I'm New Here - Hardcover

O'Brien, Anne Sibley

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 158089612X ISBN 13: 9781580896122

Publisher: Charlesbridge, 2015

Synopsis

Three students are immigrants from Guatemala, Korea, and Somalia and have trouble speaking, writing, and sharing ideas in English in their new American elementary school. Through self-determination and with encouragement from their peers and teachers, the students learn to feel confident and comfortable in their new school without losing a sense of their home country, language, and identity.

Young readers from all backgrounds will appreciate this touching story about the assimilation of three immigrant students in a supportive school community.

Anne Sibley O'Brien is one of the founders of I'm Your Neighbor, an organization that promotes children's literature featuring "new arrival" cultures. As the rate of immigration to the United States increases, topics related to immigration are increasingly more important in the classroom and home. I'm New Here demonstrates how our global community can work together and build a home for all.

About this title

About the Author:

Anne Sibley O'Brien knew she wanted to be an artist by the time she was seven. Born in Chicago, she moved with her family to New Hampshire on her first birthday. Six years later, her parents were hired as medical missionaries and assigned to serve in South Korea. She was raised bilingual and bicultural, living in the cities of Seoul and Taegu, and on the island of Kojedo. Returning to the US at age 19, Annie attended Mount Holyoke College where she majored in studio art. She spent her junior year back in Korea at Ewha Women's University in Seoul, where she studied Korean arts, including oriental painting. During college, she decided that she wanted to pursue a career in children's book illustration. She has illustrated more than twenty-five picture books, including the Jamaica books by Juanita Havill (Houghton Mifflin) and the Talking Walls books by Margy Burns Knight (Tilsbury). Anne lives on Peaks Island in Maine.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.:

I am new here.
            “Class, this is Maria.”
            I am new here.
            “Boys and girls, please welcome Jin.”
            I am new here.
            “We have a new student, everyone. Her name is Fatimah.”
            Back home I knew the language. My friends and I talked all day long. Our voices flowed like water and flew between us like birds.
            Here there are new words.

About this edition

• Publisher: Charlesbridge
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 158089612X
• ISBN 13: 9781580896122
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 32
• Illustrator: O'Brien Anne Sibley