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.

A contemporary Japanese artist, Yayoi Kusama is often called “the princess of polka dots.” Ella Baker was an activist in the American civil rights movement. Flannery O’Connor is considered one of the greatest American writers. At first glance, these three women and their life’s work overlap very little. But as I learned more about Kusama, Baker and O’Connor from these these three books, I was struck by two commonalities: Each woman held tight to strong ideals and personal convictions, and these ideals and convictions the driving force behind their work—work that became their legacy and affected the future for generations.

As I sit here typing this, I’m wearing a long-sleeved sweatshirt covered with subtle polka dots. Next to my chair is a stack of reading material; the pile includes the July 2020 issue of Rolling Stone magazine with Kadir Nelson’s protest artwork on its cover, and my book club’s September selection, A Good Man Is Hard to Find, O’Connor’s short story collection. The traces of these three women in my little bubble of personal space are but a small reflection of their wide-reaching, significant and lasting cultural impact.

Kusama, Baker and O’Connor each touched the future, but much of their work was accomplished behind the scenes. They didn’t seek the spotlight or cave to societal expectations. Perhaps this is why their names are not well recognized in schools across the United States. Perhaps this is why their stories remain largely untold. When classes begin again, I look forward to introducing my students to Kusama and her polka dots, to Baker and her peaceful protests and to Flannery and her peacocks.

Yayoi Kusama Covered Everything in Dots and Wasn’t Sorry
by Fausto Gilberti

As a child growing up Matsumoto, Japan, Yayoi Kusama loved drawing and longed for the day when she could travel to learn about artists around the world. She moved to America and was a struggling artist until Georgia O’Keefe took interest in her work and connected her with an art gallery. Soon Kusama’s modern and experimental artwork gained recognition and she began making films, outfits and mirrored rooms. When she returned to Japan, she continued to work, always pushing boundaries and adding her trademark polka dots to everything from pumpkins to dresses to walls. This story of Kusama’s boundary-breaking artwork is an excellent way to introduce students to a new artist and to the concept of modern art.

• Design an Infinity Room

Show students photographs of Kusama’s infinity rooms and watch these two videos. Discuss the concepts of repetition and infinity. As a class, talk through the design of an infinity room. Discuss its theme and how the theme will be carried and enforced throughout the room. Write notes on a piece of chart paper, then let students work independently or in pairs to brainstorm, design, draw and color their personal infinity room.

• Celebrate Dot Day

Each September, children around the world celebrate International Dot Day. Pair this book with Peter Reynolds’ The Dot and invite students to stretch the boundary of what constitutes a dot. In Reynolds’ book, a teacher challenges a resistant little girl to “make her mark.” Lead a class discussion on artists who made their mark and ask students to explain how Yayoi Kusama continues to make her mark in the world. 

Provide students with a large variety of art supplies (including different colors of paper and several forms of artistic mediums) and let them create polka dot art. Provide dot stickers in a range of sizes for students who wish to take that approach. If possible, display images of Kusama’s artwork around the classroom room for inspiration.

Lift as You Climb: The Story of Ella Baker
by Patricia Hruby Powell,
illustrated by R. Gregory Christie

Growing up under the bright North Carolina sun, young Ella Baker listened to her grandfather’s sermons, her grandmother’s stories and her mother’s gentle admonition to “lift as you climb.” Their influential words guided her as she grew up to become a leader in the civil rights movement who worked tirelessly to make sure that people of all backgrounds and classes were represented in the fight for equal rights. Working alongside prominent figures such as Martin Luther King Jr. and members of the NAACP and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, Baker focused on grassroots efforts that sought change “from the bottom up.” She gathered other like-minded people, “workers, partners, believers—mostly women,” and together they visited community institutions such as bars, schools and bootblack parlors to make sure that people of all backgrounds were educated about their rights. She always left people with her personal driving question, “What do you hope to accomplish?”

Ella’s life was one of quiet and persistent leadership. She didn’t seek the spotlight, but instead dedicated her energy and effort toward meeting with individual people and encouraging them to “lift and climb.” Too often students learn about vocal, outgoing leaders with little attention given to the figures outside the limelight who make just as much of a difference by faithfully serving and loving their communities. Ella’s life and the question she asked others, “What do you hope to accomplish?” illustrates how every person has the power to make a difference.

