Ghost Boys

I can't stop thinking about the poetic, thought provoking, new middle grade novel, Ghost Boys, by Jewell Parker Rhodes.  I guarantee it will stick with you well after you finish it, too.

This is not just the story of Jerome, our present day 12 year old protagonist from Chicago recently shot and killed by Officer Moore.  It is also 1955 Emmett Till's story who comes back as a "ghost boy" and all the other "ghost boys" who have followed.

Told from Jerome's first person point of view alive and as a ghost, this is the chilling account of the day he was murdered and what follows.  The sadness his Ma and Pa cannot shake.  The relationship "Ghost Boy" Jerome begins with Sarah, Officer Moore's 12 year old daughter. The guilt Carlos, Jerome's new friend, carries with him. Grandma and little sister, Kim, moving forward. We witness it all.

I'm struggling with who I will recommend read this.  The publisher is suggesting 10 and up.  Will I feel comfortable reading it with my fifth graders?  I think so?  It is such an important book that can serve as a precursor for readers of anything by Jason Reynolds and the newly multi-medal winning The Hate You Give. This can get a very important conversation started between teachers, librarians, students, parents, administrators.

And it will encourage anyone to dive into further research, just as I did.  I hopped onto Britannica because I was curious about how the elementary level would address Emmett Till.  I was pleased to find the entry for him was appropriate and verified much of what was included in Ghost Boys.

"Everyone needs their story heard."  Thank you, Jewell, for writing Jerome's story for young people. His words will help to bring up the past with hopes of making a difference in the future.

"Only the living can make change."  -JPR

I'm now ready to find out what these rising sixth graders (we are past the 100th day of school) think.  Stay tuned.

The winding road to Jewell Parker Rhodes coming to CES

This is a "Where's Jewell?" picture

The most lovely, inspiring, joyous, huggable Jewell Parker Rhodes visited our school on Thursday. Her aura and magic is still lingering.  I imagine it will hang over us for a long time to come.

This post is not just a recap of our day, but a history of our relationship with Jewell...

It All Started with Sugar in 2013

Rewind three years and it all started with a Sugar book group for the 2014 Newbery project.  Look!  I even found the photos from our Skype with Jewell!  We have loved her ever since.

And now these kids are in 8th grade!  It's crazy how time flies...

Fast Forward to Late Winter/Spring 2016

We are so fortunate that we received arcs of Towers Falling through the Little Brown Faculty Lounge.  Mr. Reischer read it as a book group and both he and the students loved it.  Then I read it and loved it. Then Mrs. Warland read it and then....and then...and everyone who has read it since has loved it. Even our custodian picked up a copy on his break starting a few weeks ago.  I heard he just finished it.

A few pictures from our Skype in April with Jewell:

Here Mr. Reischer is giving feedback to Jewell

   

This Week

Jewell dazzled us this week as we welcomed and embraced her in our CES community for a few short hours this Thursday.  And she was a true sport about it, too!  Just moments after her toes felt the red carpet, I swept her into the office to have her say good morning on the announcements.  That's when she shared to our whole school community that in November she will be a grandmother to a little girl named Clara.  We are all so happy for her.

At our school wide assembly, we introduced our theme for the year, "We can be heroes" which came from Towers Falling.  We sat Jewell right in the front so she could watch it all.  To kick it off, Mrs. Golden's first graders sang an awesome song about heroes.  Next, we all loved hearing about the heroes of the students in Mrs. Kelliher's class.  We learned about the circle lesson in Towers Falling from Mr. Morse's class.  Mr. Reischer's class performed a great skit teaching us the important lesson on how we can all be heroes and all the fifth graders sang  a beautiful rendition of, "This Land is Your Land."  

Mr. Reischer's class skit*

Mr. Morse's class did the circles from Towers*

Mrs. Pryde's first graders came up and shared a timeline of her life.  Then Jewell and I did a little Q and A and that's when everyone in the room fell in love with her!  Silly me, I didn't even give her the questions in advance, but you would never know! She answered them so eloquently, you would have thought she had days to prepare.

                            

                                        Mrs. Pryde's class timeline*

Do you think this shirt was worn on purpose?

This is your life, Jewell!

Each 4th grade class researched and
created a Jewell Parker Rhodes from A-Z book*

For more pictures from that day, check it out here:  SCHODACK FLICKER for JEWELL (All pictures with an * are from this set.  Thank you Jason McCord!  I couldn't take many pictures myself!)

Jewell boarded her plane for California at noon.  She was with us for such a short time but boy did it make an impact.  People were talking about it the whole afternoon and next day.  Thank you, Jewell and Little Brown for bringing us all together!

Ms. Martin, Mrs. Hanna and Mrs. Brewer's third graders are loving Sugar.
They made this welcome sign for Jewell to hang by the red carpet!

I hope I have given the day what it deserves.  We love Jewell and were so thrilled to have her visit our school. Thank you from the bottom of our hearts.  We look forward to collaborating throughout the year and more! xoxo

Saying goodbye and moving forward...

It has been a long 8 days...

