Who is Steven Spielberg? by Stephanie Spinner

Stephanie Spinner's book Who is Steven Spielberg? is a biography of the director aimed at second and third grade readers. The book, which features black and white illustrations by Daniel Mather, follows Spielberg's life from his birth in 1946 (In Cincinnati! Who knew?), to the release of his film Lincoln in late 2012. The structure of the book focuses largely on the inspiration for and production of many of Spielberg's most famous movies, intercut with glimpses into his personal life and sidebars about subjects tangentially related to Spielberg and his films (topics of these sidebars include a glossary of filmmaking terms, an overview of the rise of Nazi Germany, and a history of the Academy Awards).

I'm not sure that I would call this a "warts and all" depiction of Spielberg, but that may be due to the fact that, according to most people who have worked with him, Spielberg is a genuinely friendly person. The book does detail some aspects of Spielberg's life that teachers may not want students to emulate: he didn't get into film school due to bad grades, and dropped out of college when he got his first offer to direct a tv show. Additionally, Spielberg's origin in the film industry isn't exactly model behavior: he made contacts at Universal Studios by sneaking past security, setting up shop in an abandoned office and lying about his identify so that he could be close to the filmmaking process.

That being said, the book also does a great detail to extoll the virtues of following one's dreams (many of Spielberg's movies can be traced back to his childhood passions and interests) and never giving up in the face of adversity (it sounds like the production of Jaws, considered to be the world's first blockbuster, was a train wreck from day one). I think this book would make for very engaging reading for any young student who is curious about how the movies they love get made. There is a glimpse into nearly all aspects of the film industry in this story, from writing, to producing, to directing. Even the business aspect of the industry is briefly described as, in 1994, Spielberg cofounded DreamWorks studios.

Much of the early portion of this book is spent looking at the various films and figures that inspired Spielberg to want to make movies, and I could see this book, in turn, opening up a whole world of inspiration for a new generation of young readers and artists, and I would not hesitate to include this book in my classroom.

Octopuses by Jenny Markert

Octopuses by Jenny Markert is an informational text for early childhood readers. This text, part of a series of animal texts called New Nature Books, uses photographs, captions and concise writing to talk about different aspects of the lives of octopuses (not, as I had always been taught, octopi).

The information and photographs are interesting enough in their own right, but I feel that the true strength of this book lies in it's structure. The book is built like a 30 page textbook, complete with a glossary, index, and table of contents. It is my opinion that this would make an excellent introduction to each of those elements and how to use them. Each chapter is titled with a question (such as "Where do octopuses live?" and "Are octopuses dangerous?") making it easy for students to find the information that they would like to know in the table of contents. Even the page numbers are enlarged for ease of use, since it is possible that students have never had to pay attention to page numbers in the past.

As for the actual content, this text does a great job of providing information in a way that is detailed, organized and written plainly enough for a second grader to follow. It covers a wide range of topics and species of octopus, including their life cycles and survival techniques. Some might feel that the book does personify octopuses (again, that word just does not feel right) by talking about how their colors change with their mood: red for angry, pale for frightened, but many scientists would argue that this is accurate, that octopuses actually do have what we would recognize as rudimentary emotions (for more on this argument, I recommend checking out the book The Soul of an Octopus by Sy Montgomery).

All in all, I would say that this is a fine informational text and a excellent introduction to informational texts as a concept.

Additional Resources

While Octopuses is an excellent informational text, it may be  possible that there are students who are used to reading narrative texts and are therefore likely to get distracted by and lost in the text-book structure of the text. For these students, I might recommend first introducing them to An Octopus is Amazing by Patricia Lauber with illustrations by Holly Keller. This book introduces a lot of the same information as Octupuses, but it does so in a more straightforward way, more reminiscent of the storybooks that students might be used to at this age. The information in An Octopus is Amazing is less detailed than the information in Octopuses, there is no table of contents, and rather than photographs, it is illustrated in a style that reminded me of Gregory the Terrible Eater for some reason. All of this will serve to help students absorb basic information without being overwhelmed by data or unfamiliar text structures. Once a student has read through this book and developed a basesline knowledge of Octopuses, they can use the index and table of contents of the other text to supplement the areas of information that they would like to know more about.

Also, I would recommend showing students the National Geographic video found here. While al of the information in both of these texts is sure to enlighten and engage, words and still images can't capture the beautiful strangeness of an octopus changing his color while he hunts prey or avoids predators. This video is sure to capture the attention of every student in the room.