Junior Books

This is a wonderful little book of earth facts, which includes not only the basics (Mt. Everest is the highest mountain, the Nile is the longest river) but other interesting information (the Amazon actually carries the most water of any river in the world; the tides at the bay of Fundy can overtake a person running away). There is at least one graphic with each page that neatly illustrates each fact -- the amount of rainfall in Tutenendo, Columbia is compared to the height of an adult man, for example.

A great addition to any young earth science buff's library!

Steve Jenkins writes books that teach parent and child. My daughter is 6 and is into "reference books". Thirsty for facts. Jenkins books have been instrumental in keeping her interest up for educational books. I highly recommend any of his books.

In "Hottest, Coldest, Highest, Deepest," author/artist Steve Jenkins uses cut-paper collages to teach children about some of the most extreme places on earth. Jenkin's artistic technique really sets this book apart among educational books for young readers.

Jenkins takes us to many extraordinary places: Lake Baikal, Russia (the world's deepest lake); Mount Everest (the highest mountain); Atacama Desert, Chile (the driest place); and many more. The book is filled with wonderfully rendered images: penguins diving into South Polar water, a colorful Colombian tree frog, wind-whipped trees in New Hampshire, and more.

Throughout the book, Jenkins' artistry is impressive. Each illustration is a photograph of one of his collages, which make use of paper of many different colors and textures. He really brings to life such images as the turbulent seas of the Bay of Fundy. And maps throughout the book add to its educational value. If your child is interested in either geography or collage art, this is a great book.

If you teach 1-5th grade writing workshop, you NEED to read this book! Especially if (like many of us) you're using the Lucy Calkins writing kits. Mr. Anderson really breaks things down in a PRACTICAL way so you can feel confident sitting down with every single child you confer with. He also includes blacklines for forms that for me, have made the difference between confidence and exasperation! Way better than One on One by Calkins herself. !
Plus, he was in the project with her, so his philosophy lines up completely. Do yourself a favor, seriously. (Maybe check out Assessing Writers, it does repeat some of this book and has some really great other stuff too.) I couldn't live without them both, though! (and I don't work for anyone but my 26 third graders).

This book is excellent for teachers wanting to know more about how to have effective converstaions with their students during reading conferences. This will change how you approach conversations about writing with your students.

As a mother, I really want my child to learn to write so she can enjoy all the benefits that come through written expression. I found this book to be very practical and immensely readable, filled with examples and anecdotes that make the suggestions come alive. A parent could use this book as guidance for inspiring a child's interest in writing -- and in the process, might discover all kinds of things about what the child is thinking and feeling. If you don't read this book yourself, buy it as a gift for your child's teacher! (So much better than bubblebath ...)

This is a great book! I highly recommend it to any girls. Speaks to what is our true identity and how to be connected with our culture and the earth as well. My two year old loves it and I love reading it to her for the message.

If you want a little girl who dreams of being a tiger, mustang or dolphin, instead of a fairy princess, you must get this book!!!

My mom searched through over 100 books before selecting this one for her granddaughter's first birthday. It's wonderful. I read it to my baby at least weekly.

This book says exactly what I want to tell my daughter. She doesn't have to wait for her prince. She can go be anything, be wild and free, be dangerous, and be herself.

The illustrations are beautiful, a bit wild and free on their own. Buy this book. You won't regret it.

recently while visiting some friends with a young daughter, i was shown this book. i read it and loved it. if you want your daughter(s) to grow up proud to be a girl, this is a must have. since reading i look like a girl, i have decided to buy copies for my closest friends, the youngest being 20. buy this book, you'll love it!

My granddaughter loves this book. She picks I'll Always Love You to be read to her over and over. I wondered what she was doing when I saw her lying on the rug with her legs in the air. She was copying baby bear exercising with his mother from the book! A good choice for any toddler.

This is a gentle book with lovely illustrations. It allows a child to explore the worst they can do and know that their mother will still love them.

Adorable! What child couldn't love this sweet tale? This book is a perfect way to express unconditional love. The bears are so cute and the story is just right for a toddler. I loved this book and plan to give it as a baby shower gift.

This book has a lot of useful information about insects. It describes basic characteristics, life cycle, and much more. It also includes info on other terrestrial arthropods, such as spiders and centipedes. As a field guide, it focuses on families of insects, not species, which makes more sense because there are so many species that are hard to identify. There are great photographs and descritions as well.

