Literature in Art Books

This is a great manual filled with easy to use English activities for kids. This book will save a teacher a LOT of time when searching for book strategies and activities. The book helps a English teacher manage their classes better. Reproducibles are included and the book is easily to print! Good one! A+*****

I'm a trained English/Writing instructor, and also a homeschooling mom. This book gives me much of what I need for an intensive literature-and-composition program for my kids.
The first part of the book is focused on managing a normal English class (although a teacher who followed this suggestions would have a SUPER class, I'm sure!). But homeschoolers shouldn't entirely skip this part, because if offers valuable (but wonderfully brief and clear) suggestions on the writing process, grading methods, and other tips.
Part II is the treasure-trove. The has provided brief, practical plans for studying twenty different books appropriate for students in a given age group (7th and 8th grade; 9th and 10th grade; and 11th and 12th grade).
For each recommended book, the author provides:
- A synopsis of the story
- Ideas and concepts to highlight in discussion
- A "Writing Connection" - a paragraph or two to orient the teacher to core themes in the book
- A reproducible pre-writing activity
- Eight to ten well-thought-out essay questions
- Four to six "projects and activities" related to the book
- Four or five "Curriculum Connections" that suggest ways to connect the book study with other subject areas (science, history, and even math).
Amazingly, all this is presented in the space of only four pages -- with plenty of white space left over!

With all these resources you could easily spend 2-3 weeks per book while still picking and choosing to suit yourself and your student.

One word of caution: parents may want to go through the synopses (or read the books) before they put them in their child's hands. The subject matter in the recommended books is challenging. Muschla's recommendations are not 'easy' books, and have powerful themes that deserve to be discussed. An advantage to homeschooling is that the teacher knows the student intimately, and knows which subject matter might not be appropriate for that child. However, I would encourage homeschooling parents to give some of these books a try, even if they seem a bit edgy and raw. If you read the book with your child and restrain yourself from speaking too quickly, you may learn a great deal about your child's growing and changing thoughts.

Found this book originally in a museum book store and our granddaughter was so intrigued by it that we ordered one for our grandnephew. The book got everyone in the family "finding faces" as we rode in car, went for walks, or even sat in our home and looked at things on the wall. A book that helps one see the world a little differently and in a fun way.

I gave this to a nephew less than a year old. Though he is not reading yet, I know this will be a favorite. All children are facinated with faces on themselves, others, toys, etc. This very creative picture book opens one's eyes to faces in less familiar places. Once you start thinking about it, they are everywhere you let your imagine wander.

Crawford begins right at the heart of the problem: how do you say something fresh in a field that seems overrun with far too many dull and repetitive journals, filled with papers that "fairly shout `I wrote this for tenure'"? How can you find something that you want to write about, and that other people will want to read? How do you develop your own particular niche and style? Crawford provides excellent advice on such topics as matching your topic to a venue (covering new media as well as more traditional outlets), how peer review works, reviewing publishing contracts, working with editors, dealing with writer's block, and other traps of the writing life. His analysis of the differences between library writing, mainstream writing, and non-library academic writing is useful and insightful. As both a writer and an editor, I find his advice sound and reasonable. For the established writer, this book is a reminder not to get stuck in a rut but constantly seek new challenges, and it's full of helpful material for any new writers you may be mentoring. The only thing I consider too dated to be useful is his advice on submitting paper copies to journals; I know of no editor these days who does not prefer to work with electronic submissions from the start. To supplement this book, I'd also recommend How To Write A Lot by Paul J. Silvia, which deals more with the self-discipline and organization side of writing.

In this practical guide, experienced author and speaker Walt Crawford shows fellow librarians how to make both their writing and speaking inform and entertain their audiences. (summary by South Texas Library System)
I've heard it said that a library director should always have an "elevator speech" ready, so you don't miss that opportunity with a city commissioner trapped in an elevator with you for 2 minutes. This book expands on that for librarians needing to write or make presentations. After years of writing a library column and giving library talks to Rotary and other civic groups, I recommend that all librarians read a book like this.

This is an excellent reference work on the evolution of flight
from the Wright Brothers onward. The authors explore the
experience with the Aerodrome and other famous flight attempts.
There are short poems written by John Magee, Amelia Earhart
on Courage and others. There is a complete diary of the first
flight including wide-angle turns, ups/downs and rudder
problems. This work is perfect for a class project in science
or history. It would make a great gift for a child up through
the teen years.

Collaboratively compiled and edited by the team of Anne Collins Goodyear, Roger Launius, Anthony Springer, and Bertram Ulrich, Flight: A Celebration Of 100 Years In Art And Literature provides the interested reader with a truly exceptional, panoramic survey of the history of aviation collecting selections of art, science fiction, and literature from across the last century. Gorgeous, full-color artworks showcased with excerpts from cherished classics make Flight a most engaging and enjoyable read for aviation lovers everywhere, and an ideal "Memorial Fund" acquisition selection for academic and community library systems.

