Teacher’s Guides

Teacher’s Guide: The Yellow Áo Dài

Teacher’s Guide: The Yellow Áo Dài

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Take a deep dive with your classroom into The Yellow Áo Dài Hanh Bui’s debut picture book about a little girl who connects to her Vietnamese heritage when she accidentally rips her late grandmother’s áo dài. This comprehensive guide created by The Book Links includes discussion questions, activities, and extension learning opportunities making it the perfect fit for classrooms across a wide grade range.

Click below to download the activity kit to share in your school or library. Resources include:

  • A slide deck for educators
  • Sequencing worksheets
  • Conflict & resolution worksheets
  • Country research project
  • Vocabulary cards and quiz
  • Sustainability worksheet
  • ..and more!
Find Out More about MORE THAN WORDS And Our Activity Kit >

Discussion Guide: Eagle Drums

Discussion Guide: Eagle Drums

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Eagle Drums
By Nasuġraq Rainey Hopson
Ages 8-12
On Sale Now!

A magical realistic middle grade debut about the origin story of the Iñupiaq Messenger Feast, a Native Alaskan tradition.

As his family prepares for winter, a young, skilled hunter must travel up the mountain to collect obsidian for knapping—the same mountain where his two older brothers died.

When he reaches the mountaintop, he is immediately confronted by a terrifying eagle god named Savik. Savik gives the boy a choice: follow me or die like your brothers.

What comes next is a harrowing journey to the home of the eagle gods and unexpected lessons on the natural world, the past that shapes us, and the community that binds us.

Eagle Drums by Nasuġraq Rainey Hopson is part cultural folklore, part origin myth about the Messenger’s Feast – which is still celebrated in times of bounty among the Iñupiaq. It’s the story of how Iñupiaq people were given the gift of music, song, dance, community, and everlasting tradition.

Download the discussion guide for Eagle Drums here!
FIND OUT MORE ABOUT EAGLE DRUMS HERE →

Discussion Guide: Gone Wolf by Amber McBride

Discussion Guide: Gone Wolf by Amber McBride

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Gone Wolf
By Amber McBride
Ages 10-14
On Sale 10/03/23!

In middle-grade debut, Gone Wolf, award-winning author Amber McBride lays bare the fears of being young and Black in America.

In the future, a Black girl known only as Inmate Eleven is kept confined — to be used as a biological match for the president’s son, should he fall ill. She is called a Blue — the color of sadness. She lives in a small-small room with her dog, who is going wolf more often – he’s pacing and imagining he’s free. Inmate Eleven wants to go wolf too—she wants to know why she feels so Blue and what is beyond her small-small room.

In the present, Imogen lives outside of Washington DC. The pandemic has distanced her from everyone but her mother and her therapist. Imogen has intense phobias and nightmares of confinement. Her two older brothers used to help her, but now she’s on her own, until a college student helps her see the difference between being Blue and sad, and Black and empowered.

In this symphony of a novel, award-winning author Amber McBride lays bare the fears of being young and Black in America, and empowers readers to remember their voices and stories are important, especially when they feel the need to go wolf.

DOWNLOAD THE Gone Wolf DISCUSSION GUIDE HERE →

Educator’s Guide: Accountable: The True Story of a Racist Social Media Account and the Teenagers Whose Lives It Changed by Dashka Slater

Educator’s Guide: Accountable: The True Story of a Racist Social Media Account and the Teenagers Whose Lives It Changed by Dashka Slater

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Accountable: The True Story of a Racist Social Media Account and the Teenagers Whose Lives It Changed
By Dashka Slater
Ages 12-18
On Sale Now!

From the New York Times-bestselling author of The 57 Bus comes Accountable, a propulsive and thought-provoking true story about the revelation of a racist social media account that changes everything for a group of high school students and begs the question: What does it mean to be held accountable for harm that takes place behind a screen?

When a high school student started a private Instagram account that used racist and sexist memes to make his friends laugh, he thought of it as “edgy” humor. Over time, the edge got sharper. Then a few other kids found out about the account. Pretty soon, everyone knew. Ultimately no one in the small town of Albany, California, was safe from the repercussions of the account’s discovery. Not the girls targeted by the posts. Not the boy who created the account. Not the group of kids who followed it. Not the adults—educators and parents—whose attempts to fix things too often made them worse.

In the end, no one was laughing. And everyone was left asking: Where does accountability end for online speech that harms? And what does accountability even mean? In Accountable, award-winning and New York Times–bestselling author Dashka Slater has written a must-read book for our era that explores the real-world consequences of online choices.

Download the educator’s guide for Accountable here!
DOWNLOAD THE ACCOUNTABLE EDUCATORS GUIDE HERE →

My Life Series Educator’s Guide

Janet and Jake Tashjian’s award-winning My Life series, praised by Kirkus Reviews as “a kinder, gentler Wimpy Kid with all the fun”, follows the coming-of-age misadventures of middle-grader Derek Fallon in school and through his attempts to follow his bliss as a cartoonist, video gamer, stuntboy, and ninja. Hilarious and uplifting, young readers will find themselves relating to Derek’s problems and inspired by his solutions.

