Don't Call Me Sidney

Title:  Don't Call Me Sidney

Author:  Jane Sutton
Illustrator: Renata Gallio
Publisher:  Dial Books for Young Readers, ©2010
ISBN:  978-0-8037-2753-3
Grade Level:  PreK-2

Book Review:  Featured author Jane Sutton creates a delightful story in which clever animals live out the habits of systems thinking while engaging in antics that are sure to delight young readers  Sidney is a frustrated poet who can't find words that rhyme with his name.   His thinking persistence pays off when he discovers the perfect resolution to his dilemma. This well-written story offers insight into the writing process and illustrates the power of the written word, as we come to learn about the joy Sidney creates through his poetry.

Systems Thinking Connections:
Habits:  Checks results and changes actions if needed:  Successive approximation.  Sidney is sincere in his concern about being able to find words that rhyme with his name.  He demonstrates persistence, tries multiple solutions and eventually finds one that really works for him.
Tools:  Story structure archetype.  The book has a clearly delineated problem and resolution making it ideal for applying the story structure archetype.
More whimsical than books like The The Name Jar or My Name is Maria Isabel, Don't Call Me Sidney still focuses on the importance of a name.  The ladder of inference would be a great way to scaffold a conversation about what names cause us to pay attention to, and how they shape our beliefs about other people and ourselves.

Wolf Island

Title:  Wolf Island

Author:  Celia Godkin
Illustrator:  Celia Godkin
Publisher:  Fitzhery & Whiteside, ©1993, 2006
ISBN:  978-1-55455-008-1
Grade Level:  2-5

Book Review:  Wolf Island ends with the line, "Life on the island was back in balance."  An ecosystem is a prime example of balancing feedback.  Celia Godkin creates a very plausible piece of fiction that illustrates the reality of what happens when a key species is removed from the ecosystem. Beautiful illustrations and clearly written text offer readers an accurate portrayal of an ecosystem that falls out of balance, along with the repercussions to a variety of the native species.

Systems Thinking Connections
Habits:  Identifies the circular nature of complex cause and effect relationships.  The classic habit for looking at reinforcing and balancing feedback, Wolf Island offers a well defined explanation of how an ecosystem is a complex set of relationships that make up a natural system.
Recognizes a system's structure generates its behavior.  By creating a fictionalized story based on a real system, the text helps illustrate how a small change in the structure can have a clear pervasive effect on the system.
Tools:  Students will be able to build a well-structured connection circle from the text in this book. The text lends itself to the language of identifying causal connections.  For example, as the deer on the island increase the grasses on the island decrease.  As the grasses decrease, the mice decrease because they do have enough to eat.