She manages to locate Lint Bear within the tumbling clothes. PinchnSqueeze becomes convinced that he is alive and she commences a series of torture-like operations, certain that she can bring the doll to life.
​Lint Boy is determined to rescue his friend from the clutches of this evil woman. He sets out on his noble task with assistance from the captive dolls and battalion of lost socks. Armed with courage and a very sharp needle Lint Boy succeeds.
The book's design and page layout have a unique style that is a visual treat. There is a art nouveau feel to the text and image arrangement as well as to the individual panel shapes and ornamentation. Soft pastels fit nicely with the sweet fabric characters.
​There are just enough chilling details to make the villain truly evil. But the fanciful setting and the charming characters keep the story well within the realm of fantasy. Lint Boy is destined to enjoy a prosperous life on bookshelves everywhere. Thank you Aileen Leijten for this delightful graphic novel gem.

Okay, I couldn't resist. Creating with lint is an entirely new craft concept for me. I consider lint as merely a fluffy amalgam of fiber that needs to be removed from the dryer. Can this really be the basis for a craft? Not one to shrink from taking on a new creative challenge, I reasoned that lint has been through a wash cycle and the heat of the dryer. It must be clean enough to work with. Let's do this!

Viola!  Meet my version of Lint Boy (thank you white bathroom mats lint) and Lint Bear (thank you casual clothes lint). They were so fun and easy to make.  However, for a group project I would suggest forgoing lint and using old mismatched socks. They work well with the story.  Cut the clean discarded socks up and assemble your own Lint Buddies using buttons, scraps of felt, thread and a glue gun.

Dolls That Will Creep You Out:  Just the right amount of horror for younger readers

​​Hales' anxiety over the situation begins to manifest itself with increasing stomach aches and repetitive coping mechanisms. She also grapples with a complicated sibling relationship. Shannon eventually decides to leave "the group." Later she finds new friends who accept and appreciate her.

LeUyen Pham's realistic style is reminiscent of Raina Telgemeier. It is revealing to observe the progresion of changes as Shannon grows from a child into a middle school student. Dark panels are particularly effective in invoking the gloomy periods in Hales' young life.

Anyone who has felt different, been excluded, or questioned their self-worth will identify with Shannon Hales' personal journey to find herself and discover her Real Friends.

Raina, Shannon, Astrid, Abby, and Jun: I absolutely adore each and every main character in this selection of graphic novels featuring girls in middle grades. They are more than characters in books. They are real girls with real life issues. While my specific circumstances may have been a bit different, I can relate to the desire to find a place among like-minded peers: to be valued and included within a circle of friends.
Below is a book display featuring some of these middle school protagonists.
I used a paper doll template, available with a variety of hair and skin tones. It can be downloaded free from Kiki & Company. With a wee bit of paper scraps and markers I created an arrangement featuring some of these young heroines.
Get ready for an onslaught of book requests and obtain multiple copies of each title. This Middle Grade Girl Up display will send these graphic novels to flying off the shelves and into the hearts of young readers everywhere.

There are many excellent books that portray the struggles of young girls moving away from childhood.  Several of these stories use the graphic novel format, allowing the reader to experience in both visual and text format the pains of discovering true friendship and finding oneself.  Here are a few books to get you started.

Play the "Who said that?" game. Select quotations spoken by the main character in each book. Can you match the quotation with the girl who said it? Sometimes it can be quite tricky to select the correct attribution for the quote. Have copies of books handy to verify the answers.

Sal has two friends who figure predominantly in his life: Samantha (Sam) and Fito. The backgrounds for both of these teens contrast sharply with the warm and stable home life Sal knows. He sees the pain which his friends constantly experience and reflects "I guess life hurts everybody. I didn't understand the logic of this thing we call living. Maybe I wasn't supposed to."
Both Sam and Fito cope with emotional abandonment and rejection. All three friends must come to terms with complicated and conflicting emotions with respect to adults in their lives. "just because my love isn't perfect doesn't mean i don't love you"  
The specter of death permeates each of their young lives. Each experiences loss and learns what it is to grieve.
"Life had its seasons, and the season of letting go would always come, but there was something very beautiful in that, in the letting go."

The story opening makes it clear that the act of remembering is an essential component of identity.  “We are what we remember.”
​“I had a picture of my dad teaching me how to tie a tie, taken the morning before my First Communion…I had a picture of Mima holding me in her arms when I was four. She had all this love in her eyes, and I swear I could drown in all that love.”

The endearing appellation “Oh mijito” and other Spanish phrases radiate family warmth and connection. From the fresh tortillas slathered with butter to the kitchen filled with traditional tamale-making, readers feel a strong sense of home and family.
A story of beginnings and endings, life and death, confliction and resolution, faith and doubt; Saenz has created a tale of “Life (that) had a logic all its own."

Gracias Benjamin Alire Sáenz, for this luminous literary gift.

Use this picture book as a springboard for an exploration of self portraiture. Students can create a list of words and phrases which describe themselves. Paint would be an excellent medium for illustrating these self-descriptive phrases. Begin by teaching techniques for creating custom colors. Allow students time to explore mixing paint to create a variety of skin tones. Raschka's style frees children from the expectation of a realistic representation and allows them permission to interpret themselves in new ways.
​A classroom gallery of finished self portraits with accompanying descriptive phrases could be titled "The Me of Me."

Picture books celebrating the richness of African American identity and "The skin I'm in"