• Grassroot Efforts

“Ella worked from the bottom up— /from the grass roots.” Explain the concept of grassroots organizing as it applies to politics and community change. It can be a tricky idea for students to grasp, but discussing practical action steps and showing students examples of grassroots efforts will help them conceptualize it. Read Andrea Beaty’s Sofia Valdez, Future Prez and F. Isabel Campoy’s Maybe Something Beautiful, then let students articulate how the characters in these books created community change through grassroots efforts. Remind students of Ella’s driving question, “What do you hope to accomplish?” Give them a few minutes or an evening to consider what change they would like to see in their school or community. Afterward, give them time to discuss with each other ideas for small “grassroots” action steps that would help make progress toward their goals.

• Current Event Connection

2020 has been a historic year in the United States. Ask students what they know about the events and social movements that have taken place all over the country. With older students, read news stories about peaceful protests and about those that became violent and discuss the differences between the two. Ask students to consider how Ella Baker might have responded to this year’s events. Using the information learned from the book, help students use inferencing and synthesizing skills to articulate what they think Ella Baker would be doing to support and further social justice if she was still alive today.

The Strange Birds of Flannery O’Connor
by Amy Alznauer,
illustrated by Ping Zhu

“Right from the start young Flannery took a shine to chickens.” Perhaps she connected with them because her pigeon toes and big imagination caused her to feel “like kind of an odd bird herself.” Using birds as a connecting thread, Alznauer tells the story of Flannery O’Connor’s life, from her days struggling to fit in at a girls prep school to the ways she found solace in her writing, before concluding with her early death. From her time spent at the Iowa Writer’s Workshop to the years she spent on her family farm with her peacocks, O’Connor constantly observed people and their choices. She realized if she studied something hard enough, “she could always discover some hidden strangeness, making it beautiful and funny and sad all at the same time.” By paying attention to her oddities, unique worldview and her fascination with chickens and peacocks, Alznauer paints a realistic and relatable picture of one of America’s great writers. Though they will not encounter her writing until they are older, O’Connor’s diligent work ethic, her bizarre characters and her love of strange birds are sure to make an impression on students.

• Peculiar Pet Persuasive Paragraphs

From chickens to peacocks, Flannery had some peculiar pets. Give students time to research their “dream” pet. Use this writing activity to review the process of gathering and recording important and valid information. After they have finished collecting information, guide students into using it to write a persuasive letter to their parents. Write three or four questions on a piece of chart paper and remind students that they must address each question at some point in their letter. Provide an outline for younger students to scaffold their first persuasive letter draft.

• Short Story Study

Flannery O’Connor’s short stories are read and studied around the world. Short stories and short story collections are often overlooked in the elementary school classroom. Teach a quick short story mini-lesson; emphasize the idea that a short story is a short piece of fiction with a beginning, middle and end. Read an example of a strong short story and then provide several short story collections containing authors from diverse backgrounds and stories with diverse themes, genres and characters. 



Some of my favorites include Virginia Hamilton’s Her Stories: African American Folktales, Fairy Tales, and True Tales, Betsy Bird’s Funny Girl: Funniest. Stories. Ever., James Herriot’s Treasury for Children and Angela McAllister’s A Year Full of Stories: 52 Classic Stories From All Around the World.

For the next couple of days, allow children time to read selections from the collections. With younger students, read one or two stories aloud each day for a couple of weeks. At the conclusion of the study, older students can share their favorite short story or practice writing their own and younger students can illustrate a scene from their favorite story.

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 will never forget the beginning of the 2020-2021 school year. Two solid weeks of laptop distribution, intense virtual training, online courses construction and constant communication with school families and co-workers had my mind spinning. Like most teachers, I thrive on routine and love starting each school year with at least two or three months of lesson plans. This school year has forced me to loosen my tight grip and perfectionist tendencies. My district started the year teaching remotely, but students might return to the school building after the Labor Day holiday, or we could shift to a hybrid model. And, yes, there are about a dozen other possible scenarios!

