Code Breaker, Spy Hunter: How Elizabeth Friedman Changes the Course of Two World Wars

Genre: Nonfiction/Biography

Title: Code Breaker, Spy Hunter: How Elizabeth Friedman Changes the Course of Two World Wars

Author: Laurie Wallmark

Illustrator: Brooke Smart

Awards: N/A

Age Range: 7 years old and up

Summary: This is a biography about Elizabeth Friedman who played a significant role in decoding messages that put many Nazi spies in prison. She was able to crack codes most people could not. Elizabeth loved to decode and she needed a better way to do this. She created the first cryptography department at the CIA.

Evaluation: Personally, I love history, so I really enjoyed this book and learning about Elizabeth. I would want to use this in my classroom as a reference if I were talking about WWI or WWII because of the major impact she had on those wars. Since the book is a little long, I would not read the whole book in one day. I would select certain portions I found to be the most important and read those or I would read a few pages every day. At the end of the book, there is a "crack the code" activity that I would make copies of, then have the students work together in small groups to crack the code. I would use this book with upper elementary and middle school students.

Comments

The Name Jar

Genre: Fiction/Multicultural Title: The Name Jar Author/Illustrator: Yangsook Choi Awards: Arkansas Diamond Primary Book Master List, Arizona Younger Readers Award Nominee Age Range: 3-7 Years Old Summary: Unhei is new to America and is attending school for her first day. She is nervous, and some of the kids make fun of her name. She tells her mom that she wants an American name because she does not want to be different. She tests out different names by introducing herself in the mirror, but nothing seems to sound right. The next day at school Unhei found a jar on her desk, which was filled with name suggestions from her classmates. It keeps getting filled up, but one day when she went to class the name jar was gone. Only one name was on her desk and it was her own. She decided to introduce herself to the class and keep her original name. Johnny showed up at her house that evening with the name jar. He told Unhei that he wanted her to keep her own name which is why he took the ja...

Little Rabbit Foo Foo

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The Wheels on the Bus

Title: The Wheels on the Bus Genre: Poetry Author & Illustrato r : Annie Kubler Awards: N/A Age Group: 1-4 years old Summary: The author shows us the life of being a bus driver. We get to see different people get on and off the bus. In addition, we get to learn about the different parts of the bus and how the people on the bus act. At the very end, everyone gets off the bus because they arrived at their destination where they are having a party. Evaluation: I would use this book when doing a lesson on transportation. The students will learn parts of cars by reading this book and singing along. I would also use the illustrations to get students to predict where they think the people on the bus are going.

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