inZone Book: Any Small Goodness (Reader's Workshop) - Softcover

Professor, College of Education Temple University Dr. Michael Smith joined the ranks of college teachers after eleven years of teaching high school English. He has won awards for his teaching at both the high school and college levels. His research focuses on how experienced readers read and talk about texts, as well as what motivates adolescents' reading and writing both in and out of school. He has written eight books and monographs, including "Reading Don't Fix No Chevys": Literacy in the Lives of Young Men, for which he and his co-author received the 2003 David H. Russell Award for Distinguished Research in the Teaching of English. His writing has appeared in such journals as Communication Education, English Journal, Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, Journal of Educational Research, Journal of Literacy Research, and Research in the Teaching of English.

Gr. 4-7, younger for reading aloud. In her first novel, popular picture-book author Johnston tells a warm, upbeat story of a Mexican family newly arrived in Los Angeles. The narrator is Arturo Rodriguez, 11, whose present-tense account is filled with Spanish expressions and the physical details of daily life at home, at school, and in the barrio. The first chapter will touch many immigrant kids: the children are tempted to assimilate after their teacher anglicizes their names, but Arturo's abuelita persuades them to hold on to who they are and take their names back. At times Johnston overdoes the local color with too many similes, and some characters are sentimentalized (not that anyone will object to the "angel" librarian). There's a scary gang and a drive-by shooting, but order is restored and the climax is the family celebration of navidad, "warm and sweet and silly, glowing in the candlelight." The small size of the book is inviting, with clear, spacious type and a small illustration at the head of each chapter. Hazel Rochman
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