Using Text Sets To Broaden & Deepen Classroom Discussions

In a post by Rebecca Newland, she writes about several Kate DiCamillo's books illuminating how Stories Connect Us.  She advises:

This is a great time to feature DiCamillo’s work in classrooms and libraries. Pair the books with primary sources to help students connect to the world in the books. Display items near her work in the school or classroom library. Encourage discussions of the ways in which the primary sources might enhance or contrast with the characters or scenes that appear in the books.

Newland recommend connecting archival photographs with particular books by DiCamillo.  Having students consider both types of texts helps to deepen the learning experience. She references DiCamillo's picture book, Great Joy, that was illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline. The book tells of a small girl, Frances, who notices an organ grinder with a monkey on the street below where she is living.  It is a week before Christmas and the child is confused about where the man and the monkey go and so she asks her mother as her mother readies her for the Christmas Pageant.

Concerned, Frances remains awake that night and sees that the organ grinder and the money sleep on the street beyond her window. The story, some might say, ends abruptly and we may well wonder what is to become of the man and the monkey as the very temporary invitation for them to enter the warmth of the pageant does not alter in any way the man's homelessness. 

Now authors are not required (thankfully) to render stories neatly and easy for us--nor should homelessness be an easy topic. The space that feels somewhat empty at the end of DiCamillo's story is a space we can fill with conversation and action. Whereas Newland offers historical images of organ grinders on city streets as  a way to deepen the text, we can also supplement or change these images to more modern ones depicting homeless people.

We might want to create a text set ( a collection of books about a topic) in which we situate Great Joy. Using several picture books that we read alongside DeCamillo's helps us to talk alongside Great Joy and to talk back to the Great Joy.  For example, Tony Medina's Christmas Makes Me Think tells of a boy whose excitement about Christmas gives way to more thoughtful inquiries about having and not having.  At the close of the text, Medina outlines a few ways children can give to their communities:

from Christmas Makes Me Think

from Yellow Umbrella

In order to help children understand homelessness and/or to acknowledge homelessness, Monica Gunning's A Shelter in Our Car and Laura E. Williams' The Can Man each depict homelessness.

Works Cited

1. Disalvo-Ryan, Dyanne. (1997). Uncle Willie and Soup Kitchen. New York: HarperCollins.
2. Gunning, Monica. (2004/2014). A Shelter in Our Car. Illustrated by Elaine Pedlar. New York: Lee & Low.
3. Hazen, Barbara Shook. (1983). Tight Times. Illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman. New York: Puffin Books.
4. Medina, Tony. (2001). Christmas Makes Me Think. Illustrated by Chandra Cox.
5. Smothers, Ethel Footman. (2003). The Hard-Times Jar. Illustrated by John Holyfield. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
6. Rosen, Michael. (1992). Home: A Collaboration of Thirty Authors and Illustrators of Children's Books to Aid the Homeless. New York: HarperCollins.
7. Williams, Laura E. (2010). The Can Man. Illustrated by Craig Orback. New York: Lee & Low Books.

Making Ends Meet: Children's Books That Explore Social Class, Homelessness, and Poverty

I. Contemporary Works

Boelts, Maribeth. (2009). Those Shoes. Illustrated by Noah Z. Jones. Somerville, MA: Candlewick Press.

Castaneda, Omar. (1995). Abuela's Weave. Illustrated by Enrique O. Sanchez. New York: Lee and Low Books.

Chinn, Karen .(1997).  Sam and the Lucky Money. Illustrated by Cornelius Van wright ad Ying-Hwa Hu. New York: Lee and Low Books.

Cohn, Diana. (2005).¡Si, Se Puede! / Yes, We Can!: Janitor Strike in L.A. Illustrated by Francisco Delgado. El Paso, TX: Cinco Puntos Press.

Cohn, Diana. (2011). Roses for Isabella. Illustrated by Amy Cordova. Great Barrington, MA: Steiner Books.

Cooper, Melrose. (1998). Getting Through Thursday. Illustrated by Nneka Bennett. New York: Lee and Low Books.

from A Shelter in Our Car.

Croza, Laurel. (2010).  I Know Here. Illustrated by Matt James. Toronto, ON: Groundwood Books.

Cumpiano, Ina. (2009). Quinito's Neighborhood. El Vecindario de Quinito. Illustrated by José Ramírez. New York: Lee and Low/Children's Book Press.

DiSalvo, D. (2001). A Castle on Viola Street. New York: HarperCollins.

Fine Edith Hope. (2007). Armando and the Blue Tarp School. Illustrated by Judith Pinkerton Josephson. New York: Lee and Low Books.

Gonzalez, Rigoberto. (2003). Soledad Sigh-Sighs. Illustrated by Rosa Ibarra. San Francisco, CA: Children's Book Press. 

