Because Story Matters: Meet Elliot Baxter

Zaji Zabalerio, a film maker (Zesty Productions), is developing an interesting series of film shorts about Elliot Baxter, a high school student, slightly out of focus with at least some of his peers. What caught my eye (and held it) are all the large spaces Zabalerio composes in the work: spaces large enough to wander about, get lost, remember.

And isn't that the function of a well told story?  The invitation to wander?

Baxter is played by Rob Carroll.  Both Zabalerio and Carroll are students at Morristown high School in Morristown, NJ.

Take a look at the first installment.

We Hardly Recognize Ourselves

a former student

Not too long after after my husband explains that for every year he remains a NJ public school teacher he will bring less money home thanks to hard caps and the required co-pays for health insurance, he asks me if I would still have become an educator given the ways things are now: the absence of money, the instability of work, the disrespect. 

His question gives me pause.

Would you have done this? Or would you have become a lawyer who makes art? he asks.

A lawyer making art makes me smile, but the question really pokes at a larger sense of loss I know each of us feels.  It's not that I work as an educator, but rather that I am an educator and have been one since I volunteered as a poet in residence at a school in Harlem and realized that I loved being with kids. I was 19. We talk a lot about passion in learning, and clearly being with kids lit me up.  I had not prepared to be a teacher and returned to college to become certified.  I began teaching high school English in the 1980s and supplemented my income by tending bar. Since then I have held a range of positions in public schools: teacher, director, assistant superintendent and most recently, professor.

I think of my husband who is now an English teacher and recall when he visited my high school classroom in a rural section of NJ and stood on the top of a desk to discuss the myth of elevated works of literature and then climbed down and blew away my seniors by reading his poetry aloud.  He would later tell me that he could see how much I loved what I did and that he would like to become a teacher too. In his 40th year he sold a business in Hell's Kitchen, we lived lean, and he became a teacher.

As a teacher, I carry the memory of former students with me.  They (in)form who I am; help me to negotiate my way in the world.  Even if I never work again in education, I will remain a teacher, and the memory of the work--the art and practice of it--will continue to give meaning to my life.  It's like the speaker who at the end of William Carlos Williams's The Desert Music, declares:

                                                  I am a poet! I

am. I am. I am a poet, I reaffirmed, ashamed

See, that's what the non-educators turn expert-overnight-crowd can't comprehend.  Teaching isn't merely a job. 

There are times I forget that--doubt it.  In these days when respect is thin, money tight, obligation heavy, and everyone who has never actually been a teacher is an expert--it's easy to doubt my choices; easy to not recognize my very self.  Like the Williams's speaker who questions and reaffirms that he is a poet, my knowing and doubting brings relief and shame. 

A lawyer making art? 


Unlikely.

Visualizing School Reform & School Redesign

In 1958, Thomas Pynchon wrote "Entropy," a short story published in his book, Slow Learner.

"Nevertheless," continued Callisto, "he found in entropy or the measure of disorganization for a closed system an adequate metaphor to apply to a certain phenomena in his own world. He saw, for example, the younger generation responding to Madison Avenue with the same spleen his own had once reserved for Wall Street: and in American 'consumerism' discovered a similar tendency from the least to most probable, from differentiation to sameness, from ordered individuality to a kind of chaos. He found himself, in short, restating Gibbs' prediction in social terms, and envisioned a heat-death for his culture in which ideas, like heat-energy, would no longer be transferred, since each point in it would ultimately have the same quantity of energy; and intellectual motion would, accordingly, cease." (Slow Learner, 88-89)

I wonder about this heat-death of ideas when I think about school reform.  I was thinking about energy it takes to fuel school reform and how top-down methods simply do not produce enough energy to even sustain themselves, let alone fuel 'other' interests, approaches. Just visually the design of top-down reform for complex matters seems an odd match--perhaps a hold over based on the idea of input-output systems where the mater at hand is at best, complicated, but never complex.

Visualizing School Reform

Humans mess up such simple systems.

We are inherently unpredictable.

Rhizomatic redesign methods allow for the potential of far more energy to be produced as simultaneous actions can and often do occur as a rhizomatic system is one without a beginning or end, but exists intermezzo: in the middle of things.

Visualizing Rhizomatic Redesign

Hmm.  A bit of playing about on my part.
Wondering what you think.

Shh. Take a Trip. Now. Here. Go Home.

Go ahead and take a trip home.

Just follow the link.

Easy.

