April is "Poetry Month" and I love highlighting books that celebrate the written word. So this month I'm putting the spotlight on new-ish books about authors and poets, that have characters who want to be writers, that are written in verse, are retellings of classic stories, or that show the power of WORDS!

Happy Reading... and Writing!

Kindergarten - 3rd grades:

Say Something (Reynolds)
The Word Collector (Reynolds)

Interrupting Chicken and the Elephant of Surprise (Stein)
Drawn Together (Le)
Turning Pages (Sotomayor)
Epic Adventures of Huggie and Stick (Daywalt)
Write to Me (Grady)
A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood (Rogers)
Doctor Esperanto and the Language of Hope (Rockliff)
Bear's Book (Freedman)

4th - 8th grades:

Martin Rising (Pinkney)
The Undefeated (Alexander)
Becoming Madeleine (Voiklis)
Dear Sister (McGhee)
Night Diary (Hiranandani)
Lifeboat 12 (Hood)
Dear Ally, How do you write a book? (Carter) (6th-12th grades!)
The Bridge Home (Venkatraman)
Ivy Aberdeen's Letter to the World (Blake)
Fearsome Giant, Fearless Child (Fleischman)

9th-12th grades:
For Every One (Reynolds)
Voices (Elliott)
Field Guide to the North American Teenager (Philippe)
What I Leave Behind (McGhee)
My Plain Jane (Hand, et. al)
Pride (Zoboi)
Mary's Monster (Judge)
Fresh Ink (edited by Giles)
Between the Lines (Grimes)
On the Come Up (Thomas)
The Poet X (Acevedo)
White Rose (Wilson)
Lovely War (Berry)
A Thousand Beginnings and Endings (edited by Oh)

Adults (and high school):

Shout (Anderson)

If you follow me on social media, you know that I'm a big fan of using picture books with my middle and high school literature classes. I typically open every middle school class by reading one aloud, and I use them at the end of the day with my high school class.

This new book, published under Kwame Alexander's new imprint (VERSIFY), is a "love letter" to Black life in America and was originally performed for ESPN's The Undefeated. The book takes Kwame's spoken word poem and adds fantastic illustrations by Kadir Nelson. Back matter provides historical context and details for those wishing to learn more.

Though not the goal of #classroombookaday, this book could also be used with a variety of ages in the classroom. Younger elementary classes could read this as an introduction to the events portrayed, American history/time periods, and achievements of the people highlighted throughout. In addition to the ways mentioned, older classrooms (5th-12th grades) could pair this with the video of the poem being performed by Kwame. (You can find it here). It could be a discussion starter for the history of race relations in this country, current events, Black Lives Matter, athletes taking a knee, or paired with many fiction titles in your classroom or school library. It would also make a jumping off point for research, or a spoken word poetry unit.

One of my FAVORITE books from the last several years is Trevor Noah's memoir, Born a Crime. I cannot say enough good things about it., and honestly find ways to sneak mention of it into my #yalit seminars whenever I can. I think it should be mandatory reading for all adults and students in 7-12th grades. And I'm not alone in that assessment... students in New Jersey are reading it as part of the curriculum. I think this memoir mirrors events in our own country's history, and also pairs well with many current fiction stories.

Now, even younger readers can access the memoir in a brand new young reader's adaptation (perfect for grades 6 & up). I'll be honest, I don't often pay attention to whether swear words appear in a book for teens (I mean, have you been in a school hallway or on a school bus?!). But I do know that "bad language" is important to some school communities. This new adaptation scrubs the swear words without eliminating the content and makes it a great choice for even more students.

If you have not read the memoir yet, consider listening to the audiobook as Trevor reads it himself!

Click here to read more about the book and why Trevor thinks that students can handle the truth about his story.

I LOVE traveling around the country and spending the day with fellow educators talking about all the books with school districts, ESDs, and state library associations. These are some of my favorite seminars to do as I can often include kidlit, yalit, or both throughout the day.

I know that the school year is wrapping up, but I'm already scheduling dates for the 2019-2020 school year. Does your district offer on-site PD? I'm available! Full-day or half-day seminars...kidlit, yalit, award winners...I can work with you to customize the best PD for your teachers/librarians, at a time of year that you'd like. (And it's often more cost-effective for your district/library association to bring me in directly).

Do you think your district might be interested? Find out more here, or contact me @ shauna.yusko@gmail.com.