PPBF: Your Name Is A Song

Today I'm grateful because I just got back from a trip home;
Wisconsin summers seriously serve up some stunning sunsets.

Our character cam caught this beauty from my Dad's back porch. I went up there to help him with his recovery from a full knee replacement surgery, but I also managed to take long walks and reconnect with my siblings and mom. It was a therapeutic getaway, just what the doctor ordered.


I'm so proud of my niece and nephew, two 2021 college grads!


While I was hanging out up north, my reflections and suggestions
around What's In A Name? went live at EduMatch {here}.

As I was prewriting the piece on the importance of our names,
I found today's PPBF, the perfect complement to that post.


Title: Your Name Is A Song
Author: Jamilah Thompkins-Bigelow
Illustrator: Luisa Uribe
Publisher: The Innovation Press
Birth Date: July 7, 2020
Suitable for: ages 7-10
Themes: names, identity, equity
Brief synopsis: A young girl gets frustrated at school when no one, 
not even her teacher, can say her name correctly. Will she believe
her mom when she says that her name is really a song?
Opening page: "I'm not coming back ever again!" The girl stomped. 

Resources: Enjoy a read aloud {here}.
Find lots of enrichment activities {here}.
Check out this conversation with the author.
Listen in on Elmo's Sesame Street song about names.

Why I like this book: One of my SMARTIE goals this year was to not shy away from names that I wasn't familiar with or that challenged me, so you can imagine my delight when I found this book:

"No one? Not even your teacher?" Momma asked.
"She tried. It got stuck in her mouth."

That. Hit. Home.

I didn't mean for anyone's names to get stuck. But sometimes they did.
Or when I couldn't remember names, I'd call them honey or my friend.

I didn't intend to dance around their names;
I shied away because I didn't want to get it wrong.

I know now that I missed many opportunities
to practice saying their names with them, to understand the
origins and different cultures behind their names. 

To celebrate their names.
To learn about their namesake. 
To honor who they are.

So I loved the way this book suggests approaching names
that are unfamiliar or seem difficult to pronounce:

Sing them.

Of course! That makes perfect sense, right?

I can easily see adding a ukulele chord or two
as I strum them into greatness by 
singing their names.

Brilliant.

After a read-aloud, encourage your budding musicians
to put their names into a cadence, melody, poem or song.

Then, ask your learners (or faculty) to make a tag
with their name and their place of birth.


Enrich the lesson by grabbing a map and some push pins. Locate all of the places that your class or school family hails from. Figure out mileage from one place to the next, and set a goal to collectively run the distance to each other's hometown during recess or physical education class or even as a weekend family challenge. So, for example, it's 1000 miles from Friendswood, TX to Wayside, WI. If each of our 500 students runs two miles, we'd have collectively made our way from our school to where I grew up. Wouldn't that be a fun way to honor not only our names but also our birthplace? You could even track where staff attended college, or where students hope to go to make it as personal as possible.


Pair this with writing an I Am From poem; 
invite them to make a PSA about their homeland.

Another fun idea is to put names on masked-up self portraits.
Here's part of a staff display at the entrance at Bales Intermediate,
hand drawn by my book's talented illustrator, Audrye Williams.


Check out this page from Mr. Quigley's Keys to help students learn how to spell in sign language. Practice your own and each other's name, address and phone number in American Sign Language. 
I'm doing virtual author visits now, and we can't wait
for the world to hear Mr. Quigley's Keys. I had a blast
reading it at Zion Lutheran in Wayside, where I attended
grades 1 through 8 with Linda, who teaches there now.


It was a God wink to take our picture in front of an I can wall, 
given that there's a can-doer theme woven into our story.

Prepare for Your Name Is A Song to put a song in your heart,
then head to Susanna Hill's blog to see which other PPBF
picks our KidLit authors have for you today.









4 comments

  1. I have heard about this book and want to read it. Love the idea of singing a child's name -- a fun way to pronounce difficult names. You are all heart when it comes to people. I so enjoyed the interview in Wisconsin. A lot of good advice about greeting a child by name everyday as they enter classroom! And congratulations on your upcoming book!

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    Replies
    1. Thank you, Pat, for your kind words of affirmation and support. I think you will love this book ... and I cannot WAIT for you to hear Mr. Quigley's Keys!

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  2. Yes, this one's on my TBR list, too. I feel like I can't keep up with all of them! I have a name that people stumble over, so this book is quite meaningful to me. I love the activities you've suggested. Thanks!

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  3. On my list too - and always happy to be reminded with a good review!

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