Magnificent Monday-So Long Gnop-Jiye

YAY for spring break!  I have enjoyed sleeping.... and most of all... getting to some of those things that have been stuck on my to do list forever, but keep getting bumped down because of other things.  Such as-I have cleaned/organized both of my Google Drives..... and drum roll please.. my main Gmail account is at INBOX ZERO! Now, I still have 4 other emails I need to work on, but YAY!

A few weeks ago an author connected with me (and even better.. she is a teacher too!) and wanted to share her book.  Katrina Moore's book just recently came out, and I was super excited about the opportunity.

So Long Gnop-Jiye

So Long Gnop-Jiye  by Katrina Moore  is a wonderful story of a mother sharing a childhood story to her children.  During the story the mother (Kuen-Mun) weaves the tale of her family having to quickly leave Hong Kong and relocate to America. During this quick move she had to leave her beloved Gnop-Jiye (little duck) behind along with many of her belongings.  Kuen-Mun continues to share this now bedtime story of how she had to attend a new school and could not understand the language spoken and how as she grew older she had an understanding of the sacrifice that her family made so she would be able to have a better life.

Reasons I love this story:

-It was an easy read, and one that students will be able to easily associate with.  Many of our students are ones that have had to move at some point in their life, and many are also ones that have had to leave their home country.

-Katrina has a FANTASTIC teacher resource guide that you can download! You can find the Teacher Download here . This guide has great question stems, discussion ideas, and also pages that you can use so students can create their own memoir.  It is also a great resource to compare current times with other times throughout history.

-I love how this story is told.  I can remember spending evenings where my own mom would read to me, or share stories of her childhood.  To have this one in a book made it so enjoyable, as I could just imagine the children hanging on every word that the mother told of her journey.

I think as educators we have to remind ourselves to step back and look at the hole picture of the child.  Where have they come from, what is their story?  This book does a great job of reminding not only the reader that people have had to endure great hardships, but also reminding educators that we are all on a journey.

Favorite quote:

"He put down his chopsticks and sighed, 'Kuen-Mun, when were in Hong Kong, all our money and all our riches were taken from us without permission.  We were rich, but we had no freedom.  Now, you are Mary. You may be poor, but you are free to be whoever you want to be.'

Moore, K. (2014). So long gnop-jiye. Mustang: Tate Publishing.

I can't wait to share this book with the teachers on my campus, and I am even more excited that Katrina is going to be a guest author for our CARE Day 2014!  Check out Katrina on Twitter and Facebook and happy reading!