"Front Desk" by Yang

This book for older elementary students was a great read. If follows the life of Mia, a young Chinese immigrant who moves to the U.S with her parents in hopes of gaining the American Dream; to be successful and free. Mia's parents work at a hotel in Anaheim, California and speak very little English. This leaves Mia to run the front desk and deal with crazy customers, a mean and stingy boss, and a boy her age named Jason, the hotel owner's son who loves to make life miserable for Mia and her parents. As we read along with her journey, we soon learn that Mia's perseverance helps her gain insight and help those around her.
This was a great easy read, however I did find that the ending seemed a bit unrealistic and rushed.
I think older elementary students will still enjoy it and it will help them be more understanding of people who are less like them.

Unicorns Dragons and Books Program

Today at the East Los Angeles Library, I hosted a Unicorn and Dragon themed storytime. The following books were read aloud:
Thelma the Unicorn by Aaron Blabey
Not Quite Narwhal by Jessica Sima
Dragons Love Tacos by Adam Rubin
On display:
Dragon Nibblesome Knight by Woollard
Dragons Love Tacos 2 by Rubin
Creatures of Fantasy: Unicorns by Hinds

The plan:
Introduce unicorns to the crowd and explain where the mythological stories came from and how other creatures like narwhals have horns too.
I also printed out pictures of famous unicorns like, "The Last Unicorn," and the unicorn depicted in the Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone movie.

I also did a felt board: Unicorn, unicorn what do you see?
- I simply glued a yellow horn to my horse felt puppet and added in the other Brown Bear, brown bear animals.

We created two different art activities... a paper bag unicorn with colored paper and a streamer rainbow tail, and a green paper dragon with simple paper and crayons.