Being the youngest of three, I didn't really relate to this realistic contemporary fiction book, Catching the Sun by Coleen M. Paratore. My older brothers always complain about when I was born, they didn't really want me at first because I took up a lot of our mom's attention. But for many of my future students this will be a major transition in their lives. Having a new little baby coming into the family can be hard at first for the other older sibling. Catching the Sun, is about a boy who has this tradition of going to Cape Cod over the summer for his birthday and waking up very early before the sun comes up and "catching" it with his mother. The way the story is written, readers can feel how special this tradition is to the son and mom. Although it will be different the next year with the new baby, Dylan and his mom will still share the special tradition of catching the sun.
Like I mentioned earlier, a lot of elementary students are going to be going through this transition in their lives and this book has the power to get them talking about how they feel about the situation. I think this would be a good book to read because it is the perfect length and really gets to the point of the issue. After the class reads this book, I can picture having a discussion about students who have gone through this process before and also those who have special traditions with their mom or dad like Dylan did.
The illustrations are wonderful too! They are done by Peter Catalanotto and really capture the different colors of the sun coming up over the sea in the morning. Also, the people in the story are beautiful as well, they are big and filled with emotion.
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