Of Thee I Sing: A Letter to My Daughters by: Barack Obama (non-fiction)

The beauty in this book truly lies in its illustrations, done by, Loren Long. The book features iconic individuals who have had tremendous influence throughout American history. Those presented include Martin Luther King Jr., Georgia O'Keefe, Albert Einstein, Billie Holiday, as well as others. The pages are uniquely laid out: the left side of the page starts a sentence, for example, "Have I told you you are creative.." and pictures Obama's daughters with along side with another unknown young girl (Georgia O'Keefe). The right page features a large illustration of Georgia O'Keefe painting with a short description of how she influenced America.

While this book is very simple, in that it does not present a challenging or complex reading, the format of the book attempts to see eye-to-eye with its intended audience. Readers can relate to the left page (young children) and at the same time, realize that these great leaders of our nation also once started as young children, just like us.

I would use this book as a way to promote positive character development. I would tell students to select a person in history (or current) in which they feel they share common characteristics. Students could select those mentioned in the this book or peruse through other resources to find a person. Students would briefly research this person and write a short synthesis of their contribution. Finally, after I would give each student a folder. One side would show a picture of them and their unique personal characteristic. On the second side of the folder, they could write or illustrate who they want to be when they get older. On the back, students could write any information about their researched person of history.