Summer is for Reading! Awâsis and the World-Famous Bannock

Teachers, Awâsis and the World-Famous Bannock (2018) is one of those books that will make teaching easier! Quadruple duty: theme/central message, analysis of two or more texts, stories from diverse cultures & global goals, and author's craft.

Awâsis and the World-Famous Bannock by Dallas Hunt, illustrated by Amanda Strong, is an #OwnVoices picture book. It's also recommended by Debbie Reese on her blog American Indians in Children's Literature. The main character, Awâsis, gets help from some animal friends after accidentally dropping her grandmother's bannock. 

Short reads, especially picture books, are great to model think-alouds for K-12. Since they are short, they get across the teaching point through example quickly, and illustrations make them memorable for students all the way through high school (and beyond). Additionally, if you use the same text to help teach multiple standards, students will become more deeply familiar with that text and thus more familiar with how to think deeply about a text.

This short read would be great to model theme and central message (RL.2), especially for 2nd through 8th grades, and even more so if your grade level standard mentions 'diverse cultures' (2nd and 3rd grades here in North Carolina). Awâsis and the World-Famous Bannock also has a guide to included words in the Cree language in the back, and you can also watch this video with your students to learn the words together!

Is your school a global school? If your grade level learns about North America, this would be a perfect text to combine global goals with ELA standards.

Awâsis and the World-Famous Bannock would also be fabulous to use to teach RL.9 - analyzing two or more texts. Below, these grade levels' RL.9 would be a great fit for this book:

RL.2.9 Compare and contrast two or more versions of the same story by different authors or from different cultures.

RL.4.9 Compare and contrast the use of similar themes and topics and patterns of events in stories, myths, and traditional literature from different cultures.

RL.5.9 Compare and contrast stories in the same genre on their approaches to similar themes and topics.

RL.6.9 Compare and contrast texts in different forms or genres in terms of their approaches to similar themes and topics.

RL.8.9 Analyze how a modern work of fiction draws on themes, patterns of events, or character types from myths, traditional stories, or religious works, including describing how the material is rendered new.

There are a couple of texts that students could compare to Awâsis and the World-Famous Bannock. Little Red Riding Hood would be a traditional story that students would find an interesting comparison (mother/grandma sends girl on a mission through the forest to help relatives in both stories, mission fails in both stories, girl meets animal in the forest, animals are helpful in one story, not in the other - lots of possibilities). 

The other great comparison text that springs to mind is Cynthia Leitich Smith's Jingle Dancer, in which the main character goes from relative to relative collecting jingles for her jingle dress to dance in the powwow for her relatives. (If you don't have Jingle Dancer, get it - it's phenomenal!)

Theme comparison would involve differences: listen to your parents, or do as you are told or bad things will happen vs helping others, interdependence, accepting help, working together - many possibilities.

And you know we need to insert Author's Craft whenever we can at every grade level, so check this out:

See what my pencil is pointing to? Yay! Why did the author decide to use a smaller/larger font for this part? What is the effect of the author's use of a smaller/larger font? What does the author want the reader to do when they get to the smaller/larger font? Why? 

Aaaand, the world-famous bannock recipe is in the back so you can actually make it! Science and math standards, anyone? Yum!

Summer Is For Reading! The Sockeye Mother

Summer is for reading!

I just read The Sockeye Mother (2017) by Hetxw'ms Gyetxw (Brett David Huson).

I can see so many classroom uses for this nonfiction picture book! It details the life cycle throughout the year of a sockeye salmon, a key species for the Gitxsan people of Northwestern British Columbia. I'll be adding it to my school's purchase list.

Teachers, if your third grade does the Lucy Calkins animal research unit, this book would be perfect! It would also be a great fit for ecosystem standards (fifth grade in my home state), and animal studies standards (fourth grade in my home state).

But wait, there's more! See those text features in the pic below? You know how hard we work to teach young readers how to recognize and use these in all grade levels. This book has an author's note, a map, headings and science vocabulary text boxes (as per pic below).

Beautiful artwork by Natasha Donovan also keeps young readers engaged, as does the connection to the seasons and the Gitxsan people (see pic below).

This book is remarkable in that the overarching theme is how the two species, the sockeye salmon and the people, are interconnected. Nonfiction animal fact text and theme? Yep! It's there.

Debbie Reese has a more detailed review on her blog, American Indians In Children's Literature that you should check out, too. Debbie suggests using the video that is on the Portage & Main Press site (linked above), Youtube, and also her review, to learn how to pronounce some of the Gitxsan words in the book. I'd also suggest showing the video to your students. Have fun and do your best with the words and use it as a model of your learning, along with your students!

There is also a video on Youtube of the author, Brett Huson, talking about culture, the importance of women, mothers, grandmothers, and family, as well as where the story of The Sockeye Mother came from. This is a longer, but very interesting video that teachers will want to watch/listen to and then choose parts to share with students.

Get it, teach it, love it.