Wilson A. Bentley

Snowflake Bentely

Caldecott Medal Winner

by: Jacqueline Briggs Martin

illustrated by: Mary Azarian

Interest Level: K - 2

Grade Level Equivalent: 4.1

Lexile® measure: 830L

DRA: 28-30

Guided Reading: N

Genre/Theme: Biography

Martin, J. B., & Azarian, M. (1998). Snowflake Bentley  . Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Snowflake Bentley is the biography of Wilson Bentley, who took pictures of individual snowflakes, and researched weather. The story starts out when Wilson is a young boy who loves snow and weather. He started keeping record of the weather at a very young age. His family, and peers though it was very strange. He got a microscope as a present, and from then on would put snowflakes under it and try to draw them. The snow would melt before he had the chance to finish any of his drawings. He heard of a camera with a microscopic lense, and his parents finally bought him one. From then on he would spend the winter taking picture of snowflakes and studying their forms. The book follows him all the way until his death, and talks about how his photographs and research are still in museums today.

Snowflake Bentley is one of my favorite childrens books. It is written at a fourth grade reading level, but young children would be able to enjoy it if it were read to them. This book could be used to talk about science, snow, and also what children what they want to be when they grow up, dreams that they have, things they are interested. This book would be great for vocabulary development, social and cognitive development as well. Snowflake Bentley could easily be tied into science and history lessons. The illustrations truly make this book what it is. An art project could be done trying to immitate the type of painting Mary Azarian uses in the book.

I highly recommend this book to readers of all ages.





Snow

by: Uri Shulevitz

Caldecott Honor Book

Interest Level: K - 2

Grade Level Equivalent: 1.5

Lexile® measure: 220L

Genre/Theme: Fiction

Shulevitz, U. (1998). Snow  . New York: Farrar Straus Giroux.

Snow is the story of what happens when snow accumulates. The story starts with just one snowflake, and the boy with dog is very excited. He goes around the town telling all of the adults that it is snowing. They are all convinced that it is just a few flakes. At the end there is a lot of snow, and the boy was right all along.

The illustrations in this book really add to the story. The written story is very simple; the illustrations make it much more complex and appealing. The simple story makes this book great for striving readers or beginning readers. Many of the words are repeated over and over again such as: "boy with dog", and "snowflakes". This would be a great book to use when teaching simple words. It also might help students in their cognitive development, as it requires them to think critically about what happens as more and more snow accumulates. The class could also talk about how children feel about snow as opposed to how most adults feel about snow.

This is a great book for students in Minnesota, as it is something everyone here can relate to. I would use this book in my classroom.

The Snowy Day

The Snowy Day

by: Ezra Jack Keats

Keats, E. J. (1962). The Snowy Day  . New York: Viking Press.

Interest Level: Pre-K - 2

Grade Level Equivalent: 3.2

Lexile® measure: 500L

DRA: 16-18

Guided Reading: J

Genre/Theme: Fiction

The Snowy Day is a story of a little boy, Peter, going out to play in the snow. He wakes up in the morning to a new snowfall. After breakfast he gets dressed up to go outside and play. He makes different kinds of footprints, has a snowball fight, makes snow angels and finally comes inside only to dream that it all melted.

The Snowy Day is a simple story. I would use it for striving readers or young readers. The theme is simple, and easy to understand. The book would not be a good choice if the teacher is looking to develop students socially, emotionally, or cognitively. It would be a good fiction book to use in a unit about winter or snow in a Kindergarten classroom to talk about the things people do when it snows. A possible lesson to go with it might be a drawing/writing lesson about the things that the students like to do when it snows.

The one criticism of the book is that it does not accurately depict the African American boy. If someone were to simply change the color of his skin, he could easily be white. It is important that we choose books that accurately depict different ethnicities, but we could use this book to talk a little bit about race and why it is he looks that way.

I would use this book in my classroom, as long as I was able to acknowledge that Peter was not accurately depicted.

The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman

The Graveyard Book 

By Neil Gaiman

Gaiman, N., & McKean, D. (2008). The Graveyard Book  . New York: Harpercollins Publishing.

Readability Lexile: 820L

Grade Level Equivalent: 5.4

Genre: Fantasy

The Graveyard Book is the life and adventures of Nobody Owens. Nobody Owens' family was murdered when he was just a toddler by The Man Jack. From that day forward he was adopted and raised by a family of ghosts, and thus given "The Freedom of the Graveyard". Each chapter ages "Bod" about two years, and contains another dangerous adventure in the graveyard life of Nobody Owens.

The Graveyard Book is very dark, and I would say pretty difficult for anyone K-6 to read, especially in school. The book is very abstract, and contains very adult themes such as murder, sexual orientation etc. There were words that I even had to look up. I would recommend this book only to students who I thought could handle the themes, and would enjoy fantasy books. It would help their vocabulary development as there are many complex words. This book could also help in social development. Nobody Owens is a character that I think many students could relate to; he has a lot of hardship in his life just as many students in K-6 classrooms. He is not able to make many human friends because the only beings surrounding him are ghosts. This could bring up conversations about socialization, culture, being lonely etc.

This book forces the reader to think outside of the box, and to dig deep and find your inner dark side. This is not a book that I would choose to read in the classroom. It is, though, a book that I would recommend for certain students to read on their own as it is one that I really enjoyed.

This book could easily be used for many writing assignments. It reminds me a lot of The Jungle Book; a child being raised by animals, only in this case it is ghosts. Students could write about what it would be like to be raised by anyone who is not their parents. They could try to put themselves in the shoes of Nobody Owens, and imagine how it would feel to live in a graveyard.