New Baseball Books for Reading Week

Thank you, FEN, for buying the library new baseball books for guest readers to choose from during Reading Week! I've read them all and recommend them for home reading as well. Here are the new titles (all images and descriptions from Goodreads):

The Honus Wagner baseball card is the most valuable baseball card of all time! But he was born poor, ugly, bow-legged, and more suited to shoveling coal in his Pennsylvania mining town than becoming the greatest shortstop of all time. How could it happen? Did those strong arms and fast legs turn him into a Pittsburgh Pirate and one of the game?s most unforgettable players? In this true story, Jane Yolen shows us that wit, talent, perseverance, and passion score more than home runs. As Honus would say, ?How about that!? 

From the first pitch to the last out and all nine innings between, Douglas Florian’s collection of baseball poems brings wordplay, wit, and laughter to America’s springtime tradition. Featuring a mean-armed pitcher, a daisy-picking right fielder, and a lightning-swift base stealer, Poem Runs combines irresistible language and Florian’s signature child-friendly, bold illustration style in this celebration of the magic of baseball. 

Legendary baseball manager Casey Stengel worked with such greats as Joe DiMaggio and Mickey Mantle; he led the New York Yankees to a record-breaking TEN pennants and SEVEN World Series in twelve years; he invented “platooning,” a way to use players that revolutionized the game; he was a prankster who became famous for sayings like “Everybody line up alphabetically according to your height.” The brains behind any baseball team is its manager . . . and here’s a picture-book biography about the best, most beloved and entertaining manager in history!

Lizzie Murphy was good at baseball. In fact, she was better than most of the boys. But she was born in 1900, and back then baseball was not a game for girls. Lizzie practiced with her brother anyway, and then she talked her way onto the local boys’ team, first as a batboy, then as a player. Everyone was impressed by her hard catches and fast pitches. By the time she turned fifteen, she was playing for two different amateur boys’ teams. When she turned eighteen, Lizzie did something else that women weren’t supposed to do: she signed up with a professional baseball team, determined to earn her living playing the game.

This is the moving story of how Jackie Robinson became the first black player on a Major League baseball team when he joined the Brooklyn Dodgers in the 1940s, and how on a fateful day in Cincinnati, Pee Wee Reese took a stand and declared Jackie his teammate. Illustrated with a blend of historic photographs and eloquent watercolors by Paul Bacon.

Ted Williams lived a life of dedication and passion. He was an ordinary kid who wanted one thing: to hit a baseball better than anyone else. So he practiced his swing every chance he got. He did fingertip push-ups. He ate a lot of food. He practiced his swing again. And then practiced it some more. From his days playing ball in North Park as a kid to his unmatched .406 season in 1941 to his heroic tours of duty as a fighter pilot in World War II and Korea, the story of Teddy Ballgame is the story of an American hero. In this engrossing biography, Matt Tavares makes Ted Williams’s life story accessible to a whole new generation of fans.

Shorty and his family, along with thousands of Japanese Americans, are sent to an internment camp after the attack on Pearl Harbor. Fighting the heat and dust of the desert, Shorty and his father decide to build a baseball diamond and form a league in order to boost the spirits of the internees. Shorty quickly learns that he is playing not only to win, but to gain dignity and self-respect as well. Baseball Saved Us ... will appeal again and again to readers who enjoy cheering for the underdog.

What Ms. Moore Read Over Vacation

Sadly, I was sick all vacation; I spent a couple of days in bed, and the rest mostly on the couch. But at least I got a lot of reading done! Here are some new books I really liked and think students would enjoy. They're available at the public library. All book covers and plot summaries are from Goodreads:

Picture books

Before spring comes, the trees are dark sticks, the grass is brown, and the ground is covered in snow. But if you wait, leaves unfurl and flowers blossom, the grass turns green, and the mounds of snow shrink and shrink. Spring brings baby birds, sprouting seeds, rain and mud, and puddles. You can feel it and smell it and hear it—and you can read it!

Bear didn't mean to break a little girl's kite, but she's upset anyway--upset enough to shout "HORRIBLE BEAR!" Bear is indignant. He doesn't think he's horrible! Then Bear gets a trulyHorrible Bear idea. What will he do next? As Bear prepares to live up to his formerly undeserved reputation, the girl makes a mistake of her own, and realizes that maybe--just maybe--Bear isn't as horrible as she had thought. 

