C.

Loftis
LIS 524
Bears On Chairs
by Shirley P. Page

This cute story of four bears not having to share is a charming story for early childhood ages.
The color illustrations are alluring to young children ages 2-5. With very few lines on each page,
this book is age appropriate for early childhood children ages 2-5. The illustrations in this book
are nice and just enough to give the students clues for whats happening next in the story.
Author, Shirley Parenteau, is an established writer who has been writing since she was a little
girl. This book is geared for small children captures their attention with words and pictures that
coincide perfectly.
This story is fictional and is written with the appropriate age in mind. Bears are a favorite in the
early childhood classroom and also goes well with the themes that are constantly used in
prekindergarten and kindergarten classrooms. It captures the attention of the students and
can also be included in language arts and math as well. Each picture is a plus and goes well with
the story. The story is told in perfect sequence and has a consistent order and does not deviate
from the structure intended.
This story encourages the students to problem solve. When the story states that Fuzzy, Calico,
Floppy, and Yellow have chairs and are engaged in play until Big Bear comes along and doesnt
have anywhere to sit. The pictures encourage the students to use clues to figure out what will
happen next in the story. The rhyming lines make it fun for children to eagerly engage in
reading along with a teacher or parent. This story can be used to teach rhyming skills to
students in the prekindergarten and kindergarten grades.
The Bears On Chairs teaches comprehension skills. Also students will have to predict what the
bears will have to next so that Big Bear can have a seat also. Bears On Chairs teaches children how
to be compassionate, caring, and how to share. This fun rhyming story will keep the students
laughing and chanting time after time.







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Ilene Cooper (Booklist, Nov. 1, 2009 (Vol. 106, No. 5))
Four round little bears. Four straight-back chairs. That worksuntil Big Brown Bear enters the
scene looking for someplace to sit down. Using plenty of repetition and the simplest of rhyming
couplets (What a stare / from Big Brown Bear. / That big bear / wants a chair!), the text
follows the travails of Brown Bear as he tries to find a place to sit down. Along with the visual
treat of watching softly colored bears and chairs on expanses of white pages, this book cleverly
melds words and art for several other purposes. New readers will find this an inviting place to
start picking out words, while budding logicians can sharpen their skills trying to figure out how
five bears can sit in four chairs. The bears do it (after some trial and error), and the happy
ending is the perfect finish to a sweet exercise. Preschool-Kindergarten

Debby Willett (Children's Literature)
Sometimes sharing is not so easy. Four small bears, Calico, Fuzzy, Yellow, and Floppy, each have
their own small chair. These chairs were made for small bears not for big bears; which was just
fine until Big Brown Bear came along. He also wanted to sit on a small bear chair. The small
bears tried to share a small chair with Big Brown Bear, but there just was not enough room for
both of them. Big Brown Bear was very sad. He just wanted to sit on a chair too, but one small
chair was not big enough for him. The four small bears got together and had a great idea--one
that would make Big Brown Bear happy. Their idea was not just about making Big Brown Bear
happy; all five of the bears were happy, and they all learned a lesson in sharing. This charming
book with sweet, pastel, acrylic illustrations tells a wonderful story of sharing on a level that
even preschool children will understand. 2009, Candlewick Press, $15.99. Ages 3 to 5.

Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews, July 1, 2009 (Vol. 77, No. 13))
Four small chairs / just right for bears. / Where is the bear / for each small chair?" One by one,
Calico, Fuzzy, Yellow and Floppy Bears take their seats, but what to do when Big Brown Bear
shows up and there's no chair? Parenteau's rhythm and rhyme never falter as the bears
experiment with different seating configurations that might accommodate all five bear
bottoms. Walker positions his soft-edged, pastel-colored bears (and their chairs) against a clean
white background, their overlarge heads and comforting smiles immediately in tune with
toddlers' aesthetics. While his bears are not highly developed characters, slight differences in
color and textureand Floppy Bear, in particular, is pleasingly spinelesswill help small
children track the characters' movements. While the bears' solution is hardly rocket science,
their cooperative approach will appear revolutionary to the book's target audience. Between
the unerringly positive approach to a common early-childhood dilemma and the can't-miss
rhyme, this volume will likely find its place on many a daycare shelf. 2009, Candlewick, 32p,
$15.99. Category: Picture book. Ages 2 to 5. 2009 Kirkus Reviews/VNU eMedia, Inc. All rights
reserved.
C. Loftis
LIS 524
Rosa
by Nikki Giovanni

