# IMWAYR - AMAZING New Finds

Click on the picture for more great posts like this one!

First off, I imagine it's rather apparent by now that Bryn and I are a sucker for books. In fact, our husbands would say slightly obsessed. So even though I am really attempting to not spend my entire pay check on kids books I was drawn to a couple of great new titles at my children's Scholastic Book Fair at their school.  I admit I am drawn to the covers of books. I know it's not a good idea to judge a book by it's cover but I can't help it, I'm visual.  

Nightsong - Written by Ari Berk and illustrated by Loren Long. The Book Nightsong was new to me, in fact I've never heard of it before (or seen it for that matter) but it captured my attention.  In reading it it captured my heart. It is a beautiful story of a bat and its mother. It touches on some beautiful underlying themes (of common sense, intuition and separation) and has some great bat facts!  On the back it says "Sense is the song you sing out into the world, and the song the world sings back to you." This quote would be a great springboard for this book. I can't wait to see what my students think this quote means. Admittedly it made me think, "What is the song I sing into the world and what song am I hearing?" I'll let you know how the lesson goes in another post.

---

Bear Sees Colors - Written by Karma Wilson and Jane Chapman.  Bear sees Colors is a cute book that lends itself to a great writing activity.  It's rhythmic pattern would be easy to recreate and have students come up with their own text.  In our Writing Station we are doing lots of work on the building blocks of sentences, so this book lends itself perfectly to our study of adjectives (and word choice!).  The pictures and the words are captivating to little audiences!

---

hello! hello! written by Matthew Cordell.  Hello! Hello! is an incredibly intelligent book. With little language (much like the book Hug by Jez Alborough) there is tons of room for inference and, in today's technology obsessed world, more connections than we would probably like to admit.  There have been a number of books written lately about being "present" where we are and this is another great one.  This book will illicit some great conversation and I am very intrigued to hear what my "phone toting" students have to say about it!  

---

Born from the Heart - By Berta Serrano.  There aren't many books that can bring me to tears with just the title. But this is one of them.  My family is made up of three incredible children.  My oldest daughter is my born from the heart daughter. I met her when she was five and I started dating her dad.  From that moment on I have told her she was born in my heart, not my belly.  She is now 17 and I know the love you feel for your children is not determined on whether or not they grew on your inside. This book is an incredibly beautiful illustration of that journey. This book also hits close to my heart as two of our dear friends are in the process to adopt.  This process is so incredibly beautifully illustrated here and would be a beautiful book to read to classes of students and show just one more way a family can be born.  Thank you Berta Serrano for so beautifully illustrating the song in my heart!! 

---