These books are so helpful to use as references for painting.

Very clear photograhy. I would have liked a few close-up shots for some of the images perhaps, but otherwise a great book.

(Although I'll admit some of the inclusions in this book made my skin crawl!! I really just wanted the insects and not the spiders, but that's not the author's problem!)

This is really a nicely done guide and almost fits in my coat pocket. The pictures are fabulous and the insects are divided up into their respective families with very clear identifying traits. I'm really impressed, so much easy-to-use information in such a small book. This would be a great precursor to an entomology class. Some of my favorite critters are in the Psuedoscorpion order and are the cheliferids and chernetids, both of which look like tiny ticks with claws. So very cool. I actually found one once in Washington state--in my kitchen! It was very, very tiny. I digress. A book like this is handy if you are always finding insects and wondering what the heck you are looking at. A good value!

This book has been a wonderful state-of-the-art resource book for primary public-school education classrooms.
I am a teacher in California. My class assignment this year is a kindergarten/1st grade combination classroom. I started the year out as a 1st/2nd grade combination classroom but the enrollment changed at our school site that after the first two weeks the students were reshuffled around and I was given a mostly new set of students and had to make a room change.
Now I needed all new materials and resources for the grade changes. Our school was given a very large grant and we as teachers were being observed by consulting firms to see if they approved of our teaching methods. Every so many months they come around to make several observations of us in our classrooms. They check to see if we are following their recommendations and if our classrooms are "child-centered classrooms". Most of the teachers are on edge at this school and are exhausted working many long hours and at their own monetary expense to make things happen at this school.
This book offered me a wonderful resource for solving many of the concerns I had at this school for resolving a number of these difficulties. In it, are many ideas for getting your struggling students to come up to and approach grade level standards. The students are able to do activities that enable them to become excited able learners.

I am a kindergarten teacher who has agonized over the years at how to incorporate writing into my classroom. I've recently gone back to school to get my Masters in Language and Literacy to become a better teacher. My thesis is going to be on interactive writing. I have found this to be the BEST resource for explaining to me how and why and when to "share the pen" with my students. I can't praise this book highly enough. The pictures and lessons and rationale that have gone into this book are just what I've been searching for...The authors make so much sense...the literacy connection between reading and writing is based on research. Take a look at this book. I promise you, it'll change your outlook on how reading and writing can and should go together.

I am a first year teacher and I have finally incorporated interactive writing into my daily curriculum. It was not easy at first, but I have arrived at a successful and exciting place with this teaching method in my classroom. I think I could have reached this level of success back in September if I had Andrea McCarrier's book then. It is truly the missing link to a successful literacy centered classroom. This book has supplied me with enough specific ideas to initiate interactive writing on the first days of school next year. Letter ID and sight word development will be more effective and mastered more quickly by using interactive writing with my students. The beauty of interactive writing is it can be integrated with many other subjects: science, social studies, health, technology, etc. Only after a week of hard-core interactive writing, two of my students have emerged from confusion and are have begun to build sentences with spaces, punctuation and sensical inventive spelling. Many in the class have advanced with their writing, and this has also advanced their reading! This book has helped me come up with ideas, realistic goals, step-by-step procedures, and final product bulletin boards and books for their classroom. The book is full of photographs showing the beginning of the task, the task in process, and the final result. This is the new "bible" in my classroom, and I cannot recommend it enough for kindergarten and first grade teachers, both new and veteran. Now, if I could just find a book with this quality of information and step-by-step ideas that would focus on independent literacy centers to allow me to teach small group guided reading without an interruption, I would be able to teach the world to read! Come on Pinnell! Come on Fountas! Come on McCarrier! You write it or recommend it, I'll buy it!

My 6-year-old daughter just LOVED this book! She had some concept of tadpoles and frogs -- but this book really helped her understand how the process works. Not only that, but she truly enjoyed the story. We have enjoyed every Marjorie Flack book that we have read together.

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and learned immensely from it. I just cannot express in the English language the effect that this book had on my life.

As a young kindergarten teacher, I looked forward to our lessons each year on the life cycle of frogs. Reading Tim Tadpole and the Great Bullfrog to my students was always a fun experience, as the children identified so closely with the growth and change that Tim was experiencing. The triumph of the ending, when Tim emerges from the water using his strong new legs, was thrilling for the children. The copy I used from our school library in the early 80's was already quite old. I've scoured used book sales and thrift shops in vain, hoping to find a copy for my self. Maybe one day this book could be reprinted, perhaps with colorful new illustrations to appeal to today's 4-6 year olds. I would be first in line to buy it!

