1. Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Author- Barrett, Judi, Illustrator- Barrett, Ron, Modern Fantasy, Published by Macmillan Publishing Company, Aladdin Books, 1978, ISBN-0-689-70749-5, Reading Level-3.2, Interest Level- 3-5
This book starts out with two children, their mother, and their grandpa having pancakes for breakfast on a Saturday morning. While Grandpa was preparing the pancakes somehow one of them went flying across the kitchen and landed on Henry’s head. That night as the kids were preparing for bed Grandpa told them the best tall-tale bedtime story they had ever heard. The story he told them was about a town called Chewandswallow. The people that lived in this small town never had to worry about growing food or buying food at the grocery store because all the food they ever needed came from the weather. It would rain soup and the wind would blow in hamburgers. However, one day all the good weather started to change for the worst. The town was flooded with spaghetti and there was a great fog of pea soup. The weather got so bad that it started ruining people’s homes so they all decided that it would be best to pack up and move to a different place. The made rafts out of giant pieces of toast and sailed to a new land. However, in the new land the people of Chewandswallow were puzzled at first because they had never seen food on shelves in packages before, but they never returned to Chewandswallow because they were afraid of what they might find. At the end of the story the children are playing out in the snow and as they look at the top of the hill it looks like a gaint slab of butter on top of a hill of mashed potatoes.
This book was very entertaining and I think that the students in my classroom will find it to be very humorous. Even though this book was written 34 years ago it is still one that many children enjoy today. The way the book ends with the children seeing sun coming up over the snow covered hill as mashed potatoes and butter was a great way to end the story because this shows how much of an imagination the kids have. The children were able to take the story that grandpa told them and let their imaginations run with it to the point of them seeing nature as food themselves.
This book could be tied in with a lesson about weather allowing me to discuss with the children how it is not truly possible for it to rain and snow the foods that we eat. However, the weather does have a huge impact on how well foods grow and thrive because if we didn’t have rain and sunlight fruits, vegetables, and other green vegetation would not be able to grow and thrive. This vegetation is the start of the food chain and without it herbivores and carnivores would not be about to grow and succeed in life.
2. The Bully Blockers Club, Author- Teresa Bateman, Illustrator- Jackie Urbanovic, Modern Fantasy, Published Albert Whitman & Company, 2004, ISBN: 0-8075-0918-3, Reading Level- 2.9, Interest Level: K-2.
This book is about a raccoon named Lotty who is starting a new school year. She thinks that it is going to be a great year, but when she arrives at school she immediately begins to get bullied by Grant Grizzly. He is a big boy in her classroom and he does mean things to her almost every day at school. Lotty is afraid to say anything to their teacher about it because she doesn’t want to be a tattletale. When Lotty gets home she begins to tell her brother and sister what is going on at school and ask them what she should do. Her little brother Jerome doesn’t have the best advice. He tells Lotty to karate chop Grant or hit him. However, Lily her older sister tells her that she should tell the teacher and if she doesn’t want to do that to just ignore his or try and be his friend. The bullying still continues though and it starts to cause her to feel sick. Lotty’s siblings tell her parents what is going on and they talk with the teacher to try get the situation under control. The problem is that the bullying only happens when no adults are around. Lotty notices that she is not the only kid being bullied and she teams up with the others to create the Bully Blockers Club. When someone is being bullied the Bully Blockers confront them and this draws the attention of an adult. This is very affective and Grant starts being nice to everyone instead of bullying them.
This is a very good book to help children understand the harmful effects of bullying and the fact that there are ways to stop bullying in schools. I think the authors use of animals instead of people as the characters in the book makes in not seem so violent, therefore it is easier to get the moral of the story across to younger age children. The different animals that are used in this book show a wide range of diversity. I know for a fact that when I was in school kids got bullied and I feel that in my classroom it will be very important to discuss how harmful it is to other people so that hopeful it will not be issue we have to deal with.
In my classroom I could use this book to discuss character development and good behaviors oppose to harmful behaviors. I could also encourage the children to work together like the characters in this story did and if they see someone in trouble that they should go help them out instead of just watching what is going on. 3. The Three Pigs, Author/ Illustrator- Wiesner, David, Fantasy, Published by Clarion Books, 2001, ISBN: 0-618-00701-6, Caldecott Winner, Reading Level-2.8, Interest Level- K-2.
This book puts quite a twist on the original Three Little Pigs story. It starts out the same as any other three little pig’s story, but then things start to dramatically change. The wolf huffed and puffed and blew the first little piggy’s house down, but at the same time he blew the first little piggy right out of the story. The second and third pigs also leave the story and start to explore the pages of different storys that are lying around them. The three little pigs wonder into the mother goose story “Hey Diddle Diddle”and after getting out of that story they end up in another story where they help rescue a dragon from a prince who is suppose to slay him. As the pigs and their new friend search the pages that are left before them the third pig recognized his own home and with the dragons help the pig remove the words from the page and scare off the wolf. The three pigs along with the friends they have met all have soup together in third pigs house and they all live happily ever after.
