Monica Edinger's Blog, page 37
March 4, 2015
In the Classroom: Conversations and Kindnesses
Williams College psychologist Susan Engel‘s “7 Things Every Kid Should Master” are based on her review of��“more than 300 studies of K���12 academic tests” and remarkably sensible. All seven are excellent, but two, in particular, jumped out at me as they seem to come up less than others in the discourse these days about teaching and learning.
One of these is the��importance of conversation.
Teachers are given scant training about how to encourage, expand, and deepen children���s conversations....
March 3, 2015
Diverse Thinking from Diverse Folks About Diverse Books
Roxanne Feldman (AKA fairrosa), who is originally from Taiwan, and I are longtime��close friends; she was an early and very��important sounding board for me as I worked through how to tell the story that became Africa is My Home. For both of us the topics of diversity and identity have long been important, ones we constantly discuss and reflect upon in terms of our practice at school and outside in the��children’s book world. Roxanne��has now started a blog series in which she thoughtfully an...
February 26, 2015
Not-What-You-Think-You -Know German Fairy Tales
She immediately owned up to her evil intentions, and the prince rewarded her by running her through with a sword.
A few years ago there was excitement about a “new” trove of Germany fairy tales collected by one��Franz Xaver von Sch��nwerth. They’ve now been organized��and edited, translated, and illustrated in a new edition, The Turnip Princess and Other Newly Discovered Fairy Tales. ��A handful of them are already available online to read including “King Goldenlocks,” “The Wolves,” and “In th...
February 24, 2015
Africa is My Home: How One 5th Grade Teacher Taught It
This past fall I received an email from a teacher who was using Africa is My Home��(as of today in paperback!) with her 5th graders. She wrote:
My name is Keren Lilu; I am a 5th grade teacher at the Blue School in lower Manhattan.�� Our big study for the year is the Harlem Renaissance/Civil Rights movement, with the essential questions centered around power: how does power emerge- is it inevitable?�� Who decides who has power?�� How do we empower ourselves in the face of injustice?�� We actual...
February 22, 2015
Celebrating The Bank Street Book Store
There are two major independent children’s bookstores in New York City’s borough of Manhattan, the downtown��Books of Wonder��and the uptown��Bank Street Book Store.��Both are important and wonderful to visit, each offering distinctive sensibilities. Today I want to celebrate The Bank Street Book Store, an important part��of the��venerable Bank Street College of Education, an institution that started ��downtown on Bank Street (thus the name), but long ago moved��uptown to��112th Street where...
February 16, 2015
Philip Pullman Said Yes
I love comics, and I have considered at least three proposals to turn HDM into a graphic novel. I haven���t said yes yet because I wasn���t happy with some aspect of what was being suggested ��� the length, or the writer, or the artist, or something else. If the right combination of writer (because I haven���t got time to do it myself) and artist comes along, backed by a publisher who will give the project enough space, then I���d be delighted to say yes. (In answer to a 2010 question about w...
February 10, 2015
Coming Soon: Rebecca Stead’s Goodbye Stranger
Rebecca Stead started out quietly in 2007 with her first book for children, First Light. Her second,��When You Reach Me, started out quietly too, but the decibels went up��when it won��the 2010 Newbery award. These were followed by��Liar & Spy,�� also a solidly��middle grade title that made a loud splash by winning the 2012 Guardian Children’s Book prize. With three fine books under her belt, the��question is: what will the next one be like?�� My answer (in a vague spoiler-safe way): ��just a...
February 9, 2015
Heroes Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow
Rachel Kadish has some interesting observations on the nature of heroes in children’s books of the past versus today in “Childhood Heroes: Once Self-Made, Now to the Manner Born.” ��She feels that heroes of the past were often suffering from PTSD (really!)
With a few notable exceptions, the formula is identical: Trauma is the mechanism through which superpower is acquired. It���s the very act of surviving hardship (often cataclysmic in scale) that shapes those gloriously intimidating figures i...
February 3, 2015
Thoughts on Newbery: The Day After (and El Deafo Redux)
Well, saying I’m pretty happy today is an understatement.��First of all, congratulations to all honorees, committee members, contenders, creators, publishers, readers, writers, editors, marketers, publicists, librarians, and everyone else who had a stake in these awards. Secondly,��EL DEAFO!!!!!!!!!!!
After telling my��4th graders that it was the day of the award announcements and about my hopes for winners, highlighting��El Deafo as the one I hoped for the most while also telling them why it...
February 2, 2015
Thoughts on Newbery: Today’s the Day!
In a few hours all will be known. The��award winners will have been called and the announcements in snowy Chicago will have been made.��My congratulations to all��in advance — the honorees, those who were considered, and the hard working committee members. And as a public service for anyone dismayed for any reason, here are a couple of posts that may help.
If you think the committee missed an important book, must have not given the award because the author was too well-known, felt another comm...
