The Importance of Family
Family are the people who stick by us and have our backs. They are the people who are there to cheer us on and pick us up when times are hard. This week the two picture books I read had strong themes of family.
Mango, Abuela and Me is by Meg Medina. In this book Mia, the main character, Abuela or grandmother comes to stay with her and her family. Mia is not very close with her grandmother as she lives farther away. When trying to talk with her she struggles as her Spanish is not all that good and her grandmother doesn't speak all that much English. Mia sets out to teach her English so that they can communicate better. Throughout this process the two grow closer. Mia is able to learn more about her Grandmother as well as her Grandfather who passed away before she was born.
The other book I read this week was Happy Like Soccer by Maribeth Boelts. This book is true to its name as it is about Sierra, a young girl with a love for soccer. She recently joined a soccer team that plays across town from where she lives. Due to her Aunt's work schedule she is not able to go to Sierra's games. This is hard on Sierra as the other girls on her team have people cheering for them and calling for them by their names and not the number on their jersey. On the last game fit eh season Sierra's aunt is able to come to her game. Sierra finally has someone to cheer for her by name. She recounts a feeling of flying and feeling that it is the best she has played.
Having those important people in your life can really lift your spirits. By becoming close with your family you learn about things or people you never knew about before. You get to have someone you know on the sidelines cheering you on. A supporting voice in the audience can really make the world of a difference in our lives.
Meet the Authors:
Meg Medina is the author of Mango Abuela and Me.
Maribeth Bolts is the author of Happy Like Soccer.
Writing!
This week I also wanted to try out one of the your turn lessons from Mentor Texts by Lynne R. Dorfman and Rose Cappelli. The name of the lesson is Creating a Hand Map. In this lesson students trace their hands and in each of the fingers they write one emotion that they have felt before in their lives. Then from each finger they draw a line or two that describes an instant when either they felt that emotion or when the character from the book felt that emotion. These emotions can be as simple as Anger, fear, sadness, happiness or excitement. The point is to get students to think about emotions that characters feel in stories. This can be characters from a book they have read or in their own personal stories. When showing this lesson to students it can be beneficial to not only show a completed hand map but to also do one with them so that students can see the thinking process that goes with creating a hand map. I personally feel it would be a good idea to start off with doing a hand map with a character from a book they are reading so they can begin to understand how to look deeper into the story to see what the author isn't telling us but wants us to feel. Once student get the process down for looking for the characters emotions in stories they can start to think of their own inside stories they want to write. With their inside stories they can add another level of depth to their writing by thinking of their word choices and scenes they want to focus in on to make the readers really feel.
I wanted to try this lesson out for myself so I did two hand maps for each picture book I read this week. I did one for Mia from Mango, Abuela and Me and one for Sierra from Happy Like Soccer.
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