Carter Booklists for Teachers: Rich Literary Texts

With the help of her grandfather, a little girl makes a house for a larva and watches it develop before setting it free. And when the girl grows old, the butterflies come back to return her kindness.

Francisco, a young Mexican-American boy, helps his grandfather find work as a gardener, even though the old man cannot speak English and knows nothing about gardening.

Each kindness makes the world a little better. This unforgettable book is written and illustrated by the award-winning team that created The Other Side and the Caldecott Honor winner Coming On Home Soon. With its powerful anti-bullying message and striking art, it will resonate with readers long after they've put it down. Chloe and her friends won't play with the new girl, Maya. Every time Maya tries to join Chloe and her friends, they reject her. Eventually Maya stops coming to school. When Chloe's teacher gives a lesson about how even small acts of kindness can change the world, Chloe is stung by the lost opportunity for friendship, and thinks about how much better it could have been if she'd shown a little kindness toward Maya.

At once deeply personal yet expressing universally held emotions, this tale of one man's love for two countries and his constant desire to be in both places captured readers' attention and hearts. Winner of the 1994 Caldecott Medal, it remains as historically relevant and emotionally engaging as ever.

Each button on Laura's memory string represents a piece of her family history. The buttons Laura cherishes the most belonged to her mother--a button from her prom dress, a white one off her wedding dress, and a single small button from the nightgown she was wearing on the day she died. When the string breaks, Laura's new stepmother, Jane, is there to comfort Laura and search for a missing button, just as Laura's mother would have done. But it's not the same--Jane isn't Mom. In Eve Bunting's moving story, beautifully illustrated by Ted Rand, Laura discovers that a memory string is not just for remembering the past: it's also for recording new memories.

"A fictionalized story about the life of young Booker T. Washington. Living in a West Virginia settlement after emancipation, nine-year-old Booker travels by lantern light to the salt works, where he labors from dawn till dusk. Although his stomach rumbles, his real hunger is his intense desire to learn to read.

No matter how bright the sun, how high the ball, Nick is there to catch it. Hawkeye, his dad calls him. Then one summer Sunday in the year 1961, the sky at the racetrack trailer park where the family lives isn't so bright--"looks funny," Nick says to his parents, and the air grows very quiet until... "Tornado!" somebody yells. The roaring air sounds like "a stampede of horses," and the trailer where Nick's baby sister, Becky, has been napping, is suddenly no longer there. it takes a "hawkeye" to see beyond the ruins left behind, to find "one lucky girl" whom the swirling wind has picked up in her crib and sent flying--to blissful safety. The vigorous pastel and watercolor paintings catch every change of family mood and weather--and the tornado sky is unforgettable, as anyone who's seen such a storm coming will attest.

Early one morning a boy comes into town, hungry, and looking for work. He meets a sign painter who takes him on as a helper. The boy yearns to be a painter. The man offers him security. The two are commissioned to paint a series of billboards in the desert. Each billboard has one word, Arrowstar. They do not know its meaning. As they are about to paint the last sign, the boy looks up and sees in the distance a magnificent structure. Is it real? They go to find out. Through a simple text and extraordinary paintings, the reader learns of the temptation of safe choices and the uncertainties of following a personal dream. Here Allen Say tells a haunting and provocative story of dreams and choices for readers of all ages. This title has been selected as a Common Core Text Exemplar (Grades 2-3, Read-Aloud Story)

From the first day of second grade, Sister Anne lights up Anna's classroom. But it's the early 60s and not everyone in Anna's small town is ready to accept Sister. How she deals with this and the profound impact she has on her students is at the heart of a touching, timeless tale about the virtue of tolerance and how a teacher can change a child's life.

At home in San Francisco, May speaks Japanese and the family eats rice and miso soup and drinks green tea. When she visits her friends' homes, she eats fried chicken and spaghetti. May plans someday to go to college and live in an apartment of her own. But when her family moves back to Japan, she soon feels lost and homesick for America. In Japan everyone calls her by her Japanese name, Masako. She has to wear kimonos and sit on the floor. Poor May is sure that she will never feel at home in this country. Eventually May is expected to marry and a matchmaker is hired. Outraged at the thought, May sets out to find her own way in the big city of Osaka. Allen Say has created a moving tribute to his parents and their path to discovering where home really is.

The story of one family's journey north during the Great Migration starts with a little girl in South Carolina who finds a rope under a tree one summer. She has no idea the rope will become part of her family's history. But for three generations, that rope is passed down, used for everything from jump rope games to tying suitcases onto a car for the big move north to New York City, and even for a family reunion where that first little girl is now a grandmother. Newbery Honor-winning author Jacqueline Woodson and Coretta Scott King Award-winning illustrator James Ransome use the rope to frame a thoughtful and moving story as readers follow the little girl's journey.

How do you make a rainbow? If you are a weaver you can make a rainbow with wool. If you are a sheep you can BE a rainbow. Here's how.

A young girl describes her various relatives and the foods they bring to the annual family picnic.