Buba Leah and Her Paper Children by Lillian Hammer Ross



A warning up front: this book made me cry!  Lillian Hammer Ross captures the mixture of sadness and joy that is felt by families separated by immigration.  Buba Leah's children have moved to America, leaving her with paper children: the letters they send her from America.  She keeps them in a special box and shares them with the daughter of her neighbors, Chava.  One afternoon, the postman delivers a special letter to Buba Leah.  Enclosed in the envelope are two tickets for passage to America: one for Buba Leah and one for Chava.  Chava must leave her parents behind in Russia and become a paper child herself in order to have a better life.  The illustrations by  Mary Morgan help convey the emotion of the story, drawn in the characters' faces.

Some ideas for the ESL classroom:

• Using the illustrations, discuss past and present
• Discussion of students' own family members left behind in their home country
• Making predictions: What are the paper children?  What is in the special letter of Buba Leah?  Will Chava leave her parents to go to America?
• Character development: What kind of person is Buba Leah?  How do we know that?  What does the author tell us about her?
• Vocabulary that may be tricky for ELL's: porch, linen, challah, Sabbath, frightened, wondered, snuggled, wagon, blossom, tickets, mingled, journey, mazel tov

Exploring the form and function of friendly letters would be a great writing activity to go along with this book.  Students could learn the format and then write letters to family members.  For emerging writers, help students write a letter as a class on chart paper, maybe to the school principal or librarian, for example. 

Keep in mind, this topic may make students sad, but that's no reason to avoid it.  The ESL classroom may be the only place in school that your students feel comfortable talking about loved ones that they miss back in their home countries.  Encourage children to share as much as they would like.  You might be surprised at how close you will grow to them! 

Happy reading!

Jacquie

Elena's Serenade by Campbell Geeslin; illustrated by Ana Juan

Love, love, love, love this book!!  Not only are Ana Juan's illustrations amazing, as always, but Campbell Geeslin's narrative that accompanies them is equally pleasing.  The story follows a young girl, Elena, as she journeys to Monterrey to learn to be a glassblower like her father.  In order to be taken seriously in her quest, Elena must dress as a boy because, as her father tells her, "who ever heard of a girl glassblower?"  Along the way, she meets several characters that she aids with the songs she plays on her pipe.  Her beautiful songs translate into fantastic glass creations which are beloved by the people of Monterrey and earn her the respect of her father.  I read this book to my daughter, and she loved it so much that we had to read it three times in a row!

Some ideas for the ESL classroom:

• Make a chart of the Spanish words that appear in the story.  Add columns for students to write the English translations, as well as translations from any other languages they know.
• Problem/Solution and Cause/Effect: Make flip cards that show the problem/cause on the top.  Lift the flap and write the solution/effect.  This would work well in the section that details Elena's journey and the friends she meets and helps.
• Similes and metaphors abound in the story, so this would also be a great skill to teach using the book.
• Some vocabulary that might be tricky for ELL's: glassblower, trousers, furnace, fades, factory, steady, gliding, chiming, politely, squinting

For responding to the story, students could complete a writing activity in which they write about what they would make if they were a glassblower and which song they would play in their pipes in order to make it.  Emerging writers could write a word or phrase, while more experienced writers could write several paragraphs.

A website with cute ideas for the classroom: https://sites.google.com/a/plymouth.k12.in.us/webster-third-grade/home/reading/elena-s-serenade

Happy reading!
Jacquie

Silly Chicken by Rukhsana Khan

Silly Chicken by Rukhsana Khan is a humorous story about a young girl who is jealous of the attention her older sister pays to a pet chicken.  I read this one to my daughter, and she laughed out loud at some of the chicken's antics, as well as some of the main character, Rani's, responses to her sister's love of the chicken.  At the end of the story, the tables are turned when Ami, the older sister, becomes jealous of the new pet chick adopted by Rani.  The illustrations in the story are brightly colored paintings that depict rural Pakistan.

