10-12-10

Title: Dinosaur Hunt

Author: David Catrow

Age Range: Pre K-1^st grade

Rating: 5

Summary: This book is about a dog who likes to hunt for Dinosaurs.  Through the book we watch the dog hunt for anything that looks like it could make a Dinosaur.  In the end he takes all the things he has found and puts them together into what he thinks looks like a Dinosaur.

Opinion: I think that this book is really good for the audience it is intended for.  Dinosaur Hunt is a Level One Scholastic Reader, and is intended for children ages 4-7 or pre k- 1^st grade.  There are a select amount of words throughout the book, and it is a very easy read.  It also has a lot of repetition with the words the author chose to use.

Connection: Just like in my opinion of this book, I believe it fits really well with the audience it was made for.  Along with it being an appropriate read for children around the K-1^st grade age, it is very attention grabbing and could easily keep a kids attention for the duration of the story.  This book is also good for teachers trying to get their students to recognize sight words, words that they can sound out, and uses very simple sentences.

Title: Down by the Station

Author: Jennifer Riggs Vetter

Age Range: K-1^st grade

Rating: 3

Summary: This book is about all different forms of transportation getting ready to go in the early morning.  Throughout the book we see cars, trains, rockets, and even boats setting out at the beginning of the day.  The story ends with all the vehicles ending the day later in the evening.

Opinion: I really didn’t care for this book.  Although I think it did a good job of using repetition and could help young readers with sight words, I didn’t think that the story was very good at all.  It seemed to me that even young children could get bored with this story.  Even though I think it used some good features in its writing for young children, I think that the Author wrote this book with too much of a preschool audience in mind.

Connection:  The only place that I can see this book fitting into the classroom is as a free read book for younger students or as a book where the teacher wants the students to focus on the repetition in words used.

Title: the Yankee at the Seder

Author: Elka Weber

Age Range: 3^rd-4^th grade

Rating: 5

Summary: This book takes place during a time right after the end of the Civil War.  In the book, a southern Jewish family takes in a Northern army soldier for the Passover holiday.  Both sides learn a lot through the experience of spending time together during this special holiday, and grown in their opinions of each other.

Opinion:  I think what both the Author and Illustrator did in this book is amazing.  The pictures on each page almost told their own story, they were rendered in oils and every picture in this book is just as captivating as the next.  The story itself was very interesting to me, we have all learned about the Civil War and at the beginning of the book, not knowing any Jewish terms, was wondering what “the Seder” was or had to do with the war.  The story of Passover and the Seder made this book enjoyable for me because it is something that I really didn’t know anything about.

Connection: This book connects really well with the topic of Historical Fiction books.  This book is a perfect example of what a Historical Fiction book should be like.  It does a really good job of taking a story that takes place in a real setting, with characters that were really around in the Civil War, and adds some things that may or may not have actually happened to put it into the Fiction category.  The cool thing about this book in particular is that after telling the story, the author has a section at the end of the book where it tells the “real story.”

Title: The Three Cabritos

Author: Eric A. Kimmel

Age Range: K-3^rd Grade

Rating: 5

Summary: This book is a play off of the original Three Billy Goats Gruff.  In this book, we see three brothers who love to play music trying to cross the border and get into Mexico to play their instruments in a fiesta.  Just like in the old versions there is a monster (or in this case a Chupacabra) under the bridge who is threatening each one of the goats as they try to cross the bridge.  Each goat convinces the Chupacabra to wait for the next goat that is bigger to come along.  When the oldest goat comes he tricks the Chupacabra and all three brothers get across the border safely.

Opinion: I thought that this was a really cool book.  It is always fun to see how authors can put their own spin on a story that is very well known such as The Three Billy Goats Gruff, but the author really makes this story his own.  He makes the story a very fun read, and the Illustrator of this book backs up the fun story with amazing artwork to match.  Another cool aspect of this book is that the Author decides to mix some Spanish vocabulary in with his story.

Connection: I believe this book would be very good for a unit showing how you can take a certain story and give it your own twist.  If you did something like this at an older grade it would be fun to see what your students could come up with in their own story.  You may be able to give them all the same beginning story such as the Three Little Pigs, and see where their imagination takes the story.  This book also would be good for the younger grades in teaching some Spanish to your students.  The words that the Author decides to use in Spanish are words that your students can tie into their writing, such as fiesta and Buenos Dias!

Title: The Princess and the Pea

Author: Lauren Child

Grade Level: 3-4^th

Rating: 4

Summary:  This book is about a Prince whose parents insist it is time for him to get married.  He agrees with their idea and sets out to find the “perfect” princess.  After many failed attempts to find a princess that met what the prince was looking for, a young princess wonders into the kingdom after getting lost in the woods.  The prince’s mother tests this young princess to see if she is a “true” princess by placing a single pea under twelve mattresses to see if it would affect the girls sleep.