Gunning, Monica. (2004). A Shelter in Our Car. Illustrated by Elaine Pedlar. San Francisco, CA: Children's Book Press. 

Hazen, Barbara. (1983).  Tough Times. Illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman. New York: Puffin Books.

Kurusa. (2008). The Streets are Free. Illustrated by Monika Doppert. Buffalo, NY: Annick Press.

Lyon, George Ella. (1994). Mama is a Miner. Illustrated by Peter Catalanotto. New York: Orchard Books. 

from Yasmin's Hammer

Malaspina. Ann. (2010). Yasmin's Hammer. Illustrated by Doug Chayka. New York: Lee and Low.

McGovern, Ann. (1999).  The Lady in the Box. Illustrated by Marni Backer. New York: Turtle Books.

Mora, Pat. (2000). Tomas and the Library Lady. Illustrated by Raul Colon. New York: Dragonfly Books.

Perez, Amanda Irma. (2008). My Very Own Room/Mi propio cuartito.Illustrated by Maya Christina Gonzalez. New York: Lee and Low.

Ryan, DyAnne DiSalvo. (1997). Uncle Willie and the Soup Kitchen. New York: Harper Collins.

Seskin, Steve and Allen Shamblin. (2006). A Chance to Shine. Illustrated by R. Gregory Christie. San Francisco, CA: Tricycle Press.

Smothers, Ethel Footman. (2003). The Hard-Times Jar. Illustrated by John Holyfield.  New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

Stuve-Bodeen, Stephanie. (2008). Babu's Song. Illustrated by Aaron Boyd. New York: Lee and Low.

Williams, Laura E. (2010). The Can Man. Illustrated by Craig Orback. New York: Lee and Low.

Woodson, Jacqueline. (2012). Each Kindness. Illustrated by E.B.Lewis. New York: Nancy Paulsen Books.

II. Historical Fiction 

Birtha, Becky. (2010). Lucky Beans. Illustrated by Nicole Tadgell. Morton Grove, IL: Albert Whitman & Company.

Fitzpatrick, Mary Louise. (2001). The Long March: Choctaw's Gift to Irish Famine Relief. San Francisco, CA: Tricycle Press.

Henson, Heather. (2008). That Book Woman. Illustrated by David Small. New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers.

Hopkinson, Deborah. (2006). Sky Boys: How They Built the Empire State Building. Illustrated by James E. Ransome. New York: Schwartz & Wade Books / Random House.

Johnson Angela. (2003). I Dream of Trains. Illustrated by Loren Long. New York: Simon & Schuster.

Levitin, Sonia. (2007). Junkman's Daughter. Illustrated by Guy Porfirio. Sleeping Bear Press. 

Lied, Kate. (1997). Potato: A Tale from the Great Depression. Illustrated by Lisa Campbell Ernst. Washington, DC: National Geographic.

Lindsay, Kathleen. (2008). Sweet Potato Pie. Illustrated by Charlotte Riley-Webb. New York: Lee and Low Books.

Miller, William. (2008). Rent Party Jazz. Illustrated by Charlotte Riley-Webb. New York: Lee and Low Books.
Mills, Lauren. (1991). The Rag Coat. Boston: Little, Brown.

Rawlings, Marjorie Kinnan. (2011). The Secret River. Illustrated by Leo Dillon and Dianne Dillon. New York: Atheneum Books.

Rocklif, Mara. (2012). My Heart Will Not Sit Down.  Illustrated y Ann Tanksley. New York: Knopf.

Schoettler, Joan. (2011). Good Fortune in a Wrapping Cloth. Illustrated by Jessica Lanan. Walnut Creek, CA: Shen's Books.

Wallace, Ian. (2005). Boy of the Deeps. Toronto, ON: Groundwood Books.

III. Nonfiction

from Brave Clara

Brown, Monica. (2004). My Name Is Celia/Me llamo Celia.  Illustrated by Rafael Lopez. New York: Cooper Square Publishing.

Herrera, Juan Felipe. (2001).  Calling the Doves/El canto de las palomas. Illustrated by Elly Simmons. New York: Lee and Low Books.

Jimenez, Francisco. (1998). La Mariposa.  Illustrated by Simon Silva. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.

Lyon, George Ella. (2009). You and Me and Home Sweet Home. Illustrated by Stephanie Anderson. New York: Atheneum Books

Markel, M. (2013). Brave Girl: Clara and the Shirtwaist Makers’ Strike of 1909. Illustrated by Melissa Sweet. New York: Balzer & Bray.

Schrock, Jan West. (2013). Give a Goat. Illustrated by Aileen Darragh. Gardiner, ME: Tilbury House. 

Shulevitz, Uri. (2008). How I Learned Geography. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.

from How I Learned Geography