Pre-service and in-service teachers alike benefit from the experience of renowned authors Charles Temple, Miriam Martinez, and Junko Yokota as they share a wealth of richly illustrated, practical ideas for sharing literature with children. The authors focus on creating an understanding of how literature works and how children respond to literature, they provide a wide range of good books to use with children, and they suggest ways to guide children into books and help them enjoy the experience. Dozens of new authors and books have been added to this new edition of Children’s books in Children’s Hands: An Introduction to Their Literature, 4e, making it interesting and current, and the continued emphasis on cultural diversity includes a new chapter on international books.
Charles Temple is a banjo-picking storyteller and teacher educator at Hobart and William Smith Colleges. Co-author of many books in the field of reading and language arts, including All Children Read, Understanding Reading Problems, and The Beginnings of Writing, Temple has also published several books for children. Temple has worked over the years with teachers in Europe, Asia, Africa, and Central and South American who are using literacy and literature to better students’ lives.
Miriam Martinez is a teacher educator at the University of Texas at San Antonio who thoroughly enjoys getting lost in good books, including children’s books. A recipient of the International Reading Association’s Arbuthnot Award which honors outstanding university teachers of children’s literature, Dr. Martinez co-edited Book Talk and Beyond: Children and Teachers Respond to Literature and What a Character! Character Study as a Gateway to Literary Understanding, both published by IRA.
Junko Yokota is a professor and director of the Center for Teaching through Children’s Books at National-Louis University in Chicago. She spent the first ten years of her career as a classroom teacher and librarian. She has published articles and review columns in a wide variety of reading/language arts and children’s literature journals, chapters in professional books, and Kaleidoscope: A Multicultural Booklist for Grades K-8, published by the National Council of Teachers of English.