Jayme’s Comments (group member since Jan 20, 2010)

Jayme’s comments from the LLED, Spring 2010 group.

My nomination for Mike is "Stand Tall Molly Lou Melon" by Patty Lovell. The story is about a young girl who looks different from everyone else and often gets picked on. There is a bully in the story who picks on Molly several times and she has to deal with his tormenting every day. In the end, the bully and Molly find a common ground and become friends.

My nomination for the Best Children's Adventure Award is Walt Disney's "Alice in Wonderland." This is a well known story about a young girl who follows a rabbit and ends up falling down a hole into a mysterious new world. Once there she tries to find her way back, but eats several things that change her size. She also encounters several strange creatures who help along the way, but some not so much. After a long, eventful day she ends up back home where she wants to be.

My nomination for the Disability Realism Award is "Russ and the Firehouse" by Janet Elizabeth McGahan. This is a book from a series about a young boy named Russ who has mentally retarded. Despite his disability, he lives his life everyday just as a normal child would. He goes on adventures and trips to show that he can do anything he wants. In this story he travels to a firehouse and helps out the fireman in their daily activities. He does a very good job and enjoys himself.

My nomination for the Reversed Roles Award is"The Girl Who Wanted to Hunt" by Emery Bernhard. It is a story about a young girl, Anga, whose mother passes away when she is a baby so she grows up with her father. He provides her with the necessary tools to learn how to do a woman's work, but all she wants to do is hunt and play with boys' toys. The book tells of how she went against the norm and started to hunt and do what she enjoyed.

My nomination for the "Best Children's Book for Accepting Death and Expressing Grief" is "I miss You: A First Look at Death" by Pat Thomas. This books explains to readers that every person is born and everyone person dies. This can be a hard concept for children to grasp, so it gives examples of things a person cannot do after they die. It talks about feelings a child may have after they lose a loved one and how they can cope. Throughout the book, there are questions the reader can answer about their own experience with death. The book shows that although there is a lot of sadness at first, eventually one can move on and live their life like they always have, except with their loved one in their heart.

My nomination for the Best Villain is Disney's "Aladdin." In the story Jafar is a villain who is in search of a magic lamp which will fall in the hands of a poor boy, who happens to be Aladdin. Jafar is a sneaky and mean character and who will do whatever it takes to get what he wants.

My nominee for the Cross-Cultural adoption Award is "The Red Blanket" by Eliza Thomas. This book is about a young woman who decides she wants to adopt a baby. She finally receives a letter saying there is a baby in China for her. Before she leaves, she buys a red blanket to give to her baby. She tells of her trip to China and the first time she meant her daughter. She expresses how happy she was but also how different it was at first. She brings her new baby back home where everyone welcomes her with open arms. At the end of the story, her daughter is a lot older and still cherishes the same red blanket she was given the day she met her mother.

My nominee for the Beauty of Non-Traditional Parents Award is "More, More, More, Said the Baby" by Vera B. Williams. This is a story about three families, one of which is bi-racial. The second family that the story talks about is a young African American girl who has a white grandmother. Although it doesn't say, it is obvious that the young girls parents are different races. During the story her and her grandmother play together like any other family would, showing that it doesn't matter what race we are; our family will still love us.

My award, The Rosa Parks Memorial Award, will go to the author who best illustrates the struggles of African Americans before and/or during the Civil Rights Movement. Lehr introduced books with such topics into her classroom and states that, "through talking with the children regularly and reading entries in their reading logs, I discovered that the books not only entertained, but more importantly increased the children's knowledge about the world, expanded their personal views about freedom, and provided shocking glimpses of social injustice (117). This shows how important these books are to children and their learning of our country's history. As well as having to do with African American struggles, the award winner should be a picture book for elementary aged children.

Nomination for Mike: Stand Tall Molly Lou Mellon

Nomination for Heidi: The Girl Who Wanted to Hunt by Emery Bernhard

Nomination for Mallori: Russ and the Firehouse by Janet Rickert

Nomination for Stephanie: I Miss You: A First Look at Death

Nomination for Kristin: Alice in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll