"Drawing from 30 years of teaching and professional development experience, this book offers a roadmap for using children's literature to provide authentic learning. Featuring a ''storyteller's voice, '' each chapter includes a case study about how a particular fiction or nonfiction work can be used in an early childhood classroom; a series of open-ended questions to help readers construct their own inquiry units; and a bibliography of children's literature. This book provides a unique synthesis of ideas based on constructivist approaches to learning, including the importance of positive dispositions and learning communities, the nature of higher-order thinking, and the relationship between methods such as guided inquiry in the sciences and balanced literacy."--Publisher description.

How are learning communities like Stone Soup? : Exploring a Praxis -- What can we learn from the Three Little Pigs? : The three Es of quality intellectual work -- Can Cinderella's slipper be gold instead of glass? : The role of questions in quality intellectual work -- How can we play with Abiyoyo? : The SIP of play and quality intellectual work -- What makes a good Goldilocks? : Assessing the quality of picture books -- How long is Tikki Tikki Tembo? : What's the problem with naked numbers? -- How did the sun and the moon come to be in the sky? : Playing with the amazing facts of science -- How do you get from patches to a patchwork quilt? : Reading an object to spark inquiry across the curriculum -- Who's the strongest? : What makes stories such effective tools for quality intellectual work.