Hope you'll post your postcard (or link) after your trip.

Ready?

Click here. 

Inconsequential Noticings, Ruptures & Lines of Flight

Coming through the Rye (2010, M.A. Reilly)

It is often in the seemingly inconsequential noticings that more profound meaning emerges.  This type of moment may be characterized as line of flight.  Steve Best and Douglas Keller (1991) say a line of flight is "the full fledged deterritorializing movements away from molar identity where cracks becomes ruptures and the subject is shattered in a process of  becoming multiple. This is the plane of creativity and desire, and also of death and destruction" (p. 100).

Hmm. A lot to unpack in that statement.

The other evening my son told me that a friend of ours who is also a middle school teacher (Mr D) is developing 'mad Minecraft skills.' The 'teacher' had recently joined my son's Minecraft server and is playing with others on the server--mostly boys from around the world ages 9 to 15.  Mr D, I am told,  entered clearly in the role of learner.

Son: Mr D is not the teacher on Minecraft.
Me: How so? 
Son: Well he's learning and he's quick, but he isn't a teacher even though, you know, he is one.  He's got mad Minecraft skills, though. 
Me: Not surprising. Mr. D is really bright.
Son: I know, but he's the learner and right now it's like I'm the teacher. He's building just like I did when I started.
Me: How's that?
Son: He's got this airborne farm going and he's got a huge mine. That's what I did at first, too. It's like he's me.

This one-minute exchange with a child as he heads off to bed gets me thinking about the perceptions of teacher and learner from the vantage point of student.  Mr D is in the process of establishing a gaming center at the middle school where he works and had asked if he might join Dev's server as a way to learn a bit more before he and his students begin using Minecraft in a multi-player setting. I recognized at the time that Mr D would be learning a lot as he thought about how this virtual world of multi-players might be enacted inside a school.  What I hadn't considered was Mr D's affect on the boys who are playing on the server, especially my son. 

James Gee and Elizabeth Hayes (2011) in Language Learning in the Digital Age, define characteristics of passionate affinity spaces, such as the multi-player game Dev and Mr D are playing. Gee & Hayes write:

We have claimed that out-of-school learning in passionate affinity spaces is competition for schools as we have traditionally thought of them. Learning in these spaces is organized quite differently than in schools. Often people of different ages are together. Different people teach or mentor at different times. The emphasis is on problem solving centered on a shared theme or endeavor, not on “content” derived from a discipline (p. 73).

Curious in weeks to come to see what develops as to roles inside this Minecraft world. Specifically I am wondering what spaces are created and filled when the more traditional roles of teacher and learner shift and alter? Do nontraditional learning spaces such as a Minecraft community provide different types of occasions for the production of lines of flight than traditional classroom spaces where teacher and student roles are maintained? What happens to roles when Mr D resituates the Minecraft community he is envisioning within a middle school environment? In what ways are identities that are composed inside the Minecraft community lines of flight that become ruptures within the school community as subjects are shattered in a process of  becoming multiple?

Wondering what you think about this.


Works Cited
Best,Steven and Kellner, Douglas (1991). Postmodern Theory: Critical Interrogations. New York: Guilford Press.

Gee, James Paul and Hayes, Elisabeth R. (2011). Language and Learning in the Digital Age.  T & F Books UK. Kindle Edition.

My Favorite 100 Children's Picture Books

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Jeanne Baker's Mirror.

1. Alarcón, Francisco X. 2005. Poems to Dream Together/ Poemas para soñar juntos. Illustrated by Paula Barragán. NY: Lee & Low Books.
2. Amado, Elisa. 2007. Tricycle. Illustrated by Alfonso Ruano. Toronto: Groundwood Books.
3. Aruego, Jose. 2002. Weird Friends: Unlikely Allies in the Animal Kingdom. Illustrated by Ariane Dewey. San Diego, CA: Harcourt.
4. Baker, Jeanne. 2010. Mirror. Cambridge, MA: Candlewick.
5. ------------------. 2005. The Hidden Forest. NY: Walker Books.
6. Bial, Raymond. 2000. A Handful of Dirt. NY: Walker.
7. Bley, Annette. 2007. And What Comes After a Thousand? La Jolla, CA: Kane/Miller.
8. Brenner, Barbara. 1996. Thinking About Ants. Illustrated by Carol Schwartz. NY: Mondo Press.
9. Browne, Anthony. 2003. The Shape Game. NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
10. Bruchac, Joseph. 2000. Crazy Horse’s Vision. Illustrated by S. D. Nelson. New York: Lee & Low.
11. Bruchac, Joseph (Abenaki) & Jonathan London. 1992. Thirteen Moons on Turtle's Back. Illustrated by Thomas Locker. NY: Philomel.