Ideas for the ESL classroom:

• Cultural/ background knowledge: Pakistan, villages, chickens
• Dialogue: How do authors show conversations between characters?
• Cause/ effect
• Making connections: sibling rivalry or wanting more attention
• Inferencing: Why does Rani think Ami loves the chicken more then her?  List specific examples.
• Possessive pronouns
• Vocabulary that might be tricky for ELL's:
• adjectives: silly, gangly, tiny, humid, fluffy
• verbs: wormed, nursed, fetch, pile, landed, cocked, fanned, fussed
• nouns: yard, cold, cupboard, nest, miracle, grave, gate, chick
• cultural words: tonga, lussi

A story map would be an easy Writing Activity to go along with this story.  Depending on students' writing ability, they could make a simple map with one word and pictures or a manila paper folded book with several sentences and a picture on each page.  A chart or book of story elements would also work.  Of course, another cute idea would be for students to write their own story about loving a pet and publish the stories for your classroom library.  This could also be differentiated for different levels, beginning with each student labeling a picture of a favorite pet or animal.  The pages could be bound for a classroom book. 

Happy reading!
Jacquie

I Hate English by Ellen Levine

I Hate English by Ellen Levine is a story about a young Chinese girl, Mei Mei, who experiences culture shock when she moves to the United States.  Her sadness is manifested in her dislike of English.  To Mei Mei, English letters fight and bang into each other.  When an American teacher comes to the Chinatown Learning Center to work with her in English, Mei Mei becomes angry because she fears that if she learns English, she will lose her Chinese identity.  The story ends with Mei Mei appreciating her bilingualism.


This story is an excellent one to read with all students, but will especially resonate with recent immigrants.  Students can use the book as a springboard for discussing their own experiences with learning English, as well as to share their own native languages with classmates.



Ideas for the ESL classroom:

• Background knowledge: words we know in other languages; write on chart paper and post in the room
• Character development: How does Mei Mei change throughout the story?  How does the author show Mei Mei's feelings?  Check predictions.
• Making predictions: Looking at the cover, what do you think the story will be about?  How do you think Mei Mei will respond to the English teacher?  Do you think Mei Mei will learn to like English?
• contractions
• proper nouns
• Vocabulary that may be tricky for ELL's: lonely, noise, bang, sound, strokes, tutors, arithmetic, ping pong, checkers, post office, pails, shellfish, stared, glared, continued, suddenly, strange, invisible

Some Writing Activities for students to respond to the story include making an English/ native language dictionary.  The students could begin their dictionaries at school using agreed-upon words with illustrations and then take the dictionaries at home to work on with their families.  Students could also create a chart about how certain words in English sound (banging, hard, soft, ringing, fuzzy).  Students may want to journal about how they feel learning English, including both likes and dislikes.  They could use their journal responses to create a brochure about learning English.


Happy reading!
Jacquie

The Color of Home by Mary Hoffman

The Color of Home by Mary Hoffman is picture book about a little boy from Somalia who moves to the U.S. and tries to adjust to his new life.  The illustrations for the book are done in vibrant watercolors (by Karin Littlewood) that truly capture the emotions of the main character, Hassan.  In the story, Hassan struggles with the sadness not only of leaving his home, but also of what he experienced in Somalia before coming to the U.S.  Through a Somali translator that comes to his school to work with him, Hassan is able to tell his story of leaving behind violence in Somalia in which his uncle is killed, living in a refugee camp in Mombasa and finally leaving behind his cousins and grandparents to move to the U.S., a country that "seemed all cold and gray."  Of course, this being a children's book, at the end of the story Hassan begins to come to terms with his new life and the colors of his new country begin to emerge.

Ideas for the ESL classroom:

• story elements
• problem and solution (what is Hassan's problem at the beginning of the story and how is it solved?), 
• comparing and contrasting (Somalia with America, students' own experiences with Hassan's, schools in the U.S. vs. other countries, food in the U.S. vs. home country) 
• character development and change (how does Hassan change and grow throughout the story?)
• the technique of story within a story can be explored, as Hassan tells about his life in Somalia within the story of his life in the U.S.
• transition words (next, then, the next day, that afternoon, tomorrow)
• adjectives (especially the use of color)
• Vocabulary that may be tricky for ELL's:
• verbs: shivered, smudged, spoiled, disappeared
• art vocabulary: easels, bottle' stick figures, smudged
• nouns: bundle, flock, creature, luggage, camp, stroller
• adjectives: murky, awful, frightened, spindly, maroon
• cultural vocabulary: hajab, qu'ran, prayer mat

An easy writing activity to respond to the story would be to ask students to write about their own experiences moving to the U.S.  This could be a journal-type activity or a more formal writing activity in which students take the piece through the writing process.  Younger students could paint a picture of their home country and write (or dictate to the teacher) a few words or a sentence describing their pictures.  Emphasis on the use of colors (as well as color vocabulary) would add another dimension.

Happy reading!
Jacquie