Llama Llama Mad at Mama

Every child get angry. It is important that at a young age children learn how to deal with and manage their anger in an appropriate way. The best way to do this is through experience, but also showing them positive examples of times characters or people worked through their anger. Anna Dewdney author and illustrator of Llama Llama Mad at Mama does a great job expressing the anger a little llama has and how he works through it. In the end he works it out with his mama and ends up having fun at the store, where he didn't want to go in the first place. 

Throughout this entire book the story on each page rhymes. I think this makes the book even more enjoyable for children. The font for the rhyming words are bold or in different colors so it is easy for younger children to point them out. The illustrations are honestly what drew me into this book. They are large and beautiful! I really like how Dewdney picked llamas as the main characters of this book. Since llamas aren't very common animals, it is an opportunity for children to learn about them, also llama rhymes with a lot of other words, so it was a good choice there too. 

I would definitely see this book in my classroom library. Like I mentioned earlier, children need to learn about emotions and how to deal with them, and I think this book is a great way to teach them how to deal with anger. Anger can be a tricky one to tackle, because usually when children are angry, they loose all control, but little llama models the proper way to pick up after yourself and apologize after you have a little angry fit. 

Junie B. First Grader (at last)

Barbara Park writes yet another great chapter book that all first graders should read. For young readers finishing their first chapter book can be quite thrilling. I remember I used to read the Junie B. Jones series when I was younger and felt very accomplished when I finished one. They have legit chapters, but yet they're written in simple words, the font is larger and there are also pictures to go along with what the text is saying. Going into the first grade is a big transition in every child's life and I think Park does a good job capturing the position of an actual first grader and over coming all the issues and peer pressure that comes along with the role. She also covers realistic topics such as getting glasses and being embarrassed to wear them in front of friends. Also, the whole new teacher thing can be stressful on a 6 year old and having readers know that they aren't alone when they feel that way can be a very positive thing for them. 

I also believe this is a great book because it emphasizes the importance of writing in notebooks. I think that using literacy and writing skills is one of the most important things in a child's early education. I will have this book along with some of the other chapter books in this series in my classroom library in the future. 

Stormy's Hat: Just Right for a Railroad Man

This is a story of a journey that one engineer takes to find the perfect hat for his job. Stormy is a hard working man who loves his job. His wife is a thoughtful person who cares deeply about her husband. So when he presents her with his problem of not finding a hat to properly suit his job, she starts thinking. However, being a manly man, he doesn't listen to her and won't let her worry about the issue. He tries using other professions hats, but none of them seem to work. So after he has tried everything his wife is the one who designs the perfect hat. This is a realistic contemporary fiction book with great illustrations. The pictures are colorful and take up the entire page. They show motion and could tell the story without text if necessary.  

In the back of the book there is even a little blurb about the real George stormy. I think this would be a great book to read to students because although it is about finding a hat, it has more of a message of individuality. Be who you are, don't try and be someone who you aren't because you will only get hurt in the end. The only thing I didn't like about this book was the fact that they went and saw all these jobs and hats but all the people looked exactly the same. There is no diversity at all. Along with the way women are portrayed in this book and the lack of diversity, I can't help but question is this the kind of message I want to be sending to my class? 

Letters From A Desperate Dog

For all those dog lovers out there this is one that will make you smile. Eileen Christelow writes a graphic novel about the ups and downs of being a dog...from a dogs point-of-view. It is a good way to help show students that there are other ways of looking at a situation. Emma is a dog who doesn't always get along with her owner. In fact they disagree so much that she actually runs away for a little and becomes an actress. However, like in many other stories, distance makes the heart grow fonder and Emma and her owner George realize life is better when they are together, even though they may fight. Christelow uses word bubbles to show the different characters speaking to each other. She also uses picture boxes to display different times of the day and scene changes. Since some of the story looks at two places at one time, it was a good idea to show the differences in picture books. Throughout the story Emma finds herself on the computer writing to a dog show. These little blurbs are what I think make the book so interesting and fun. They have special e-mail addresses that they use to send in information to the host to ask advise on what to do with their owner. Usually in real life it is the other way around, but in this book we get to experience life through a dogs eyes.  

If You Give A Mouse A Cookie

I love all the "If You Give Books" by Laura Joffe Numeroff. They really let children's imaginations run wild. When I was student teaching, I read this book to the class for a couple reasons. The first being I like how it comes full circle. It starts with a little boy who gives a mouse a cookie and ends with a the mouse wanting another cookie. The illustrations by Felicia Bond are extraordinary.  My favorite picture is of the mouse when he is coloring and the size of the crayon he is using compared to him is just so funny! Bond uses a lot of different techniques to show motion with the characters and also color to keep children interested in the pictures. I think the illustrations are so detailed that if there was no text on the pages, the story through illustrations would be very similar. The last reason why I like this book is because you can make an excellent writing activity to go with it. Since this story is themed around the "what if you gave a mouse a cookie" idea, you can have students think of their own "what ifs" and have them expand like Numeroff did. 

Although this book doesn't have as much education value as some other books, it can be a great tool to get your students imagination cranking! 

The Giving Tree

Although this book is fairly simple in illustrations and text, its message is one that can stay with a reader forever. I think especially in today's society it is easy for people to look around and see what other people have and want that and literally forget about all the things that they have. The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein is a book that lets readers know that in the end it doesn't matter if you have a boat or a huge house, all that matters is that you have a good friend to lean on when you need them. Elementary school is a time in children's lives where they have the power to start making lifetime friends. It is important to let them know that friendship is a lot more valuable then anything you could possibly buy. Silverstein does a great job in showing this through the lifelong friendship of a boy and a tree. 

I am truly impressed with how little detail this book has, but how great the message is that it leaves with readers. The reader never finds out the boys name through out the whole book. This amazes me because usually the name of a main character in a book is important, but not in this book, it focuses on the relationship. I think Silverstein did enough describing the boy through the things he demanded out of the tree. 

Usually students think that other kids, living people and sometimes pets are their only options for friends. They often forget that nature and especially trees are living things and they can be just as good of a friend as a real person. I would read this to my class no matter what the age of the students are because I think its message is that powerful. 

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Like I mentioned earlier in one of my posts Eric Carle is one of my favorite children's book authors. They way he combines nature and color into a story is wonderful. One of his more known books is The Very Hungry Caterpillar. One of the reasons why I like this book so much is because it is very interactive. While a teacher reads this book to students, students can be engaged and participate by counting along, commenting on the size of the caterpillar or naming all the foods he eats on his journey. With holes in the pages to show that the caterpillar has eaten through the food is really so cleaver. On one side you see an apple or whatever the food is with a whole and on the other you actually see the caterpillar leaving the whole. Although there isn't that much detail in the pictures, there is so much color and simple things like having the sun and moon smiling, or the big beautiful butterfly at the end that capture readers. The thing that I found interesting was that there are only 12 pages in this book including the pages that were cut off or smaller with the wholes through them. This would make this a good book to show younger kids because they may not have as good of an attention span as older kids do. So picking shorter books like this one would be a positive thing. 

I could definitely see myself reading this book to a kindergarten or first grade classroom in many different situations. The first obvious situation would be if I were teaching a science lesson on how butterflies developed. I remember when I was in first grade we got to go out and catch caterpillars and watch them develop in our classroom until they turned into butterflies. My teacher read us this book and I remember loving it because of all the colors. Another time you could incorporate this book into a lesson would be if you were teaching the days of the week. Carle does a great job referring to each day in a separate situation. I have always thought of this book as a classic children's book and after reading again when I am older, I still agree with that statement.