S.D. Nelson Illustrator. From Crazy Horse's Vision.

12. Buchmann, Stephen & Diana Cohn. 2007. The Bee Tree. Illustrated by Paul Mirocha. El Paso, TX: Cinco Puntos Press.
13. Burleigh, Robert.  2006. Tiger of the Snows: Tenzing Norgay: The Boy Whose Dream Was Everest. Illustrated by Ed Young. New York: Atheneum Books.
14. Campbell, Nicola (Interior Salish & Metis Ancestory). 2005. Shi-Shi-etko. Illustrated by Kim LaFave. Toronto: Groundwood Books/House of Anansi Press.
15. Chen, Chin-Yuan. 2003. On My Way To Buy Eggs. La Jolla, CA: Kane/Miller Book Publishers.
16. Chin, Jason. 2009. Redwoods. NY: Flash Point.
17. Cobb, Vicki. 2004. I Fall Down. Illustrated by Julia Gorton. NY: HarperCollins.
18. Cohn, Diana. 2002. ¡Si, Se Puede!/Yes, We Can!: Janitor Strike in L.A. Illustrated by Francisco Delgado. El Paso: Cinco Puntos Press.
19. Collier, Bryan. 2004. Uptown. NY: Henry Holt.
20. Crews, Donald. 1993. Shortcut. New York: Mulberry Books.
21. Croza, Laurel. 2010. I Know Here. Illustrated by Matt James. Toronto: Groundwood Books.
22. Duggleby, John. 1998. Story Painter: The Life of Jacob Lawrence. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle.



Matt James's illustration from I Know Here.

23. Erdrich, Louise (Chippewa). 1999. Grandmother's Pigeons. Illustrated by Jim LaMarche. NY: Hyperion.
24. Figueredo, D.H. 1999. When this World Was New. Illustrated by Enrique O. Sanchez. New York: Lee & Low Books.
25. Forman, Ruth. 2007. Young Cornrows Callin Out the Moon. Illustrated by Cbabi Bayoc. San Francisco, CA: Children’s Book Press.
26. Garay, Luis. 1997. The Long Road. Toronto: Tundra Books.
27. Gerstein, Mordicai. 2002. What Charlie Heard. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
28. Giovanni, Nikki. 2005. Rosa. Illustrations by Bryan Collier. NY: Henry Holt.



Mordicai Gerstein's What Charlie Saw.

29. Girmay, Aracelis. 2005. Changing, Changing. NY: George Braziller.
30. Goldberg, Dana (ed). 2007. On My Block: Stories and Paintings by Fifteen Artists.  San Francisco, CA: Children's Book Press.
31. Gollub, Matthew. 1998. Cool Melons - Turn to Frogs: The Life and Poems of Issa. Illustrations by Kazuko G. Stone. NY: Lee & Low.
32. Gunning, Monica. 2004. A Shelter in Our Car. Illustrated by Elaine Pedlar. San Francisco: Children's Book Press.
33. Greenfield, Eloise. 2006. When The Horses Ride By: Children in the Time of War. Illustrated by Jan Spivey Gilchrist. NY: Lee & Low.
34. Herrera, Juan Felipe. 2003. Super Cilantro Girl/La Supernina del Cilantro. Illustrated by Honori Robledo Tapia. San Francisco, CA: Children's Book Press.
35. Hinojosa, Tish. 2004. Cada Niño / Every Child: A Bilingual Songbook for Kids (English and Spanish Edition). Illustrated by Lucia Angela Perez. El Paso, TX: Cinco Puntos Press.



Chris Raschka, illustrator for Skin Again.

