Book Links

For more than three decades, Book Links has served the educational sphere by providing resources that link valuable titles to the curriculum. In that time, we’ve done our best to change with the seasons: in past issues, Book Links has linked features to the Common Core State Standards, to Next Generation Science Standards, and has taken a STEM and maker focus. In the last few years, as with Booklist, we began publishing a digital edition of our print magazine, bringing our content to a wider audience. But if the start of the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing years have taught us anything, it’s that change is the only constant. An increasing demand for digital content, and the flexibility that that content offers, has led us to realize that it’s time…

Not only are lighthouses fascinating links to the past but, in our current world, they provide a metaphor for shining a light on our way through challenging times. In exploring this beacon metaphor, readers can identify the ways that lighthouses in literature illuminate human challenges and growth and reflect on the ways that they themselves are beacons of light and change for each other. We have compiled a text set of fiction and nonfiction picture books about lighthouses that can serve as a launching point for discussion about how both lighthouses and people emit light, provide a rock-solid foundation, and model perseverance and guidance through tricky waters. In this multi-genre collection, lighthouses play a variety of roles: in some they are a featured character or featured point; in others, they…

Open dialogues with your students with the following questions. To explore facts: • Consider the lighthouse in each book and the story that is told: • How does the lighthouse do its job? • Who tends the light? • What are the normal systems that make everything run smoothly? • What happens when they don’t? To explore metaphors and guiding principles to apply to our own and our readers’ growth: • How is the lighthouse in the book a safe harbor? Whom do you harbor? Who harbors you? • Lighthouse keeping can be a lonely profession. What do the lighthouse keepers and their families in the books do to sustain and entertain themselves? What do you need to sustain yourself when you are working alone? • How do the lighthouse…

These books, included in the list above, are also notable for incorporating fantasy elements into their stories and are re-listed again here for convenience. The Abandoned Lighthouse. By Albert Lamb. Illus. by David McPhail. 2011. 32p. Roaring Brook (9781596435254). PreS–Gr. 2. Caspian Finds a Friend. By Jacqueline Veissid. Illus. by Merrilees Brown. 2019. 36p. Chronicle (9781452137803). PreS–Gr. 2. Faraway Things. By Dave Eggers. Illus. by Kelly Murphy. 2021. 40p. Little, Brown (9780316492195). PreS–Gr. 2. The Sea Chest. By Toni Buzzeo. Illus. by Mary GrandPré. 2002. 32p. Dial (9780803727038). Gr. 2–4.…

Webster’s Third New International Dictionary has about 470,000 entries. The 1989 Oxford English Dictionary comes in at about 829,000. Elsewhere, estimated numbers of words in the English language range well over a million. That’s an awful lot of vocabulary. One way young children acquire vocabulary is through hearing words, whether they’re spoken, sung, or read aloud. This leads us to some pretty disturbing statistics. An oft-cited study, published in 1992 by psychologists Betty Hart and Todd Risley, found that, by the time they’re 4 years old, children from lower-income homes have heard 30 million fewer words than children from higher-income families. More recent studies claim that that gap is not quite as dramatic, though it is still significant; most place it around 4 million. Research at Stanford University indicates that…

In this updated section, we offer recent and notable books that introduce another important building block for young language learners: the ABCs. —Maggie Reagan A Busy Creature’s Day Eating. By Mo Willems. Illus. by the author. 2018. 32p. Disney/Hyperion (9781368013529). PreS–K. A purple creature chomps his way through the alphabet (eventually to the detriment of his stomach, introducing “potty,” “queasy,” and, uh-oh, “vomit,” into the mix) in this hilarious narrative abecedary. A Is for Bee: An Alphabet Book in Translation. By Ellen Heck. Illus. by the author. 2022. Levine Querido (9781646141272). K–Gr. 3. 407. Sixty-nine languages are represented in this animal abecedary, which organizes the animals by their first letter, often with surprising results. For example, fox is found not under F but under R for the French renard, Hungarian…