Reaching for Sun by Tracie Zimmer - Diversity

“Embrace what makes you who you are”

I loved the set-up that Tracy Zimmer wrote this book in! The story is written through poems that link together to tell a story of a young girl, Josie, who struggles to accept the differences that exist around her. Growing up, she never knew her father and her mother was hardly ever around either. As if having both parents be non-existent would be hard enough, Josie also suffers from cerebral palsy as well which makes school and making friends even harder! As the story continues though, the reader learns of a character named Jordan, who becomes a new neighbor to Josie, and befriends her, despite her differences and helps her learn to love herself for who she is.

Reading Level: 4.6

Readers: Below are a few websites that could assist in the learning and teaching of this book!

 - This would be a good website about what cerebral palsy is. It would be good to review with your students before talking / reading “Reaching for the Sun.” It would allow them to better understand what is happening in the story and what the main character is dealing with.

 - This is a great website that could also be used in the classroom. It discusses the author and what her background is, along with reviews of this book and other books that she has written.

Vocabulary: Some words that might need to be pre-taught include Beakers, crochet, chintz, dollops, Formica, genus, fan dangled, metronome, python and whirligig.

Activities:

Pre Reading:

A good pre reading activity would be to have students do a KWL chart as to what they know about cerebral palsy. This would also allow you to bring in the website listed above, and help them learn something new before they even start reading!

During Reading:

Students will independently read and can be asked to write in their journal and reflect on the poems, and style of writing that the author chose to convey this story in. They can express whether or not they felt like this style made it easier or more difficult for them to understand the book.

After Reading:

To extend the lesson students can pair off and be asked to write their own “short stories” by connecting three or four poems. Each group can think of one story to write about and one student can be responsible for the beginning of the story while the other would be responsible for the end.

Zimmer, T. V. (2007). Reaching for sun. New York: Bloomsbury Children's Books.