Navigating the new and submitting to the unknown can be hard for teachers. Yesterday, three of my teacher friends came, individually, to the library, laptop in hand and tears in their eyes. I offered them chocolate and a place to express their frustrations and then reminded them that their frustrations and tears are caused by the grief of being separated from their students and not knowing how to best teach, guide and love them over the next few months. Teachers all around the world are working hard to overcome to 2020’s challenges and to master its new learning landscape, in which almost nothing goes as expected.

For the week ahead, I have a full schedule of synchronous classes, where I will be in the digital classroom at the same time as my students. Naturally, I have everything ready, planned and prepared. But I know that the next five days will bring an assortment of frustrations as my students and I attempt to connect with each other and build community through our screens. I’ve stuck a Post-it note with the word “grace” next to the keyboard on my laptop. It reminds me that I need to have grace for computer failures and slow Wi-Fi, grace for students who can’t (or won’t) mute their microphone or who constantly change screen backgrounds, grace for parents who email me multiple times a day, grace for applications that freeze in the middle of a lesson and grace for myself as I learn how to teach through a computer.

During the first month of teaching, I will focus on forming connections, building community and embracing change—ideas that are everywhere in the books in this column. Below, I’ve provided suggestions for how to use these books as foundations in virtual learning settings. But the most important virtual learning suggestion I can offer? Teach from a place of grace. Godspeed, teachers!

Playing Possum
by Jennifer Black Reinhardt

Alfred, a lonely possum, has trouble making friends because his “nervous nature” causes him to “freeze and play dead.” One day while browsing an outdoor bookstore, he notices Sophia, an armadillo with a similar problem. When they initially encounter each other, Alfred plays dead and Sophie roles up into her shell. After they unfreeze and unfurl, Alfred and Sophia bond over their anxious natures and reach out to other woodland creatures with similar defense mechanisms. An empowering story of empathy, Playing Possum will resonate with and reassure shy students and offer insight for more outgoing spirits.

• Emotion scenarios

Email emotion cards to families. (You can find a variety of versions for free online; choose the ones that work will best for your students.) Ask students to print and cut out their cards before the next class meeting.

At the next meeting, tell students to lay out their cards in front of them. Share emotional scenarios with students and invite them to hold up the card that best describes how they would feel in the situation. Discuss how everyone reacts to situations differently and how the same scenario can cause two people to have different emotions.

• Animal adaptations

Prompt students to discuss whether Playing Possum is a fictional story or an informational text. After they identify it as fiction, ask students if there are parts of the story that can be informational. Use this discussion to launch into learning about animal adaptations and self-defense behaviors and to read informational books on the subject. I recommend Showdown: Animal Defenses by Jennifer Kroll and Animal Defenses: How Animals Protect Themselves by Etta Kaner.

• Mindfulness routine

Ask students how humans can “play dead” or “curl up” like Alfred and Sophia. Share strategies we can practice when we feel nervous or scared, then lead them through a mindful breathing exercise. Begin and end your next few virtual class meetings with a mindful breathing routine.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Get ready to return to the classroom with four picture books that capture the excitement, trepidation and curiosity of the first day of school!

Southwest Sunrise
by Nikki Grimes,
illustrated by Wendell Minor

Jayden is not happy about his family’s move from New York City to rural New Mexico. With his baseball hat pulled over his eyes, he pouts for the entire plane ride. He falls asleep under a picture of Lady Liberty, convinced there is nothing great about New Mexico. When he wakes up the next morning, he is surprised by the beautiful mountain outside his bedroom window. Guidebook in hand, he ventures out for a walk and his preconceived notions about the his new home begin to change as he discovers colorful flowers, towering rock structures and desert creatures. Lyrical language and sweeping illustrations will capture children’s attention in this story of how unexpected change can be surprising and beautiful. Southwest Sunrise will help students cultivate wonder and an appreciation for new circumstances.

• Reframe our perspective

Jayden did not want to leave New York City and move to New Mexico. Ask students if Jayden’s emotions reflect how they feel about virtual learning, cancelled plans or separation from their friends and teachers. Let each student share something that makes them sad, frustrated or disappointed. Using Google Slides, Padlet or another online learning space, record students’ disappointments. Share your screen so that your students can see one another’s responses.

