Skip to main content

BOOK REVIEW: Plus Activity: ARE WE THERE YET? by Dan Santat

Dear Kim,

A 💗Valentine💗 to Dan Santat's ARE WE THERE YET?


ARE WE THERE YET?

How do I love thee?
Let me count the ways:


1. Your endpapers. Ah the rare beauty of endpapers so divine that I want to frame them for my walls. And the way that they gift my readers with an understanding of the beginning and end of the book is that of a love song.
💘


2. Your surprises. Thank you for letting us unwrap your jacket for a surprise. Thank you for giving us the ability to read into your pictures, allowing for surprises with every page turn. Thank you for the movement of the book that caused movement with my readers. (The students moving was not a surprise, but the book's interactive and playful movement was a surprise for them, and that delight is worth savoring.)


Flip. Flip. Turn. 💞

3. Your type. The sound of "The text was set in Dantat and the display type was hand-lettered" had the sweet melody of magic. Hand-lettering is beloved by our readers.


💜


4. Your story. What human hasn't heard (or uttered) the words "Are we there yet?" And yet Dan Santat's approach was completely fresh. We travel back in time and forward too. We are reminded how time does, in fact, fly and that we should appreciate the present. Layers and laughter combine to make this a favorite read aloud.


💝

Maybe I've made one too many Valentine's this week causing an abundance of GUSH over this book? Yet it really is brilliant. Not just brilliant on the message end, which we teachers tend to like, but also on the interaction between reader and design. The kids LOVED this book and loved making their own "game board" style writing.

→The kids drew pictures of a trip on index cards with parts of the journey written at the bottom of each card.
↳Each kid then received a piece of poster board to lay the cards in any and all directions they wished.
↝Once glued down the kids drew (or glued) arrows from one illustration to the next.

Some looked like mazes with part one of the story in the upper left hand corner, and the end of the story in the dead center of the poster board. Others looked like an explosion of arrows that took great skill to follow from beginning to end. I will snag some finished products and get them posted ASAP.

Happy early Valentine's Day!
Find a book you love and write a Valentine for it too (or a review.) A review is like a Valentine for the author!!!

Much love,
Alison


Comments

Popular posts from this blog

KIM NEEDS YOUR HELP!! Please, oh please!

Today is the day! STARR LOST, BOOK 2 of the STARR FALL SERIES is only... and I need your help. I've purchased ads from some major social promoters, and if all goes well, STARR LOST will make it to the bestselling list.  Amazing things happen to authors and their books when they make the Bestselling list, so if you could purchase a copy or two (or three) for 99 cents it'll help hurl me to the top. So, let's see what happens when we all combine our buying power together. SUPPORT KIM BUY STARR LOST Ebook for $.99 AMAZON USA AMAZON CANADA AMAZON UK AMAZON AUSTRALIA And to thank you for your WRITER LOVE, I'm running a  $10 AMAZON GIFT CARD GIVEAWAY... to enter, email a copy of your receipt to KimBriggs [@] KimBriggsWrite.com. a Rafflecopter giveaway Write on, Kim

FIRST SNOW by Bomi Park: Classroom Activity and Review

Dear Kim, Let it snow! Let it snow! Let it snow! We had fun with Bomi Park's gorgeous FIRST SNOW last week. We used the book as a mentor text to explore personal narratives and poetry.  We also explored watercolor resist techniques. (We also made a mess-- which is kind of my modus operandi during writing workshop. Sorry, Kelley! ) I used the sentence starter from the jacket copy: Look up. One flake falls, then another. And just like that—it's __ __ __ __ __ __ __ . The kids worked cooperatively at their table groups to discuss what word might fill in the blank. I love hearing them chat.  "Well it is a snowflake because 'one flake'."  Followed by: "No. It has seven letters, snowflake has nine."  And: "It is an action. A-- what's that called-- a verb because it is something falling."  Eventually we filled in the blank by using spelling clues to check our thinking, which might not sound like a whole lot of fun, but spell

INTERVIEW WITH K.M. WALTON, YA FEST & HARRY POTTER

Dear Alison and readers, Have I got a surprise for you...Guess who stopped by to chat? Any guesses? No peeking at the title. Wait, I guess it's too late. Okay, I'll tell you anyway, KM Walton, the YA Author of all of these books... Hi K.M., Thanks so much for stopping by to talk to me. Care for a chai latte or a glass of wine? It’s Friday. Let’s go for the wine. Excellent choice. I’ll have one as well. So tell me, when did you become a writer? Despite my debut novel releasing when I was 44, my stacks of journals from childhood onward prove that I’ve always been a writer. Yeah, it took me a while to figure out what I really wanted to be when I grew up. The bulging folder filled with scraps of paper and napkins of all my “book” ideas and “story” ideas didn’t make me realize my true calling until six or seven years ago. So tell me, what do you love about writing? Possibility. I’m a wildly anticipatory person, always have been. A dreamer for