Ideas for Learners - Ideas for Learners

Middle Grade Books featuring Indian or Pakistani Characters

11/24/2022

I'm getting requests for these books more and more lately from my students, so I wanted to collect an updated list. Many of these protagonists are Indian-American or Pakistani-American, while other books feature protagonists living in India or Pakistan.

Thirst by Varsha Bajaj
Minni and her family work hard to survive, and when Minni's mother has to leave for a month, Minni takes over her job as a housekeeper for a wealthy family. The 12-year-old girl in that family has her own private bathroom, while Minni has to stand in line to pump water, and then take time to boil it before using it for cooking or bathing. Minni has big dreams, but struggles to keep up with school and family obligations. How much is too much?

Also by Varsha Bajaj: Count Me In and Abby Spencer Goes to Bollywood

That Thing About Bollywood
by Supriya Kelkar
Sonali refuses to let her emotions show, even though her little brother is always showing his. As her parents' relationship crumbles and Sonali's best friendship begins to erode, something odd begins to take over: her life becomes a series of scenes from Bollywood movies. Sometimes Sonali's feelings completely escape, and she sings and dances like a Bollywood star, much to her humiliation. She'd give anything to get control of her life again - especially if she can save her grades, her friendship, and her family.

Also by Supriya Kelkar: Ahimsa and American as Paneer Pie

Yusuf Azeem is Not a Hero
by Saadia Faruqi

It's 2021, and Yusuf wants to be on the robotics competition team at school. Born and raised in the Muslim faith in small-town Texas, he still experiences racism, just as his uncle did 20 years earlier after the 9/11 attacks. This book is an exploration of family and community, with a look at two 12-year-olds' experiences, twenty years apart.

Also by Saadia Faruqi: A Thousand Questions and the Yasmin series - the latter targets early chapter book readers

Golden Girl by Reem Faruqi

Aafiyah has everything she needs, so why can't she stop herself from taking other people's things? When you steal from people you know, what happens when they find out?

Also by Reem Faruqi: Unsettled

Midsummer's Mayhem
by Rajani LaRocca

This updated version of A Midsummer Night's Dream features Mimi, who hopes to win a baking competition and gain recognition in her over-achieving family. Unusual ingredients lead to some magical outcomes . . . but is there success beyond the dream?
Don't miss the companion book, Much Ado About Baseball.

Ahmed Aziz's Epic Year
by Nina Hamza

Ahmed doesn't want to move from Hawaii to Minnesota, and he doesn't want to read three required books for English class. It's not easy having brown skin when almost everyone around him is white. As Ahmed learns more about his uncle, who passed away at an early age, he builds new connections. Maybe the epic year won't be all bad.

Amal Unbound by Aisha Saeed

An unlucky encounter means Amal is suddenly forced to work in a wealthy household to pay off a family debt. She makes an enemy in the household, and has very little hope of ever earning enough to be free again. Amal's dreams of being a teacher emphasize the value of learning, and the injustice of her situation offers a lot of opportunities for discussion.

Barakah Beats
by Maleeha Siddiqui

Nimra begins attending public school instead of Islamic school for the first time ever, but her best friend, Jenna, becomes distant instead of supportive. In secret, Nimra begins practicing with a popular music group at school, but her family religion discourages most kinds of music - and she doesn't tell the group. Jenna is impressed, but is that a good enough reason for Nimra to stay in the group?

The Night Diary
by Veera Hiranandani

Nisha's diary is a series of letters to a mother she can't remember, as she and her family flee their home. It's 1947, and India is being split into two new countries. Nisha is half Muslim and half Hindu, so as tension rises between citizens, she seeks to define herself.

Also by Veera Hiranandani: How to Find What You're Not Looking For and The Whole Story of Half a Girl

A Time to Dance
by Padma Venkatraman
Veda is determined to excel at Bharatanatyam, an Indian classical dance, although her mother isn't completely supportive of her dance competitions. An accident and leg amputation force Veda to examine her dreams, relationships, and identity. The serious accident might make this book better suited for sixth graders than fourth graders.

Also by Padma Venkatraman: The Bridge Home and Climbing the Stairs

Boys Without Names
by Kashmira Sheth

Gopal moves to Mumbai, and he is supposed to attend school, but can't resist an opportunity to make money working for his family. It turns out to be something very different - he and other boys are trapped and forced to work in miserable conditions, with no way to contact their families.

Also by Kashmira Sheth: Keeping Corner and Blue Jasmine

Karma Khullar's Mustache
by Kristi Wientge

A light-hearted look at a collection of seventh grade problems, from her parents' shifting work roles to Karma's friendships and school relationships.