I really like the way this book takes a story that everyone has heard many times and changes it into something brand new that we have never seen before. This book makes for a very interesting story and would allow me to have the children talk about foreshadowing and the events that may come next in the story. This book is entertaining and I feel like the children in my class would greatly enjoy the illustrations and the way it literally looks like the pigs have just stepped out of the story onto the blank pages that were left. This book is laid out in a way that I have never seen before and I think that this makes that story something that grabs the readers attention and holds on to it as the story progresses.
4. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Author/ Illustrator- Carle, Eric, Fantasy, Published by Philomel Books,1969, ISBN: 0-399-20853-4, Reading Level: 2.6, Interest Level: K-2.
In this book a small little caterpillar hatches out of his egg one Sunday morning and he is very hungry. So he goes on a search for something to eat. On Monday he ate one apple, Tuesday two pears, Wednesday three plums, Thursday four strawberries, Friday five oranges, and Saturday all kinds of junk food. The caterpillar got a stomachache and decided to eat one nice green leaf. He is then very big and full. He builds himself a cocoon and then hatches out into a beautiful butterfly.
I really like this book for young readers because it has a toy aspect to it as well as reading. This could help to get children interested in reading and help them learn to love it. As a child this was my all time favorite book and every time my mom took me to the public library I would want to check out this book. In first grade I remember hatching caterpillars into butterflies and this was something that everyone loved. If I decided to do that with science in my classroom I could use this book as a supplementary story to go along with it.
This book starts out in the spring of the year with Mr. Arable coming into the house announcing that a new litter of piglets has been born. As he leaves the house Mr. Arable takes an ax with him because he is going to kill the one rut of the litter. However, his daughter Fern cannot stand the thought of anything being killed so she tells her dad that she will take care of the piglet if he will let her have it. Mr. Arable finally agrees to let Fern keep the little rut and she decided to name him Wilber. For the first 6 weeks Wilber’s life he lives with Fern and her family. Fern plays with him every day after school and greatly enjoys his company. When Wilber gets 6 weeks old Mr. and Mrs. Arable inform Fern that they must sell the pig because he is getting so big and suggest that she call her uncle Homer Zuckerman and offer to sale him Wilber for 6 dollars. Mr. Zuckerman jumps at the small price and a few days later Wilber is taken to his new home in Mr. Zuckerman’s barn. At first Wilber is lonely and doesn’t have any friends. Templeton the rat doesn’t want any friends so he refuses to play with Wilber as do the other animals. Even though school has let out for the summer and Fern comes to see him everyday Wilber is still lonely. However, one night he hears a small voices offering to be his friend and in the morning light he sees that it is a small grey spider named Charlotte. They become great friends and offer much company to one another. As the days pass Mrs. Arable begins to worry about Fern and how much time she spends at the barn with her pig. She contacts Dr. Dorian who is good friends with the Arable family and questions him to Fern’s odd behavior, he reassures her that Fern will grow out of this stage and be just fine. Back at the barn word has gotten around that when Christmas comes Mr. Zuckerman will kill Wilber for bacon, ham, and sausage and this greatly concerns him. Charlotte reassures him that everything will be okay and that he will not die. She begins to work on a plan of how to save Wilber’s life and what she comes up with is brilliant. She begins weaving words in her web such as “some pig” and “terrific” which draw in crowds from miles away to see this miracle. The Zuckermans and Arables take Wilber to the county fair as well as Charlotte and Templeton who go along to help out. While there it comes time for Charlotte to make her egg sack this drains the life out of her and she is barely able to weave one last word” humble”. Wilber wins a metal at the fair which guarantees that he will not be killed. However, Charlotte dies and doesn’t make it back home. Wilber takes the egg sack back home with him and when Charlottes 514 children are born 3 remain at the barn to keep Wilber company. At the fair Fern becomes good friends with Henry Fussy and her mother no longer worries about her spending all her time with the animals because she no longer does.
I really enjoyed this novel. I feel that it teaches a great lesson about friendship and shows that people who are different from one another can still be friends and get along. This would be a great book to have older students read and then discuss how we can all help each other out in times of need. We could also discuss how everyone has a talent and they may all be different but they are all still very important and meaningful to our classroom. In the book Charlotte was good at spinning the web and Templeton was good at getting words from news paper and magazines. This book is a very enjoyable read and it also teaches great lessons that students can learn a lot of valuable information from.
