Authentic Childhood: Experiencing Reggio Emilia in the Classroom, 3rd Edition. Susan Fraser, $87.95

Authentic Childhood explores the Reggio Emilia approach to early childhood education. Based on constructionist learning, this text is ideal for students and teachers of all experience levels. Authentic Childhood includes inspiring stories of teachers who are transforming early childhood education and teacher preparation through the use of the Reggio Emilia philosophy.

Beautiful Stuff: Learning with Found Materials. Cathy Weisman Topal & Lella Gandini, $32.95

Encourage your kids to express their creativity as they discover, collect, sort, arrange, experiment, and think with found and recyclable “stuff.” The real-life experiences of teachers and children will inspire ideas that you can try at home: choose objects and turn them into a display, transform materials into a face, build and glue wood scraps to make constructions. Appropriate for children four years of age and older.

Beyond Quality in Early Childhood Education and Care, 2nd Ed. Gunilla Dahlberg et al, $75.50

Taking a broad approach, Beyond Quality in Early Childhood Education and Care relates issues of early childhood to the sociology of childhood, philosophy, ethics, political science and other fields and to an analysis of the world we live in today. It places these issues in a global context and draws on work from Canada, Sweden and Italy, including the world famous nurseries in Reggio Emilia. Working with postmodern ideas, this book questions the search to define and measure quality in the early childhood field and its tendency to reduce philosophical issues of value to purely technical and managerial issues of expert knowledge and measurement.

Bringing Reggio Emilia Home: an Innovative Approach to Early Childhood Education. Louise Boyd Cadwell, $37.50

Bringing Reggio Emilia Home is the first book to integrate the experiences of one American teacher on a year-long internship in the preschools of Reggio, with a four-year adaptation effort in one American school. The lively text includes many "mini-stories" of preschool and kindergarten-age children, teachers, and parents who embark on journeys of learning together. These journeys take shape in language, in drawings, in tempera paint and clay, in outdoor excursions, and in the imaginations of both the children and adults. This informative and accessible work features photographs of the children (both in Italy and the United States) and samples of the children’s work, including some in full color. 

Documenting Children's Meaning: Engaging in Design and Creativity with Children and Families — Inspired by the Reggio Emilia Experience. Jason Avery, Karyn Callaghan & Carol Anne Wien, Foreword by Lella Gandini $61.95

The amazing and complex work of children’s minds is made visible in this groundbreaking new book from Together for Families in Hamilton, Ontario. Inspired by the world-renowned Infant/Toddler and Preschool centers of Reggio Emilia, Italy, artist Jason Avery and his colleagues use photography, recording of children’s words and drawings, and reflective commentary to document the investigations and emergent concepts taking place in this urban drop-in center serving children and families from infancy onward.

In a welcome departure from the world of ‘make-and-take’ and rote learning, we see children’s authentic engagement with their curiosity about the world honored and made visible. We see sustained, long-term relationships that cultivate and reinforce a positive view of children and families. We see the powerful results of an educational setting in which children are supported in their investigations of the things that interest them.

Emergent Curriculum in the Primary Classroom: Interpreting the Reggio Emilia Approach in Schools. Carol Anne Wien, $43.50

How is a compelling, exemplary curriculum created in schools in spite of the pressures to implement a standardized one? In this book, teachers and principals share their experiences with emergent curriculum, and with the creative practices they’ve developed in urban classrooms kindergarten to 3rd grade. We learn what they were trying to do, how they began the process, the challenges they faced, the decisions they made, and what happened to the children. All chapters are written by teachers who have found ways of interpreting the Reggio approach to enrich their teaching within the confines of traditional schools. This book is essential reading for anyone wishing to understand emergent curriculum and for all who hope to nurture an enlivening, energizing way to learn in classrooms. The inspiring stories presented here illustrate:

• Ways that early childhood values and practices have been sustained and promoted in elementary schools.
• Exemplary teaching practice, where children want to learn and teachers want to teach.
• How the influence of the Reggio Emilia approach is reaching into urban public school environments with diverse populations.
• Democratic participatory teaching that offers visions of responsible citizenship for children

An Encounter with Reggio Emilia: Children and Adults in Transformation, 2nd Edition. Linda Kinney & Pat Wharton, $71.50

The fully revised 2nd edition of An Encounter with Reggio Emilia is based upon a documentary approach to children’s learning successfully implemented by Stirling Council in Scotland, whose pre-school educators experienced dramatic improvements in their understandings about young children, how they learn and the potential unleashed in successfully engaging families in the learning process.

This approach, which is based on careful listening to children and observation of their interests and concerns, centres around recording and commentating on children's learning through photos, wall displays, videos and a variety of different media. The authors include chapters on:

• Why early years educators should use documentation as a means to enhance young children’s learning
• The values, principles and theories that underlie the ‘Reggio’ approach
• How to implement documentations into any early years setting, with real-life case studies and hints for avoiding common pitfalls
• How to involve, inspire and enthuse familiar and the wider community

Experiencing Reggio Emilia: Implications for Pre-School Provision. Lesley Abbott & Cathy Nutbrown (eds), $42.95 

The most important consideration in early education is the way in which young children learn. Their transferable skills of communication, collaboration and investigation can underpin all other aspects of learning. These elements form the main focus of work in a group of pre-schools in an area of Northern Italy which has earned an international reputation for innovative practice and pedagogy.