Amina's Voice by Hena Khan

Amina is facing a lot of changes: her best friend Soojin wants to change her name to Susan (and has started spending a lot of time with Emily), and Amina's parents are worried about pleasing her traditional uncle, who is coming from Pakistan to stay with them. They also signed her up for a public speaking contest - something Amina isn't excited about. This story is a well-rounded examination of middle school life in accessible language for upper elementary students.

Secondary readers may also try books by Mitali Perkins - I'm a fan of Secret Keeper. What other great titles are out there?

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80 Animal Crossing Tips for Total Beginners

3/6/2022

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I hate to spoil things for any player - part of the fun is discovering surprises, making mistakes, and learning from them - so I haven't given away all the secrets in this Animal Crossing guide. Still, if you're searching about it online, it's likely you have questions. If you're running around with a swollen eye second-guessing whether you should have shared that scallop, you are not alone.

13 Early-Game Things I Wish I'd Known about Animal Crossing

1) You will get more inventory space in your pockets
The first chance you get, use Nook Miles to get the pocket organizer (unlocks ten more spaces in your pockets), and another expansion comes along soon after that. You won't always have to stop at your house, the museum, or the Nook brothers every five minutes to put things down - it will get better.

2) Select multiple objects when selling in Nook's Cranny
It took me an embarrassing amount of time to realize I didn't have to go up to the brothers and talk for each individual item - I could keep clicking on multiple things in my inventory before clicking "confirm" to select them to sell. If I can save just one person, this confession will have been worth it.

3) Get the ACNH app; re-consider the official print book
By its nature, the app can be updated, while the book, which I bought four months after the New Horizons release, was already missing some villagers and information. The only benefits to the book that I found were the efficiency flower-breeding charts and information about home and island ratings. I bought the book mostly to have the creature availability (time of year/day) and sell price, but the book lists those in two separate creature lists. The app has them all together.

4) The ladder and vaulting pole won't break like other tools
I was carrying extras of these to mystery islands at first, because I didn't want one to break and leave me stranded. You only ever need one of each.

5) Cover the holes with "y"
After you use your shovel to dig a hole, you can press "y" to kick sand/dirt to cover the hole up again, instead of pressing "A" again to use the shovel to fill it in. Note: you can accidentally pick flowers and other objects in front of you or under you with this method, so it works better on the beach than in the woods.

6) Changing your appearance
You need a mirror, which you can build when you get the DIY recipe, or buy, or receive as a gift. Place the mirror, then walk up to it and press "A" to get options.

7) Put Away Tools Fast
Click the down arrow on the left side to instantly store a tool in your pocket. It's nice not to have to whack your new neighbors with a net when they run up to say hello.

8) Where the Clothes Go After You Put on Your Wet Suit
Click "X" to open your pocket inventory and navigate down to the shirt icon next to the bells - it gives you the option to remove your wet suit, and then you can see your outfit again.

9) Re-Order Your Inventory
Open your pockets, select and hold an item with "a," and then drag it to the slot you want using the left stick. This is useful if, for example, you like having your tools in the top row.

10) Crafting Faster
If you press "A" at the workbench, you can craft DIYs faster; it's not a big time-saver unless you are making a lot of things in a row (like fish bait from a stack of manila clams).

11) Moving Furniture / Design View
If you move your left stick and press "A" at the same time, you can slide furniture. You can also press "A" and rotate the stick to rotate furniture. After you upgrade to a house (from a tent), you can press the D-pad to enter design mode, which makes it a lot easier to put items exactly where you want them.

12) You Need Iron Nuggets Early On
There's a challenge early in the game that requires iron nuggets and wood to craft specific items. The wood is easy to come by, but you'll need to master the rock resources (see below) daily to get enough iron nuggets. You can use a Nook Miles ticket to fly to a mystery island to collect more of these resources.

13) Animal Crossing is for Everyone
There isn't one way to play this game; there are different paths of emphasis and you can take the ones that interest you most.

You can collect the following in Animal Crossing: Villager Photos, DIY Recipes, Furniture, Clothing, K.K.'s Songs, Reactions, Museum Items, Gyroids, Bells and Nook Miles, and Plants.
You can design the following items in Animal Crossing: Furniture, Clothing, and Pathway Patterns, Home Decor, Island Layout, Themed Island Decor

If you aren't a collector or a designer, you can chat with in-game villagers, wander around the island enjoying the beach, or find a blend of all these that works for you. It's not just for kids, although it's family-friendly; there are online groups with thousands of adult players. No matter how you choose to play, the game is surprisingly addictive!

