The Moon by Robert Louis Stevenson…The Common Core & muffin cups?…

The Moon by Robert Louis Stevenson Illustrated by Tracey Campbell Pearson
published by Farrar Straus Giroux ISBN 0-374-35046-9
Booklist Editor’s Choice, Top of the list 2006
School Library Journal, A Book of the Year, 2006

While signing books at stores in Maine…*(BOB, THE MOON…ELEPHANT’S STORY isn’t out until October 22nd)…I was told THE MOON is being used for “The Common Core”!

Here are links for using THE MOON  with the “The Common Core”:

http://www.ode.state.or.us/wma/teachlearn/commoncore/ela.03.sr.1.07.-015-v1.pdf

http://www.wsra.org/assets/Convention/Handouts_2013/b20%20laura%20adams%20gr%204.pdf

I was NOT thinking of  “The Common Core” when I created the illustrations for Stevenson’s  poem.

What was I was thinking?…
(while reading my Dad’s childhood copy of A Child’s  Garden of Verses)

…I love the rhythm, the language, the spaces that Stevenson left me to create my own story within the poem

…the magic of a moonlit night

…sailing with my dad by the light of the moon when I was young.

My story begins on the title page….when Dad goes into the child’s room…the new baby can’t sleep and neither can anyone else in the house.

“The moon has a face like the clock in the hall;”

I’m not sure Stevenson was thinking…

…about a Dad taking his child out for a boat ride in the moonlight… Mom stays home with the baby. This story is for the older child when a new sibling arrives. There are enough books written that will tell him how he’ll “love his new baby brother or sister”
This book celebrates the older child.

Here is a link to THE MOON on my website. It includes “the inside story” about my process creating the book. I share this with teachers, librarians and students when I visit schools.

http://www.traceycampbellpearson.com/books/themoon.htm

What were the children thinking?
The same poem.
Different artists.
Different art.

See posts from June 5th,  June 6th…Chamberlin Elementary in S. Burlington,VT made beautiful watercolors.

Post from April 7th…Alden Primary in Buffalo, NY made great paper cut outs of owl in the night..check out the owl’s eyes made out of…muffin cups!!!

So…after teachers fit The Moon into The Common Core…
…maybe students can pick up a paintbrush…or scissors…paper…a glue stick and….
….muffin cups???…tcp

*PS…I left signed books in Maine at The Children’s Book Cellar inWaterville, The Briar Patch in Bangor, Maine Coast Books in Damariscotta and Blue Hill Books in Blue Hill…all wonderful independent bookstores…I just sent books at Deer Isle Library….and left a pile of books for the Deer Isle-Stonington Elementary School for kids to check out…enjoy…tcp