Younger grades

Waylon has lots of ideas for making life more awesome through science, like teleportation, human gills, and attracting cupcakes by controlling gravity. But it's impossible for him to concentrate on his inventions when he's experiencing his own personal Big Bang. 

Arlo Brody is dividing the fourth grade boys into two groups. Waylon would rather be friends with everyone. Well, everyone except the scary new kid, Baxter Boylen. (NOTE FROM MS. MOORE: Clementine is Waylon's classmate.)

Middle grades

In this follow-up to the Newbery-winning novel THE CROSSOVER (which Ms. Moore LOVED and we have a copy of),  soccer, family, love, and friendship, take center stage as twelve-year-old Nick learns the power of words as he wrestles with problems at home, stands up to a bully, and tries to impress the girl of his dreams. Helping him along are his best friend and sometimes teammate Coby, and The Mac, a rapping librarian who gives Nick inspiring books to read. An electric and heartfelt novel-in-verse.

It's 1969, and the Apollo 11 mission is getting ready to go to the moon. But for half-black, half-Japanese Mimi, moving to a predominantly white Vermont town is enough to make her feel alien. Suddenly, Mimi's appearance is all anyone notices. She struggles to fit in with her classmates, even as she fights for her right to stand out by entering science competitions and joining Shop Class instead of Home Ec. And even though teachers and neighbors balk at her mixed-race family and her refusals to conform, Mimi’s dreams of becoming an astronaut never fade—no matter how many times she’s told no. (NOTE FROM MS. MOORE: This is on the new RICBA list. If you liked Inside Out and Back Again, you will love this.) 

Room 11 Collecting Nouns

Here are Room 11 students working together to find and explain collective noun pairs, like

• a leap of leopards
• a splash of mermaids
• a flight of butterflies
• a memory of elephants
• a galaxy of starfish

 

Room 10 Collective Nouns

Fourth-graders learned about collective nouns, which describe groups of people, places, or things. Some are general - a class of students or a team of players. But others can be quirky and actually work like adjectives - a splash of mermaids or a crash of rhinos. They might describe a noun's appearance, characteristics, habitat, actions, or sound.

For our first lesson, the students paired up and read through books of collective nouns (you'd be surprised how many there are), choosing a couple to explain. For example, "a tower of giraffes is describing the tallness of them," and "a smack of jellyfish is because they flop around in the water."

A. made an awesome connection ... her collective noun book gave one word for a group of hippos,
but she remembered reading about another one in a book she had taken out of the library.

After sharing their explanations, we invented some new collective nouns for some of the same things, including:

• a moo of cows
• a speed of cheetahs
• a spot of giraffes
• a roar of lions

During the second lesson, they came up with collective nouns to describe a group of themselves.

What new fun collective nouns can YOU think of?



Common Core standard addressed: L.4.5. – Demonstrate understanding of figurative language, word relationships, and nuances in word meanings.

Fortunately / Unfortunately with Room 2

Thanks to https://ideafm.org/ for the idea and the image.

We read Fortunately by Remy Charlip, a story that follows Ned through a series of problems and resolutions.

Then we wrote our own version as a class ... the kids much preferred coming up with the "unfortunately" parts!

Finally, the students paired up to write and illustrate even more versions. Photos of them working and some of their finished stories are after the class story below.


One day, a man went to a dog store in New York.

Unfortunately, they were sold out of dogs.

Fortunately, the guy (named Robert) went to a different store.

Unfortunately, that dog store was sold out too.

Fortunately, they discovered two dogs were actually still there.

Unfortunately, they ran away.

Fortunately, Robert found two strays on the sidewalk and named them Bobby and Ruby.

Unfortunately, they were deadly.

Fortunately, Robert trained them.

Unfortunately, the dogs jumped on him anyways.

Fortunately, the Ninja Turtles found them.

Unfortunately, Bowser cam up out of the sewer.

Fortunately, the Ninja Turtles kew that Bowser had taken all of the dogs and returned them to the stores.