Saying Goodbye

A shock came to our community on July 4 when we suddenly lost, Bob Horan, the most dedicated and passionate superintendent you may ever meet. We are a small school district (less than 1000 students) and on any given day at our elementary school, you could find Bob reading to first graders, observing an author Skype, playing with bots or just walking through the hallways.  He was a big fan of STEAM so I will do my best to devote some time to STEAM in the coming years in his memory.

Here's Bob with Chris Grabenstein at our school in January.

National Tragedy

While we were mourning Bob, the events that unraveled in Baton Rouge, Minnesota and Dallas hit me hard.  I feel hopeless and wish there was something I can do to make things better.  I'm worried for my children, my family and my students.  The best I can do is advocate, read and share books and poetry that can make a difference.  I appreciate this post with a #BlackLivesMatter booklist for teens:

#BlackLivesMatter booklist

I also want to share Kwame Alexander's interview on NPR on Sunday.  He always gives me hope:

While running late last week, I listened to an old podcast on This American Life.  It was so relevant to today, I feel like I want you all to listen to it, too. W. Kamau Bell's part is Act II and about 18 minutes into the podcast.

The link is here:

Then I actually went to W. Kamau Bell's website to view his blog and the post mentioned in his story was right there.  Here it is:

Blog post from January 2015

You may or may not know, that I am a big fan of Sean Qualls and Selina Alko and the book referenced in the stories.  I just hate that it all has to come down to this. Way over a year has passed since this story was aired, I hope things have changed, although with the events of the past week, I am just not so sure...

Looking Ahead

Only days after Bob's passing, we were scheduled to share our Towers Falling project ideas with our Board of Education.  Needless to say, it has been put on hold for a little bit.  However, we still moved forward in our planning and are hopeful that we will be able to commit to an end date soon.

So on Monday, with support from our principal and Director of Curriculum, we continued to plan this project that takes a tragedy and turns it into an amazing inquiry, project based cross curricular year long study on heroes, patriotism, history, memories and resilience based on Jewell Parker Rhodes, Towers Falling. Two months to the day before the 15th anniversary of September 11, my fifth grade collaborating teacher, Mr. Reischer, and my fabulous volunteer couple, Mr. and Mrs. Warland and I drove down to NYC to visit the 9/11 Memorial and get some face time with Little Brown.  We didn't know what to expect and it turned out to be a way more incredible trip than we ever imagined.

The steps that lead many folks to freedom.

We learned that our students may be captivated by just seeing a firetruck.  We were in awe by how it was destroyed.

The saved column.

The beautiful education room.  

Mrs. Warland, Mr. Reischer and Jennifer, the amazing educator who we are thankful spent so much time with us.

On a side note, we even met up with my friend and inspiring librarian, MaryAnn Scheuer, who was visiting New York from California.  She was able to sit in and participate while we met with Jennifer and we hope to collaborate with her students, too, as part of some cross-country component. Everything just keeps getting better and better...

The footprint of the South Tower.

The Warlands in front of the Survivor Tree.  An incredible story:
http://www.911memorial.org/survivor-tree

Since it was the day before the release of Towers Falling, we only had the arc.
The book's cover now matches the color of the sky.

If all goes as planned, students will be able to experience this state of the art conference room at Little Brown...

...with views of Radio City!

I posted this collage on Instagram.
It was just so wonderful to meet and spend time with the team from Little Brown.

This project fills me with excitement and hope.  We will push ahead with the enthusiasm and passion of our late superintendent and the nearly 3000 people who were killed on September 11, 2001.  We will move forward in this life changing and unforgettable project.  Thank you Jewell Parker Rhodes and the folks at Little Brown and the educators from the 9/11 Memorial for challenging and pushing us forward to help bring this project to fruition for the students and families of Schodack. We are excited to share all the details soon with administrators and the Board.
                                                                                                                                                 xoxo

Want to read or listen to more?  Here are a few more links:

• Jewell was on NPR last week discussing Towers Falling.  Here's the link for the interview:

Jewell's NPR interview

• Here's another article about Towers Falling--even Mr. Reischer is interviewed.  Although, it says we will be visiting in September which is not the case.

ASU article about Towers Falling

Towers Falling by Jewell Parker Rhodes

Shot taken at the bowling alley because I couldn't put it down!

Have you found a middle grade novel that appropriately covers 9/11 for their readers?  I didn't think so and you probably won't until this July when Jewell Parker Rhodes's Towers Falling is released, just in time for the 15th anniversary.

I have been a fan of Jewell's since Ninth Ward, where Hurricane Katrina was the backdrop. In her historical fiction book, Sugar, Jewell opened our minds to the world of segregation on the plantation, as well as how Chinese workers were hired to harvest the sugar cane alongside the African Americans. I have yet to read Bayou Magic, Jewell's book that takes place right before the Gulf oil spill, although many of my students did and each one enjoyed it.

We were lucky enough to receive ARCs of Towers Falling from Little Brown, as part of the Faculty Lounge program.  Students have read it under the guidance of Mr. Reischer and the reviews have all been glowing.  Even Mrs. Warland read it and she loved it.  It was time for me to get my hands on it, especially since we have a date to Skype with Jewell this Tuesday!