Revisit Southwest Sunrise and Jayden’s experience with his new home. Ask whether Jayden’s new environment was as terrible as he had anticipated it would be on his plane ride. Invite students to shift their perspective on remote learning by sharing positives about this new way of learning. Record these responses and share your screen with the class.

• Google Earth explorations

Google Earth can be a fantastic virtual learning resource. While sharing your screen, show students some well-known streets in New York City, such as Broadway, Fifth Avenue and Canal Street. Then “fly” to the New Mexico desert and let students help you hunt for some of the wildlife that Jayden discovered on his nature hike.

• Otherworldy visitors

Ask students to consider your region of the country. What are some features that make it unique? Remind them to consider climate, geographical features and wildlife. Give students this writing prompt:

You are an alien from another planet, and you have just landed in [your hometown]. You stay here for two months. Write a letter to your friends back home describing your vacation in [your hometown]. Be sure your letter includes the unique features of our region.

Invite students to type their letters on a shared class document. Encourage them to include photographs to support their writing.

Our Favorite Day of the Year
by A.E. Ali,
illustrated by Rahele Jomepour Bell

On his first day of kindergarten, Musa is skeptical when his teacher says, “Look around the room. You don’t know them now, but these faces will become your closest friends this year.” He guesses that Moises, Mo and Kevin, the other students at his table, are also doubtful about this proclamation. For show-and-tell, each student is asked to share their favorite day of the year so that the class can celebrate it with them. The children become close as they learn about favorite days including Eid al-Fitr, Rosh Hashanah, Los Posadas and Pi Day. Brimming with energy and cheer, Our Favorite Day of the Year is a classroom story celebrates diversity, acceptance and friendship.

• Favorite day bags

Ask students to think about their favorite day of the year. It can be an official holiday, but it can also be an informal day like the first day of school, the birthday of a personal hero or a specific observance such as National Pancake Day.

Have students to fill a brown paper lunch bag with items that explain or represent their favorite day. For the next few class meetings, allow students to virtually share their favorite day bags and explain why this day is special for them and their family. Encourage students to add music or movement to their presentations.

• Celebration days

Students (and their teachers) love daily class routines. Make every day a holiday by starting each class meeting with a slide that explains the significance of the day. Like the favorite day bags, each day doesn’t need to be an official holiday. Include the birthdays of significant historical figures, international cultural celebrations and quirky observations. It’s a festive way of marking each day and exposing students to a wide variety of new information.

Ordinary city life becomes extraordinary when seen through the eyes of talented author-illustrators Chris Raschka and Christy Hale.

Two-time Caldecott Medalist Chris Raschka’s In the City celebrates the joys of newfound friendship. Two girls, one Black and one white, make their way separately through a city while pigeons circle overhead. “Could a friend be waiting for me?” they each wonder.

As the girls walk, pigeons soar above and settle down to roost on a statue in a park. The girls sit on the same park bench and watch the birds. “Now we see them one for one,” the text says, highlighting differences among the birds, including gleaming rainbows of colored feathers. A turn of the page finds the girls facing each other, reaching out to hold hands as the flock takes flight around them. Raschka asks, “How do two friends find each other?”

Raschka’s watercolor city teems with color and movement. Reddish buildings give way to park trees in myriad shades of green. He unites the girls and the birds through a similar shade of blue, seen on one girl’s glasses, the other girl’s hair scrunchie and the pigeons’ neck feathers. Raschka’s plain-spoken prose forms rhyming couplets that never feel forced, and his refrain evokes the coos of pigeons and is sure to be echoed by engaged young readers.

Combining all the ingredients for a perfect read-aloud picture book, In the City is a visual feast and an introspective meditation on the rewards of noticing what’s right in front of us.

The streets of Brooklyn snap into focus on the very first page of Christy Hale’s Out the Door, a salute to the daily routines that define our lives. A girl walks down the front steps of her home, heads down the sidewalk with her father and rides the bustling subway to school. Minimal text and bright, cheerful illustrations reveal every step of the journey. Tree branches arc overhead as she walks down her street. She crosses beneath a traffic light, walks down the subway station stairs, waits on a crowded platform and strolls past shops and skyscrapers.

