Colors of Us by Karen Katz

-

 

Title: The Colors of Us
Genre: Realistic Fiction
Author/Illustrator: Karen Katz
Age group: 1st-3rd

Summary
This short story book follows Lena's day.  At the beginning of her day Lena is talking with her mom who is an artist and her mom tells her if she mixes the right amount of yellow, red, brown, black, and white she will come up with the perfect shade of brown so she can paint a picture of herself.  Lena disbelievingly tells her mom that brown is just brown.  Lena and her mom begin going about their day of errands and at first Lena's mom points out a neighbor and says look at her shade it's warm like honey.  Soon Lena begins doing the same and pointing out shades of people just as her mother.  Lena does this with her friends, babysitter, and shopkeepers.  At the end of the book Lena races over to the Paints in order to start mixing them in order to make all the different shades she's seen today.
Evaluation
I think this book explains the difference of peoples skin in such a positive light that it would be perfect for younger classrooms.  Children need to see representation of themselves in the literature that any educator chooses to teach and this book is chalk full of it! Personally just because of age level I would not use this book in my classroom.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anasi the Spider: A Tale from Ashanti by Gerald McDermott

-
Image
Title:   Anansi the Spider Genre:  Traditional Literature Author/ Illustrator:  Gerald McDermott Major Awards: Caldecott Award Age group : 1st-3rdth Summary This is the story of Anansi the spider and his six sons.  Anansi's sons are named, See Trouble, road builder, River Drinker, Game Skinner, Stone Thrower, and last Cushion.  Their names were indicative of their jobs and what they do in life.  One time Anansi traveled so far and fell into trouble.  Thankfully his first born See Trouble alerted the rest of the brothers.  Then road Builder built the road to get there so all six sons traveled it.  Here they saw a huge river which River Drinker fixed promptly.  There was a fish left flopping about and Anansi was inside the fish so Game Skinner freed him.  But just as Game Skinner freed his father a huge falcon swooped Anansi away! Stone Thrower came to save the day and pelted the bird with a stone but Anansi was now free falling from ...
Read more

Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems

-
Image
Title:  Knuffle Bunny Genre:  Realistic Fiction Author /  Illustrator:  Mo Willems Major Awards:  Caldecott Award Age group : PreK-1st Summary  This is the story of a poor girl Trixie who loses her favorite stuffed rabbit on the way to the laundromat.  She is trying to convey to her father wat is wrong however it all comes out as gibberish. She tries and tries and finally she gets lucky when her dad understands the words Knuffle Bunny.  After he figures out what is wrong he now has to track down the bunny.  Thank goodness after retracing their steps they are able to find knuffle bunny! Evaluation I think this story would be really good to use as a teaching moment to students about retracing their steps.  It teaches them to be able to encode and store long term information by practicing the reflection that happens when thinking about what you have previously done.  And once they learn that then they will be able to reflect even if it...
Read more

Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Suess

-
Image
Title:   Green Eggs and Ham Genre:  Poetry Author /  Illustrator:  Dr. Suess Age group : PreK-2nd Summary This is a classic Dr. Suess story of Sam I am trying to give the Speaker Green eggs and ham.  The speaker is not having it at all either he will not eat them on a bus or plane not even a car or a train.  He will not have them here or there, he will not have them anywhere. Evaluation I believe that Dr. Suess is timeless and his stories are many of the first ones that new readers tend to pick up.  I think this story in particles provides a value of determining things like opposites.  A teacher could have her student act out in like a whole brain teaching scenario using gestures what the difference are between here and there or over and under.  Personally because of the younger reading level this is targeted for I probably will not use this story in my high school classroom.
Read more