Nonfiction Navigators discussion

Discussion now open! (Laura, this is what it is called right?)

My go to person for multi cultural literature is Alma Flor Ada. I have heard her speak twice and her books are engaging and fun for elementary school.

Here is the LOC site for Hispanic Heritage Month: http://hispanicheritagemonth.gov/about/

Kim, Alma Flor Ada is really wonderful!

I took a look back at the Pura Belpré Award Winners for a few nonfiction choices I have not read yet.
http://www.ala.org/ala/mgrps/divs/als...

Perhaps...
¡Olé! Flamenco by George Ancona
Me, Frida by Amy Novesky
The Poet Slave of Cuba: A Biography of Juan Francisco Manzano by Margarita Engle

The state of Florida has a list of recommended titles. I think this is a good, basic starting point. I also want to think about including bilingual materials as well as materials that are multi-cultural.

Florida's List: http://www.justreadfamilies.org/Readi...

Thanks for those two great resources!

I just read:
Sonia Sotomayor: A Judge Grows in the Bronx/La juez que crecio en el Bronx by Jonah Winter
Sonia Sotomayor: A Judge Grows in the Bronx/La juez que crecio en el Bronx

This is the first book that I have read about Sotomayor. I have one other that has been checked out that I would like to read as well - aimed at a slightly older audience.

The text of this book is in both Spanish and English, alternating languages by paragraphs. This does make some of the pages visually very text heavy. But Winter does a nice job of breaking this up with layout and smaller pictures on the most text filled pages.

I think it was Sarah who was talking about using nonfiction with illustrations in an earlier discussion: even though a book has illustrations - that doesn't always mean fiction. I like to make a point of this with my primary students too, and this would be a good example for that.

I will be using this title with early grades for biography.

I wonder if the text would have been stronger and more compelling without such an emphasis on hard work and the American dream (even in the back matter) - it got a little didactic for me.

I like this quotation from the end of the book:
"There had never been a Latin American on the Supreme Court. How strange this was! There are so many people of Mexican, Puerto Rican, Dominican, and Cuban descent adding color to the great garden that is America. Why shouldn't all these people have someone who understands their lives on the Supreme Court?"

Both my library and my reading need more in this area. I finally read some books related to this today. The ones I read that had the text in both Spanish and English.

The first I read was Alma Flor Ada's Gathering the Sun, which is an alphabet book of poetry telling of the lives of farmworkers. (One of the things I learned was that the Spanish alphabet changed in 2000).

The second book was the Storyteller's Candle by Lucia Gonzales. This picture book tells of Pura Belpre, the first Puerto Rican and Spanish speaking librarian in the New York public library. I really enjoyed this book.

I really like the Storyteller's Candle - although I have it as historical fiction - I like to share it (summarize and share the pics) each year now when we talk about the Pura Belpre award winners. I have an old copy of Pura Belpre's picture book about Martina and Perez that I share then too.

I found it in my school library's nonfiction section with our very limited language books. I'm thinking that's the only reason it was in nonfiction. That's a good idea to use it with the Pura Belpre award winners.

Capoeira: Game! Dance! Martial Art!
I grabbed this book from my library today thinking I was grabbing something for this month's topic, however it may not quite apply since Capoeira comes from Brazil, and Brazilian Americans (at least according to the US census) are not considered Hispanic - feel free to correct me on this, I just consulted wikipedia.

I still wanted to share it, since I found it so interesting and it was a totally new topic for me.

Capoeira is a style of dance-like fighting that originated with Africans brought to Brazil as slave labor who were outlawed from practicing fighting.

This book has a lot of photos of kids demonstrating Capoeira today and history of how it came to be a sport.

If you want a quick demonstration of Capoeira:
http://youtu.be/6H0D8VaIli0
Kids: http://youtu.be/L4TuxJ1myFY

I like to read Listen to the Desert/Oye Al Desierto by Pat Mora. It's an older book, but I love the poetry of the words. It is bilingual and so you get to speak both English and Spanish text. Kids like making the fun sounds of the desert.