This book is very colorful with several of O'Keeffe's paintings throughout the book. The writing is informative and interesting. It takes the reader through the timeline of O'Keefe's life. I recommend this book for art and classroom teachers. This series works for grades 1-6.

I read this while in the store, and rushed home to share it with my 6 year old. It is now one of our favorites, and I'll be buying a copy from Amazon for my god-daughter. Nice selection of work from across Ms. O'Keefe's career, appropriate selection of photos and life details.

Good quality reproductions, simple, spare layout. Very nicely done.

The author provides a brief narrative about each painting shown, and she pairs the images with photos of the artist, her husband and the landscapes that inspired the work. A glimpse of the O'Keefe magic, this book has provided many moments of quiet joy.

I can't wait to try some of the other books in this series!

Item arrived quickly and in great shape. Very professional business relations. I recommend this buyer and this book.

We made a dozen Friendship Brownies for my daughters (3 1/2) teachers for Christmas and they loved them! My daughter loved layering the white and brown chocolate chips the best. We cut out fabric circles for the tops, and I made our own recipe tags on the computer instead of using the ones included. They turned out very cute!
Not only was it something inexpensive to give but my daughter could help out as well. My only advice would be to mash things down a bit as you go...we got to the end and the last big ingredient overflowed the jar otherwise.
Great little book!

Don't read that other review...it will ruin the whole point of the book. Without giving anything away, I will just say that this is an amazing book, and it stirred several emotions....and I can't say more without giving it away....so I will just recommend you read it! Well written, great, great book! Takes no time to read!

They are misfits, wanderers, and souls searching for faith and absolution. Many of them are, to one extent or another, hypocrites; others are almost unbelievably naive. All of them are Southerners -- and yet, even the most outlandish among Flannery O'Connor's protagonists come across as entirely believable, complex characters whom, regardless of location, you might expect to come across in your own travels, too; and there is no telling how such an encounter would turn out.

Of course, you would hope it does not prove quite as disastrous as the title story's chance meeting of a family taking a wrong turn (on the road as much as figuratively) and the self-proclaimed Misfit haunting that particular area of Georgia; which culminates in a bizarre conversation, the failure of communication underneath which only adds to the reader's growing feeling of helplessness in view of impending doom. And such a sense of irreversible destiny pervades many a story in this collection; yet, while as in O'Connor's writing in general, her and her protagonists' Catholic faith plays a dominant role in the course of the events, that course is not so much brought about by the hand of God as by the characters' own acts, decisions, judgments and prejudices.

Freakish as they are, O'Connor's (anti-)heroes are meant to be prophets, messengers of a long forgotten responsibility, as she explained in her 1963 essay "The Catholic Novelist in the Protestant South:" their prophecy is "a matter of seeing near things with their extensions of meaning and thus of seeing far things close up." Often, she uses names, titles and items of every day life and imbues them with a new meaning in the context of her stories; this collection's title story, for example, is named for a blues song popularized by Bessie Smith in the late 1920s, and a cautionary road sign commonly seen in the 1950s ("The Life You Save May Be Your Own") becomes the title and motto of a story about a wanderer's encounter with a mother and her handicapped daughter who take him in, only to use that purported charity to their own advantage -- at the end of which, predictably, nobody is the better off. Indeed, the endings of O'Connor's stories are as far from your standard happy ending as you can imagine; and while you cannot help but develop, early on, a premonition of doom, most of the time the precise nature of that doom is anything but predictable.

"A Good Man is Hard to Find and Other Stories" was Flannery O'Connor's first published collection of short stories; yet, by the time these stories appeared (nine of the ten were published in various magazines between 1953 and 1955 before their inclusion in this 1955 collection) she was already an accomplished writer, with not only a novel under her belt ("Wise Blood," 1952) but also, and significantly, a master's thesis likewise consisting of a collection of short stories, entitled "The Geranium and Other Stories" (1947; first published as a collection in 1971's National Book Award winning "The Complete Stories of Flannery O'Connor," although several of those stories had likewise been published individually before). Two of the stories included in "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" count among O'Connor's six winners of the O'Henry Award for Short Fiction ("The Life You Save May Be Your Own" and "The Circle in the Fire," again an exploration of insincerity, half-hearted charity and its exploitation); and the collection as a whole, even more than her first novel, quickly established her as a masterful storyteller, endowed with vision, an unfailing sense for language and a supreme feeling for the use of irony; all of which have long since placed her firmly in the first tier of 20th century American authors.

Flannery O'Connor died, at the age of 39, of lupus, an inflammatory disease which in less severe forms may not be more than an (albeit substantial) nuisance, but which proved fatal in her case as well as that of her father before her. Her literary career, almost the sole focus of her life from the moment that she was diagnosed onwards, was thus cut short way before her time. Yet, to this day her writing holds a unique position in contemporary literature; and "A Good Man Is Hard to Find" is an excellent place to start exploring her work.

