By Sheila Kelly Welch
Have you ever found your mind reaching for a word but you can’t quite grab it? If you’ve turned to a thesaurus for help, then you’ll love this book, an unusual biography about a fascinating man – doctor, scientist, and lover of words.
THE RIGHT WORD: ROGET AND HIS THESAURUS, written by Jen Bryant and illustrated with Melissa Sweet’s whimsical, detailed illustrations captured two recent awards: the Sibert Award (best informational book published in 2014) and a Caldecott honor (for the illustrations). Although this is technically a picture book, the subject and the visually sophisticated illustrations will be appreciated best by children over eight years old.
BROWN GIRL DREAMING by Jacqueline Woodson provides young readers a view into this author/poet’s early life and helps explain how and why she became the wonderful writer she is. Her memoir also won the Coretta Scott King Author Award, the National Book Award for children’s literature, and was one of only two Newbery honor books selected this year. Many teachers and parents will want to share the lyrical voice as well as the content by reading Woodson’s story aloud to children who are age ten and older.
Winner of the Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award, FIREBIRD by Misty Copeland, illustrated by Christopher Myers, is a visual translation of the sounds and movement of music and dance. The author is one of only two black soloist at American Ballet Theatre. With gentle, poetic words, Copeland encourages a young black girl to join her in “this dancing dream” as together they “make the night sky our starry curtain / the moon our silver spotlight.” Read this aloud, show the vibrant illustrations, listen to Stravinsky’s music . . . a treat for all ages.
This prize-winning book has been on my shelf for years. Only Eve Bunting would have the confidence to write a picture book about street riots. SMOKY NIGHT is told from the perspective of a small boy whose mother explains how people get so angry they want to “smash and destroy,” and “after a while it’s like a game.” When a fire starts nearby, the boy, his mother, and their neighbors must flee to a shelter where people and pets come together for a hopeful ending. SMOKY NIGHT won the Caldecott for David Diaz’s bold, richly hued, stylized collage/paintings -- the perfect match for this thought-provoking story about a difficult issue.
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.