I love having Saturday morning dates with a book and yesterday's did not disappoint.  This is the story of Deja, who just moved into Avalon Family Residence, the homeless shelter, with her parents and younger brother and sister.  Deja, a lifelong Brooklynite, has never really experienced much outside her world, a world where she really hasn't seen her Dad smile, ever, and he is sick all the time.  There's something wrong with Dad but what is it? She wishes she could understand and make things better.  Wishes it were more concrete.  I love this line (p.107), "If he had a cast, I'd write my name on it."  It's always easier for anyone, young and old, to understand when there is an official diagnosis.

Now in her new school, Brooklyn Collective Elementary, Deja's mind is opened. She becomes friends with Ben, a transplant to Brooklyn from Arizona after his parents' divorce and Sabeen, whose family is from Turkey. They are learning in depth about 9/11. Deja knows nothing and wonders why it's even important to learn.  "It's hard enough figuring out now," she thinks. (p. 34)

Finally, Deja, with the help of her friends and teachers, begins to piece together the puzzle.  Why is Dad sick?  What exactly happened on September 11, 2001?  What is the meaning of home and family and how do we keep them together?  In this story of love, friendship and hope, Jewell manages to answer them all.  Be sure and keep tissues and some Turkish delights handy, for you never know when a nerve might be pinched and a tear or two will drop.  Nothing a triangle of baklava can't fix, though.

Little Brown Book Groups + Picture Day

About half through book groups, I get obnoxious and insist it it PICTURE DAY!  Today was that day.  Can't you see me with my hands moving together so the groups are in the frame? "Get together! Get together!"  "______ look up!"  "_______ Smile!" All that hassle, but it is worth it in the end.  Kids do smile.  The adults even grin.  And you can't help but think that we've lightened up our authors' days just a smidgen.

I've mentioned before that we received 40 ARCS for students to read and review.  We started a couple of weeks ago and all books in this first round will be finished by the end of break.  Then we will begin Round 2.  It's very exciting.  I've really only heard positive things about the books.  I'm in Peter Brown's The Wild Robot group and it has surprised me.  Although it started out a little slow, it has picked up tremendously and love the discussions and conversations that we have about it.  Who knew a book about a robot and a gosling and all other forest animals, could be so intriguing and thought provoking?  Certainly not me.

I'm also leading The Best Worst Thing by Kathleen Lane. We are about two thirds of the way through and there are still a lot of questions unanswered.  In this group, we have more participants than books so there is some sharing happening.  Fortunately (or unfortunately) one of the girls read so far ahead on the first or second day that I've been able to hold on to her book.  One student in my group already said, "I love this book because you never know what's coming in the book or the next chapter."  This is true.

Mr. Reischer can't say enough good things about Towers Falling by Jewell Parker Rhodes.  We love Jewell.  We Skyped with her two years ago when her Sugar was on our Newbery list and before that I loved Ninth Ward.  I'm excited to know that come this fall we will have another JPR book in our library, and most likely on our Newbery 2017 list.

Mr. Reischer is also leading the One Wish book group.  Again, I have only heard good things about the book.  

Once again Mrs. Gregware from the main office is helping us out with leading a book group with May Day.  After the first day I received a text from a mom in that book group exclaiming how her child already loves the book!  I believe the excitement continues…

We love getting Ms. Zampella involved, too.  Since her group is reading the book about magic, Nothing Up My Sleeve, I wonder if they will do any tricks for us when they share the book to the class after break?

And new this time is Mrs. Warner.  After the first meeting, she went home and took copious notes to share with her group.  I like that in a book group leader!  Here she is with her Fitzgerald Trout group.

Because we didn't have enough books for all of our students, we added in some other books in our rotation. The incomparable Mrs. Warland is leading a group on two Newbery winning books-Number the Stars and Sarah Plain and Tall.  The group loved the intensity and mystery in Number the Stars so much they already finished it and the plan is to read Sarah Plain and Tall over break. Some of the kids are holding maps that Mrs. Warland printed out to go along with their reading.

Mr. Reischer is enjoying revisiting Newbery Honor winner, Pam Munoz Ryan's Esperanza Rising with his homeroom book group. Today when we were together as a group sharing about our books, their faces lit up the room! They love the book so much.  If we ever got Pam to come visit our school, she would meet a whole lot of fans! (Note: EVERY student that was in Mr. Reischer's Echo book group chose to be in this one! Hmmm…ya think we have some Pam fans here or what?!)

And I was lucky enough to revisit So B. It by the amazing Sarah Weeks. My group is loving the book, too.  We've cried, laughed, discussed and are currently planning a birthday party for Heidi with Devil Dogs, tea, Jell-O and jellybeans since her birthday is the same day as our next meeting (February 12).

And since it's my group, of course we had to LEAP!

All in all, a great day for pictures and book group discussions!  I don't know about the other groups, but I do know that most of the time we just talk about the books and if we're lucky we get a page or two read aloud (the kids do love when this happens).  I think out of my three book groups today, only one read.

Happy Reading and thanks again Little Brown for this wonderful opportunity for my students!