards: None Age Group: 4 - 11 year olds  Summary:  This book, The Magic School Bus Inside A Beehive starts off with Ms.Frizzle taking her class on a field trip to go study bee hives. Ms.Frizzle accidentally knocks a little lever and suddenly the bus turns into a little beehive and the students and Ms.Frizzle turn into bees! They all fly around as a class and discover different bees,facts, places, and things that bees do. As they fly around they are faced with having to defend a beehive from a bear and act as bees do when it comes to defense. The class finally finds their way out of the situation and flies back to the classroom where they all turn back into their normal selves. Once their all back in the classroom the day isn't over and they bake honey buns to end their crazy day. I would love to use this book in my classroom when discussing bees and all t