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One of our goals at Tilbury House is to help children become involved community members, willing to speak up and make decisions in ways that promote harmony and move us all forward with positive change. We work toward that goal by selecting manuscripts that exemplify children as positive problem-solvers and empathetic friends. In simplest terms, our kids care.
For this reason we offer Service Learning applications for our books. May you enjoy the journey and gain the satisfaction of combining intellectual pursuits with hands-on care. If one person can make a difference—and one person can make a difference—think of what a whole classroom of people could do!
Service Learning "From Picture Books to Projects" was developed in conjunction with KIDS Consortium, a service-learning organization based in Auburn, Maine, serving schools and educational groups throughout the United States. Please use this step-by-step guide to take reading to whole new levels of civic engagement.
When read aloud to a classroom, picture books offer an engaging shared experience that can prompt class discussion, continued learning, and community action.
For you: When examining books to see if they would be helpful for inspiring service learning, it is useful to chart the theme, the problem illustrated (if there is one), and what projects might emerge from class discussion about the book's theme and problem. This process is inspired by KIDS Consortium's methods, which you can view at www.kidsconsortium.org. Please see the Evaluating Picture Books for Projects worksheet (PDF file).
For your students: In the spirit of KWL charts (What I Know, What I Want to Know, What I Learned), we offer a chart for students with Service Learning in mind. Again, this process is inspired by KIDS Consortium's methods of asking students to take the lead in discerning problems and brainstorming possible actions. Please see the From Picture Books to Projects worksheet (PDF file).
Further questions for class discussion: In her book The Complete Guide to Service Learning (Free Spirit Publishing, p. 51), Cathryn Berger Kaye offers a series of questions to help move a service project along. We have modified them slightly to apply specifically to the From Picture Books to Projects objective. After reading a picture book with your class, you might ask them:
Our picture book Give a Goat is based on a true story. The children in Mrs. Rowell's fifth-grade class really did get inspired to learn about the needs of others and try to help meet those needs after they heard the picture book Beatrice's Goat. Maybe some similar comprehension, connection, and community action can happen in your classroom.
(Click titles for book details)
Bartlett, Susan. Opening Day. A boy tries deer hunting with his best friend and makes a decision he hopes will not jeopardize his friendship. An evenhanded view of the pros and cons of hunting which celebrates friendship above all.
Topics: Hunting, decision-making.
Problems: Difficult-to-make decisions that conflict with a friend's decisions. Different opinions on hunting.
Beckwith, Kathy. Playing War. What is a game for one set of children is a reality for another child. Children respond compassionately when a friend shares the realities of war.
Topics: War, violent games.
Problem: Many children don't understand the realities of war.
Bregoli, Jane. The Goat Lady. When two young children befriend an elderly woman the other neighbors shun, they learn generosity overflows from this "poor" woman.
Topics: Poverty, elder/younger relations.
Problems: There is unequal distribution of wealth in our communities and around the world. People unfairly judge others based on appearances, instead of really getting to know them.
Buckley, Carol. Just for Elephants. At the Elephant Sanctuary in Tennessee, two elephants recognize each other after years of separation (elephants do remember). Through the tireless work of Carol Buckley, the Elephant Sanctuary offers former zoo and circus elephants a place to roam as they would in nature.
Topic: Animal stewardship.
Problem: Wild animals are sometimes taken from their homes to be used as captive animals.
Buckley, Carol. Travels with Tarra. Once bonded with the elephant she volunteered to care for after a used car dealer purchased the baby elephant as a sales gimmick, Carol Buckley devotes her life to Tarra and eventually founds the Elephant Sanctuary, a place where zoo, circus, and abused elephants can live as in the wild.
Topic: Animal stewardship.
Problem: Wild animals are sometimes taken from their homes to be used as captive animals.
Burns Knight, Margy. Talking Walls and Talking Walls: The Stories Continue. These two books offer an examination of walls throughout the world and how the walls are part of the lives of people of the region.
Topics: Discovering people, places, and stories through the exploration of walls.
Problems: How important is historical preservation? Are there ideas, practices, ways of life that unite all people? What makes different cultures different?
