Saturday, March 15, 2014

The Goldfinch Awards - Week 2

Last week I blogged about three picture books that I shared with students from the Iowa Goldfinch award list.  

This week I read the second set of three books from this collection.




Chicks Run Wild by Sudipta Bardhan-Quallen is a funny, rhyming story about a mother hen who wants her children to go to bed. Every time she leaves the room, her chicks go wild - jumping on the bed, having pillow fights, and making noise.  Readers enjoyed the story even more when they realized that mother wasn't upset because she wanted her chicks to go to sleep, but instead was upset because she wasn't included in their party. 




Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes by Eric Litwin, illustrated by James Dean is a definite crowd pleaser.  The groups I read this to had already heard this story many times, but were still begging for me to read it.  Not only did I read it to them, but I shared the live performance by the author and illustrator from youtube.



Blackout by John Rocco is a personal favorite of mine.  This picture book is a Caldecott Honor Book from 2012, and I have read it many, many times already, but still am always in awe of the beautiful illustrations. A young boy and his family experience a blackout in the city where they live, which brings them together to spend some quiet time away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life. Although the electricity comes back on, the ending of the story is heartwarming as the family chooses to turn the lights off once more and enjoy some time playing a board game together.

The voting was a bit more mixed this week with these three titles, and there was not the clear hands-down winner this week, unlike last.  However, even with a little more variations in the voting, Pete the Cat was the big winner with nearly all the classes I shared it with.

So, Pete the Cat and Press Here along with additional winners from future weeks will be facing each other in our voting finals.

Since next week is spring break, we will resume our Goldfinch reading once we return.

No comments: