Angel Child, Dragon Child

For any of you who are looking for good multicultural children's books to add to your annotated bibliography, this is a sweet and inspiring story based on true events. Nguyen Hoa, known as "Ut" to her family, has recently come to America from Vietnam. Her mother stays behind in Vietnam, as there is not enough money for her to come over yet. Ut tries to be an "Angel Child" at school, as her mother would have told her to be, but her sadness is only made worse by the teasing she endures at her new American school. Finally, with the help of a new friend, things take a turn for the better.

The author, Michelle Maria Surat, has done a wonderful job of portraying real emotions in this touching book. The illustrations by Vo-Dinh Mai lend to the beauty of the story. I would recommend this book for children ages 6-10. 

Diary of a Spider

The main character in this book goes to school every day, has a sister and a wise old Grampa, plays at his best friend's house, and is afraid of a bully. Sounds like many kids you know, right? The only difference is that this kid happens to be a spider, with a best friend named Fly. And the only thing that scares him more than the bully Daddy Long Legs is...the vacuum cleaner.

Just to give you a taste for how funny this book is, here are some sample entries from Spider's diary (although they are so much better when accompanied by the illustrations!)

"May 7. Mom said I was getting too big for my own skin. So I molted."

"May 8. Today was show-and-tell. So I brought in my old skin. My teacher called on it to lead the Pledge of Allegiance."

Doreen Cronin has written several humorous children's books, including Click, Clack, Moo: Cows that Type, and Duck for President, but my favorite books of hers are those she has teamed up with illustrator Harry Bliss on: this book, Diary of a Spider (2005), and its companion, Diary of a Worm. Both of these books are absolutely hilarious and will have kids and adults laughing together. I would love to use this book as a read-aloud for an elementary class. It could be used to teach many things about spiders and insects; just a few facts that children will learn from this fictional story are that spiders are not insects, that they have eight legs, and that they can shed their skin. Another useful aspect of this particular story is that it may help children who are afraid of spiders to get over this fear. In fact, as Spider says himself, he is scared of humans with big feet!