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Tips for Teachers is a monthly column in which experienced teacher and children’s librarian Emmie Stuart shares book recommendations and a corresponding teaching guide for fellow elementary school teachers.

I have never lived on a farm, and I don’t really like animals. So why do Carl Larsson’s farm paintings hang on my living room and kitchen walls? Why do I cherish my annual tradition of visiting a local farm with a friend and her children? Why do I always slow down to admire the tidy and picturesque family farm that I pass on the way to my parents’ cottage in rural North Carolina? Why do weathered red barns, rolling fields bordered by white fences, the smell of hay and the clucking of chickens fill me with deep nostalgia? Why do farms have such a tight grasp on my heartstrings? 

I blame it on stories. I read my childhood copy of Trinka Hakes Noble and Steven Kellogg’s The Day Jimmy’s Boa Ate the Wash so many times that it’s now held together by Scotch tape. Each year, when my family pulled down our heavy box of Christmas books from the attic, Joseph Slate and Ashley Wolff’s Who Is Coming to Our House? was the one I wanted to find first. I can still hear my mom’s voice reading Charlotte’s Web to me and my sister. Yes, farms hold a beloved place in my heart and imagination. 

The kindergarten classes at my school are about to begin a nine-week study of farms and farm animals. I can’t wait to share the following three books with my students. I can only hope that these books’ agrarian settings, memorable characters and reassuring stories impress themselves upon my students’ hearts and minds, fostering a lifelong fondness for farms. 

The Barn

By Leah H. Rogers
Illustrated by Barry Root

In this gentle narrative about a weathered wooden barn that overlooks rolling hills and a white farmhouse, the barn reminisces about its construction. A communal barn raising brought it into existence over a century ago. Using the phrase “I am a barn” as a refrain, the barn narrates in lyrical prose. All day long—from the morning, “when the sun begins to grow over the treetops” and “strands of sunlight reach through my cobwebbed windows,” to the evening, when “the chill night air blows quietly down my stone aisle”—both animals and people come in and out of the barn’s shelter.

Rogers’ text is rich with sensory language and gentle rhythm. Root’s watercolor and gouache illustrations are suffused with golden light as they warmly depict the barn, animals and surrounding verdant hillsides. Familiar and comforting, The Barn offers children a beautiful and meditative look at a rural farm. 

• Farm life

The idea of a barn raising may be unfamiliar to some children. Read Patricia MacLachlan and Kenard Pak’s The Hundred-Year Barn to learn more about this tradition. Older students will enjoy clips from this documentary about an Amish barn raising. Ask students if they can think of similar events that have happened in their community. How do communities or neighborhoods come together to help others?

Extend the idea by discussing family farms. Read Cris Peterson and Alvin Upitis’ Century Farm. Show clips of what it’s like to be a child living on a family farm. 

• Art study

Ask students to tell you what they notice and wonder about in Root’s illustrations. Point out where the barn is located in relation to the rest of the farm. Show students more pieces of art featuring barns and farms, and ask them to verbalize what they notice and wonder about them. Finally, provide photographs of barns in different landscapes. Let students choose one to re-create using watercolors, oil pastels or colored pencils.

• Through the seasons

The Barn takes place on a summer day. Reread the book as a class, recording details from the the text and the illustrations that signal its summer setting. Read Alice and Martin Provensen’s The Year at Maple Hill Farm, Donald Hall and Barbara Cooney’s Ox-Cart Man and Eugenie Doyle and Becca Stadtlander’s Sleep Tight Farm. Using details from these books, ask students to articulate what would change if The Barn’s narrator were to describe a day in another season. Using a circle graphic organizer, have students draw or write seasonal details about a farm.  

If You Want to Knit Some Mittens

By Laura Purdie Salas
Illustrated by Angela Matteson

A young girl describes how to knit mittens, a process with no fewer than 18 steps. The story begins at an apple orchard where the determined protagonist talks her dad into buying a sheep. Next comes a “long, chilly winter” through which the girl keeps her new sheep “warm and well fed.” Spring arrives and brings a flurry of activity, including shearing, soaking, squeezing, carding, spinning, growing and dyeing wool. Finally, it’s time to “get some knitting needles and learn to knit.” When winter arrives again, the girl has a pair of marigold-yellow mittens and true friendship with her woolly companion. This sunny story of creativity and resourcefulness provides a lighthearted entry point to discussions about how farms produce and provide.  

