3/6/2022 Picture Book Round-Up: What’s In A Name? & That’s A Wrap!

Sasha Wallace
Mar 5, 2022
4 min read

This week, we’re going to demonstrate two things that are all-powerful: imagination & zany teachers. For all the dreamers & doers of this world, all the folks who chose art above arithmetic, all the fans of Ms. Frizzle & Dead Poets Society, these two are for you.

Picture Book 1 (flower power)

Title: Chrysanthemum

Author & Illustrator: Kevin Henkes

Recommended for: Grades 2-3

Basic plot: A young mouse loves her unique name – until schoolroom bullies make her ashamed of it. Can she find her way back to embracing each syllable?

Why I love it: As a teacher, I come across the gamut of names both long & short, distinctive & common. It’s quite normal for a kiddo to adopt a nickname or go by a middle name if they don’t like their first. So I love how real this was – how mean the girls were is, sadly, commonplace; how well-meaning but unhelpful the parents were is also an unfortunate norm; even how our protagonist never stoops to their level but still is troubled by their remarks. Everyone can relate to a time when someone treated them unfairly & made them feel rotten.

Learning how to navigate unprovoked mistreatment is no small feat. Some things must be ignored, some things must be challenged. Children stumble in that social situation more often than not. Intervention can make or break their pride if not handled appropriately & can sometimes intensify the bullying.

But what is new & exciting to me is the reaction of the teacher, Mrs. Twinkle. With zero hesitation, she inserts herself into this narrative & completely changes the climate of the classroom. She vanquishes the toxicity & drama & makes the other students change their minds without humiliating them. I loved that.

This book does karma in a very nice way. You root for the young girl who loves playing Parcheesi & chowing down on chocolate cake with buttercream frosting. You’re grateful for a teacher who cared enough to put a stop to the hate & redefine the legacy of such a flowery name.

Where can you find it? Amazon (including Kindle Unlimited), eBay, AbeBooks, Thriftbooks, OverDrive (cheapest $2.92 & up, used).

Extension activity: First off, this is a great opportunity to ask your kiddo to come up with their alias. If they could choose another name, what would it be & why? Have them explain their thought process in a journal entry.

There are lots of great adjectives in this book (“envious”, “begrudging”. “winsome”, “jaundiced”, etc.), so one suggestion is to make Frayer models of each one to advance your kiddos’ vocabulary.

Other ideas you could utilize: Have your kiddo look up unusual names (ever heard of Robert Lane & his sons, Winner & Loser? Or North West? Or Apple? Or Moon Unit? Ad nauseum). Or list celebrities named after flowers/plants. Then, ruminate on whether a name determines one’s destiny or fate. Analyze the William Shakespeare quote: “What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell just as sweet.” Ask them point blank: Is a name truly relevant? Why or why not?

You can even chart out remarkable teachers in children’s books who help the heroines grow (Miss Clavel from the Madeline series is a wonderful example).

Picture Book 2 (if you like it, then you shoulda put some fabric on it)

Title: Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Through the Gates and Beyond

Authors: Jan Greenberg & Sandra Jordan

Recommended for: Grades 6-8 (not a sit down & read book; more of a reference manual)

Basic plot: This is a work of nonfiction. It follows the conceptual artist Christo, his relationship with Jeanne-Claude, & his major artworks over the years, including the titular saffron fabric panels that wound all the way through New York’s Central Park.

Why I love it: I was introduced to the genius of Christo while studying AP Art History in high school. I remember being fascinated at the way his mind worked – how something that seemed so simple as wrapping a tree or a pier could transform that entire landscape. The sheer amount of effort & determination Christo had to go through for many of his projects – including waiting decades to get government permission – is staggering.

Nonfiction is a harder sell for kiddos than picture books, but there are plenty of photos to ignite a child’s fascination, & captions & fonts make the text more accessible.

Where can you find it? Amazon, eBay, AbeBooks, Thriftbooks (cheapest $3.75 & up, used).

Extension activity: Give your kiddo a bedsheet & tell them to create their own wrapped-art within the confines of your property or house. See what they can come up with!

Additionally, have your kiddo look up some of the art installations below. How are they different than regular paintings? What do they have in common with Christo’s work?

Berndnaut Smilde’s Suspended Clouds
Alexa Meade’s TedTalk
Cai Guo-Qiang’s 99 Wolves
Konstantin Dimopoulos’ Blue Trees
Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty
The New York Earth Room
Tomás Saraceno’s Cloud Cities

https://borderless.teamlab.art/ is a new exhibit by Japan’s TeamLab, where museumgoers experience a virtual, interactive creek.

This is also a helpful worksheet for think-aloud questions: http://www.biggsmuseum.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Christo-and-Jeanne-Claude-Lesson.pdf