Also, the text can be used to develop students' skills such as answering questions about details in the text, retelling the story (including key details), identifying characters, setting, and events in the story, and identifying the author and illustrator of the story (RL.K.1; RL.K.2; RL.K.3; RL.K.6).
4. Same Sun Here by Silas House and Neela Vaswani (Recommended grade level: 4-5)
Summary:
This story is told entirely through the pen
pal exchanges
of Meena, an
Indian immi-
grant in New
York, and River,
a boy from Ken-
tucky. A school
project inspires the first exchange of letters where both Meena and River agree to be totally honest about their
thoughts and lives. The two
learn a lot about each other's cultures. Through their own individual conflicts, River learns to peacefully stand up for what he believes is right in the face of local tragedy, while Meena finds her way as a 12-year-old Indian immigrant with her own modern thoughts and feelings about how her life should be lived. Both children acknowledge how different they are, but also how innately the same they find themselves to be.
Meeting the CCSS:
When reading this text, students can describe the characters, setting, and events that occur by drawing on specific details in the story (RL.4.3). In addition, this text can easily be used to develop students' skills of comparing and contrasting by doing so with the two main characters, the different settings, and the events throughout the story (RL.5.3). Further, because one of the main characters has a first language other than English and the other lives in an area with various unique figures of speech, idioms, and lingo, this text can be used to examine various words and phrases found in the story (RL.5.4). Finally, the penpal format can be examined to see how this structure influences the story (RL.5.5).
Conclusion
These 13 books have been chosen by teachers or students across the United States as excellent texts to use in classrooms. Moreover, classroom teachers, reading specialists, and literacy coaches in Missouri and Kansas have reviewed and recommended them as well to meet specific Common Core State Standards. Therefore, teachers can use these texts in their classrooms knowing that they have been identified as exemplary texts very capable of helping students meet many of the required standards.
Legends of Zita the Space Girl
by Ben Hatke
Bedtime for Monsters
by Ed Vere
Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons
by Eric Litwin
Same Sun Here
by Silas House and Neela Vaswani
2013 Children's Choices
Which one is
your favorite?
28