Sharron L. McElmeel

The use of picture books with teens and tweens has become quite popular in recent year and successful if you have good excuses for this to engage. Many picture books have both sophisticated illustrations and text that is beyond kids in the earlier years. McElmeel selects an excellent collection here with a good bibliography after each book. Her selection spans both fiction and many popular information book topics. And it rather current. While we were unimpressed by the suggested extension or activities of the books, we believe that the use of web 2.0 tools with the possibilities of students collaborating to write their own publishable versions of picture books complete with their own drawings, photographs they take themselves, copyright free illustrations, video clips with accompanying text, and a hundred other engaging and real activities make picture books, graphic novels, popup books, and any other non-traditional media a way to stimulate ideas, critical thinking, and creative thinking. Recommended as a good bibliography.… (mehr)