Book Reviews & Lists
McLeod, T. and Willett, M. (2008). The Delta is My Home. Markham, Ontario: Fifth House Ltd.
This beautiful book of pictures captures life on the Mackenzie Delta. It is written by Tom McLeod, a 6th grade student in Naklavik, and Mindy Willet, a teacher, both from the Northwest Territories. McLeod shares pictures of the landscape and daily activities upon it with his family. Like most of the town McLeod is half Gwich’in and half Inuvialuit. McLeod writes with remarkable clarity and fills the book with facts about his lifestyle, the region, and the animals that live there.
Uses for this book:
- Compare and contrast the delta we live on and the cultures
- Complete a Venn diagram comparing Yup’ik Eskimo versus the Gwich’en and Inuvialuit Indian cultures
- Make a mini version of this book about our community
- Write how to clean a moose or other local animal, or make fry bread or agutaq (Eskimo ice cream)
- Glossary skills
- Write letters to the author and ask him questions that students have about his home and the book writing process
- Collect stories from elders
- Take pictures for our book
Pinczes, E. J. (1996). Arctic Fives Arrive. Boston, MA:
Houghton Mifflin Company.
Children will love this poetically rhythmic story about arctic animals that all climb
onto a high iceberg in groups of five to view the northern lights. This book lends itself beautifully to building lessons around skip counting by fives, arctic habitat, mammals and birds, descriptive writing, vocabulary, rhyme, and sinking and floating. This book is a wonderful read aloud for
a younger elementary class as a way of introducing any of these concepts. The robust vocabulary would make Arctic Fives Arrive a wonderful book to use with upper elementary as well.
Uses for this book:
- Practice skip counting
- Sort animals into birds and mammals or by habitat using a Venn diagram.
- Predict which animals would be heaviest. Arrange pictures of the animals from the heaviest to lightest.
- Take a survey of their friends to see which arctic animal everyone likes the best.
- Watch a short video of northern lights
- Collect stories from elders about northern lights
- Northern lights art:
1.Draw a village with pencil on black paper.
2. Use colored chalk to draw northern lights above village.
3. Trace the pencil drawing of the village using Elmer’s glue.
4. Sprinkle glitter on the northern lights and/or the outline of
the glue buildings of the village.
Sloat, T. and Huffmon, B. (2004). Berry Magic. Portland, OR: Alaska Northwest Books.
Berry Magic is a beautiful myth. Long ago there were only bland wild blackberries (crowberries) until the ingenuity of a little girl changed the berries of the tundra forever by her offering to nature.
Anana contributed to her community through her quiet hard work. With loving detail she created three dolls with orange, red, and pink embellishments such as beads and fur. Then she gathered her precious dolls and hiked quietly up to the berry patch. Anana sang the little dolls into life with a Yup’ik dance singing, “Atsa-ii-yaa, Atsa-ii-yaa, Atsaukina!” meaning, “Berry. Berry. Be a berry!” The dolls leaped, bounced, and tumbled out of the bag leaving clusters of berries behind them. Sloat and Huffmon reflect the gentle nature of the Yup’ik people and their respect for elders and nature in this book.
Uses for this book:
- Read before going berry picking or beginning unit on habitat
- Discuss where we need to look for the different berries.
- Discuss order berries are ripe on the tundra and compare to the order the berries appeared in the story
- Create tundra dioramas to go with the tundra habitat.
- To introduce myths and local sayings and beliefs of our village.
- Ask elders at home invite elders into the classroom to share local beliefs about nature.
- Discuss adjectives and descriptive writing using the book as a model.
Berry Magic is a beautiful myth. Long ago there were only bland wild blackberries (crowberries) until the ingenuity of a little girl changed the berries of the tundra forever by her offering to nature.
Anana contributed to her community through her quiet hard work. With loving detail she created three dolls with orange, red, and pink embellishments such as beads and fur. Then she gathered her precious dolls and hiked quietly up to the berry patch. Anana sang the little dolls into life with a Yup’ik dance singing, “Atsa-ii-yaa, Atsa-ii-yaa, Atsaukina!” meaning, “Berry. Berry. Be a berry!” The dolls leaped, bounced, and tumbled out of the bag leaving clusters of berries behind them. Sloat and Huffmon reflect the gentle nature of the Yup’ik people and their respect for elders and nature in this book.
Uses for this book:
- Read before going berry picking or beginning unit on habitat
- Discuss where we need to look for the different berries.
- Discuss order berries are ripe on the tundra and compare to the order the berries appeared in the story
- Create tundra dioramas to go with the tundra habitat.
- To introduce myths and local sayings and beliefs of our village.
- Ask elders at home invite elders into the classroom to share local beliefs about nature.
- Discuss adjectives and descriptive writing using the book as a model.
I chose to include book reviews from a Newberry judge since she is probably a better judge of good literature than I am. I also included book lists from the Alaska Native Knowledge Network to give myself resources to learn about the native cultures of Alaska. Finally, I included a link to Amazon because it shows a long list of Alaskan children's books, which includes a picture of each book and reviews by readers.
Uses for these resources:
- Share articles and websites with other teachers and parents
- Access books and posters to provide background knowledge for myself and my students from ANKN
- Peruse book photos and reviews to choose books to purchase for my classroom
- Share articles and websites with other teachers and parents
- Access books and posters to provide background knowledge for myself and my students from ANKN
- Peruse book photos and reviews to choose books to purchase for my classroom