• Thank you, farmers!

Show students a scarf, sweater or pair of mittens made from yarn, and ask them how many of the steps needed to make the knitted item they can recall. Segue into a discussion about the many products we get from farms. As a class, brainstorm a list of these things.

Read Lisl H. Detlefsen and Renée Kurilla’s Right This Very Minute, G. Brian Karas’ On the Farm, at the Market, Pat Brisson and Mary Azarian’s Before We Eat and excerpts from Nancy Castaldo and Ginnie Hsu’s The Farm That Feeds Us. These books will show students how we depend on farms and farmers. 

Use white card stock to create notecards for students. Cut small slits on the bottom of each card with a craft knife. Pass the cards out to students and guide them in writing thank-you notes to a local farm or farmer. Let students choose pieces of yarn to weave in and out of the slits at the bottom of the card; this activity helps develop fine-motor skills. 

• Yarn measurements

Cut pieces of yarn into various sizes and invite each student to select two or three pieces. Ask students to measure their pieces of yarn using rules or yardsticks and to record their measurements. Next, invite students to use the yarn to measure things in the classroom. Older students should record their findings using a number-sense sentence, like this:  

The pencil sharpener is greater than 6 inches but less than 12 inches. 

Younger students may simply write whether the item is longer or shorter than their piece of yarn.

Next, put small objects such as cubes, popsicle sticks or dominoes at various stations around the classroom. Ask students to choose a piece of yarn and complete the number sense sentence like so: 

My piece of yarn is as long as 20 cubes, six popsicle sticks and 12 dominoes. 

• Yarn art

Take students on a nature walk to collect 8- to 10-inch sticks. Provide long pieces of different yarns. Students will choose four or five pieces of yarn and wrap them, one by one, around their stick. This may sound like a simple activity, but it requires perseverance and fine-motor skills. You can tweak this activity by letting students wrap the yarn around simple cardboard shapes. If time permits, teach older students how to finger knit.

Cold Turkey

By Corey Rosen Schwartz and Kirsti Call
Illustrated by Chad Otis

It’s no surprise that Turkey wakes up “c-c-cold,” because it’s 10 degrees outside! Bundled up in a green coat, a blue scarf, black boots and a red and white striped hat, Turkey ventures out for a trip around the barnyard. As he checks in with each animal, including Sheep, Chicken, Horse, Cow and Pig, he finds them just as cold as he is, so compassionate Turkey shares his warm clothing with them. When he arrives back home, he is “cold and bare / in just his birthday suit!”

Meanwhile, his barnyard friends have joined forces and built a roaring campfire. They beckon Turkey to join, and soon our cold Turkey is a “toasty turkey.” Equal parts humorous and warmhearted, Cold Turkey is filled with vibrant language and clever wordplay. It’s a tender and tongue-twistingly terrific read aloud.

• Alliteration

From a chilly chicken to a shivering sheep, Cold Turkey is full of alliteration. Define this term for students and locate examples in the book. If time allows, read other books or poems with alliteration. I like A My Name Is Alice by Jane E. Bayer and Steven Kellogg, Animalia by Graeme Base and the poems at this link. Provide students with an alphabetical list of adjectives and ask them to write and illustrate their own name alliteration sentences, such as, “Industrious Iris illustrated an interesting icy igloo.”

• Readers’ theater

After reading Cold Turkey aloud for a second time, assign roles to several students. Give the students signs, props or costumes to designate their characters. Make a large part of the classroom a “stage” and help students act out the story. For the first time through, narrate the story. As students become more familiar with the process, let different students narrate or retell the story as their classmates act it out.

Two picture books explore the art and craft of writing and storytelling, offering advice and encouragement for budding young writers.

In How to Make a Book (About My Dog), Chris Barton answers a question that children often ask him when he visits schools as a children’s author: “How do you make your books?” 

Barton guides readers through the process from start to finish in great detail, using his dog, Ernie, as a hypothetical subject for a nonfiction picture book. He begins by discussing the research he must do even when he’s working on a familiar topic. He describes drafting and revision, explains how illustrators come on board and contribute, and then ends with the nitty-gritty of copyediting, printing and shipping books. Along the way, he introduces the team of people who help to transform ideas into books that readers can hold in their hands, including literary agents, editors, art directors, typesetters, proofreaders, publicists, warehouse employees and more. 

