Cannon, Janell. Crickwing. San Diego, CA: Hartcourt, Inc., 2000.

Summary:
Crickwing is a cockroach who, in an encounter with a toad, twisted one of his fine wings. He often escapes into the dark, scary woods to avoid being teased about his painful ailment. To pass his time there, Crickwing creates intricate and beautiful food sculptures, until one day, he is pushed farther into the woods to outrun hungry forest animals. While hiding, Crickwing finds a colony of leaf-cutting ants. Frustrated by always being picked-on, Crickwing takes delight in playing jokes on the poor hard-working ants. Once the queen leaf-cutter hears word of his antics, thousands of ants from the colony swarm to take Crickwing as hostage and offer him to nasty army ant colony. Crickwing convinces the leaf-cutting ants to let him go in exchange for his help. He offers to stop the army ants from terrorizing the leaf-cutters. Our cockroach becomes a beloved friend when he scares off the army ants in a very unique way!

Recommendation for Parents:
This book can be interpreted on many different levels. In class, I plan on focusing on story elements and structure. However, at home, this story can be used in many ways as well. Crickwing teaches a very important moral lesson: it is not kind to perpetuate negativity in this world, and one’s talent can be useful to others in the most unexpected ways! Janell Cannon also teaches us all to be considerate of all beings – even ants and cockroaches – for they too have a place. This can be interpreted into the grander scheme of life – that all people must be respected
In the back of this book, Janell Cannon supplies information about cockroaches and ants. As you read about these fictional characters, it is important to know facts about them. I encourage you to read these excerpts as well to supplement the story.
Cannon’s illustrations are colorful, detailed, and full of emotion. They are a wonderful comprehension tool to supplement understanding and simply fun to discuss and look at.
Finally, this story is fun to read with likeable characters and an engaging storyline. 

Recommendation for Fellow Teachers:
Any book that I have read by Janell Cannon offers a multi-faceted view of comprehension. First, this book is a wonderful addition to a unit on insects. Although Crickwing is a fictional tale, setting and insect hierarchy are accurate. In addition, Cannon includes factual information about cockroaches and ants in the back of the book. This could be supplemented to such a curriculum as a relaxed read aloud, or as a critique of the portrayal of the insects you are studying.
When teaching our students empathy and making person to text connections, Crickwing can stimulate interesting discussion. The main character, a cockroach who is teased for his crooked wing, can be a good starting point for discussion on being different and how being teased feels. Crickwing then goes on to make fun of others who are weaker than he is. This also raises an important opportunity to teach the “Golden Rule.” By the end of the book, both the leaf-cutters and Crickwing have learned a lesson in being good friends. Students should be given the chance to share similar experiences and their feelings on the outcome of the story.
The illustrations in this book are an element not to be overlooked. Cannon does a beautiful job in depicting characters’ emotions and traits in her drawings. The colors used in the background help to add to this emotion. Your students should be able to look closely at these pictures and discuss how they help one’s enjoyment of the book. If art is taught in your classroom, these illustrations are a tool in teaching color usage as well as why the illustrator made the decisions she did about coloring and context in the foreground vs. background. You could also compare Cannon’s drawings with photographs of cockroaches, ants and the other animals that appear in this book.
This book can be used as a tool for helping your students make predictions. There are many points in this story where you can pause to ask students for inferences on behavior or feelings, or for making plot predictions. For a more in-depth look at the story, story maps are a fantastic activity for this story. Cannon tends to follow a very direct structure where setting, characters, story problem, climax, etc. can be easily identified.

Here are some helpful websites with ideas for teaching Janell Cannon:

http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0STR/is_8_114/ai_n13776906

For teaching Stella Luna

http://www.webenglishteacher.com/cannon.html

http://www.sdcoe.k12.ca.us/score/stella/stellatg.html

http://www.cambios.org/TeacherGuides/Stellaluna.pdf

Personal Note: 
Janell Cannon’s books share many similar characteristics. Her heroes are animals that have a negative reputation in our world, yet she portrays these animals (the python, bat, hyena, and cockroach) as likeable and morally upstanding beings. Her books can be enjoyed and comprehended on many different levels: her illustrations are vivid, colorful and dramatic, her stories teach important lessons in citizenship, they include informative content information about each animal, and they tend to follow a similar pattern in story development to cover a diverse spectrum of the aspects of reading comprehension. I recommend any of Janell Cannon’s six books for use in classroom and for reading at home. 

Read the following article about the author!

Dorros, Arthur.  Julio’s Magic. Illus. by Ann Grifalconi. Harper Collins Publishers, 2005.

Summary:
Embracing the Mexican artisan culture, this is a beautiful story about Julio and his wood-carving mentor, Iluminado. This year, there is a contest for the best carving in the land, and Julio wants to enter. Together, Julio and Iluminado walk through their town in Mexico, enjoying the work of other wood carvers. They search the forest for the perfect pieces of wood. Musicians, angels, and amazing creatures of all kinds hide in every curving branch. Although Julio’s carvings are wonderful, he sees that times are difficult for his friend, Iluminado. Julio makes a selfless decision about friendship and generosity and helps Iluminado win the wood carving contest.

Recommendations for Parents:
This book a wonderful way to introduce Mexican artisan culture to a child. The collages in Julio’s Magic are, in my opinion, the central focus towards the understanding of the aspect of Mexican culture portrayed. Grifalconi creates a colorful landscape complete with dwellings, faces, dress, crafts and environment. These illustrations should not be overlooked. Discuss these pictures with your children and ask what they notice. Try to create a collage of your own at home that depicts your environment.
Although this story may tell a tale that is different from your own experiences, we can all relate to making sacrifices for those that need our support. Friendship is an important lesson to be learned from this story.

Recommendations for Fellow Teachers:
I like this book for a couple of reasons: the collages represent so much of Mexican culture, and this tale of friendship is one to which many can relate. In terms of Ann Grifalconi’s work, she does an amazing job representing the faces of this small town as well as homes, artifacts, dress, animals and setting. Each page shows an example of a brightly-painted wood carving and vivid colors are key elements of her work. With your class, these pages should be looked at and discussed. Questions should be asked of your students pertaining to how these collages help to represent the Mexican culture and talk about what characteristics they are noticing about these pictures. A great art activity would be for your class to paint their own pre-carved animals and display them in your room.
This story also relates to good citizenship: staying focused on your goals and lending a helping hand so that your friends can achieve their goals. These, of course, are lessons that must always be upheld and sometimes we have to remind our students of these ideals. Discuss why Julio decided to give up his chance to win the contest so Iluminado could enter, or ask what kind of character Julio is with examples from the text to back up their answers.

Personal Note:
Arthur Dorros has also written Abuela, and Isla, two imaginative and colorful stories that embrace a child’s friendship with her grandmother. Written in both English and Spanish, these two stories are an engaging way to introduce basic Spanish vocabulary to your class as well as introducing them to some characteristics of the Mexican culture. And, for our early readers, the Caldecott Winning, Ten Go Tango is a fun counting book with exposure to all sorts of silly animals!

Read about the author and reviews of his books:
http://www.arthurdorros.com/

Read reviews of this book by finding the title, Julio’s Magic, on the list:
http://web.bibz.com/Picks/displayFall2005.do?catalogId=569

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