Title: My Red Balloon
Written by: Eve Bunting
Illustrated by: Kay Life
Publisher: Boyds Mills Press
Year: 2005
ISBN:1590782631
Reading Level: 2nd-3rd
Number of Pages: 32
Genre: Children's Pictures Book
Summary: A little boy named Bobby's dad is coming home today. He is so excited and puts on his best outfit and looks his best for his dad. He has a red balloon that says welcome home and ties it around his wrist so that his dad will be able to pick him and his mom out of the crowd. When they get to the place where his dad is coming his balloon ends up getting loose. He is now worried that his dad won't be able to find him.
Critical Review:
Strengths: (Author's Perspective). Anne Evelyn Bunting, is a Northwen Ireland-born American writer of more than 250 books. Her work covers a broad majority of subjects and includes fiction and non-fiction books. Her books are more aimed towards children and young adults, but she has written the text for picture books as well. (Illustrator) Kay Life received her degree in elementary education at Southern Methodist University in Dallas and her B.F.A. in illustration at The Massachusetts College of Art in Boston. (Awards) Eve Bunting has received six awards. She won the Regina Medal in 1997, The Golden Kite Award for Fiction in 1977, The Golden Kite Award for Picture Book in 1998, The Edgar Award for Best Juvenile in 1993, and The Storyteller Award in 1995.
Weaknesses: (Multidimensionality and interconnections) While this book has some examples of diverse individuals regarding color, it doesn't included many females. I think that is one stereotype about those in the military is that they are all males. In reality there are many females that are apart of our armed forces.
Classroom Connections:
Main Themes: A main theme could be that even though something bad happens you should always think of a positive in regard to that negative. I think that this is important to teach children that life has many positives and we need to be aware of those more than we are the negatives.
Activities: An activity that I would have my students do would be to create a mailable hug. These would be colored and drawn to resemble a student themselves. Students would then write a note or a poem about being away to include with the hug. Then we would mail these out to deployed soldiers so that they always had a "hug."
Resources:
Military Families: Child Care Support During Deployments
This is the official website of The American Academy of Pediatrics and has resources and things that you can do as a classroom teacher to help your students cope during a parent's deployment.
https://healthychildren.org/English/family-life/work-play/Pages/Military-Families-Child-Care-Support-During-Deployments.aspx
Military Impacted Schools Association- Providing the Needs for Military Children
This is the official website of Champions for Children and is a site that gathers all school superintendents of schools with a high military population and comes up with ways to better serve their military connected students.
https://militaryimpactedschoolsassociation.org
Military Child Education Coalition- MCEC
This is the official website of the MCEC and is a service for educators on different trainings that they can get to ensure they are providing the best learning possible to their military connected students.
https://www.militarychild.org
Category: Military Connected Students
Title: Come Home Soon a First Look at When a Parent Goes to War
Written by: Pat Thomas
Illustrated by: Lesley Harker
Publisher: Barron's Education Series, Inc.
Year: 2012
ISBN: 978-1-4380-0189-0
Reading Level: K-2nd
Number of Pages: 22
Genre: Children's Picture Book
Summary: This book goes through the process of what happens when a parent goes to war. It examines what happens before they leave, while they are gone, and what happens when they come home. It has sidebar questions within the book that ask the reader different questions that are similar to what those with a deployed parent have to go through on an every day basis.
Critical Review:
Strengths: (Authors Perspective) Pat Thomas was born in California but lived in London for 30 years as an author and a journalist. She has spent most of her life in health and environment and has written many books for adults to help them to take action on social issues. Her First Look at Series has 30 titles in it now. Many of these books came from conversations that she had with her son about disabilities and tough issues in our world. (Illustrations) The illustrations in this book are very diverse and show many different types of characters and families. This book shows depictions of things that would actually happen in a military family. (Stereotyping) This book did not have a whole lot of stereotyping in it. There were service members of all colors and genders. It also accurately depicted what service members go through when they are over seas. It especially hits it on the nose with when they go to the Middle East.
Weaknesses: (Awards) Pat Thomas is an American psychotherapist who specializes in healthcare and environmental issues. She was appointed editor of The Ecologist magazine in 2007. Her journalism has been widely published in the national press and she regularly appears on radio programs as well as on BBC News, Sky News, Sky News, Carlton Granada Talk TV, LBC and The World Service. She doesn't have any big awards though which could be counted as a weakness.
Classroom Connections:
Main Themes: I think that a main theme with this book would be the fact that everyone leaves at some point for many different kinds of jobs. People who are in the military often times leave for longer periods of times than those that are not. So just explaining to your students that many people have to go away for their jobs and it is normal.
Activities: Something that you could do as a classroom teacher would be to create letters or care packages for deployed soldiers. Each student could hand make a letter and then the school could ship it off to wherever the soldiers are.
Resources:
Military K-12 Partnership
This is the official website of the DODEA and is a partnership between the Department of Defense and the DoD Education Activity and has all services working with educators and administrators across the nation to provide quality education for all children of military families.
https://www.dodea.edu/Partnership/index.cfm
Purdue University- Military Family Research Institute- How to Help Series
This is a series of publications that offer valuable information to various audiences to help them assist and support members of the military, veterans, and their families. Each issue provides evidence-based guidance on how a particular group can help, with short, practical suggestions and links that point to additional resources.
https://www.mfri.purdue.edu/resources-and-research/how-to-help-series/
Penn State- Clearinghouse for Military Family Readiness School Resources about Military Families
This is the official website of Penn State University. Includes high quality, evidence based resources are publicly available online from many organizations. The Clearinghouse for Military family Readiness at Penn State identified some of the most relevant, useful, and accessible resources across multiple topics, such as military culture, deployments, parental injury, student tried, and reintegration.
https://schoolresources.militaryfamilies.psu.edu
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