By Sheila Welch
Sheila recommends some of her favorite back to school reading. Enjoy:
THE TREK by Ann Jonas is a picture book that was featured on the highly respected TV show Reading Rainbow. As an unnamed narrator walks to school, she sees exotic animals hidden in the illustrations. The stones of a chimney form a giraffe; the branches and limbs of a tree become gorillas; and watermelons (one cut open) look like a hippopotamus. Toddlers to ten-year-olds will enjoy searching for these and many more creatures in this imaginative book.
WITH BOOKS AND BRICKS by Suzanne Slade is a nonfiction picture book for ages six to twelve. It focuses on Booker T. Washington’s remarkable determination to build a school for Black students. Three attempts to make the necessary 25,000 bricks are thwarted when homemade kilns break, destroying the bricks. Finally, Booker sells his watch and buys a kiln that works. The resulting bricks become the first of many buildings that form Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute. Expressive watercolors by Nicole Tadgell compliment this inspirational account.
LILLY’S PURPLE PLASTIC PURSE by Kevin Henkes features Lilly, a mouse who loves school and her unconventional teacher, Mr.Slinger. But when she can’t resist showing off her new purse and gets a mild reprimand, she’s devastated. She expresses her feelings by drawing an unflattering (and inaccurate) portrait of her teacher. Young children will enjoy hearing this read aloud. Independent readers through fourth grade will appreciate Lilly’s emotional roller coaster and the happy ending.
PLANET KINDERGARTEN by Sue Ganz-Schmitt is illustrated by Shane Prigmore in eye-catching colors. The clever text and cartoonish artwork will appeal to today’s kids who are fans of iPads and video games. In this story, the whole going-off-to-kindergarten adventure is likened to a space trip, complete with outlandish alien classmates. Read this one aloud to your child who’s heading off to planet kindergarten, and you’ll both enjoy a few laughs.
PRAIRIE WINTER by Bonnie Geisert is the third middle-grade novel based on the author’s childhood growing up on a farm in South Dakota. Rachel loves school, but the winter she’s in sixth grade, the sky dumps one major snowstorm after another on the frozen land. Rachel’s farm is cut off, but her father decides to let her and her two older sisters stay in town so they can keep going to school. This gentle family and school story provides a peek into the not-so-distant past and will appeal to readers ages eight through twelve.
About Sheila
Sheila Kelly Welch is a mother, grandmother and retired teacher. She counts among her children’s fiction books LITTLE PRINCE KNOW-IT-ALL and A HORSE FOR ALL SEASONS. Sheila's novel, WAITING TO FORGET, has been selected by Bank Street College and Pennsylvania School Library Association for their lists of best-books-of-the-year. Her most recent stories, MESS-UP MOLLY and BIG CAT AND KITTEN, are published on-line by MeeGenius.