Renowned author and illustrator Wendell Minor takes readers on an extraordinary journey in the picture book GRAND CANYON. Minor, who has graced book covers with his art for more than twenty-five years, is also one of the most revered children's book illustrators around. He's done collaborations with Newbery Award-winning author Jean Craighead George, including EVERGLADES, ARCTIC SON, and the soon-to-be-published CLIFFHANGER, as well as critically acclaimed books with Eve Bunting, Anne Turner, and Charlotte Zolotow. Now, he tells of his experiences in one of America's most celebrated natural treasures, with lyrical text and stunning watercolors. For twelve days he spent time on the South Rim of the canyon, sketching and painting the huge rocks, the dramatic skies, and the abundant wildlife in the area. The colors are rich and intense, yet at the same time peaceful, perfectly complementing the words. You feel as if you're right there, standing over the canyon with space all around you. This is an excellent introduction for kids to a magnificent place, and even if, like me, you've never visited the Grand Canyon, you'll feel as if you were taking the journey and living the experience, too.

This is a thoughtful look at the wonders of the Grand Canyon as seen by a noted American illustrator who took his time to look carefully at and sketch some of that space. The gorgeous watercolors painted from his sketches convey the beauty and the color of the Grand Canyon and the accompanying text from his journal help put the images into perspective. Minor makes the spaces come alive.

I checked this book out from the library over a year ago and knew from the illustration that Jacob Lawrence was a special person. I was drawn to the illustration because it is soothing. His illustration style is flat, yet there is a world of depth. It is the kind of art that I could have on my wall and never tire of. I remember more the art than the story. The art told a story. This book is as much for adults as it is for children. Since hearing that Jacob Lawrence died...I instantly felt the need to get one of his books for my home library.

Parents hoping to introduce their children to modern American art could do worse than to buy this edition reproducing 60 paintings by Jacob Lawrence (1917-2000), one of the finest African American artists in U.S. history.

First published for children in a 1993 limited edition, with a poem by Walter Dean Myers, this volume reproduces the Great Migration series that Lawrence created in 1940 and 1941 to tell the story of the African American migration north, from the plantations and cotton fields of the antebellum era.

Begun within a year after Lawrence completed a magnificent Harriet Tubman series, these tempura colored, poster paint works made Jacob Lawrence's career. It's easy to see why. Bold and unforgiving, these vibrant works grew from Lawrence's own childhood migration--from Atlantic City, New Jersey to Easton, Pennsylvania, to Philadelphia and finally, at 13, to Harlem--his exposure to African-American culture and his intensive training in the Utopia Children's House and New Deal-sponsored Harlem Art Workshop of the 1930s.

At that time, the WPA was still funding public art murals, but Lawrence was too young to gain a commission. Instead, he determined to show the African-American struggle for freedom in real-life stories that would tie the past to the present.

From 1938 to 1941, he used the New York public library for research, creating in swift succession five series of paintings telling the stories of Toussaint L'Ouverture, Tubman, Frederick Douglass, John Brown, and The Migration of the Negro.

In the last of these, Lawrence hoped to speak artistically of a mass escape from the rural, discriminatory and unjust South--a region of poverty and illiteracy--into an anxious era of hope and expectation in the North. The paintings depicted passage, with railways, train cars, suitcases, and hordes of people constantly in motion. Their visages and body language spoke in terms of expectation and fear. Lawrence wove bold colors and themes throughout the series, thereby joining the paintings into a unit.

In a documentary shown in a museum tour of Lawrence's work, the artist said he "didn't think in terms of history in that series. ...It was like I was doing a portrait of something." Portraits were "a portrait of myself, a portrait of my family, a portrait of my peers."

Lawrence's extraordinary talent was recognized when he was only 24, with the 1941 exhibition of these paintings in the downtown gallery of art dealer Edith Halpert, who had beforehand exclusively shown the work of white artists. So breathtaking were the paintings (as they remain), they instantly transported Lawrence across the U.S. racial divide of that era, making him deservedly famous. The Philips Gallery in Washington D.C. purchased the odd-numbered paintings; the Museum of Modern Art in New York took the even ones.

Treat your kids to this triumph of the human spirit, and to the fine accompanying Myers poem. These paintings make children into art-lovers, for life. Alyssa A. Lappen

This is a great resource for a large classroom or a small homeschool. I love the activity to write to a "chocolate factory". I used this book in a private school that I taught at a few years ago and ordered it this year for my own homeschool.

I used this literature guide with my 6th grade English class. I found it to be a great help in really making the book a great joy for the students. The activities that were included in the book were easy to accomplish in one period and with basic materials.

A couple of my favorite activities from the book were "Create Your Own Golden Ticket" and "Writing a letter to a candy company" (Addresses for 5 different companies were given.) The kids wrote their letters and received some free things in the mail within a few weeks.

This book also comes with Chocoholic Recipes and Unit Tests. I found it to be a great companion for any teacher reading "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory".