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An Ode to Children’s Literature: The Power of Reading for Fun

by Monique Storie, University of Guam, Latte Heights, GU


Colorful covers,
Worlds of words yet unseen brings
the chance for new friends

On a small island, the prospect for finding new books is limited to the local small bookstore chain (about the size of the average Circle K), online, and sometimes the local Kmart. This summer, we had the luxury of going to the mainland. Going stateside brings the excitement of visiting family, playing tourist, and shopping. In our family, shopping means looking for clothes, technological gadgets, gizmos, AND BOOKS! Continue reading →

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Pollyanna? Encyclopedia Brown? Which Reader Are You?

Monique Storie, University of Guam, Latte Heights, GU

 

. . . I am beginning to understand what our teachers were trying to get us to appreciate when we doing literary analyses in high school. . . Why did their efforts make it seem like a reader could only enjoy the story by examining its literary elements?

This summer, I had the luxury of engaging in literature explorations with others who are enthusiastic about children’s literature. One of the novels we shared, Between Shades of Gray (Sepetys, 2012), shocked me Continue reading →

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Intense Books, Dystopia, and the Guy Reader

Monique Storie, University of Guam, Latte Heights, GU

 

. . . I unconsciously considered them the literary equivalent of going to an action-packed movie, e.g. lots of action but not much story.

 

At the same time that Ethan was immersing himself in all things Hunger Games, my husband, who was half a world away, saw firsthand how these same books were creating a whirlwind of excitement among his non-reader friends. Not being able to read the book himself (the libraries and bookstores were all out and we have not progressed to e-readers yet), he watched with fascination as one book created such fervor and caused so many guys to drop their computer games and read. He described it like a wildfire that jumped from one location to another and could not be contained.
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The Internet: Connecting a Non-Fiction Reader to Fiction

Monique Storie, University of Guam, Latte Heights, GU

DC's Ancient Rome Book, the book connecting a non-fiction reader to fiction.

 

“Why would I want to read fiction when there are so many fascinating things on this earth to learn about?!”

 

We are avid readers in my house but we run the gamut in our reading preferences. My husband and I prefer fiction (I gravitate towards realistic fiction while Brett prefers modern fantasy and alternate history) but our son is a true non-fiction aficionado. As a preschooler, Ethan loved when his teacher read current events to him and would even remind her to read the newspaper in the morning when she forgot. As he grew, Ethan found facts, events, and tidbits about our lives more interesting than stories. My father, a non-fiction aficionado himself, summed up Ethan’s fascination with non-fiction by saying “Why would I want to read fiction when there are so many fascinating things on this earth to learn about?!”
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Israeli Children’s Books: Forming a Bridge Between Cultures?

by Charlene Klassen Endrizzi, Westminster College, New Wilmington, PA

forming a bridge between cultures“I can’t wait to get back to a country where they speak English,” announced my exhausted eleven year old son, while we stood in line at El Al, the Israeli national airline, preparing to board our plane back home from Tel Aviv. This natural human desire to remain within familiar territory is an emotion I frequently experience along with Bryce. Spending days eating none of his favorite foods, navigating multiple hotels and historical sites, missing baseball tournaments… could cause angst for any pre-teen. Nonetheless his statement urges me to continue exploring the learning potential from our family vacation for years to come.
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Israeli Children’s Books: A Parent Perspective Beyond the Holocaust

by Charlene Klassen Endrizzi, Westminster College, New Wilmington, PA

ghetto fighters, a parent perspective beyond the holocaust

 

“I do not want Israelis to be remembered simply for the Holocaust. I want others to understand the richness of our unique 5,000 year old Jewish culture.”

Sima, mother of a recently commissioned nineteen year old Israeli soldier, shared these thoughts as we surveyed a Holocaust exhibit at my college last year. Over time her statement enabled me to re-conceptualize my images of Israel, no longer focused on the World War II genocide but instead aimed toward a more holistic representation.
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Israeli Children’s Books – A Parent Perspective on the PJ Library

by Charlene Klassen Endrizzi, Westminster College, New Wilmington, PA

familylsraeli, a parent perspective on the PJ Library“Mothers and fathers have equal duties to read to their children. My daughter-in-law is a lawyer so she comes home from work very tired. My son, who currently stays at home with the children, reads every day at bedtime to his children. He is very close to them through reading.” –Hadass, a trilingual native of Jerusalem, offered these insights into Israeli parent-child reading habits during our bus ride from Tel Aviv to her hometown.

Across generations and cultures, families create these intimate yet equally intellectual literacy moments with children. The PJ Library, http://www.pjlibrary.org/, is a North American Jewish Family Engagement program designed to perpetuate the parent-child reading tradition. The parallel Israeli version, Sifriyat Pijama, emphasizes the same dual goals of supporting literacy and reaffirming Jewish values. Preschool teachers enrolled in the program receive Jewish literature and music to share with their three to five year old students’ families. One parent must speak Hebrew since all of the books and the Parent Reading Guides at the beginning of each text are written in the official language of Israel.
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Israeli Children’s Books: A Parent Perspective on the Classics

by Charlene Klassen Endrizzi, Westminster College, New Wilmington, PA

“Excellent literature educates… What makes it ‘educational’ is its
deep human content offered in an excellent artistic form.”

-Israeli children’s author, Miriam Roth, 1969.

hebrew cover 3, a parent perspective on the classicsDuring a recent trip to the Middle East, I set out to explore books Israeli parents share with their children. This journey grew out of a cross-cultural research project involving Israeli and American mothers reading to their Kindergarten children. I wanted to understand some of the books my research partner, Vered Vaknin-Nusbaum, plans to share with Jewish, Druze and Muslim families. My book informants included Vered, two colleagues from her college, Hagit and Yehuda, and three other Israelis, Sima, Janet and Britt. In the midst of excursions to various bookstores, these parents regaled me with literacy stories, thus deepening my understanding of the role of children’s books in their family lives.
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Muslim Migrants in Children’s Literature: Ask Me No Questions

by Seemi Aziz, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK

ask me no questions, Muslim migrants in children's literatureThis, again is a novel that dramatically represents  the consequences of immigration specifically as it deals with ‘illegal’ immigrants or ‘undocumented’ citizens. This story is about a Bangladeshi Muslim family that is trying to flee to Canada in the aftermath of 9/11 as their papers have expired. The father is arrested, detained and later imprisoned at Canadian border by American authorities and the mother decides to send back the two daughters, Nadira and Ayesha to New York so that they can continue their education and their life goes on uninterrupted. Nadira, the narrator, finds strengths in her that she is not conscious of before and Aisha breaks down even though she is supposed to be the strong one. The story ends with Nadira finding out that it is matter of mistaken identity and the family is eventually cleared.
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Muslim Migrants in Children’s Literature: Boy vs. Girl

by Seemi Aziz, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, OK

Muslim Migrants in Children's Literature

This novel presents consequences of immigration on second generation children. The story revolves around twin teenaged brother and sister of Pakistani decent. Farhana is the sister and Faraz the brother. They are born in U.K. to parents who migrated and are not well educated. They run a small shop. Mom is a stay at home mother. They live amongst the extended family of grandmother and aunts and uncles. Both siblings are juggling the balance of tradition/religion along with their lived experiences of modernity/westernization feel disconnected with the 1st generation except for an aunt who grew up and was educated in England and seems to have found herself in the process. This aunt is deemed too religious by the rest of her family, as she wears the ‘hijab’ not traditional to Pakistan.
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