Learn more about how to use the My Life series in the classroom and bring these activities to life for each book in the series in this new educator guide!

Download the My Life Series Educator’s Guide here!

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Click the covers to learn more about these books:

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Educator’s Guide: My Selma: a Southern Childhood at the Height of the Civil Rights Movement by Willie Mae Brown

Educator’s Guide: My Selma: a Southern Childhood at the Height of the Civil Rights Movement by Willie Mae Brown

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My Selma: True Stories of a Southern Childhood at the Height of the Civil Rights Movement
By Willie Mae Brown
Ages 10-14
On Sale Now!

Combining family stories of the everyday and the extraordinary as seen through the eyes of her twelve-year-old self, Willie Mae Brown gives readers an unforgettable portrayal of her coming of age in a town at the crossroads of history.

As the civil rights movement and the fight for voter rights unfold in Selma, Alabama, many things happen inside and outside the Brown family’s home that do not have anything to do with the landmark 1965 march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge. Yet the famous outrages which unfold on that span form an inescapable backdrop in this collection of stories. In one, Willie Mae takes it upon herself to offer summer babysitting services to a glamorous single white mother—a secret she keeps from her parents that unravels with shocking results. In another, Willie Mae reluctantly joins her mother at a church rally, and is forever changed after hearing Martin Luther King Jr. deliver a defiant speech in spite of a court injunction.

Infused with the vernacular of her Southern upbringing, My Selma captures the voice and vision of a fascinating young person—perspicacious, impetuous, resourceful, and even mystical in her ways of seeing the world around her—who gifts us with a loving portrayal of her hometown while also delivering a no-holds-barred indictment of the time and place.

Download the educator’s guide for My Selma here!
DOWNLOAD MY SELMA eDUCATORS GUIDE HERE→

Educator’s Guide: Torpedoed by Deborah Heiligman

Educator’s Guide: Torpedoed by Deborah Heiligman

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Torpedoed: The True Story of the World War II Sinking of ‘The Children’s Ship’ by Deborah Heiligman

From award-winning author Deborah Heiligman comes Torpedoed, a true account of the attack and sinking of the passenger ship SS City of Benares, which was evacuating children from England during WWII.

Amid the constant rain of German bombs and the escalating violence of World War II, British parents by the thousands chose to send their children out of the country: the wealthy, independently; the poor, through a government relocation program called CORB. In September 1940, passenger liner SS City of Benares set sail for Canada with one hundred children on board.

When the war ships escorting the Benares departed, a German submarine torpedoed what became known as the Children’s Ship. Out of tragedy, ordinary people became heroes. This is their story.

DOWNLOAD THE TEACHER’S GUIDE HERE →

Teacher’s Guides for Every Occasion!

Teacher’s Guides for Every Occasion

Teachers-Guides

If you’re looking to boost your lesson plans with great reads and important classroom discourse, we have a selection of guides to help! This list of teacher’s guides for every occassion can help you plan for the year! From well-loved canon to important historical moments, you’ll find pre-reading questions, discussion topics, and common core ties that are evergreen conversation starters.

Scroll through the images below to find teacher’s guides for The 57 Bus by Dashka Slater; A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle; The Librarian of Auschwitz by Antonio Iturbe; adapted by Salva Rubio and illustrated by Loreto Aroca; translated by Lilit Thwaites; The Burning (Young Readers Edition) by Tim Madigan; adapted by Hilary Beard; Wishtree by Katherine Applegate; and Speak the Graphic Novel by Laurie Halse Anderson; illustrated by Emily Carroll.

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Educator’s Guide: A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

Educator’s Guide: A Wrinkle in Time by Madeleine L’Engle

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A Wrinkle in Time
By Madeleine L’Engle
Ages 10-14
On Sale Now!

NEWBERY MEDAL WINNER • TIME MAGAZINE’S 100 BEST FANTASY BOOKS OF ALL TIME • NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE FROM DISNEY

Read the ground-breaking science fiction and fantasy classic that has delighted children for over 60 years!

“A Wrinkle in Time is one of my favorite books of all time. I’ve read it so often, I know it by heart.” —Meg Cabot

Late one night, three otherworldly creatures appear and sweep Meg Murry, her brother Charles Wallace, and their friend Calvin O’Keefe away on a mission to save Mr. Murray, who has gone missing while doing top-secret work for the government. They travel via tesseract–a wrinkle that transports one across space and time–to the planet Camazotz, where Mr. Murray is being held captive. There they discover a dark force that threatens not only Mr. Murray but the safety of the whole universe.

A Wrinkle in Time is the first book in Madeleine L’Engle’s Time Quintet.

Includes an appreciation by Anna Quindlen and a personal interview with Madeleine L’Engle.

DOWNLOAD A wrinkle in time eDUCATORS GUIDE HERE→