Books: Expanding Our Awareness

The fifth grade play this year, based on another original script by Judith Nielsen, depicts a dramatic period in Bay Area history, the 1906 earthquake and fire. The story highlights the heroism of firefighters and others who sacrificed to rebuild the city, as well as the plight of marginalized San Francisco residents in Chinatown. The play is both educational and inspirational, transporting the audience into a historic time when people living in our area rose to unprecedented challenges. (The subject matter of this play is too mature for preschoolers, but our summer Drama Damp often offers a fun play preschoolers can attend.)

Expansive role of books

Live plays are special events that require weeks of behind-the-scenes collaboration. Books are the everyday way we can expand our awareness of places and historic time periods and events. With another Book Fair starting next Tuesday, it feels like a fun time to explore titles that are set in the Bay Area, engaging books that parents and children can read together. Research shows that reading books aloud even to older children increases their vocabulary and comprehension.

A sense of place

In addition, helping children learn about the history of their local area fosters a sense of place. It helps them to recognize the unique features of the area where they live and the lives of the people who came before them, who helped shape their communities. Books invite us into an awareness that the world is full of unique perspectives but also people who feel the same way we do.

Here is a short list of books set in the Bay Area. A few of them are for preschoolers. Some of the titles on the list are award-winning and others are just fun.

Good Night, San Francisco, a board book written by Adam Gamble and illustrated by Santiago Cohen, is based on the famous Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown. This adapted, soothing rendition allows the reader to say good night to San Francisco landmarks, like the Golden Gate bridge, the bay, fishing boats, cable cars, the Exploratorium, and the Thinker statue. It has lots of fun pictures and vocabulary. (Goodnight Books, 2006)

ABC Oakland, by Michael Wertz, takes the reader on an alphabetical tour of all the delightful places to explore in Oakland: A is for aviary, B is for Broadway, C is for college. It highlights the adventures awaiting visitors to the sprawling city on the other side of the hills that boasts a lake, a zoo, a museum, and many other opportunities for adventure. (Heyday Books, 2017)

Fly High, Fly Low, a Caldecott Award winner written and illustrated by Don Freeman, provides a bird’s-eye view of San Francisco through the tale of two pigeons, Sid and Midge, living atop a San Francisco building who have to move their nest when the first nest they constructed doesn’t work out. (Puffin, 2007).

Earthquake in the Early Morning, written by Mary Pope Osborne and illustrated by Sally Murdocca, from the Magic Tree House series, features Jack and Annie travelling back in time to 1906 to try to save the city. (Random House, 2001)

Al Capone Does My Shirts, by Gennifer Choldenko, a School Library Journal Best Book of the Year and Newbery Honor winner, is recommended for ages 10 and up. The book is set in the 1930s Bay Area, when Alcatraz Island was a prison. The story features Moose, a boy who lives on the island, where his father is a guard, and the adventures and mischief he gets into with his new friend, another Alcatraz resident. (Putnam, 2004)

The Great Horn Spoon, written by Sid Fleishman and illustrated by Brett Helquist, presents the exciting adventure of a boy named Jack who saves his aunt from financial ruin by traveling to the California Gold Rush in the mid-1800s. This is one of the wonderful fiction books explored in our fourth grade social studies unit. (Little Brown, 1988)

One Crazy Summer, by Rita Williams-Garcia, takes place in Oakland in the tumultuous 1960s. The winner of several awards, including the Scott O’Dell Award for Historic Fiction and the Coretta Scott King Award, it is the story of three sisters who travel to Oakland in the summer to stay with their estranged mother. The girls, who have grown up in Brooklyn with their father and grandmother, get to experience the changing culture of Oakland in that era, where members of the Black Panther Party serve neighborhood breakfasts and provide daytime childcare and recreation. (Quill Tree Books, 2011)

The Magical Book Fair

I hope you will join us at our annual Book Fair, where you will find books for all age ranges at school, exploring every subject imaginable. The Book Fair is an exciting event for a parent or grandparent to attend with a child. The fair immerses visitors, within moments, into an exciting world where there are titles on every imaginable subject.