The book’s prose is spare. “Through a tunnel in the dark” is the only text on a page with a cross section of the city, depicting the girl’s train as it travels beneath the streets. Hale styles prepositions in bold and uses different colors to set them off from the rest of the words, emphasizing the motion of the girl’s journey. Her collage illustrations initially appear as deceptively sparse as her prose, but a closer look reveals skillful use of pattern, texture and detail that brings the city to life as the girl travels through it to school and back home again.

There’s great comfort to be found in such routines, and youngsters will be riveted by the sights and sounds of Hale’s city. Out the Door is a charming read that will prompt readers to reflect on their own daily rituals.

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.

In his sometimes overlooked but oh-so-good collection, On Stories: And Other Essays on Literature, C.S. Lewis writes,

“The value of the myth is that it takes all the things we know and restores to them the rich significance which has been hidden by ‘the veil of familiarity.’ The child enjoys his cold meat, otherwise dull to him, by pretending it is buffalo, just killed with his own bow and arrow. And the child is wise. The real meat comes back to him more savory for having been dipped in a story . . . by putting bread, gold, horse, apple, or the very roads into a myth, we do not retreat from reality: we rediscover it.”

The lives of the protagonists in these three picture books are changed when they are visited by the fantastical. Children understand that an alien spaceship will never land in a forest. They know that unicorns don’t exist and that the likelihood of a bear befriending a balloon is slim. But it’s through these mythical elements, through story, that truth is uncovered. The veil of familiarity lifts, and by looking through the lens of the imaginary, children can see the impact that one individual can have on the life of another. Each of us can add light, beauty and direction to someone else’s path, whether they’re someone we see every day or someone just passing through our life for a short season.

Lights on Wonder Rock
by David Litchfield

Young Heather, who has “read all about outer space, and how sometimes aliens came down to Earth and took people away in their spaceships,” longs to be taken away herself, so she sits on Wonder Rock and beams her flashlight into the night sky. Her wish is fulfilled when a flying saucer, bursting with light and radiant color, descends, and a friendly alien shuttles her off into space. But when she catches a glimpse of her worried parents on the ship’s monitor, Heather decides to return home. But she can’t forget her extraterrestrial encounter, and for decades, Heather continues to visit Wonder Rock in the hopes of reuniting with her alien friend. She tries various methods of signaling to the vessel, but all her attempts are unsuccessful. Just when Heather, who is now a grandmother, has lost almost all hope, the flying saucer reappears. As she catches the alien up on all the ways her life has changed since childhood, Heather realizes that hiding behind the veil of familiarity is the true magic of family and the love of her children and grandchildren.

• Gratitude jars

The Stoic philosopher Epictetus is said to have written, “He is a wise man who does not grieve for the things which he has not but rejoices for those which he has.” Share this with students and ask them to share their thoughts. Define the words grieve and rejoice for younger students. Ask open-ended guiding questions to help students form connections between Epictetus’ sentiment and Lights on Wonder Rock.

Invite students to create a gratitude jar. Provide ribbon, buttons, markers and other art supplies so they can personalize their jars. Designate “gratitude jar” time each day. Turn on soft music and let students write something they are grateful for on a small slip of paper. Provide examples so that students understand they can write something big and intangible, like the love of a family member, or something small and tangible, like finding a special rock during recess. Encourage children to write something different each day. At the end of a month, let students open their jars and read all their slips. This daily exercise will cultivate a mindset of thankfulness that will last students a lifetime.

• Illustration narration

Several of the pages in Lights on Wonder Rock are wordless, so readers must “read” the illustrations. If possible, display a few panels or wordless spreads and let students narrate aloud what they think is happening in the illustration. Invite them to elaborate using prompts such as, “What makes you say that?” or “Tell us more about . . .” This simple organic visual thinking exercise build students’ oral, comprehension and inference skills.

• Extra-extraterrestrial

Provide time for older students to research aliens and society’s endless fascination with all things extraterrestrial. With younger students, read additional science fiction picture books that feature UFOs and aliens.

