Junior Books

...look no further than this book. Even though reading Lev Vygotsky's own words in MIND IN SOCIETY is irreplaceable, most of us teachers have little time or patience to wade through that theoretical complexity.

Thus, Bordrova and Leong give us an excellent way to both understand V's theory and how it applies to each set of early childhood age ranges. Personally, I the infant and toddler sections are the most valuable because embellishing intersubjectivity at the earliest possible point of development will increase the child's ability to navigate and learn within an increasingly complex social setting.

Glorious text.

Great for understanding the Vygotskian philosophy.

I liked the comparisons and contrasts to Piaget and other popular early childhood philosophies.

This is an excellent resource. I think it is a tragedy that Vygotsky's educational and developmental philosophies have taken this long to be distributed in America and taken seriously. We would have a completely different educational system and level of achievement in our public schools were the teachings in this book made the norm and mastery of it was required before anyone got ahold of our young children in schools (or in the home in the role of parents generally or homeschooling parents). There is nothing I would have wanted to know before purchasing the product because I was familiar with Vygotsky theories from graduate studies in clinical psychology. Again, an excellent book. So much more relevant and quite frankly, accurate and helpful than any methods based soley on child-led learning and/or Piaget.

I don't specifically remember wonderful themes of kindness and sharing, but I do know that my eyes light up when I see this book. It must be something special of a twenty-year-old in college does that.

Trafalgar is an iridescent blue dragon with rabbit-like friends. When jealousy comes between them, Trafalgar must do something about it. A wonderful story as well as unparalleled illustrations! You will love reading this to your children and helping teach them the true value of sharing.

Trafalgar True is a winged dragon who lives in a country called Kurium, along with several small creatures called Kith and Kin, which he loves to watch play.

One day a large, bright Sunstone falls from the sky and lands in their meadow. The Kith and Kin are fascinated by the stone, but neither the Kith or Kin want to share it with the other. They fight and squabble over possession of it. All the while, Trafalgar True witnesses their fighting and grows sad because of it.

Then Trafalgar True realizes what he must do: he must return the Sunstone to the sun. So, he begins his rise into the sky when the Kith and Kin find their Sunstone gone. At first they accuse the other of stealing it, but one of them notices Trafalgar flying in the sky with the stone in his grasp. Obviously, they know no one could fly to the sun and survive, so they gather in a circle and call for Trafalgar to return. As soon as he does, the Kith and Kin decide it was pointless to fight over the Sunstone; instead, they would share it.

The moral:

"So, when it comes to sharing
With Kith and Kin or you,
Remember what you're sharing
Is the love of Trafalgar True."

Both adults and children will love this book. It's beautifully illustrated by Robin James.

Rebeccasreads highly recommends THE TRAITOR: Golden Mountain Chronicles 1885 Wyoming Territory, as not only a grand boys' adventure, it's a roller-coaster historical ride into the dark side of fighting for survival & transcending racial hatred, as well soaring into the bright side of friendship, purpose & hope.

As with all Laurence Yep's chronicles of the Chinese American experience, THE TRAITOR is a riveting read! Could not put it down! Quite serious, all the more so because the events described actually happened. It makes you think "What would I have done?"

As a graduate student working on Yep's novels, I found The Traitor the most interesting and fascinating to read among the rest of his Golden Mountain Chronicles. Not only is The Traitor full of complexity and ingenuity, but also gives us the detailed history of the Chinese immigrants in the 1880s, including the severest Chinese massacre incident and the Exclusion Act. The story starts with a boy named Joseph, son of Otter in Dragon's Gate, who shares his living experiences with a local American boy Michael. As the "traitors" from both their ethnic groups, Joseph and Michael have to use their wisdom in order to survive in the Rock Springs Massacre.

For those who would like to know more about the Chinese immigrant history, I strongly recommend this book.

This book, The Traitor, is a fantastic book. I read it in two days and could not put it down. It's, in a nutshell, about a Chinese-American boy named Joseph Young who wants to be fully American.Joe's a miner who misses San Francisco, where he used to live before the immigration laws threw him and his father out. In the adjoining town of Rock Springs is a boy named Michael Purdy. Mike is shunned due to his not having a father. Michael and Joseph find sanctuary in Star Rock, their weekly meeting place. Meanwhile, Mike's town is a Chinese hating society, so they band together one day to kill all the Chinese out of spite. The book is based on actual events, and if you're like me, anything with to do with Chinese culture or historical fiction draws you in. Hope you like it!

contact me and I can get the pokemon japanese 1st edition expedition booster packs 5 for $9. thats 5 packs for you shipping included! thats less than 2 dollars a pack! retail for over 3.25!!! THE MORE YOU BUY THE LOWER I CAN SELL THE PACKS FOR!

Unlike most of the Scholastic Pokemon books, this has a sound plot. It does not deliver what is implied in the cover caption "Pikachu and Meowth . . . friends forever?!" but it speculates on what can happen when two former enemies depend on each other for survival.

Just one gripe about the Scholastic Pokemon books: I wish they would have illustrations that fit they stories, rather than cutting corners with stock pictures of Pokemon characters.

