To Night Owl From Dogfish

Children's Literature
To Night Owl From Dogfish

To Night Owl From Dogfish

My daughter is a voracious reader. I often try to keep pace with her only to be left in the dust as she finishes book after book. However, in my hunt for books with diverse characters and written by diverse authors, I am bound and determined to keep up with her as she burns through some of the most talked about books of 2019. She, of course, continues to out-read me but there are a few books she is so excited about that I make sure to finish as well. One such book is, To Night Owl From Dogfish by Holly Goldberg Sloan and Meg Wolitzer.

Here is her review:

Just WOW. I have something known as a Book Log. I write the name of the book, author, library, genre, how old I am, the year, the date, number of pages, and my rating out of five. I RATE THIS BOOK A 7 OUT OF 5!!! I absolutely loved it. First off, this book is written in letters and emails. Also the two main characters, Bett and Avery, both have gay dads.

The two girls have almost nothing in common. Avery (no offense) is a little nerdy, afraid of almost everything (especially deep water), and lives in New York City! Bett, on the other hand, is fearless, confident, lives in California, and loves animals and the ocean! Bett and Avery’s dads meet and fall in love so they are sent to the same camp so they can get to know each other before the families join and they become sisters! Little do the dads know, the thing that is really bringing them together is their joint efforts to sabotage the wedding plans. However, after all the plotting and scheming together, the girls realize that maybe they really do want to be sisters. Then summer hops on a roller coaster and starts twisting and turning! Now, it’s up to Bett and Avery to save the summer. With some help of course. Find out what happens in… To Night Owl From Dogfish!

Her rating is spot on. This book has many fantastic elements and reasons to be included in an upper elementary classroom.

For starters, as she mentions above, the girls in the story both have gay dads. But in a refreshing twist, the book approaches the characters with such normalcy that the story does not revolve around the dads being gay. Instead, the focus of the story is on friendship and love and how those things change and evolve through time between all types of people and in all different ways.

The format of the book is another interesting element. The emails written back and forth between the main characters provide their own source of discussion. To Night Owl From Dogfish is the perfect book for teaching point of view since the book shifts between multiple characters within each chapter.

In some ways, To Night Owl From Dogfish is an age-old tale about summer camps, meeting new people, and child/parent conflict. But in other ways, this book demonstrates the evolution of our society and the true meaning of families. If you are looking for a new book to add to your classroom library, read aloud, or novel discussion, or a new venue for teaching point of view, I highly recommend this one.

One of our goals for 2020 is to read not only more books with diverse characters but more books written by diverse authors. Follow us this year as we blaze through new books often finding math hidden within the pages: @MATHplusLIT and @BMEDemchak

Come see our presentations and workshops on mathematics and literacy!

We’ll be at VCTM in Richmond, VA on March 13-14, 2020 (http://www.vctm.org/event-3463966) talking about:

Bansho: Sequencing Concrete-Representational-Abstract Strategies

STEM Challenges in Early Childhood Classrooms

Visible Learning in the Early Childhood Math Classroom

We’re presenting two all-day workshops:

Using Five Processes to Gain Deep Mathematical Understanding, Grades PreK-3 in Charlottesville, VA through VaSCL on March 24, 2020. Register at vascl.org.
Motivation in Mathematics: Using Student-Centered Learning for Math Achievement in Dedham, MA through Learning & the Brain on May 7, 2020. Register at learningandthebrain.com)

We’ll be at VSRA in Roanoke, VA on March 27, 2020 sharing about: