Magic Reading Ride with Ms. Martinez

     What Do You Do With An Idea? by Kobi Yam and illustrated by Mae Besom is a story about how our ideas can be strange and different, and we should not be afraid to hide them. The illustrations show the character's idea following him around and how the idea grows and fades when he gives it attention or ignores it. The illustrations are mainly black and white, but the idea is in color. The color takes over the page or fades out depending on how the main character feels about the idea. This text does not qualify as a picture storybook because the images are more advanced, and the focus of the images reflects our own inner thoughts on our ideas.      Fry Bread: A Native American Family Story by Kevin Noble Maillard and illustrated by Juana Martinez-Neal is about a Native American family baking fry bread. We see the various steps taken to bake the fry bread and what the fry bread represents through the book. The book also explains some background history of N...

      This week I read Alma and How She Got Her Name by Juana Martinez-Neal. I read the Spanish version, and what attracted me to the book was the title and how it talked about how the main character obtained her name. At the beginning of the text, the main character, Alma, dislikes her name because it is too long. I understand her frustration as it i s not hot news that my name is unique, but it has become my main ice-breaker when trying to meet new people. Alma proceeds to ask her dad why she has such a long name, and he begins to explain the background of her name. She is named after different family members, but she is the first Alma in her family. Her previous family members made their own history, and now it is Alma's turn to make her own history. I have yet to meet another Eneri in my years on this Earth, but I am making my own history, none like no other. 

         Dreamers by Yuyi Morales was awarded the  Pura Belpre Illustrator Award in 2019. The book is based on the physical and emotional journey Morales and her infant son Kelly embark on immigrating from Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, to El Paso, Texas, in 1994. Once they arrived in the US,  Morales  and her son became immigrants and could not return to their home roots. Like most immigrants, they missed things that were familiar to them: their family and friends, the food, jobs, and most importantly, the ability to communicate. One day Morales and her son entered a public library and were intrigued to find a place where there were hundreds of books that you could take off the shelf and look at without anyone fussing at you. The books became a portal for  Morales  and her son, which was another bridge she crossed into new worlds to find their path and purpose. The illustrations throughout the book were illustrated by Yuyi Morales herself...

     Growing up as an English Language Learner, reading took me a while to get accustomed to. I was taught to learn in English first through school, and as I got older, my grandma taught me how to read in Spanish, and my grandma had dropped out of school by the second grade in Mexico. As I grew more fond of reading, my mom quickly realized how much I was enjoying, and she started helping me build my own collection of books. I fell in love with Rick Riordan's,  The Lightning Thief series and realized how a book can help me escape from the now and travel to a different place. Now my collection has been overgrown, and half of my parent's storage unit is filled with boxes of books that I have collected for my personal and classroom library. There is a book for everyone, even for the most stubborn students. I'll never forget one student in particular where we spent about an hour trying to find a book that he was truly interested in. The other teachers on my team could no...

 I gather my emotions ready as I anxiously enter random summer dates into the computer to see how expensive a Disney trip can really be. My mouth drops and a small gasp followed by a sudden squeal escapes my mouth. Excitement is oozing out of me and concerning looks from my parents are staring back at me. "What has gotten into you?" my mother asks. I enter into my negotiation mode and begin to explain why this trip is necessary for our family to venture on. Silence fills the room and I begin to slowly back away ready to run just in case if my idea goes south. My parents look at each other and nod as if they are discussing the plan aloud, but no words come out. "Go grab my schedule off the calendar, and see if I have the weekend off for that week in June." my dad replies. I knew in that moment we are going on the trip. I didn't even wait for the next thing and I pressed reserve before either one of them could back out of the decision. 

Book, Head, Heart is an excellent strategy to use to do more than just scratch the surface when reading. It really involves students to answer questions about the text they are reading that they are not used to answering. Usually students never get asked what they think of an academic text, it tends to be only based on finding a definite answer for comprehension questions.  While discussing the first book from our book club, there were certain themes that were presented in the book that I immediately connected to. The main character dealt with certain challenges that students of minorities deal with daily and those challenges sort of become an unspoken truth. Constantly having to deal with discrimination or being looked at differently just because they don't match with the crowd. In the schools that I have observed in and taught in the students are predominantly Hispanic, so these students may have not necessarily experienced what it's like to be the minority since they're ...