Knight, Margy Burns. Who Belongs Here? What if everyone whose family came from another place was forced to return to his or her homeland? A story that teaches compassion for recent immigrants while sharing the history of American immigration.
Topics: Belonging, bullying, immigration.
Problem: A Cambodian refugee is not welcomed by his classmates.
Kress, Stephen W. and Pete Salmonson. Project Puffin: How We Brought Puffins Back to Egg Rock. Two scientists and a whole lot of volunteers bring the puffin population off the coast of Maine back up to sustainable levels. Accompanied by a teacher guide entitled Giving Back to the Earth: A Teacher's Guide to Project Puffin and Other Seabird Studies.
Topic: Animal stewardship.
Problem: Puffin populations are threatened.
Lundebrek, Amy. Under the Night Sky. The beauty of the Northern Lights lures an apartment building's worth of people out under the night sky: folks who were once strangers apart become a community together.
Topics: The northern lights, community building, mother/child relationships.
Problem: Single motherhood makes it difficult at times to connect with child.
Moss, Peggy. Say Something. A girl learns it isn't enough to just not tease, in order to build a good and caring community you need to reach out with kindness to others and say something to stop teasing.
Topics: Bullying, bystander to bullying.
Problem: When you hear someone else bully, are you also guilty since you didn't speak up to help the victim?
Moss, Peggy and Dee Dee Tardif. Our Friendship Rules. When Alexandra tells Jenny's most secret secret, the girls work together to rebuild their friendship using friendship rules. Jenny's ability to forgive is exemplary.
Topic: Friendship.
Problem: How do you fix a relationship?
O'Connell, Jennifer. The Eye of the Whale. Divers risk their lives to free a humpback whale tangled in scores of crab-trap lines, and the whale seems to understand what they are doing.
Topics: Animal stewardship, animal emotions.
Problem: Human activities (such as fishing) can have unintended consequences for animals.
Patten, Elizabeth and Kathy Lyons. Healthy Foods from Healthy Soil. A soil science curriculum which emphasizes growing food in the most healthy ways.
Topic: Local food production.
Problem: Folks need to eat healthy but don't always know how.
Petrillo, Genevieve. Keep Your Ear on the Ball. Children exemplify interdependence when their highly independent blind friend wants to play kickball.
Topic: Special needs.
Problem: Sometimes people with disabilities are misunderstood and treated as though they are incapable.
Raye, Rebecca. Bear-ly There. When a bear begins to raid yards, a boy figures out how to keep the bear where it belongs—in the woods.
Topic: Humans encroaching on wildlife habitats.
Problem: A bear in your backyard.
Reagan, Jean. Always My Brother. Becky finds her way back to happiness while grieving her brother's death.
Topics: Grief, sibling death.
Problems: How do you deal with death and still get on with life?
Saint-Lot, Katia Novet. Amadi's Snowman. A community of caring adults helps a boy discover reading as a path to a much larger world.
Topic: Education/reading.
Problem: Sometimes people do not understand the benefits of education/reading.
Salmonsohn, Pete and Stephen W. Kress. Saving Birds: Heroes Around the World. Empowering stories of heroes young and old who have saved threatened bird populations.
Topic: Animal stewardship.
Problem: Human populations adversely affect bird populations.
Schrock, Jan. Give a Goat. Inspired by a storybook to fundraise for Heifer Project, a classroom of children cooperate to meld a math unit with their goal of giving a goat. Their goodwill effort inspires several other classrooms to reach out with philanthropic projects.
Topics: Service projects, education, math.
Problem: Not all children have access to free education.
Sockabasin, Allen. Thanks to the Animals. A Passamaquoddy storyteller shares a tale that models an ideal, peaceful coexistence for humans and animals.
Topic: Storytelling.
Problem: How many stories do elders know that are not being passed on?
Soctomah, Donald and Jean Flahive. Remember Me: Tomah Joseph's Gift to Franklin Roosevelt. A fictional account of the real-life friendship between a Passamaquoddy elder and a boy who would one day become president of the United States.
Topics: Elder/younger sharing, changing Native American life.
Problem: What happens when a whole new people move into a land already occupied by others?
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