Pokemon junior is the best book I have ever read in my whole life because there are funny caractors in it. I like when pikachu and meowth got stuck together and team rocket tried to take them away and pikachu and meowth got stuck together and ash got the key to unlock them.

Peter Perret and Janet Fox have made a worthy contribution to education by telling a story of how music can affect children's ability to learn, to listen and to raise their overall performance in school. This book explores the way musicians teach and the way children and teachers learn from the activities described in the ground-braking Bolton Project in Winston Salem, NC.
The writing is engaging and humorous, but also serious and well researched. The book touches on different models of teacher-student relationship, creative approaches to learning, and the sense of vocation and commitment to continuous improvement. It focuses on the realities of the present moment and the sense of accomplishment that results when there is passion for excellence.
The book also touches on some important questions on whether music instruction affects our cognitive abilities, and gives the reader a good overview on the research that has been going on for the last fifteen years. It tantalizes the reader to know more about the subject and makes a good case for adopting new teaching models through music instruction in the early school years.
I highly recommend this book to teachers, parents and to anyone who is interested on new models for effective teaching.
Patricia A. Dixon
Lecturer in Music
Wake Forest University

A Well-Tempered Mind, Using Music to Help Children Listen and Learn by Peter Perret and Janet Fox with a foreword by Maya Angelou
March 2004, Dana Press

"That is what I think the woodwind quintet is doing. Our musicians are playing to a fundamental language of the brain. They are evoking a muse that already lives in every child's head."

Harvard's Project Zero was named that because of Howard Gardner's belief in 1967 that "nothing had been firmly established about the link between the arts and cognitive thinking." Thirty-seven years later, the North Carolina Bolton Project creates a new yet ancient paradigm: live music in classrooms of elementary and middle school students, particularly at-risk ones, causes a dramatic increase in students' standardized test scores, perhaps due to the neurological changes the music catalyzes. This book proves it. And, as the authors point out, the link between music and learning dates back to Plato. Current tests, such as the Audio-Visual Integration test (AVI), were used to substantiate the significant success of the Bolton Project. Since we know most "children who fail to master reading in the early grades rarely learn to read later in life", elementary and middle school educators can find a panacea in this book.

Students listening to live music such as a quintet raised their scores by almost 50%. The authors stress that the quintet wasn't there to teach music but to teach through music, the classroom teacher creating the lesson plan with the music coordinator. Frank Wood, Professor of Neurology at Wake Forest University, states it directly in his introduction: "The Bolton curriculum, I can now say from firsthand experience as a research colleague of Peter Perret and a mentor of Shirley Bowles, has proved effective for enhancing cognitive skills, including the skills that support learning to read." Although the book focuses on music, all performing arts have potential to increase learning.

Far from being a dry read like a textbook, the book tells a success story of a ten-year old project that should rivet educational reformers. The authors also reveal insights into cognitive neuroscience and the learning process. Actual dialog of students enhances the book's readability in addition to showing the spatial-temporal reasoning being developed in students. Humor abounds in the titles and heads of the book, such as allusions "Close Encounters of the Musical Kind" and "Raising Arizona". Even the title of the book connects with the essence of the project.

As a high school English teacher of at-risk students, I'm overwhelmed at the difference this kind of classroom would make. The first thing I teach in 9th grade English is how to think back and forth between specifics and generalizations. If my students had been introduced to this type of teaching in elementary school, their struggle to form abstract ideas from specifics would be far less. Part of my job is to raise the reading scores of students, so when I read the chapter "Is Music A Reading Teacher?" I recognized the incredible value of A Well-Tempered Mind in terms of helping students improve thinking, reading, and, of course, writing skills.

Maya Angelou best expresses my thinking after reading Perret and Fox's book: "I pray the gift of this book, along with the gift of music, will herald the return of art in the classroom. The children need that and so does our world."

This is an important book for everyone who has a stake in the education of young children, meaning everyone concerned with our country's future. The book demonstrates what happens when a woodwind quintet visits the classroom to play music and actively engages the children in discussions about the music. What happens is the children's brain development is enhanced, together with their ability to learn everything in the curriculum.

This book provides a guide for school administrators and parents to adopt the program in their schools. The program's results are eye-opening: the new listening skills that the program develops help children better anticipate, remember, compare, and imagine. As the musicians and children discuss quarter notes and half notes, the concept of fractions becomes real and tangible. When the children compose music, their self-confidence improves.

The book provides empirical evidence about these results. For those who want it, the evidence is correlated with cutting-edge brain research. To many people, the idea of music in the classroom means music appreciation or learning to play an instrument. This program, far more ambitious, does far more.

It doesn't matter what kind of recipe I look for to please my family, I find it in this book. I want my daughter and daughter-in-law add this great cookbook to their collection.

This really is a super cookbook. Great recipes and clear instructions. Nice little history of Western Colorado in the front of the book. I particularly enjoy preparing the "Egg Dishes" and the yummy cookies from "The Cookies Jar".

I think that this book is my favorite cookbook and I have over 1000 cookbooks! The game and lean recipes were my favorite.The desserts are great --the Raspberry Upside Cake is fabulous!

This is a fantastic book. Lots of great recipes with new adaptions to ones that have been around for awhile. Using a different spice or combining of various ingredients gives news twists to old standbys and favorites. I am an avid reader of cookbooks and don't have that much time to cook now that my family is grown and left the nest, but with this book, I am very anxious to get back in the kitchen and create some new and exciting things. Cookbooks by Jr. Leagues always have some of the very best recipes and this one is certainly no exception. Highly recommend whether just for reading, or looking for something new and different.

I love cookbooks and own a lot of them. I bought this book two years ago and have given many copies as gifts to peple who like to cook. My family loves the recipes. We made some of the recipes for my niece's wedding brunch in Denver last year and the guests raved about the food. The recipes and instructions are well-written and the results are great.

Of all the regional cookbooks I own, this is one of my favorites! This cookbook has great suggestions for things to take to different gatherings from Gold Cup Horse Races to Neighborhood Picnics. I especially love the tips and suggestions at the bottom of the recipes. So far, I have tried about 20 recipes and all of them have been fabulous! The recipes are clear and easy to follow. This book is a necessity for delicious homemade treats to impress your friends. It also makes a great bridal shower and teacher gift.

Perfect trade book to read with the first unit in the science textbook each year.

This book was super! I was in Ms. Lehns 1st grade class, and I got to watch the procces of making this book. This book will teach you so much about being a scientist it will shock you!!!! I love this book and presintly own 4 copies! Also My friends and I are in this book. Definitly read this book if you have questions on what is a scientist. Later.

Children are natural scientists, as author and teacher Barbara Lehn makes clear in this lovely book. She describes the activities of a scientist in clear and concise words, which are accompanied by color photos of the kids in her classrom doing scientific experiments. The children make observations, pose questions, answer them with follow-up experiments, and most of all, have fun. I recommend this book for anyone who wants to encourage a child's sense of wonder and discovery.

"Winter, Awake!" beautifully depicts in words and illustrations the place of winter in the order of the seasons. When Winter remains asleep, members of both the plant and animal world try to wake him so that they can use the winter days to prepare for spring. They have no success until a ladybug whispers into sleeping Winter's ear. Kroll's experience as a storyteller is apparent. Her beautifully chosen language creates word pictures and rhythms that are a pleasure for both the reader and the listener. This story begs to be read aloud and will appeal to a wide range of listeners. Lieberherr's vivid and engaging images complement the text and offer children an opportunity to let loose their imaginations. A perfect gift to entertain children at any time of the year.

This book is VERY Waldorf, so if the idea of King Winter offends you you might want to skip it. I love this book, personally, and my children do as well. Winter, Awake! has marvelous paintings. The book is perfect for the day after Thanksgiving as it begins with a description of the Harvest. Then, the plants and animals of the earth grow more and more weary of Autumn, and long for the rest and respite of Winter. Beginning with the trees, they whisper in King Winter's ear pleading for him to wake up. With the evocative text you experience not only marvelous rhythm and alliteration but you see a picture painted as well of how each spends the winter. The ladybug longs to gather together with her relatives and peacefully sleep Wintertime away. The Autumn leaves are tired of skipping and swirling and long to lie still and cover and protect seeds and roots. The story develops like this as each in turn makes its plea to King Winter:

the tired trees
the brittle leaves
garter snakes with slitted eyes
fuming bees
little leaping peeping frogs
a pert and perky chickadee
a cheeky chubby chattering squirrel
a gruff and grumpy grumbling bear

and finally, at last, a round red ladybug.

This book is a wonderful way for your child to explore how others see Winter, and it is perfect to read right before the first snowfall. You might want to have your King Winter doll [...] at the ready so that when your child wakes up to snow on the ground he can see that King Winter has appeared on the Nature table.

"Winter, Awake" is a wonderful tale told in verse with fabulous alliteration! Hearing it read aloud is magic to your ears. Embedded in this whimsical story are accurate portrayals of how animals prepare for winter. If winter were to refuse to awake one year, imagine the possible consequences.

The book is also a masterpiece visually. The full-page illustrations deserve to be framed! They are rich in color, beautiful to look at and will delight both adult and child readers. This is a book that will become a favorite read-aloud selection for all young readers and lovers of books.

I would recommend this resource to any teacher using Words Their Way...it cuts down planning time in half, plus it's user friendly!

This book is a great guide to teaching word study to SA learners. The reading is more simplistic and easier to understand than Words Their Way while offering appropriate sorts for this stage. It gives a more in depth view of SA spellers with an excellent sequence of instruction. It's only downfall is that many of the sorts are a little too complicated or have too many headers. It also only offers one sort for each part of a stage, even though some students may need to work within a sort for more than a week. Regardless of these negative aspects, I have really enjoyed this book and it is a great resource for any teacher's or school's library.

This book is very helpful in meeting students' individual spelling needs. It's nice to have the lists prepared for you and short instructional summaries to bring yourself up to speed on word patterns--things you don't even realize you know! The book is well-organized and offers success for all.