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Bread and Roses, Too by Katherine Paterson is an excellent book. This book is about a families struggle through a workers strike. Rosa, one of the main characters, lives at home with her mother, sister, baby brother and another immigrant family.  Bread and Roses,Too portrays her emotions about the strike and her families involvement.  It also tells the story of a homeless boy who works in the mill where the workers are striking.  Both these children leave to go to Vermont until the strike is over. There they learn alot about life and family.  This book well suites the award becase both of the main characters are from single-parent homes and this issue is addressed many times.  A weakness of the book is that children may not relate to that specific issue becasue there iare so many other issues being addressed. Overall, this is a great book for the Aiden Jacob Lewis award because it portrays many single-parent families and all the families are not the sterotypical perfect family.

This is a story about a little girl who likes to be unique. She wears a pony tail in her hair even though the rest of the girls at school wear their hair different. The girls in her class make fun of her, but she does not care. The next day they will come into school wearing their hair the exact same way that Stephanie does. She feels very angry that the girls are copying her, so she changes her hair style. No matter what silly way she does it , they always copy. In the end it doesn't end up so good for the "copy cats".

Katherine Imler 1399 Lafayette Road New Enterprise, PA 16664 March 7, 2008 Robert Munsch 15 Sharon Place Guelph, Ontario, Canada N1H 7V2 Dear Mr. Munsch, I am pleased to announce that you have won the Susan B. Anthony Award for Celebrating Strong Female Characters for your book Stephanie's Ponytail. The award was created for a class project in my children's literature class. I am a junior at Penn State Altoona who is majoring in elementary and kindergarten education. I am in my language and literacy education block. Every student in my class created an award that dealt with an aspect of children's literature. Each student nominated books for the other students' awards. Each award had specific criteria that the nominated book had to meet. My award was to be given to a picture book that featured strong and empowered female characters. Many children's books show girls who are passive and dependent. Also, children's books usually show males as the problem solvers. This is disturbing considering the day and age we live in. Shirley B. Ernst author of the article "Gender Issues in Books for Children and Young Adults" said, "I would like to see more books with strong female characters who are active, inventive, and in charge of their own destinies." Nominations for this award had to show independent and non-stereotypical female characters. The book also had to be a picture book for children in kindergarten through second grade. I chose Stephanie's Ponytail for my award because the book features a strong female character that stands up to group conformity. She does not want to look like everyone else, but instead be her own individual person. Your book teaches children the importance of liking who they are. Another reason I picked your book is that its message is universal. The theme could be the same regardless of what time period or location the book was written about. Many children can relate to this book. Chi

Marvin One Too Many is a really good book for children who are struggling to learn. This book is about a boy named Marvin and the struggles he has with reading. When Marvin first arrives at school, he does not have a desk and is one too many; it only gets worse from here. Marvin is the only one in his class who can not read. He often feels left out because of this. The children in his class laugh at Marvin and make fun of him because he can not read. A lot of children who have trouble reading can probably relate to Marvin. Finally with the help of his family, Marvin learns to read and begins to enjoy it! Since this is an "I Can Read Book," many children will be able to read this independently. This book can be found in the Penn State libraries.