Margaret’s Unicorn
by Briony May Smith

When her family moves “to a faraway place, to a cottage in the mountains, to be near Grandma,” Margaret is unsure about her new home with its different smells and empty spaces. While her parents unpack, Margaret ventures out to explore the area around the cottage. On her return journey, she discovers a baby unicorn tangled in the weeds and takes it home. Over the next year, Margaret and the young unicorn become close companions, experiencing all the delights of their small mountain village together. They chase waves along the rocky beach, decorate a Christmas tree, build snow unicorns and enjoy picnics under the apple tree. With each passing season, Margaret feels less lonely and becomes happier in her new home. When spring returns, the unicorn’s mother comes back for him and the two friends must say goodbye. As she hugs her small friend, Margaret whispers, “Please don’t forget me.” Readers will be delighted to discover that he doesn’t. Margaret’s Unicorn is a warmhearted and timeless story that shimmers with the magical power of companionship.

• Relationship reflection

The baby unicorn helped Margaret adjust to her new surroundings. Ask students to think about a time when they felt lonely or scared and they were comforted by a family member, friend or animal. Begin a discussion that leads children to understand how loneliness or fear of the unknown can be assuaged by the presence of a companion. Pair students up and let them share a time when someone or something else helped them feel less alone.

• Imaginary adventures

Living in the country and finding a baby unicorn who eats flowers and drinks water touched by moonlight was the stuff my dreams were made of when I was in elementary school (and let’s be honest, are still). Invite students to create the imaginary friend of their dreams.

Use this as a creative writing exercise for older students. Encourage them to include details about their friend’s appearance, appetite, sleeping habits and personality. For younger students, provide a plethora of art supplies and let them create a visual representation of their friend. Extend the activity by asking students to describe four meaningful seasonal activities they will do with their friend.

The Bear and the Moon
by Matthew Burgess,
illustrated by Catia Chien

A red balloon catches the attention of a young black bear cub. Fascinated by its light, buoyant movement, the bear grabs hold of the balloon’s string and ties it to a stone. When the sun rises, the bear gives his new friend “a tour of his whereabouts.” After the pair climbs a tree, rolls down a hill and sits next to a waterfall, the bear hugs the balloon and it pops. Grief-stricken, the bear feels guilt and shame (“Bad Bear, he thought”) until he is touched by the light of the moon and the moon tells him, “Good bear. Kind bear. Don’t worry, bear,” and his heavy heart is lifted. Simply told but deep with transcendent truth, The Bear and the Moon demonstrates the value of shared grief and the importance of forgiving ourselves.

• Balloon play

The Italian physician and educator Maria Montessori famously declared, “Play is the work of the child.” Provide a helium-filled red balloon on a string to each student and have some fun emulating the bear’s balloon play.  

• Paired reading

After sharing The Bear and the Balloon, share Komako Sakai’s Emily’s Balloon. Ask younger students to articulate first some similarities between the two books, then some differences between them. Create Venn diagrams with older students and ask them to compare the two books independently.

• Mindfulness

Bear’s grief turned into feelings of guilt and shame and negative internal dialogue. Begin a discussion by asking, “Why is being kind and forgiving of ourselves important?” and “How can we practice overcoming negative thoughts about ourselves?”

Bear’s internal thoughts are reset and his spirit is restored by the moon. Remind students that sometimes self-doubt and despair can’t be overcome solely through our own efforts, and when we have a “heavy heart,” it’s important to reach out to a family member or a friend. “Good bear. Kind bear. Don’t worry, bear” is the moon’s message for the bear. Help students create a short mantra they can recite to themselves when they are feeling self-doubt or sadness.

Two picture books inspired by real-life community organizations demonstrate the great things we can achieve when we all pitch in.

Based on Jillian Tamaki’s experience of volunteering at a community kitchen in Brooklyn, Our Little Kitchen follows a mother and child who help a group of volunteers prepare and serve a meal for their community.

As the story begins, everyone springs into action to assemble ingredients from a garden as well as the kitchen’s cupboards and refrigerator. The group’s leader heats up day-old bread until it’s “soft and warm, as good as new!” then ponders what to do with canned beans for the third week in a row. Once the cooking starts, the pages burst with onomatopoeias in huge, sprawling letters (“glug glug glug” and “chop chop chop chop chop”). When the leader shouts “FIFTEEN MINUTES!” in a spiky speech bubble that nearly fills the whole page, the energy and urgency is palpable.

