Tuesday Writing Post 1/30/24

Two books that pair well together – for educators, parents, and anyone who thinks about how we experience the world in our own unique way

TOO MUCH! AN OVERWHELMING DAY, by Jolene Gutiérrez and Angel Chang and BEAUTIFUL NOISE: THE MUSIC OF JOHN CAGE, by Lisa Rogers and Il Sung Na

 For many years working with students I created curriculum, planned lessons, and thought about how different learning styles, abilities, and background knowledge factored into student learning and mastery. A lesson that works for some children doesn’t reach all of them. Teaching isn’t one size fits all because the children bring their own unique set of strengths and needs to the classroom. As a reading specialist, even a small group might have a wide range of abilities. 

For example, I worked with two students together every day who needed help with basic letter recognition, phonemic awareness, and reading readiness. One child was able to decode the letters (recognize each symbol on the page and produce the corresponding sound) but couldn’t make the sounds into words. Meanwhile the other child heard the sounds and blended them into words but had no recognition of what the letters represented. Together, they were reading but when they were on their own, they couldn’t make the magic happen. With the help of picture cards, a variety of tactile learning opportunities, music, and other tools they were both able to strengthen their deficits on the long road to becoming readers. And this is only one example over many years.

Today I’m sharing two fantastic picture books from 2023 that made me think back to these students and so many others from my days teaching. The first book, TOO MUCH! AN OVERWHELMING DAY, written by Jolene Gutiérrez and illustrated by Angel Chang uses soothing rhyme showing a child who finds the sensory overload of day-to-day life to be overwhelming. The chaotic illustrations at the beginning of the book match this feeling but then as the main character finds ways to cope as the book progresses, the illustrations also provide a calmer setting for the reader. Both the author and illustrator have drawn on their own lived experience with sensory overwhelm which explains how they were able to make the reader experience the sensory overload and the peaceful place alongside the character. Excellent back matter makes this book a great resource for caregivers and teachers to understand children with sensory processing issues and provides ways to help them.

The second book, BEAUTIFUL NOISE: THE MUSIC OF JOHN CAGE, by Lisa Rogers and illustrated by Il Sung Na. is a perfect representation of not only how we learn in unique ways, but it speaks to how we all experience the world through our own lens. For me it’s an important reminder that different doesn’t mean better or worse. I had never heard of composer John Cage before reading this book, but Lisa’s words had a musicality and rhythm that invited me in and made me want to know more, want to hear the music in “feet skipping, pigeons scattering, tires whispering” just like John Cage. The illustrations in this book do a marvelous job creating both the expected and the unexpected musical elements and I’ve gone back to look at the amazing endpapers every time I read this book. Exceptional back matter from both the author and the illustrator written for the adult reader makes this book a great teaching resource. This makes it wonderful for cross curricular lesson planning and higher order thinking activities.

To find out more about these books and the authors:

Jolene Gutiérrez

Lisa Rogers