Biography, Autobiography & Non-Fiction

On to the books...


The Cloud Book by: Tomie de Paola [non-fiction]

 I really enjoyed this book. I have already taught a lesson out of this book to 2 classes and I have shared it with my 5 nieces and nephews. It is a hit! The book teaches children about the three major types of clouds and their characteristics. Children learn how to identify the various characteristics of clouds. There are vivid paper machete illustrations. The illustrations in this book will keep children of all ages glued to the book. The authors included a glossary and the scientific name of the clouds in terms that even the youngest of students can understand. It's great! At the end of the book they included a very silly story about clouds which causes the book to end in laughter. A teacher could use this book in their classroom as part of a science lesson. The book provides scientific names to make the book challenging enough for the higher grades. A teacher can do an cloud identifying activity or they could make their own silly story to go at the end of the book including at least one type of cloud.


Different Places, Different Words by: Michelle Kelley [non-fiction]

Kelley uses this book to help children understand that people from different regions do things differently. There is a picture on each page and the author would say something like people from the south say ____ and from the north say ___.  The book has has kinds of things in it from french fries to creeks.  This book is great for English language learners(ELL). The combination of pictures and words is great because it can help the students make a connection. It is better that the book has actual photographs of the item not a drawingm so the student can see close to a real life image. Classrooms with ELL students in it should have this book because it helps other students relate to each other by seeing that even within our nation we have people who call things different than us.  As a teacher you can read the book out loud and have everyone think or journal of a time when people said something different than them and meant the same thing.  You could put this into an ELL students reading bag for extra vocabulary help.


I, Columbus: My journal edited by: Peter & Connie Roop [biography]

This book is recounting of the edventures of Christopher Columbus as he takes his voyage across the Atlantic Ocean.  The book is not written in Old English but it is his journal of the day-to-day encounters that he had with the seaman, the indigineous people, and his personal thoughts and feelings.  This book starts the day they set sail in 1492 and ends the day he landed in the port in which he started his discoveries.  The journals are being kept for the royalty that commissioned him on the trip.  The images that are in the book are drawn by Columbus himself but redrawn by another illustrator.  Even though this book was written by Columbus himself he was not around when it was published so things could have been changed, revised, or left out.  It is best to put biography even though the authors put "Edited by" on the book.   This book is a great for making timelines.  A teacher could have the students keep a journal of the next week or 2 weeks of their life and they could use the book as a guide to do so.  They could use this to later use these journals to attach to story the children could write. This book would be a great addition to a social studies lesson or an activity to do on Columbus Day.