The biography of Rosa is a brilliant piece with colorful illustrations that make this story come
alive. Each picture is nicely done and captures every intimate moment of Rosa and the day she
unintentionally helped start a movement that would help change lives forever. The story
begins with Rosa at home with her family and continues through to the her day at work until
the very moment she decides that she has had enough of racial discrimination and refuses to
relinquish her seat on a Montgomery Alabama bus. Her decision started a movement and
motivated people across the country to become involved in putting a halt to Jim Crow laws in
the south. This story is appropriate for children of all ages. It gives students an understanding
of racial discrimination, but allows teachers or parents to explain events of heinous that may be
matters that are inappropriate for young children. The author, Nikki Giovanni, is a well known
African American author, poet, professor and philanthropist. The story of Rosa is nicely told
and can be used in classrooms grades prekindergarten through fifth. The illustrator is a well
known award winning illustrator with works that includes Freedom River, Visiting Langston,
Dave the Potter, Martins Big Words/ The Life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa, and Uptown
are the books that he has illustrated and won awards.
The overall purpose of this story is to introduce Rosa to young children and to tell the story of a
woman tired from work that refuses to give up her seat during a time of Jim Crow in the south.
The story does not go into graphic details, but allows the parent, teacher, or student to
describe the effects of discrimination on people of color in the south. Nikki Giovanni stated
that she went to Montgomery Alabama to get the facts of the story and also to get a feeling of
what discrimination in the south was like for the people who worked and lived there and faced
it daily.
This story encourages problem solving which was done through peaceful protest and boycotts
that occurred after Rosas decision to not relinquish her seat. Students will be motivated to
learn more about the story because of the introduction. This story begins with a peaceful
morning and proceeds throughout Rosas day. The story of Rosa is a part of history that is
retold and uplifting to people of any color everywhere.


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Hazel Rochman (Booklist, Jun. 1, 2005 (Vol. 101, No. 19))
Far from the cliche of Rosa Parks as the tired little seamstress, this beautiful picture-book
biography shows her as a strong woman, happy at home and at work, and politically aware
("not tired from work, but tired of . . . eating at separate lunch counters and learning at
separate schools"). Her refusal to give up her seat on a bus inspires her friend Jo Ann Robinson,
president of the Women's Political Council, and the 25 council members to make posters calling
for the bus boycott, and they organize a mass meeting where the Reverend Martin Luther King
Jr. speaks for them. Paired very effectively with Giovanni's passionate, direct words, Collier's
large watercolor-and-collage illustrations depict Parks as an inspiring force that radiates golden
light, and also as part of a dynamic activist community. In the unforgettable close-up that was
used for the cover, Parks sits quietly waiting for the police as a white bus driver demands that
she give up her seat. In contrast, the final picture opens out to four pages showing women,
men, and children marching for equal rights at the bus boycott and in the years of struggle yet
to come. The history comes clear in the astonishing combination of the personal and the
political. Category: Books for Middle Readers--Nonfiction. 2005, Holt, $16.95. Gr. 3-5. Starred
Review
Debbie West (Children's Literature)What would happen if you were made to give up your seat
on a bus simply because of the color of your skin? That is what happened to Rosa Parks, a black
woman in the southern town of Montgomery, Alabama, on December 1, 1955. When she
refused to give up a seat that was supposed to be neutral--for blacks or whites--the bus driver
called the police. The police arrested Mrs. Parks and took her to jail. When Jo Ann Robinson, a
member of the Womens Political Council, heard of the arrest, she formed a committee that put
up posters all over the town, urging black people to walk instead of riding the bus. Dr. Martin
Luther King, Jr. spoke to them as part of a large group that had joined together in the fight for
equality. This was a country that was founded by a diverse group of people, and every citizen
deserved equal treatment and Dr. King urged all blacks to stay off the buses. People from all
over the country sent them shoes, coats, and money so they could continue to walk for almost
a year--until the United States Supreme Court ruled on November 13, 1956, that segregation in
any form was illegal. This would be a good book for an elementary social-studies class. The
author explains the situation in simple terms for young children. The illustrator has emphasized
the strength of Rosa Parks in his use of dark and light images. 2005, Henry Holt and Company,
$16.95. Ages 7 to 10.
Elizabeth Bush, Reviewer (The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, November 2005
(Vol. 59, No. 3))
As Rosa Parks has justifiably come to be regarded not only as a catalyst but an icon of the civil
rights movement, the story of her refusal to yield her seat to a white bus rider and that acts
direct connection with the Montgomery bus boycott have taken on an aura of heroic legend.
Giovannis account offers an as-it-happens look at events thats particularly good at bringing
the details of the experience to life. The prose, though, has a particularly hagiographic ring,
with Mrs. Parks demonstrating near-magical skills as a seamstress (The needle and thread flew
through her hands like the gold spinning from Rumpelstiltskins loom), and it occasionally
incorporates overblown prose (They decided they would stand under the umbrella of courage
Rosa Parks had offered, keeping off the rains of fear and self disgust). Collier employs quasi-
religious imagery in his arresting watercolor-and-collage illustrations. On the title page, Parks
descends the bus steps with a hand raised as in benediction, the crown of her head is haloed in
gold at the moment of her confrontation with the bus driver and again on the final spread, in
which she bows her head with eyes closed while childrens hands are raised toward her in open
palmed gestures of blessing. Collier provides a visual climax, in the form of a foldout spread, of
the bus boycott that coincides with the 1956 Supreme Court ruling against segregation on
buses, but the poignancy of the moment is undercut by the clumsy open here directives that
instruct viewers on how to open the page. While a more down-to-earth treatment and clarity
would make this more informative, this title will strike the appropriate adulatory tone for a
commemorative observance. (Reviewed from galleys) Review Code: Ad -- Additional book of
acceptable quality for collections needing more material in the area. (c) Copyright 2005, The
Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois. 2005, Holt, 32p, $16.95. Ages 6-9 yrs.
Journal of Education; 2011/2012, Vol. 192 Issue 1, p54-54, 1/2p