Elementary Yesterday I Had the Blues by Jeron Ashford Frame (Tricycle Press) A young boy and his family’s colorful range of emotions are explored in lyrical text and lively illustrations.
	Secondary The First Part Last by Angela Johnson (Simon and Schuster Children’s Publishing) A beautifully written story of a teenage father struggling to raise his infant daughter. A tragedy surrounding her birth has left him to care for her alone.
Strategies for Struggling Readers “Say Something” (Harste, Short, and Burke, 1988) is an interactive, during reading activity that encourages students to actively attend to and construct meaning from what they are reading. Students are partnered and instructed to stop and “say something” when they come to a point in the text that prompts a reaction, question, or comment. When readers stop to “say something,” one reading partner may pause to 1) make a prediction, 2) ask a question, 3) clarify an unclear passage, 4) comment on the text, or 5) make connections between the text and another text and/or personal experience. The second partner then responds to what was said about the passage (e.g., supports or counters the prediction, answers the question, etc.). If, after reading a selection, the reading partners cannot “say something" with respect to one of the prompts, students are instructed to re-read the passage. Model for students how to stop and “say something” about key concepts or events in a story.