Read this as a child (yes there WERE books back in the 50's) and am now buying it for my teenage granddaughter starting junior high this month. When I was her age it was my FAVORITE book - our entire Girl Scout troup read it!

i did not know there was a book!!!! i wish the movie would come out on dvd! why hasn't it? how can we get this wonderful film to come out on dvd?

robbyn

Sally Benson's stories have been said to be terse, witty, often dipped in vitriol, and were eagerly sought by magazine editors. Most of them have appeared in the New Yorker.

Junior Miss is a story of a typical New York family of the day - Mr. Graves, a genial and successful business man in his early forties; Mrs. Graves, his charming and understanding wife; Lois, the very superior young daughter of sixteen; and in particular, Judy, just under fourteen, a little too eager, a little too fat, stepped on at every turn by her older sister but for all that, as appealing a character as can be found between book covers, vivid, alarming, and sometimes startling. Wonderful reading.

This book was made into a Hollywood movie but the book is better.

I read this book with a student that I tutor who enjoys gynmastics. This book was perfect for for her because it was written at an appropriate age and gradelevel and it was a good story for her to relate to. This book is highly reccomneded for those who love gymnastics.

I have enjoyed this book because it teaches everyone to work harder. Katie is a girl in Jody's gymnastics class. One day, Coach Jody announces that her class is going on the balance beam. Her friends are very, very excited, but Katie is scared. Katie hates to do anything backwards (She reminds me of my friend who hates swimming). I did not like it when Katie wasn't working too hard, but I felt happy for her when she wanted to try the backover move.

Sometimes, Katie thinks about quitting gymnastics, but her friends always try to help her get better and better. My favorite part is when Katie has enough courage to try the beam. Lila Hanks, an older gymnast, also helps Katie practice because she is excellent at gymnastics. Katie tells Lila about what happened and why she wants to quit gymnastics. After that, Lila tells Katie a secret...???

Sometimes, I wonder why Katie would want to quit since gymnastics seems so fun to do. I think Katie is a very smart character and could do the backflip, but she's just terrified. If she's not scared or nervous, then I know she'll make it. Katie is my favorite third-grader and gymnast of all of the Junior Gymnast series books. After reading this book, I feel like I have a lot more courage to do everything and anything (and not feel scared). I feel braver, not frightened. This book gave me this feeling that everything will turn out great. All you need is just some courage. Plenty of it!!

This is a great book for girls with dreams. Will Katie ever learn how to get over her fear of backward flips or will she have to quit? Read the book and find out!

This is a good book fo r a gymnast with a fear! In this book it tells how katie got over the fear of doing a back walkover on the beam! So go on read it!

Jessica Morton's "Kids on the 'Net is inspiring. Between the lines it speaks to what 'good' teaching is really about and the lines themselves sing with a clear how to do it for using the net well. A great source for those who want to be creative and for the many who fear, for one reason or another, the use of the internet. It is so well written and presented that I felt like I was reading a terrific story. At t he end I knew I'd done that and more!

Jessica Morton has an easy way of writing that will make the reader feel she can use the 'net' with young children after reading about Mrs. Morton's successes in her own classroom. She does not use computer language that the average person cannot understand. She not only uses examples from her own classroom but also relates to the reader how to go about beginning using e-mail with simple dos and don'ts. I have used e-mail with my second grade students for many years but while reading this book I discovered some great ways to improve the use of e-mail with my class of 7-8 year olds. A definite book to read!

Jessica Morton's book, Kids on the 'Net, is absolutely outstanding for any educator who is leery about bringing the Internet into the classroom. This book takes you step-by-step into how the 'net can be beneficial for your students' or childrens' learning. The book is chock full of ideas and personal reflections by the author to show you that the Internet can be our friend. The book is written in a style that is non-threatening and easy to flip through. Morton's book teaches you how even young children can e-mail pen pals (e-pal) from around the world and be interactive in newsgroups. This is a must needed resource for teachers of the new millennium. She offers web sites that are useful for creating projects and reproducibles that go along with certain lessons. If technology is the way to go in your classroom, then you need this book.