36. hooks, bell. 2004. Skin Again. Illustrated by Chris Raschka. NY: Jump at the Sun.       
37. Iyengar, Malathi Michelle. 2009. Tan to Tamarind. Illustrated by Jamel Akib. San Francisco, CA: Children's Book Press. 
38. Johnson, Angela. 2003. I Dream of Trains. Illustrated by Loren Long. NY: Simon & Schuster.
39. Joosse, Barbara. 2004. Hot City. Illustrated by R. Gregory Christie. NY: Philomel.
40. Kalman, Maira. 2005. Fireboat: The Heroic Adventures of the John J. Harvey. New York: Puffin.
41. Kirk, Connie Ann. 2004. Sky Dancers. Illustrated by Christy Hale. New York: Lee & Low.
42. Krishnaswami, Uma. 2006. Closet Ghosts. Illustrated by Shiraaz Bhabha. San Francisco: Children’s Book Press.
43. Lainez, Rene Colato. 2010. My Shoes and I. Illustrated by Fabricio Vanden Broeck. Honesdale, PA: Boyds Mills Press.
44. Landowne, Youme. 2004. Selavi, That is Life: A Haitian Story of Hope. El Paso, TX: Cinco Puntos Press.
45. Lee, Milly. 2006. Landed. Illustrated by Yangsook Choi. NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.






46. Letria, Jose Jorge. 2006. The Moon Has Written You a Poem. Illustrated by Andre Letria.  Translated by Maurice Riordan. Kent, England: Winged Chariot Press.
47. Liao, Fu-Bin. 2006. The Sounds of Color: A Journey of the Imagination. New York: Little Brown & Young.
48. Littlechild, George (Plains Cree Nation). 2003. This Land is My Land. San Francisco, CA: Children's Book Press.
49. Liu, Jae Soo. 2002. Yellow Umbrella. Music by Dong II Sheen. San Francisco, CA: Kane/Miller Book Publisher.
50. Lofthouse, Liz. 2007. Ziba Came on a Boat. Illustrated by Robert Ingpen. La Jolla, CA: Kane/Miller.
51. Lord, Michelle. 2008. A Song for Cambodia. Illustrated by Shino Arihara. NY: Lee & Low.
52. Luján, Jorge. 2006. Tarde de invierno/Winter Afternoons. Illustrated by Mandana Sadat. Toronto: Groundwood Books.



Jae Soo Liu's illustration from Yellow Umbrella

53. Maher, Ramona. 2004. Alice Yazzie's Year. Illustrated by Shonto Begay (Diné). San Francisco, CA: Tricycle Press. 
54. Mak, Kim. 2001. My Chinatown: One Year in Poems. NY: Harper’s.       
55. Medina, Tony. 2009. I and I: Bob Marley. Illustrated by Jesse Joshua Watson. New York: Lee & Low Books.
56. Mora, Pat. 2004. Love to Mama: A Tribute to Mothers. Illustrated by Paula S. Barragan. NY: Lee & Low.  
57. Mora, Pat. 1994. Pablo’s Tree. Illustrated by Cecily Lang. New York: Simon & Schuster.
58. Myers, Walter Dean. 2009. Looking Like Me. Illustrated by Christopher Myers. NY: Egmont.  
59. Myers, Walter Dean.  2008. Jazz. Illustrated by Christopher Myers. NY: Holiday House.



Kadir Nelson's Heart and Soul.

60. Myers, Walter Dean. 2003. Blues Journey. Illustrated by Christopher Myers. NY: Holiday House.  
61. Myers, Walter Dean. 1997. Harlem. Illustrated by Christopher Myers. NY: Scholastic. 
62. Nelson, Kadir. 2011. Heart and Soul: The Story of America and African Americans. New York: Balzer & Bray.
63. Perez, L. King. 2002. First Day in the Grapes. Illustrated by Robert Casilla. NY: Lee & Low.
64. Prats, Joan de Déu. 2005. Sebastian’s Roller Skates. Illustrated by Francesc Rovira. La Jolla, CA: Kane/Miller.
65. Raschka, Chris. 1997. Mysterious Thelonious. New York: Scholastic.
66. Raschka, Chris.1992. Charlie Parker Played Be Bop. New York: Scholastic.
67. Ray, Mary Lyn. 2001. Mud. Illustrated by Lauren Stringer. San Diego, CA: Voyager.
68. Roberts-Davis, Tonya. 2004. We Need to Go to School: Voices from the Rugmark Children. Toronto: Groundwood Press.
69. Robles, Anthony D. 2003. Lakas and the Manilatown Fish/Si Lakas at ang Isdang Manilatown. Illustrated by Carl Angel. San Francisco, CA: Children’s Book Press.



Esau Andrade Vallencia's illustration from A Perfect Season for Dreaming.