How to Make a Book (About My Dog) perfectly addresses the intense curiosity many children have about the mechanics of writing and publishing a book while shining a light on many stages in the process to which readers are not often privy. Barton’s narration is engaging and full of personality, and Ernie becomes a fun character in his own right. The book’s extensive back matter provides a detailed timeline that reveals exactly how long it took to create this very book, beginning when Barton and his family adopted Ernie from a rescue organization and touching on an early concept for a different book that ultimately didn’t work out. 

Illustrator Sarah Horne dramatizes each step with bright, cartoonlike scenes and characters. Infographics, panels and charts; arrows, stars and other visual icons; and a wide variety of hand-lettered fonts transform what could be a dry nonfiction text into a friendly and appealing journey. This guide showcases the challenging but rewarding work of bookmaking with humor and optimism.

Author (and BookPage contributor) Deborah Hopkinson and illustrator Hadley Hooper’s The Story of a Story takes a poetic approach to the question of where inspiration comes from. In rhythmic free verse, Hopkinson addresses a child with “endless curiosity, / and a deep longing / to create, to write, / to say something about the world—to tell a story.” 

Hooper’s illustrations show the child coming inside on a snowy day, taking off their coat, hat and boots, and sitting down at a table in front of a big window. Everything the child needs is at hand: paper, pencils, a snack and even a faithful dog at their feet, but “the words won’t come.” Darkness falls and crumpled papers pile up around the table. While taking a break to eat a cookie, the child notices a chickadee outside the window who is also eating. Inspiration doesn’t so much strike as emerge slowly, and the child returns to the blank page, picks up their pencil and begins again, writing “just one word. And then another.”

Hopkinson’s use of the second person gives the text an intimate feel, and her short sentences draw readers into the push and pull of the blank page, capturing the way that inspiration is so often a series of starts and stops. Hooper uses a spare color palette dominated by blues and whites, with occasional pops of yellow, brown and red, conveying both the wintry setting and suggesting the calm stillness of mind required for creativity to flow. 

As much about perseverance as it is about creativity and storytelling, The Story of a Story has a wonderful focus on process over product. It offers lovely encouragement to young writers, urging them to push beyond obstacles in their paths and discover the stories that only they can tell. 

Pull up a chair and dig into a four-course feast of picture books! These books offer innovative depictions of what it means to express gratitude, to share a meal and to be both welcoming and welcomed.

Thankful

“Every year when the first snow falls, we make thankful chains to last us through December,” explains the narrator of Thankful. She is stretched out on her bedroom floor, surrounded by a halo of colorful construction paper, hard at work transforming it into a paper chain. As she lists the things for which she is thankful, readers glimpse scenes of her life with her parents, new sibling and pet dog, at her school and with her friends. 

Author Elaine Vickers’ text is wonderfully evocative. The girl’s list includes concrete and sensory observations, such as gratitude for “the spot under the covers where someone has just been sleeping” and “a cloth on my forehead when I feel sick.” In a humorous beach scene, the girl reflects that she is thankful “for wind and sand—but not at the same time.” 

Readers will be entranced by Samantha Cotterill’s outstanding and unique art. To create her illustrations, Cotterill creates miniature 3D interiors, populates them with cutout characters, then photographs each diorama. She includes charming details, including real lights in various rooms and shining car headlights, along with construction paper chains so realistic in appearance that you’ll feel you could almost touch them. Colorful and original, Thankful will spark young readers to create their own thankful chains—and may inspire them to try their hand at making diorama art, too.

★ Let Me Fix You a Plate

The excitement of family gatherings is at the heart of Let Me Fix You a Plate: A Tale of Two Kitchens, inspired by author-illustrator Elizabeth Lilly’s annual childhood trips to see her grandparents. The book follows a girl, her two sisters and their parents as they pile into a car and drive first to West Virginia to their Mamaw and Papaw, then continue to Florida to visit their Abuela and Abuelo, before they finally return to their own home.

Lilly’s energetic illustrations capture these comings and goings, as well as the abundant details the narrator observes in her grandparents’ homes. At Mamaw and Papaw’s house, she sees a shelf of decorative plates and coffee mugs with tractors on them, eats sausage and toast with blackberry jam and helps make banana pudding. Abuela and Abuelo’s house is filled with aunts, uncles and cousins and the sounds of Spanish and salsa music. The girl picks oranges from a tree in the yard and helps make arepas. 

