Since I began teaching in a school library in August 2012, I tend to read children’s books with a focus on their practical use. I want to introduce students to as much wonderful literature as possible. Students who may think they don’t like reading may discover something new; those who are set in their book choices may be encouraged to try a different type of book. My current role includes direct instruction for grades 5-8, and I have a co-librarian who focuses on K-4, While my focus for this list leans toward the 5-8 range, I wanted to include recommendations for the younger grades as well. I looked at some of the major curricular areas where I might create a lesson around a specific book or set of books.
I underestimated the challenge of picking only 50 books from a set of more than 200! I began by marking all books I would like to include in my list, intending to narrow down if needed. I had almost eighty books in my initial “I can see a real way to use this in the school library” thought process. As I categorized them against my curricular needs, I began to see book pairings emerge. For example, I may have selected several books about basketball that could address various curricular areas (for example, H.O.R.S.E. a game of basketball and imagination by Christopher Myers and Hoop Genius by John Coy, illustrated by Joe Morse). I had to decide if both were equally valuable to my practice. In this example, I opted to keep Hoop Genius because it is high interest non-fiction that could be used with my older students. While I enjoyed the banter and illustrations of H.O.R.S.E., I moved it to the lower grade non-fiction section and it was edged out by several picture books that I felt would meet the interests of our students better.
The books that I selected fell into major categories. Following are my justifications for the categories:
The Civil Rights Movement: The United States civil rights movement is included only in the 5th grade TN curriculum for social studies, but it is an important era to reflect upon as the students progress in their education and deeper understanding of United States history. These books provide accessible stories about actual participants in the struggle and accurately reflect their experiences. I have included a book about Nelson Mandela to contrast the struggle in the United States with another place in the world. These books also offer an entry point for discussions of authors and illustrators of color.
Women's Rights/History: This is another curricular area that doesn’t receive much focus, but could be expanded. The books in this part of my list describe women who affected change in their communities and who are not usually named in regular history coverage of women’s rights.
Multicultural Experience: As our schools continue to reflect the broad ethnic backgrounds that populate our nation, it is important to expose students to a wide range of experiences and beliefs. The books in this section represent their respective ethnicities through the story as well as the artistic style of the illustrations. This creates many opportunities for discussing how people share their stories and how stories are shared across the world.
Science/Discovery: With the transition to Common Core State Standards, teachers in all areas will be looking for non-fiction texts to use with their classrooms. I discovered a broad selection of books that relate to scientific discoveries, and found many connections to the subject areas as well as to points in the library curriculum.
Fiction: Of course fiction will remain in the curriculum. I found that my selections for fiction skewed toward the younger grades, which corresponds with the balance of fiction and non fiction that is expected in the Common Core State Standards. While I did real a few fiction picture books for older readers (e.g. The Arrival by Shaun Tan) I decided to narrow the Fiction category to selections for the younger grades.
Poetry: Poetry is a literary genre that many students may think is inaccessible or not fun. I selected books that I thought could bring poetry concepts, or even just poetry exposure, to the students in a fun, meaningful way.
Non-Fiction: While many of the books in other categories are non-fiction, there were a few books that fell outside of the major curricular categories. Since non-fiction will be a major emphasis under the Common Core State Standards, these are high interest non-fiction that I believe many students will enjoy when they discover them.
Traditional/Fairy/Fractured Tales: These stories are a staple of the literature canon taught in schools and libraries. But the books selected expand the usual stories to include stories from other cultures, new fairy tales, and fractured fairy tales. By incorporating these stories with the usual traditional tales, students can evaluate differences and similarities in story. They can also use them as a starting point for creating their own works.
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