70. Russell, Barbara Timberlake. 2004. The Remembering Stone. Illustrated by Claire B. Cotts. NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
71. Sáenz, Benjamin Alire. 2008. A Perfect Season for Dreaming / Un tiempo perfecto para sonar. Illustrated by Esau Andrade Valencia. El Paso, TX: Cinco Puntos Press.
72. Say, Allen. (2000). Tree of Cranes. NY: Sandpiper.
73. Sayre, Alice Pulley. 2005. Stars Beneath Your Bed: The Surprising Story of Dust. Illustrated by Ann Jonas. NY: Greenwillow.
74. Schaefer, Lola M. 2006. An Island Grows. Illustrated by Cathie Felstead. NY: Greenwillow Books. 
75. Shange, Ntozake. 2009. We Troubled the Water. Illustrated by Rod Brown. NY: Amistad.    
76. Shasha, Mark. 1992. Night of the Moonjellies. Cynthiana, KY: Purple House Press.
77. Shin, Sun Yung. 2004. Cooper's Lesson. Illustrated by Kim Coogan. San Francisco, CA: Children's Book Press.
78. Sis, Peter. 2003. The Tree of Life. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
79. Smith, Cynthia Leitich. 2000. Jingle Dancer. Illustrated by Cornelius Van Wright. NY: Harper Collins.
80. Smith, Charles R. Jr. 2002. Perfect Harmony: A Musical Journey with The Boys Choir of Harlem. NY: Jump at the Sun.   



Painting by George Littlechild from What's the Most Beautiful Thing You Know About Horses?

81. Tapahonso, Luci (Navajo). 1999. Songs of Shiprock Fair. Illustrated by Anthony Chee Emerson (Navajo). Walnut, CA: Kiva Publishing.
82. Tingle, Tim (Choctaw).  2006.  Crossing Bok Chitto:  A Choctaw Tale of Friendship and Freedom.  Illustrated by Jeanne Rorex Bridges. El Paso, TX: Cinco Puntos.
83. Trottier, Maxine. 2011. Migrant. Illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault. Toronto: Groundwood Books.
84. Van Camp, Richard. 2003. What’s the Most Beautiful Thing You Know About Horses? Illustrated by George Littlechild (Plain Cree Nation). San Francisco, CA: Children’s Book Press.
85. Waboose, Jan Bordeau. 2000. Sky Sisters. Illustrated by Brian Deines. Niagara Falls, NY: Kids Can.
86. Walker, Alice, 2007. Why War is Never a Good Idea. Illustrated by Stefano Vitale. NY: HarperCollins. 
87. Wallace, Ian. 2005. Boy of the Deeps. Toronto: Groundwood Books.
88. Watson, Reness, 2010. A Place Where Hurricanes Happen. Illustrated by Shadra Strickland. NY: Random House
89. Weatherford, Carole Boston. 2006. Dear Mr. Rosenwald. Illustrated by R. Gregory Christie. NY: Scholastic.   
90. Wiesner, David. 2001. The Three Pigs. New York: Clarion.



91. Wiesner, David. 1999. Sector 7. New York: Clarion Books.
92. Williams, Mary. 2005. Brothers in Hope: The Story of the Lost Boys of Sudan. Illustrated by R. Gregory Christie. NY: Lee & Low.
93. Winter, Jeanette. 2011. The Watcher: Jane Goodall’s Life with the Chimps. New York: Schwartz & Wade.
94. Winter, Jeannette. 2005. The Librarian of Basra: A True Story from Iraq. NY: Harcourt.
95. Wong, Janet, S. 2007. Yoga Poems. Illustrated by Julie Paschkis. NY: Margaret E. McElkderry Books.
96. Yee, Wong Herbert. 2003. Tracks in the Snow. New York: Henry Holt and Company.
97. Yoo, Paula.  2005.  Sixteen Years in Sixteen Seconds:  The Sammy Lee Story.  Illustrated by Dom Lee.  NY:  Lee & Low.
98. Yoo, Taeeun. 2007. The Little Red Fish. New York : Dial Books for Young Readers. 
99. Young, Cybèle. 2011. A Few Blocks. Toronto: Groundwood Books.
100. Young, Ed. 2005. Beyond the Great Mountains: A Visual Poem About China. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle. 

 

Brr..Winter Books To Warm You: Recommended Picture Books

From Nana's Cold Days. Illustrations by Bushra Junaid

Alarcon, Francisco X. (2005). Iguanas in the Snow: And Other Winter Poems/Iguanas en la Nieve: Y Otros Poemas de Invierno. Illustrated by Maya Christina Gonzalez. San Francisco, CA: Children’s Book Press.