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Animal Crossing: What's Educational About It?

2/4/2022

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Animal Crossing - New Horizons (ACNH) is a game for Nintendo Switch. At its core, the game is about transforming a deserted island to a thriving destination. Players use the natural resources like shells, stone, and wood to build and trade items, and interact with animated animal characters who "move" to the island, or visit to sell goods. There is a lot of potential for creativity, and the game has a lot of concepts that translate to the real world.

Process Skills Students can Learn from ACNH

Reading
Players have to be able to read to engage with many aspects of the game. There are some actions that don't require reading, but villager interactions and early game challenges and "recipes" for building things require players to read to make in-game decisions.

Number Sense
Players have to manage money (called "bells" in the game), and make decisions about how to save or spend it. Villagers (in-game characters) also invite players to play a game called High Card, Low Card, which is good probability practice; with a scale of 1-9 in that game-within-the-game, even young students can play successfully. Players can also choose when and where to sell some items, so that they earn more or fewer bells, depending on the time or the buyer.

Classifying
There are a ton of things to collect in this game! Fish, shells, bugs, fossils, artwork, recipes, flowers, music, furniture, natural resources, and villager photos are some of the categories, and there are a lot of different options within those groups. Players can keep track of these collections, and although they don't necessarily sort all the objects, they are working with groups of objects with clear commonalities. For example, players can collect fossils, sea creatures, art, and insects to put in a museum on the island. Each item is automatically sent to the correct museum wing and put on display with a placard of information, and players can tour each wing and see the different items together. Players can decorate by classifying with themed furniture, or designate island areas for different purposes, like amusement park rides or food courts or botanical gardens.

Design
Players have a lot of choices about where to put buildings, furniture, plants, and decorations on the island, and also within their in-game homes. Further, they can also customize furniture and clothing objects - designing with patterns and colors that can show up on floors, walls, tables, chairs, and outfits. There are so many different items in the game that players can create themed spaces, from cute and cuddly to sleek and sophisticated. Spatial sense comes in to play, as size and shape and angle factor in to the placement of objects. The design aspect will appeal to creative minds - you can recreate realistic places, shape mountains and waterfalls and roads, or even the island theme song to your liking.

Time Management
Players can experience seasons that match their hemisphere, and the seasons affect the plants, animals, weather, and bonus items that appear in the game. There is also a sunrise and sunset, and some in-game businesses (a clothing shop, the gift shop) close at night, so players can't access them if they are playing late or early. Plants mature over time, and buildings require time to be constructed, so delayed gratification is a factor.

Concepts Students Can Learn from ACNH

Sea Creatures, Insects, Art, and Fossils
As players find the first of each type, they can deliver specimens to the museum, curated by an owl named Blathers. He offers to share information about each item when a player donates it, whether it's a tiger beetle, a snow crab, or the fossil of a dinosaur tail.

"Stalk" Market
Players can buy turnips from a visiting vendor and then sell them at a higher - or lower - price the following week. This feature introduces students to the stock market in a simple form, as they can decide how many turnips to buy at a given price, and decide when to sell as the price changes throughout the week.

Breeding Flowers
The rarest colors of flowers cannot be discovered or bought in the game - they have to be bred from red, yellow, or white varieties of different species. Like the stalk market, this is an optional game element, but it offers a foundational understanding of genetics as players place flowers and offspring populate - either in the wild, or through controlled planning for specific results. Highly coveted blue roses require several generations to produce.

Social and Emotional Concepts
Of course a video game can't replace a club or a friend group, but Animal Crossing does include some social and emotional concepts. Other villagers teach the player's character dozens of reactions, which include body language and naming emotions like distress, joy, and frustration. Players can use these reactions in different contexts within the game.

Additionally, players interact with visitors by doing favors or exchanging gifts. While we may not want to teach students that they give gifts in order to get something in return, it does illustrate some reciprocity - that it is nice to give a gift to someone who gives one to you. Further, if players treat villagers with kindness (talking to them, retrieving lost items for them), or with rudeness (hitting them with nets or ignoring them), the villagers respond accordingly, so there is a direct connection between player actions and friendship with villagers, and while it's simplistic, that direct connection between types of social interactions and friendship outcomes may be a helpful illustration for some students.

Animal Crossing is a family-friendly game, and a great jumping off point for some fun lessons and creative writing.

Read more about how to manage Animal Crossing as a beginning player.

