Sarah Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan

Sarah Plain and Tall is a story about a family in search of a mother. Caleb and Anna miss their mother. She died the day after giving birth to Caleb. One day, their father decides to put an advertisement in the paper for a wife. Sarah responds with a letter. The family writes letter back and forth to Sarah until she decides to come meet and get to know the family for a month. Anna and Caleb are excited to meet Sarah. Sarah comes to the family wearing a yellow bonnet and when they see her she is plain and tall just like she said she would be. Caleb and Anna think that Sarah wants to leave when she asks their father to teach her to ride a horse and drive a buggy. Sarah does not leave. She comes back from town and brings paints for the children to use that represent the colors of the sea in Maine. She stays for good and will be marrying Pa soon. Anna and Caleb will finally get the mother they always dreamed of.

This chapter book is full of adventure and children would love to read it. Teachers could use this book to open the dialogue about single parent families or step parents. Even though some students may be in different situations, there are many ideas that could be discussed about families.

The Watsons Go To Birmingham 1963 by Christopher Paul Curtis

Create your own video slideshow at animoto.com.

This novel tells a story of a African American family that lives in Flint, Michigan. The family consists of two sons, Byron & Kenny, one girl, Joetta, and a mother and father. The family goes through struggles with their oldest son Byron and threaten him numerous times to send him to Birmingham to stay with his grandmother. Byron does not believe that his parents would send him away and he kept acting out. Finally, his parents had enough and they pack up the family in the "Brown Bomber" and drove for 3 days until they reached Birmingham, Alabama. While they are visiting, the family encounters a tragedy that occurs at a church in Birmingham. Someone bombed the church and for little girls died. The family comes together when they all need each other the most.

Teachers can use ANIMOTO videos in their classroom to give their students an opportunity to create their own videos. It is very simple to make. The student needs to have pictures in order to create the video and ANIMOTO provides music that students can choose from to make the video even more special.

Freckle Juice by Judy Blume

Andrew Marcus wanted freckles. Nicky, a boy in Andrew's class had freckles and Andrew envied him. One day, Andrew asked Nicky how he got freckles. Nicky told him that he was born with them! On the way home from school, Sharon told Andrew how he could get freckles just like Nicky. She had a secret recipe that she could sell Andrew so that he can get freckles.

Sharon charges $.50 for the formula. Because this story happened in the 1970s, $.50 was a lot of money for Andrew to give Sharon. It was 5 weeks of allowance! After tossing and turning all night, Andrew finally decided to buy the freckle juice recipe. When he received the recipe he ran all the way home to make it. after he drank the disgusting juice, he became sick and had to stay from school the next day.

This book tells students how wanting what others have is not good and being an individual is more important. This book show diversity among students as well as differences in the human body. Teachers could get students to write stories about how they received a scar that they have.

The Time Machine and Other Cases By Semour Simon

Einstein Anderson is a very smart boy. He uses science to solve lots of riddles and problems that his friends have. In this chapter book, Einstein solves cases such as "Mysterious Tracks, Disappearing Ice Cream, and the Lightweight Rocket". Since Einstein is so smart his friends always try to trick him. His friend Margaret tries to fool Einstein with mysterious animal tracks in the woods but Einstein knew that she was not telling the truth. He used science to figure out that she made up an animal and the tracks too!

Teachers could use this book to teach students that science is everywhere. If Einstein did not understand science , he could not solve all of the mysteries in the book. This book also gives the reader a chance to solve the mystery before Einstein does so it engages the reader in the text.