Little Prickles

Little Prickles is a porcupine that longs to have friends. When his classmates cautiously commented about his quils, he became sad and grumpy. He would not want to play with others because he was too prickly! He hated his quils even though deep inside him, he knew they made him who he was. One day at school, the teacher explained the best way to write well, was to have a sharp and thin stick. Little Prickles eager to make friends, decided to give away his quils until his beautiful pink skin looked like a tasty dinner. What would he do now that his natural protection was gone?

This is a wonderful book for many reasons. It is a "Kids are Authors Award" winner; it's written and illustrated by children. It has very nice sentence patterns that help introduce new vocabulary beautifully complimented by the great illustrations. The story deals with the issues of Friendship, Self-Confidence and Identity; something most immigrant students or bicultural students deal with at some point in their lives - we all do for that matter. Reading this book will take you to many directions. A carefully crafted goal will assure your success not only in the lesson at hand, but in the future use of this same text. I love the fact that I can use it as a book to teach topics like animals (nouns), or adjectives and adverbs. I can talk about literary elements, (story problem) or children as writers. Also, it's a great book to go straight to the point and talk about identity. What makes you who you are?

I like to start with the latter, because that way, the deep insights and conversations are dealth with to start with. In the next ocassion, we can focus on the grammar elements this book richly provides. It's a great ELL classroom nugget!
It's a great book for the beginning of the school year too!

I'd love to hear what your experiences are using this book with your students!

¡Sí se puede! Yes, we can! Janitor Strike in LA. By: Diana Cohn

"Every night, Carlitos sleeps while his mother goes to work as a janitor in the skyscraper in downtown Los Angeles. When she comes home in the morning, she sends Carlitos off to school before she goes to bed herself. One night his mamá explains that she is not making enough money to support him and his abuelita. She and the other janitors have decided to go on strike to demand better wages. Carlitos wants to help, but he doesn't know how until...."

This is a great book on its own or a good companion from the previous one featured here: Cesar ¡Si se piede! Yes we can! By Carmen T. Bernier-Grand. It brings up important social issues obviously, but it is also a great way to talk about professions at home. I have done a Unit on occupations every year. I've found difficult, however for some of them specially the younger ones to be able to tell me what do their parents do for a living. Inspite of my encouragement to aks their parents what do they do, it just doesn't happen. I'm still puzzled about this. The point is that this year, I read this book and was a great ice breaker between children and parents.
The way this story is told, so simple yet with full details of what it means to be working under unjust circumstances not only for the employee, but for the whole family, somehow clicks the right way for the students to be quickend to ask and press their parents for answers about their jobs. I highly recommend it.