Maybe you have already started your school year, or maybe you are about to start. There are so many wonderful picture books to get your students off to a great start: Enemy Pie, Each Kindness, and of course First Day Jitters! The best ones, I think, speak to us about how we treat each other and the everyday choices we make.
Extending on that theme of relationships between family or friends, I have a few more of my favorites to tell you about over the next few weeks. Although each of these books has a strong theme of positive relationships, there are several other reading and writing strategies that can be addressed as you travel through the read-aloud experience.
I'm going to start with one today that doesn't seem like a good choice at first, but has a hidden sweetness that will infuse itself throughout your year. Read on. The book is Gifts From the Sea by Natalie Kinsey Warnock. The first line goes like this: "A northeast wind was blowing the day we buried Mama on a hill overlooking the sea." What? First read-aloud for fourth graders (my target audience - my favorite grade!)? As we left for lunchtime after the first read-aloud session for this book, a student approached me with tears in her eyes, and said, "How can you read such a sad book to us? It's the beginning of the year! We're supposed to be happy!" I simply answered, "You'll see why soon." I had used this book for several years as a first read-aloud, and I could predict its results.
As we read past that first page, we meet Aquila Jane MacKinnon, born at the Devil's Rock Lighthouse on April 18, 1946, and who has never left the island. Although she lives only five miles off the coast of Maine, Devil's Rock is the whole world to this child of Irish immigrants. As we live in Aquila's thoughts, we begin to know her as Quila, and to feel the desolation and loneliness that she feels. We feel her anger at the universe, and her love for her mama. We even begin to understand the love tinged with a touch of hatred that she feels for her Papa.
We see how people deal with real adversity and life-changing tragedy and joy. (Joy is in there, I promise!) We get a glimpse of the immigrant experience and the ways in which people have risked their lives for centuries to escape danger, starvation, and extreme hardship. Quila finds a folded mattress that has washed up on shore with a living baby inside. They name her Cecilia (Celia for short), which means a gift from the sea. And, as is always true of life, life keeps on happening. Quila and Papa keep the baby and begin to raise her together. When a woman named Margaret arrives on Devil's Rock, an emotional roller coaster is ignited for Quila and for us as readers.
We have so much to talk about, to bond over, and to think about concerning our own relationships as we read on and on. As we reach the final, heart-pounding chapters wondering what effect Margaret will have on Quila's world, we laugh and cry together. Seriously. All of us. Girls, boys, everyone. Not a dry eye in the house. When people have been through what we, as readers, have been through being Quila or Celia or Papa or Margaret (each of us identified with one or another), they are a family. We weathered the storms and came out fully bonded and ready for our "happy year". We experienced life like we never knew it could be. We witnessed adversity and loyalty and strength of will and character that most nine year olds have never been exposed to. We became a family.
After Gifts From the Sea, we are never the same. The little irritants of everyday classroom life are not so irritating. Your best friend sitting with someone else on the school bus becomes an easily dealt with issue. No one to play with at recess? What would Quila do? You have too much homework? Have you tried raising a baby 24/7 like Quila? And so on.
The author of this short but amazing book once visited our elementary school. There were audible gasps as she told us how she came to write this story. She was in her studio, working on another book, and she kept hearing Quila's voice in her ear, saying, "Tell my story. Tell my story now." She told us that she simply wrote the story that Quila told her. What an outstanding example of how a fully thought out and developed character can guide the whole story we tell as a writer! I love to share this little bit of author trivia with my students and watch their eyes open wide and their jaws drop! Imagine thinking of a character that strong!
Based on true events, this book can be used as a lead-in to teaching narrative nonfiction or historical fiction. The true story: In the mid-1800s, a lighthouse keeper at Hendricks Head lighthouse, off the coast of Boothbay Harbor, Maine, found a floating bundle. He and his wife raised the baby.
A book for grownups which is based on the same true story is The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman. I am telling you about this because I have found that sharing my life as a reader is a very effective motivator for turning kids on to reading. I usually don't share the title with them (will share with parents though, upon request) because they aren't usually appropriate as potential reads for kids. But the idea that several books can be based on the same historical events or types of characters or themes is powerful. If you want a rapt audience, try storytelling a book like Ready Player One (did this way before it was a movie) while your students are doing a science fiction unit. Sharing details from The Light Between Oceans while reading Gifts From the Sea had the same effect. If you are a reader yourself (and I'm guessing that you are), there are so many books from your own list for you to use as support texts in your mini-lessons.
I hope you'll take a look at Gifts From the Sea as you plan your read-aloud this year and will welcome all it will do for your class as a family and a community of readers.
We discuss other great read-alouds to get your year off to a great start in episode 5 of "We Teach So Hard", a new podcast you can find on Apple iTunes, Google Play, Anchor, and several other podcast providers! Join the conversation in our Facebook group!
For more Start the Year read-alouds from the crew of "We Teach So Hard", click below!
I did not know this book before but you've sold me! I just added it to my "To Be Read" list! It sounds like such a different type of reading experience that kids would not choose on their own. I love these kinds of books that elicit conversations and perspective. And thanks for the "grown up" book recommendation, too!
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