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Picture Books with Figurative Language Examples

12/28/2021

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1) Lena's Shoes Are Nervous by Keith Calabrese
Personification

Lena might be ready for school, but her shoes have some reservations.

2) I Am Every Good Thing by Derrick Barnes
Metaphor

This book is outstanding! Everyone should read it.

3) Fry Bread: A Native American Family Tradition
by Kevin Noble Maillard
Metaphor

"Fry bread is time . . . fry bread is us." This picture book would be an excellent mentor text for student writers.

4) The Lonely Book by Kate Bernheimer
Personification

What happens to a book that was once popular and is now past its prime?

5) Muddy As a Duck Puddle and Other American Similes
by Laurie Lawlor
Simile

A simile from A to Z!

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Fun Realistic Fiction with a Fantasy Element for Middle Grades

12/27/2021

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1) Zoey and Sassafras (series) by Asia Citro

This is such a cute series about magical creatures who appear in Zoey's barn for help. Zoey (with some help from her cat, Sassafras) uses scientific processes to figure out what is wrong with the animals. Her first ideas don't always work, so she has to use problem-solving skills to find a solution. The first book is about dragons, and later books include merhorses, caterflies, and unicorns.

2) Liberty Porter, First Daughter (series) by Julia DeVillers

Technically, this is realistic fiction, but because it focuses on all the fun parts of being the President's daughter and moving into the White House (Giant bedroom! Beauty salon! Chocolatier!), it depicts a fantasy lifestyle with a few conflicts along the way. This is a standard-length chapter book, well-suited for third or fourth graders.

3) Polly Diamond and the Magic Book by Alice Kuipers

If you loved words and writing, and suddenly whatever you wrote became reality, where would you start? Take care - sometimes what you write isn't exactly what you meant to write! This short book is the first of two (so far) in a series.

4) Popcorn Bob by Maranke Rinck

Ellis loves popcorn, so when her school and her family start banning unhealthy snacks, it's an emergency! She pops a bag in secret in the garage, but one kernel transforms into Bob. Bob is insatiably hungry and uncooperative at school and at home, causing all kinds of trouble for Ellis.

5) Ellie Ultra: Extra-Ordinary Girl (series) by Gina Bellisario

When you come from a super hero family and your parents send you to regular school for the first time, it can be tricky trying to fit in with the other kids. After all, Ellie is no ordinary student. This is a fun, short chapter book with about three titles in the series so far.

6) The Princess in Black (series) by Shannon Hale
This fun adventure series is perfect for early readers, featuring short, well-spaced sentences and lots of illustrations, while still telling a story with suspense. The princess has a dull daily life of tea parties, but when she is called upon to save the day, she assumes her secret disguise and becomes an action hero!

See also: Humorous Adventure Books featuring Animals

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Jamie Wright

I've had the privilege of working with hundreds of students and families in IA, CT, NC, MO, TX, and Canada. I love being a teacher-librarian!
My previous roles have included preK - 12 music, K-8 gifted and talented, K-8 creative writing, and 5th grade general education. I love reading, writing, travel, and quirky ideas.

Some of my blog posts are really long, so you can imagine how stressful 140 characters (or even 280) might be for me. I'm working through it on Twitter: @JWrightTeaches.

Welcome!

Middle Grade Books featuring Indian or Pakistani Characters

80 Animal Crossing Tips for Total Beginners

Animal Crossing: What's Educational About It?

Picture Books with Figurative Language Examples

Fun Realistic Fiction with a Fantasy Element for Middle Grades

Jamie Wright

Archives

Categories

Alphabetical List of Book Recommendations
Book Recommendations by Topic
Book Recommendations by Grade Level
Picture Books for Lessons
Blog Posts about Reading Instruction

© 2017 - 2022 - Ideas for Learners by Jamie Wright

Middle Grade Books featuring Indian or Pakistani Characters

80 Animal Crossing Tips for Total Beginners

Animal Crossing: What's Educational About It?

Picture Books with Figurative Language Examples

Fun Realistic Fiction with a Fantasy Element for Middle Grades

Jamie Wright

Archives

Categories

Alphabetical List of Book RecommendationsBook Recommendations by TopicBook Recommendations by Grade LevelPicture Books for LessonsBlog Posts about Reading Instruction

© 2017 - 2022 - Ideas for Learners by Jamie Wright

Alphabetical List of Book Recommendations
Book Recommendations by Topic
Book Recommendations by Grade Level
Picture Books for Lessons
Blog Posts about Reading Instruction