Chapter 1 & Children Authors

I completely agree with the statement, "The first is to teach students to read.  But the second part, teaching students to want to read, is the bigger challenge."  In order to get students to that point, many things go into making that happen.  The first and most important in my opinion is believing that ALL children can learn no matter the obstacle.  As the book mentioned when a teacher does not equally treat the students to the same benefits regardless of their reading level, the lower group with less constructive work and attention will lack that desire to read or do better.  The teacher's negative attitude affects these chilren in their schooling and in the long run.  Teachers need to be "lifelong learners," teachers need to be aware of their beliefs and attitudes towards literacy because it influences their students.  The six language arts play a very important role in a teacher's curriculum because of how they all work together.  A good book collection can introduce students to many wonders. 

Since my major is in Bilingual Education, I wanted to find authors who write bilingual books.  I found three authors and each one one is very unique in their own way.  Mary Sue Galindo is a Texas native who is a bilingual teacher herself.  Her bio states she struggled to find "quality" books in Spanish which led her to start writing children's books.  Her inspiration was to write about the experiences that the children of the Southwest could relate to.

Another author I found is Pat Mora.  She is an El Paso native and a distinguished author of children's books, poetry and nonficition.  Her books are either biligual or can be in English with a few words in Spanish.  In her bio, I like what she says at the end because I believe it to be very true, "...it is important that kids see their own language in a book, it makes kids feel included and it connects them to the text."  How awesome is that!  If they feel connected, wouldn't that make them WANT to continue reading?

The last author I found was Maya Christina Gonzalez.  From what I read from her statement, she is a painter and an author.  Her paintings are very colorful but not suited for children!  Her page also takes you to a website called childrensbookpress.org, where her new book is listed along with many other books from different authors of different cultural backgrounds.  I really liked this website because you can also order books from this page and see the selection of books.  The website's page says, "We connect kids to their rich and varied cultures."  This website would be great for teachers who want to find books to help their students connect to differenct cultures or their own when reading.