Jody's LIS 721 Blogorama

Science Fiction and Fantasy are often lumped together, as they have similar feelings to them. Both take aspects of reality and shape them into something extraordinary. Fantasy tends to focus more on magic, swords, and sorcery, while science fiction tends to focus more on futurism, science, and technology. Both have connections to fairy tales (and often are retellings and adaptations of stories told throughout countless generations) with a focus on inner strength, community, and sense of belonging. Higuera, Donna Barba.  The Last Cuentista .  Levine Querido. 336 pages. ISBN  978-1646140893 In The Last Cuentista , Higuera tells the story of twelve year old Petra, who is chosen to be part of a group who leaves a doomed Earth to colonize a new world. After being put in stasis for the trip, Petra awakes to find that the Collective, a group of people who were originally deemed the ones to monitor those in stasis, have commandeered the ship and attempt to erase the memories of t...

Contemporary realism is much like historical realism, only instead of taking place in a time period in the past, it takes place approximately when the book was first published. It is one of the more popular sections in my school library. A total of 21.09% of the fiction books in our library are classified as contemporary realistic fiction. Conversely, historical fiction accounts for 10.34%. (The second highest below contemporary realistic fiction is fantasy, with 15.51%.) While this is only one library, it shows the prominence of contemporary realistic fiction for the elementary school range. Contemporary realistic fiction allows for children to explore the world through characters like themselves, through times like they themselves are living in, focusing on realistic experiences that people their age face. As elementary school children are in the process of discovering themselves and their world, and developing their personalities, these stories give a window to a wider experience....

 Historical fiction has never been my preferred genre. I generally find the concept of creating fictional stories around real events to be in poor taste. However, I admit that while this can be the case, it is not always. Historical fiction differs from contemporary realistic fiction by setting the events of the story in a real time period in the past, centered around the experiences of people who were around during that time. Many stories can be presented in a way that is respectful to the lived experiences of those from our past, but this requires a deft hand at writing and loads of research to make sure information is not being presented that is inaccurate. Many children end up reading historical fiction and learning about history through it. As such, it is important that the majority of the information being presented by the author is done in a way that is respectful and accurate. Rinaldi, Ann. My Heart is On the Ground: The Diary of Nannie Little Rose, a Sioux Girl.  Scho...

I have always been a huge fan of graphic novels. I find the medium can tell stories in ways that many others cannot. The pairing of images and words in graphic novels helps to create a dynamism that is often missing from other types of reading. Much of the story is told in images. A facial expression can be difficult to describe effectively in words, but for example pairing a drawing of a frustrated face with text that emphasizes this frustration can get a meaningful moment across with just a few words of dialog. Much of the action takes place in illustration, allowing the character connections and dialogs to have a greater impact. Graphic novels are often seen as being either for children or being just for reluctant or struggling readers, but much like any other type of literature, there is a graphic novel out there for everyone. Instead of looking at graphic novels as a side-step, they should be given the respect of any other form of written media.  Below are four graphic novels ...

Beginner and transitional books are a major part of learning to read and to process written language. Typically, beginner readers have fewer words and less complex sentences. Imagery tells a major portion of the story or provide a large portion of the information for nonfiction materials. Transitional readers are as the name implies between a beginner reader and a traditional written piece. Transitional readers begin to include more complex sentence structure, and typically rely less on imagery to do the heavy lifting of providing context. For this week, I chose the following four books to focus on. Adler, David A.  Don't Throw it to Mo! . Illustrated by Sam Ricks. Penguin Random House. 32 pages. $5.99, ISBN 978-0-593-43234-1 A young boy who is much smaller than everyone else on his football team must use the skills he does have to help his team win the big game. Simple writing with a large font and images that help sell the story. A great beginner reader for those looking to sound...