Opinion:  Although I think that the story was really fun and easy to be engaged in, what really stood out throughout the whole book were the illustrations in the book.  The Illustrator, Polly Borland, did amazing work wither every picture in the whole book.  Polly has a unique style to how she creates her artwork, her work in books are not painting but photographs that she takes of sets she puts together.  For this particular book, she makes the set (or room) for each scene in a small box.  All the props in the scene are 3-D objects, the character she is focusing on is actually made of paper, and then she uses real cloth to make the outfits for the characters.  After she sets everything up she takes a picture of the scene and this is how he photographs come out.  Every picture in this entire book is just amazing, especially if you think about the process that was done to get the end result.

Connection:  This book could be read out loud to the class while the teacher is in the middle of a fairy tale unit.  You could do a similar activity with this book as I talked about in the three Billy goats gruff lesson.  Since much of this book for me focused on the incredible drawings, you could have your students re-create the book making their own pictures for the scenes.  If each student re-created one scene in the book, you could put them all together and make a class book with their own drawings of The Princess and the Pea.

Title: Mommy Laid an Egg

Author: Babette Cole

Age Level: Controversial

Rating: 3

Summary:  This book is about parents trying to tell their children where babies come from.  They tell white lies like babies come from eggs, and they are found underneath rocks.  After the parents finish, the two boys tell their parents that they got a few things right, but they would explain where babies really come from.

Opinion:  I had no clue what to think while I was reading through this book.  When I read the cover I assumed that it was a book about parents joking around with their kids about where babies came from.  Once I got to the middle of the book where the kids took over I was completely shocked.  I don’t think it would have been so bad if it was just the kids explaining what they knew, but the fact that this book showed the kids drawing very graphic pictures just set it over the top.  I can see why people view this book as controversial.

Connection:  I think that this is a book that I would avoid for my classroom.  Being that I am wanting to teach 2^nd-3^rd grade, and the pictures that are used in this book, I don’t think that there is a connection that can be made in my classroom.  I also don’t think that this book is worth trying to defend when parents come complaining about what their child saw in a book I read to them.

Title:  The Wall

Author:  Eve Bunting

Age Level:  2^nd grade and up

Rating:  5

Summary:  This book was about the Vietnam Veterans Memorial wall in Washington D.C.  A child and his father visit the wall to find the child’s grandfather’s name.

Opinion:  I’m pretty sure that I have read this book before somewhere, and I find it to be a very well written and illustrated book.  I would like to see why this book is on the controversial children’s book list, because I find it to be a story similar to something that a family might actually want to go and do (finding a loved one’s name on a memorial).  The only reason I could think of while reading the book was that it has to do with a war and obviously has to do with death of a loved one.

Connection:  I’m not exactly sure where I would use this book in my class, but if there was an area that I could use it I would feel very comfortable with standing up for this book in front of whoever opposes it being taught.  One thing that I feel this book is doing is telling a real story that I’m sure families go through every year.  I went to the Vets Memorial Wall when I was in eighth grade, and I can still remember people searching the wall for the names of family members who died in the Vietnam War.

Title:  The Higher Power of Lucky

Author:  Susan Patron

Grade Level: Upper Elementary- Middle School

Rating: 5

Summary:  This book is about a girl named Lucky and her life in the small town of Hard Pan, California.  She lives with her guardian Brigitte, and her best friend HMS Beagle (her dog).  Through the book we figure out that Lucky thinks Brigitte is going to leave her and return to France.  The only thing that Lucky thinks she can do to stop Brigitte is to run away.  In the end, we find out that leaving Lucky was the last thing on Brigitte’s mind, and she in fact loves Lucky.

Opinion:  The Higher Power of Lucky is a book that I had never heard of before a month ago.  I would have to say that I was pleasantly surprised with the book.  I think that the way the book was written was not only effective, but it was really captivating.  I found myself wondering what was going to happen next throughout the whole book.  When Lucky ran away I felt worried like everyone else in town.  When Lucky thought that Brigitte was going to leave her and go back to France, I felt sad for Lucky.  I thought it was interesting that a girl so young would be worried about hitting rock bottom and finding her higher power.  This shows me a lot of maturity in Lucky’s character.  Overall I think that this was a really good book, and would be very effective in teaching in an upper elementary or middle school classroom.

Connection:  I read in another student’s blog about connecting this book back to student’s families.  I think that this is a very valid point.  This book would be a good tool in reaching students who may not have a “normal” family at home.  Brigitte and Lucky’s relationship shows readers that it doesn’t have to be mother, father, and child to make a family.  The love between Lucky and Brigitte, you could argue, is just as strong as the love in families with a mother and a father.  In Lucky’s case, Brigitte comes across as loving Lucky more than Lucky’s own father does.  This could be a powerful message, especially for students who feel like their family isn’t “normal.”