The experience of Reggio Emilia, in providing challenges to accepted approaches to early childhood education in many countries, is widely acknowledged. Since 1963, when the Italian municipality of Reggio Emilia began setting up its network of educational services for 0-6 year olds, the 'Reggio Approach' has gained worldwide recognition. Numerous visitors have been impressed by the acknowledgement given to the potential of children, the organisation and quality of the environments created, the promotion of collegiality and a climate of co-participation of families in the educational project. 

This book reflects the impressions and experiences of the Reggio Emilia approach gained by a range of early childhood educators following a study visit to the region. It focuses on key issues such as staffing, training, working with parents, play, learning, the culture of early childhood, and special educational needs, from a variety of perspectives and will provide a welcome challenge to thinking for both practitioners and policy makers. 

In the Spirit of the Studio: Learning from the Atelier of Reggio Emilia, 2nd Edition. Lella Gandini, Lynn Hill, Louise Cadwell, & Charles Schwall. $44.95

As the authors state in their opening chapter, “prepare to be amazed.” This beautiful book describes the revolution that the Reggio Emilia Atelier (art studio) brought to the education of young children in Italy, and follows that revolution across the ocean to North America. It explores how the experiences of children interacting with rich materials in the atelier affect an entire school’s approach to the construction and expression of thought and learning.

Insights and Inspirations from Reggio Emilia: Stories of Teachers and Children from North America. Lella Gandini et al, $41.95

Insights and Inspirations from Reggio Emilia captures and celebrates 30 years of the Reggio Emilia innovative presence and inspiration in North American early childhood educational thought and practice. It is a narrative in word and image, representing the voices of teachers, scholars, and policy makers whose professional philosophies and practices have been changed by their encounters with the philosophy and practices of Reggio.

These signs of gratitude honor first and foremost the legacy of Loris Malaguzzi, who developed and constructed with collaborators and teachers what is now known around the world as the Reggio Emilia approach. These signs honor as well his colleagues who are continuing to develop his philosophy using novel avenues fully in harmony with his dynamic view of exploring new ways and new sources of learning and relationship.

Seen & Heard: Children's Rights in Early Childhood Education. Ellen Lynn Hall & Jennifer Kofkin Rudkin, $29.95

Using examples from a Reggio-inspired school with children from ages 6 weeks to 6 years, the authors emphasize the importance of children's rights and our responsibility as adults to hear their voices. Seen & Heard summarizes research and theory pertaining to young children's rights, and offers strategies educators can use to ensure the inclusion of children's perspectives in everyday decisions. Real-life classroom vignettes illustrate how young children perceive the idea of rights through observation and discussion.

Understanding the Reggio Approach: Early Years Education in Practice, 3rd Edition.Linda Thornton & Pat Brunton, $58.70

Understanding the Reggio Approach enables analysis of the essential elements of this particular approach to early childhood teaching and the relationship it holds with quality early years practice.

It describes the key features of the Reggio Approach to early childhood including the environment, creativity, relationships and documentation. This new edition has been updated with the latest developments in this approach and includes new material on the thinking and work of Loris Malaguzzi and the future for educators in Reggio Emilia and the implications for practice in the UK. Features include:

• Examples from infant-toddler centres and preschools in Reggio Emilia
• Key points to highlight the ideas that practitioners should consider when reviewing and reflecting on their practice
• Reflections that can be used as the basis for continuing professional development and action research

Visible Learners: Promoting Reggio-Inspired Approaches in All Schools, PreK-12. Mara Krechevsky, Ben Mardell, Melissa Rivard & Damiel Wilson, $35.95

Based on the Reggio Emilia approach to learning, Visible Learners highlights learning through interpreting objects and artifacts, group learning, and documentation to make students' learning evident to teachers. Visible classrooms are committed to five key principles: that learning is purposeful, social, emotional, empowering, and representational. The book includes visual essays, key practices, classroom and examples.

• Show how to make learning happen in relation to others, spark emotional connections, give students power over their learning, and express ideas in multiple ways
• Illustrate Reggio-inspired principles and approaches via quotes, photos, student and teacher reflections, and examples of student work
• Offer a new way to enhance learning using progressive, research-based practices for increasing collaboration and critical thinking in and outside the classroom
• Look beyond surface-level to understand who students are, what they come to know, and how they come to know it.

We Are All Explorers: Learning and Teaching with Reggio Principles in Urban Settings. Daniel Scheinfeld et al, $44.95

This is the first book to systematically examine a program-wide, multi-site implementation of the Reggio Approach in America. The authors provide a thoughtful, well-documented description and analysis of an entire early child development program serving low income, Latino and African-American children and their families in the city of Chicago. While focusing on the application, meaning, and value of Reggio Emilia principles in preschool classrooms, the authors also describe how those same principles and processes pervade relationships with parents, the professional development of teachers, and the overall organization of the program.