How many types of Fantasy Literature can you name? How many types of Folktales? Can you give examples?  Moreover, how can you use these texts to deepen students’ appreciation for literature and learning? Authors Carol J. Fulher and Maria P. Walther address these questions and many more in Literature is Back!

I’m including this review under “Tips for Teachers” because this book is overflowing with support for the elementary classroom teacher who wants to explore in depth the excitement of children’s literature.

To answer the first question regarding Fantasy Literature, the teacher may want to have children read and compare Animal Fantasy (The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, for example) with Time Warp Fantasy (Summer Reading is Killing Me by Jon Scieszka).   

A similar study of folktales could lead to a discussion of similarities and differences between Coyote and the Fire Stick (a trickster tale) and Beautiful Blackbird (a pourquoi tale).

The teacher supports in this book are first rate! Our tip is: get this book! From poetry and nonfiction to traditional tales and modern fantasy, Literature is BACK! is sure to become a well-used, beloved reference for any elementary teacher.

Call our office to place your order for Literature is Back! (List price $29.99, DLR price $20.99).

I haven’t finished reading Jonathan Kozol’s Letters to a Young Teacher, but I can’t wait to do so! All schools, Kozol reminds us, should be places of joy, delight, empathy, and kindness. In reflecting upon a song written by Fred Rogers, Kozol states:

That song inevitably makes me think, as well, of all those easily exhilarated and impulsive first-year teachers that I meet and many older teachers too who have never wholly given up the child in themselves and might not be nearly as good teachers if they ever did. I look to those teachers to hold to their hearts the legacy that Mr. Rogers left us. … I pray that teachers of all ages will reject the cheap rewards of overstated absolutes and honor instead the self-effacing virtues of the kindest man and wisest friend of children we may have the opportunity to know for many years.

There are many more quotable moments in this fine book. You can read the text I selected in the September issue of the Phi Delta Kappan, where Letters to a Young Teacher is excerpted, or you can order your own copy of the book from Dodge Learning Resources (List price $19.95, DLR price $15.56)