Every page sizzles and pops as Tamaki captures the kitchen’s hustle and bustle. Lively, detailed visuals abound, often depicted from unusual perspectives such as extreme close-ups and overhead angles. Even the book’s endpapers feature illustrated recipes. Tamaki’s thoughtful author’s note is the icing on this treat: “We are often told that a single person can change the world. Just think what many of us can accomplish—with our bodies, voices, votes, and hearts—together.” Our Little Kitchen is an inspiring call to action that will warm readers’ hearts and tummies.

Cooking a community dinner can be a haphazard, improvised affair, but stitching a community quilt is a measured and precise endeavor. Such contrasting processes make The All-Together Quilt the perfect counterpoint to Our Little Kitchen.

Lizzy Rockwell has more than 30 books to her name, but The All-Together Quilt is especially personal. Her author’s note describes her involvement with a Connecticut-based quilting group called Peace by Piece. Senior citizens, kids from the neighborhood and adult volunteers like Rockwell meet two afternoons each week at a senior housing facility to stitch. Their quilts hang in public libraries, a community college and a children’s museum.

Zeroing in on small acts of collaboration between kids and adults, Rockwell depicts the group making a quilt from start to finish. Her images are informative as well as narrative and include labeled diagrams of sewing tools and illustrations of classic quilt blocks. There’s even an explanation of the origins of each fabric used, from an African wax print to a Scottish plaid. The strong how-to component may encourage young readers to learn to make their own quilts.

The book’s communal spirit is epitomized in a glorious spread that shows a diverse group of people of all ages gathered around a quilting frame, working together to create something beautiful. “It takes a long time to quilt the quilt,” the text reads. “Everybody lends a hand.” The All-Together Quilt is an exemplary, colorful and moving blend of fact and fiction.

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.

The books we read in childhood hold immense power. True, many will be forgotten, but some stay lodged in the heart and forever influence the way we see the world, even as we grow into adulthood. In the words of You’ve Got Mail’s Kathleen Kelly (a character created by the inimitable screenwriters Nora and Delia Ephron), “When you read a book as a child, it becomes a part of your identity in a way that no other reading in your whole life does.”

Four childhood books that formed my identity are Emily Arnold McCully’s Mirette on the High Wire, Charlotte Zolotow and James Stevenson’s I Know a Lady, Michael Bedard and Barbara Cooney’s Emily and Cynthia Rylant and Kathryn Brown’s The Old Lady Who Named Things. Each of them extended my understanding of childhood friendship by helping me see that I could be friends with a talented acrobat, the elderly lady next door, a community eccentric or the dog down the street.

Unexpected and unconventional friendships are also at the heart of the three picture books below. Through words and pictures, they tell stories that show children the daily joys and comfortable companionship of serendipitous friendships.

Starcrossed
by Julia Denos

Eridani is a human girl “made of blood and bones.” Her best friend Acamar is “more of a constellation than a boy . . . made of space and stars.” Every evening, the two friends share their longings and questions with each other. Eridani wonders about comets and flying while Acamar wonders about sunsets and sand. Curiosity sparked, they make wishes upon each other and embark on an altogether magical experience. Alight with warmth and wonder, Starcrossed is a story of intergalactic friendship and cosmic wishes. An author’s note in which Julia Denos explains that Acamar is an actual star within the constellation Eridanus is sure to delight students.

• Stories behind the stars

Read the author’s note aloud, then show students photographs of Eridanus and the star Acamar. Explore the scientific story of the stars, then explore the connections between constellations and mythology.

• Night sky art

Denos’s full-bleed watercolor, ink, pencil and digital collage illustrations capture stunning nightscapes that set off luminous constellations that explode with astronomical energy. Give students an opportunity to emulate Denos’s striking night skies with a resistance watercolor exploration. Watercolor sets or liquid watercolors work best for this activity.

Provide students with watercolor paper, white crayons or oil pastels and various star-shaped and round stickers. The inexpensive foil star stickers and punch-hole reinforcements I bought at a local office supply store worked wonderfully.

Using the crayons and stickers, ask students to create constellations or a starry design on the watercolor paper. Then show them how to use a foam brush or thick watercolor paintbrush to paint over their design in shades of blue, green and purple. Incorporate color theory by telling students how to mix colors to create different shades, as well as how to control color intensity by using water.