Anaya, Rudolfo. (1995). The Farolitos of Christmas. Illustrated by Edward Gonzalez.  NY: Hyperion.

--------------------. (1999). Farolitos for Abuelo. Illustrated by Edward Gonzalez. NY: Hyperion.

Badoe, Adwoa. (2009). Nana’s Cold Days. Illustrated by Bushra Junaid. Toronto: Groundwood Books.

Baker, Keith. (2011). No Two Alike. San Diego, CA: Beach Lane Books.

Berner, Rotraut Susanne (Compiler). (2008). The Winter Book. Toronto: Groundwood Books.

Bouchard, David (Metis). (2008). An Aboriginal Carol. Illustrated by Moses Beaver (First Nations). Ontario: Red Deer Press.

Conrad, Heather. (2001). Lights of Winter: Winter Celebrations Around the World. Illustrated by deforest Walker.  Lightport Books.

Garza, Xavier. (2008). Charro Claus and the Tejas Kid.  El Paso, TX: Cinco Puntos Press.

Hines, Anna Grossnickle. (2005). Winter Lights: A Season in Poems & Quilts. NY: HarperCollins.

Hoyt-Goldsmith, Diane. (2004). Three Kings Day. Illustrated by Laurence Migdale. NY: Holiday House.

Hudson, Cheryl Willis. (2002). Hold Christmas in Your Heart: African American Songs, Poems, and Stories for the Holidays. NY: Scholastic

Jackson, Ellen. (1997). The Winter Solstice. Illustrated by Jan Davey Ellis. Brookfield, CT: Millbrook Press.

Jiménez, Francisco. (2008). The Christmas Gift: El regalo de Navidad. Illustrated by Claire B. Cotts. NY: Sandpiper.

Joseph, Lynn. (1996). An Island Christmas. Illustrated by Catherine Stock. NY: Sandpiper.

Keats, Ezra Jack. (1963). The Snowy Day. New York: Penguin.

Lin, Grace & Robert Mercer. (2005). Robert’s Snowflake: Artists’ Snowflakes for Cancer’s Cure. New York: Viking. .

Luján, Jorge. (2006). Tarde de invierno/Winter Afternoons. Illustrated by Mandana Sadat. Toronto: Groundwood Books.

Medearis, Angela Shelf. (2000). Seven Spools of Thread: A Kwanzaa Story. Illustrated by Daniel Minter. Morton Grove, IL: Albert Whitman & Company.

Medina, Tony. (2008). Christmas Makes Me Think. Illustrated by Chandra Cox. NY: Lee & Low Books.

Sebastian Meschenmoser's illustration from Waiting for Winter.

Meschenmoser, Sebastian. (2009). Waiting for Winter. La Jolla, CA: Kane Miller.

Mesner, Kate. (2011). Over and Under the Snow. Illustrated by Christopher Silas Neal. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books.

Momaday, N. Scott (Kiowa). (1999). Circle of Wonder: A Native American Christmas Story. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press.

Perkins, Lynne Rae. (2003). Snow Music. NY: Greenwillow Books.

Pfeffer, Wendy. (2003). The Shortest Day: Celebrating the Winter Solstice. Illustrated by Jesse Reisch. NY: Dutton.

Pinkney, Andrea Davis. (2001). Mim’s Christmas Jam.  Illustrated by Brian Pinkney. NY: Harcourt.

Say, Allen. (2009). Tree of Cranes. NY: Sandpiper.

Shulevitz, Uri. (2004). Snow. New York: Farrar, Strauss  & Giroux.

Soto, Gary. (1996). Too Many Tamales. Illustrated by Ed Martinez. NY: Puffin.

Velasquez, Eric. (2010). Grandma’s Gift. NY: Walker Children’s Books.

Verma, Jatinder. (2007). Story of Divaali. Illustrated by Nilesh Mistry. Cambridge, MA: Barefoot Books.

Whipple, Laura (Ed.). (2003). A Snowflake Fell. Illustrated by Hatsuki Hori. Cambridge, MA: Barefoot Books.

Willard, Nancy. (2011). A Starlit Snowfall. Illustrated by Jerry Pinkney. New york: Little Brown Books.

Yerxa, Leo. (1994). Last Leaf First Snowflake. Toronto: Groundwood Books.

Yolen, Jane. (2005). Snow, Snow: Winter Poems for Children. Illustrated by Jason Stemple. Honesdale, PA: Boyds Mill Press.