New Year’s Resolution
By Lisa Von Drasek

At the beginning of every school year I make resolutions pertaining to students and my teaching practice: I will be more patient...I will keep more detailed records...I will read more, write more...I will get to know my fellow teachers better...

The hardest resolutions to keep are the ones that involve taking care of myself – eating healthfully and making time for exercise. It's important for everyone to be responsible for their own well-being and, fortunately, there are some good books out there that can get kids on the road to good health early in life.

Nutritious nonfiction
Lizzy Rockwell, author of Good Enough to Eat: A Kid's Guide to Food and Nutrition (HarperCollins, 1999, ISBN: 0-060-27434-4) presents The Busy Body Book: A Kid's Guide to Fitness (Crown, 2004, ISBN: 0-375-82203-8), an accessible volume for children as young as four on how exercise and movement help our bodies. Simple physiology is explained through charts of the skeleton, muscles, brain and nerves, lungs, heart and blood vessels. Rockwell includes an addendum with suggested activities.

For middle schoolers, try pairing Be Healthy! It's a Girl Thing: Food, Fitness, and Feeling Great by Mavis Jukes (Crown, 2003, ISBN: 0-679-89029-7) and The Right Moves: A Girl's Guide to Getting Fit and Feeling Good by Tina Schwager and Michele Schuerger (Free Spirit, 1998, ISBN: 1-575-42035-X) for up-to-date information on diet and exercise. Balanced food plans combined with physical activity suggestions will help students make intelligent choices instead of jumping on the latest fad.

"Sunscreen," a new advice series from Abrams, is co-written by Melissa Daly, current associate editor at Fitness magazine. Kids may want to check out Feeling Freakish? How to Be Comfortable in Your Own Skin (Abrams, 2004, ISBN: 0-810-99164-0). The clear layout, short chapters and light sense of humor are essential in this discussion of self image for boys and girls.

The rhymes in Soccer Beat by Sandra Gilbert Brüg are sure to inspire fancy footwork.

Sporting stories
There's a new crop of picture books that inspire movement. Got to Dance by M.C. Helldorfer (Doubleday, 2004, ISBN: 0-385-32628-9) is a joyous intergenerational story that will get students sharing details of their summer days and what makes them want to dance.

Winners Never Quit! by Mia Hamm (HarperCollins, 2004, ISBN: 0-060-74051-5) is a picture-book memoir of the soccer star's youthful struggles. Hamm, a member of the gold medal-winning U.S. Women's National Soccer Team at the 1996 Centennial Olympic Games, sprained her ankle but overcame the injury to lead the U.S. to victory.

Skateboard Mom by Barbara Odanaka (Putnam, 2004, ISBN: 0-399-23867-0) is the story of an eight-year-old boy who gets a skateboard for his birthday. Imagine his surprise when his mom takes off on it in this rhyming adventure.

Soccer Beat by Sandra Gilbert Brüg (McElderry, 2003, ISBN: 0-689-84580-4) features such lilting lines as, "On the green two teams prancing, Rockets leaping, Cheetahs chancing." The rhymes and animals such as ostrich, elephant, warthog and kangaroo capture the action of this closely-contested game.

Rae Pica's Teachable Transitions will show you how to keep kids moving all day long.

Making time for movement
Rae Pica, children's movement specialist and author of Wiggle, Giggle and Shake (Gryphon House, 2001, ISBN: 0-876-59244-2) and Teachable Transitions: 190 Activities to Move from Morning Circle to the End of the Day (Gryphon House, 2003, ISBN: 0-876-59281-7), reminds us that physical education and even recess are being eliminated from schools in favor of spending more time on academics, so it's important to include movement in the school day, wherever possible. For more of Rae's commentary and ways of integrating movement into curriculum go to her website www.movingandlearning.com

Maggie Bittel, one of our second/ third grade teachers, has instituted movement breaks as part of her transitions. When Maggie plays a CD of dance music, each student moves to a designated spot. One student is called on to start a movement, which the other students imitate and transform to make it their own. A movement break can be as short as a couple of minutes to shake out the sillies, or as long as 10 minutes if the class has been sitting for a long time.

Another book that will give you ideas for getting your students' blood flowing is Fit Kids: A Practical Guide to Raising Active and Healthy Children (DK Publishing, 2004, ISBN: 0-756-60349-8). This easy-to-understand guide to developmentally-appropriate fitness and nutrition is authored by pediatricians and experts from www.kidshealth.org You may want to share this book with your students' parents.

Taking steps toward fitness
I know it's not a children's book, but my colleagues and I are so excited about The Step Diet Book: Count Steps, Not Calories, To Lose Weight and Keep It Off Forever by James Hill and John Peters (Workman, 2004, ISBN: 0-761-13324-0). The bottom line of this program is to wear a pedometer and increase the number of steps one takes every day. I find myself making an extra effort to walk if my pedometer reads fewer than 5,000 steps by noon. This isn't a radical change, but it's one that I can make. I feel good about it!

I wish you a happy, healthy school year! Good luck sticking to all your resolutions and meeting your goals.

Lisa Von Drasek is Children's Librarian at the School for Children, Bank Street College of Education, in New York, NY.