After the paint is dry and the stickers are peeled off, the constellation designs will pop against the darker watercolor skies.

• World-crossed reflection

Eridani and Acamar dream of a life far different from their own. Ask students to think of a place, anywhere on Earth, that fascinates them. Provide atlases and other books with strong photographs as well as geographical and cultural information, or use Google Earth to show unique places around the world. Once students have decided on their world-crossed location, give them time to research it further.

Next, invite them to create a dialogue that resembles the conversation Eridani and Acamar share. What would they tell a friend about their current home? What do they most want to experience about their world-crossed location?

Neighbors
by Kasya Denisevich

“I know my new address by heart,” explains a little girl who has just moved to a new apartment building in the heart of a big city. Excited about her new room, she reflects, “My ceiling is someone’s floor and my floor is someone’s ceiling.” As she continues to muse about her new surroundings, the black and white illustrations shift to a cutaway view of the apartment building that reveals its tenants engaged in their daily various activities. The little girl’s thoughts head in a philosophical direction, until she finally wonders, “Do they even exist? Or maybe my building is my only neighbor. What if there is nothing at all beyond the walls of my room?” The next morning, another little girl emerges from the apartment next door. As the pair head to school, color floods the black and white illustrations, signaling the hope of new friendship. Many children will see their own thoughts and questions reflected in the little girl’s honest ponderings of the public-private dichotomy that’s part of life in a big city.

• Reminders of home

As soon as the little girl moves into her new apartment, she begins unpacking her special objects. Show students some personal items that make your classroom or house feel like home for you. Give time students time to reflect on some objects or nontangible things (for example, a particular scent, or a type of music) that make a place feel like “home” for them.

Lead a discussion to help students understand that these things can be comforting when they find themselves in a new place. Invite students to bring one of their “home objects” to share with the rest of the class. This reflection exercise will be particularly helpful for children who struggle with homesickness when they are away from home.

• Cutaway comparison

Neighbors includes three double-page cutaway illustrations of the apartment building. Define “cutaway” for students and show them a few cutaways from other books. Lead them in a discussion about the purpose of these type of illustrations, then compare Neighbors’ first two cutaways illustrations. The first shows the apartment building’s residents in their various routines. The second reimagines the neighbors as storybook characters, woodland creatures or fantastical entities. The comparison will delight students. If it’s not possible for the illustrations to be enlarged or shown on a projector, create a small center in the classroom and let students study the illustrations up close.

• Address addresses

The book’s opening lines—"I know my new address by heart: 3 Ponds Lane, Building 2, Apartment 12”—are not as simple as they might initially seem. Last fall, one of our school’s buses broke down at the beginning of its afternoon route. A new bus had to come pick up the students and take them home. A few of us went to go help with the details of the transition. I was shocked to discover that most of the students did not know their home addresses!

On a Monday, announce a class address challenge. Give each student an index card with their name and full address. Provide younger children with multiple opportunities to practice reciting their address throughout the day. Older children can practice writing their address. At the end of the week, celebrate the students who have memorized their address.

Nothing in Common
by Kate Hoefler,
illustrated by Corinna Luyken

Two children live in adjoining apartment buildings, but each assumes they have “nothing in common,” so they never acknowledge each other. However, they both love watching an elderly man play with his dog. When the dog goes missing, the two neighbors are pulled out of their solitude and united in their quest to help find the dog. Finding much more than the dog, the two children discover that they share more than just an apartment view. The search for a beloved pet will resonate with children, as will the warm reminder that reaching out can be hard, but often results in genuine connection.

• New window views

The two children live in different buildings, but when they look out their windows, they share a similar view. Show students a glimpse of what people around the world see when they look out their window by visiting the website Window Swap. It’s a simple platform that lets viewers peek out windows around the world. Each view is a small video with the name of the window’s owner in the top left-hand corner and their location in the top right-hand corner.

• Finding common ground

So often children (and adults) gravitate to children who are most like them. They quickly become friends with those who share the same interests and temperament. Before class, purposefully pair students who are not friends with each other. Give them 10 to 15 minutes to talk to each other, then ask them to write down a list of their similarities. For the next few weeks, let these pairings work together for other classroom activities. Students will discover that working together on a common goal can create a unique bond and an unexpected friendship.