Throughout, Lilly’s precise prose contributes to a strong sense of place. “Morning mountain fog wrinkles and rolls,” observes the girl on her first morning in West Virginia, while in Florida, “the hot sticky air hugs us close.” Lilly’s line drawings initially seem simple, almost sketchlike, but they expertly convey the actions and emotions of every character, whether it’s Mamaw bending down to offer her granddaughter a bite of breakfast or a roomful of aunts and uncles dancing while Abuelo plays guitar. Like a warm hug from a beloved family member, Let Me Fix You a Plate is a cozy squeeze that leaves you grinning and a little bit breathless. 

Saturday at the Food Pantry

“Everybody needs help sometimes” is the message at the heart of Saturday at the Food Pantry, which depicts a girl named Molly’s first trip to a food pantry with her mom. 

Molly and her mom have been eating chili for two weeks; when Molly’s mom opens the refrigerator, we see that it’s nearly empty. In bed that night, Molly’s stomach growls with hunger. Molly is excited to visit a food pantry for the first time, but she isn’t sure what to expect. As she and her mom wait in line, Molly is happy to see that Caitlin, a classmate, is also waiting with her grandmother. Molly greets her enthusiastically, but Caitlin ignores her. “I don’t want anyone to know Gran and I need help,” Caitlin explains later.

Molly’s cheerfulness saves the day, and the girls’ interactions contribute to a normalizing and destigmatizing representation of their experience. Molly asks her mom questions that reveal how the food pantry differs from a grocery store. Mom must check in before she begins shopping, for instance, and there are limits on how many items customers can have. “Take one bundle” reads a sign in the banana basket. 

Author Diane O’Neil captures her characters’ trepidations head-on. Mom smiles “just a little, not like when they played at the park” at the volunteer who signs her in, and Molly is confused and sad when her mom tells her to put a box of cookies back because “the people in charge … want us to take sensible stuff.” Gradually, however, the occasion transforms into a positive experience for all. 

Food insecurity can be a sensitive topic, and O’Neil—who went to a food pantry when she was a child—handles the issue in a reassuring, informative way. A helpful end note from the CEO of the Greater Chicago Food Depository explains that millions of people in the United States need help just like Molly and her mom, and provides readers resources to find it. 

Illustrator Brizida Magro is a wizard of texture, whether depicting Molly’s wavy hair or the wonderful array of patterns in coats, sweaters and pants. Her ability to capture facial expressions and convey complex emotions is also noteworthy; it adds to the book’s emotional depth and makes the eventual smiles all the more impactful. The pantry shoppers’ diversity of skin tone, age and ability underscores how food insecurity can affect anyone. Saturday at the Food Pantry brims with sincerity and a helpful and hopeful spirit.

A Hundred Thousand Welcomes

“In one place or another, at one time or another, in one way or another, every single one of us will find ourselves in search of acceptance, help, protection, welcome,” writes Mary Lee Donovan in her introduction to A Hundred Thousand Welcomes, illustrated by Lian Cho.

With poetic text that reads like an invocation, the book is a fascinating around-the-world tour that explores the concept of welcome. On each page, a household from a different culture entertains guests. Many pages include the corresponding word for “welcome” in that culture’s language, including words and phrases in Indonesian, Arabic, Mandarin Chinese and Lakota Sioux. Back matter from Cho and Donovan explains the inspiration that sparked their collaboration and offers more information about the many languages spoken throughout the world and a detailed pronunciation guide to all of the words in the book.

Cho’s art is a multicultural feast of families and friends enjoying each other’s company. There’s a German chalet where kids play in the snow, a Bengali family greeting visitors who arrive in a small, colorful vehicle and more. The disparate scenes culminate in two shining spreads. In the first, people of all ages and nationalities share a meal at a table that’s so long, it can only fit on the page thanks to a breathtaking gatefold. In the next, an equally long line of kids sit atop a brick wall, chatting with each other and gazing up at a night sky full of stars as one child turns around and waves at the reader.

Although many picture books celebrate the fellowship of friendship and the love that flows during family gatherings, A Hundred Thousand Welcomes encourages readers to go one step further, to ready their own welcome mats and invite neighbors and strangers alike into their homes and hearts.