Ryan's comments (member since Sep 16, 2008)

Ryan's comments from the Children's Literature Awards, LLED Fall 08 group.

The winner of this year's teamwork award was "Stone Soup" by Marcia Brown. This book was nominated by Loray Greene. I chose this book because it demonstrates teamwork and the success it can lead to in life.

My Brother, Matthew

Emma's Yucky Brother

This is a good book that teaches about adoption. Emma is unsure about the young boy they are adopting but at the end the whole family finds love. Good book to read to children teaching about adoption and becoming a family.

Stuart Sets Sail

This book tells of Stuart's sailing experience and all of the adventures he encounters. It is labeled as an " I can Read Book" therefore suits this age group i feel. The author repeats a few challenging words a few times as almost to get the reader to look at them and try to understand them. Good book for young children to learn and expand on reading while having an enjoyable read.

The Great Pancake Escape

This book does indeed display a magic act involving pancakes. The pancakes escape from the house and the only thing that can bring them back is a magic saying. Good book displaying a fun and useful portray of magic.

Harry and the Dinosaurs Say "Raahh!"

This book is a great book for helping children how to overcome a fear. In this book, Harry is going to the dentist with his dinosaurs. The one dinosaur is extremely nervous because he has a lot of teeth and he is worried they will drill on them. By pushing a magic button, he is able to grow big and overcome these fears. This book is great for children and can help them overcome fears of the dentist or anything related.

Moses Goes to School

Moses is deaf and hard of hearing and goes to a school which the students are all deaf. This book tells children about the difficulty of being disadvantaged and what it takes to overcome the disadvantage of being deaf. The class all works hard and treats one another equal and are able to communicate with signs.

The Honest-to-Goodness Truth

This book is a great book for children that teachers a lesson resulting in bad behavior. In the beginning of the book , Libby lies to her mother and learns from it and feels bad. Her mother tells her to always tell the truth but Libby takes it to far by tattling on everybody because she thinks its the truth. Children can really gain a lot from this book and it encourages them to tell the truth to a certain extent and not go to far like Libby.

Maxi, the Hero

This book is about a fearless dog who rides along with a taxi driver on his daily runs. When there is trouble encountered, Maxi races in order to help the others and earn the recognition of a true hero. Maxi really risks his safety by putting himself in danger to help the others. This book would be great for younger children and would help them also realize right from wrong.

Click, Clack, Quackity-Quack: An Alphabetical Adventure

This alphabetical adventure provides children with a great sense for the sound of letters throughout the alphabet. It would be a fun and entertaining book to read to children with a lot of emotion as it describes animal actions using different verbs through the alphabet.

A goal is something that we are taught about at a very young age and expected to set so we have something to strive for. There are two ways to reach these goals and they are through one's own power or through the power of teamwork. Through my lifetime, teamwork not only has helped me gain a better feel of how to work with people but yet it allows two or more minds to work together to accomplish anything they want. According to Shelby A. Wolf, "highlighting the intelligence of children is essential, and if you give them a chance, children will let their engagement shine through." In life, you are always capable of achieving your own goals, but by allowing two or more people to engage together you will often find out that two intelligences are better than one.

For a book to achieve this award, it must demonstrate and focus on teamwork in order to achieve some type of goal. This children's book should demonstrate the usage of teamwork whether its through people or animals. The idea is for this book to give insight to children about teamwork and what can be accomplished when it is used and hopefully it encourages children to engage in it.