Explorink » Lower Grades Early Readers

‘Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving-Dav Pilkey

Letha — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 22:20:13 +0000

First of all, we need to give kids some credit. They truly do realize that ‘Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving is just a fun take-off on the Christmas “‘Twas…”. The book (As one person seems to purport.) is not a “Let’s all become vegans!” platform nor is it a recommendation for children to steal. Farmer Mack Nugget (Gotta love the name.) does zone a bit into the dark side with his ax-planation, but it hasn’t proven to be too scary for any students to whom I’ve read the book.

Eight children board a school bus for a field trip to a turkey farm. Once there, they romp. They play. They gobble up all the fun they can. One little naive child then notices Farmer Mack Nugget’s (Still loving it.) ax. “What is it for?” His graphic explanation has reality rearing its ugly, wattled head. The clever children concoct a scheme to save the day by tricking the unfortunately unobservant adults and wattling, I mean, waddling back on the bus. If we exclude the fiendish farmer, the tail, er, tale ends satisfactorally. That is, it all ends satisfactorally unless you’re of the faction that feels there are children out there just waiting for their next visit to Farmer Mack Nugget’s (Ah, you know.) farm to exercise some perversive dalliance in delinquency. The students love this rhyming book and after all these years of reading it to them, I have yet to hear that Tommy or Gertrude has been picked up on charges of turkey “stuffing.”

“Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving
Written and Illustrated by Dav Pilkey
Accelerated Reader RL 4.0

Book! Book! Book!-Deborah Bruss

Letha — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 00:53:59 +0000

The children have all gone back to school and the farm animals have nothing to do. Such alliterative anxieties abound: “…the horse hung his head…the cow complained…the goat grumbled.” This until the hen leads the animals to town. To the town’s library. To the place with the “Happy faces.” After several attempts by a few of the farm animals end in miscommunication with the librarian, the hen again takes charge. She enters the library with a cry of “Book! Book! Book! “ and, of course, this is a request to which any librarian worth her salt would respond. The animals end up with three books to take back to the farm and enjoy. In case you may be a little rusty with your “bullfrog”, you’ll get an excellent chance to work on that skill at the end of this delightful Book! Book! Book!

Book! Book! Book!
Written by Deborah Bruss
Illustrated by Tiphanie Beeke
Accelerated Reader RL 2.2

Heckedy Peg-Audrey Wood

Letha — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 00:53:00 +0000

Why is it that kids are so fascinated with scary stuff? Actually, I don’t think they’re fascinated with “real” scary things, but books and movies and campfire tales and peek-a-boo delight them to no end. And one of those “delightful” scary things? Why no other than Heckedy Peg, a book by Audrey Wood. The mother in our story is off on an errand to town. Each of her seven children (for being so good) is to be brought back one requested item. Before she leaves, the mother admonishes Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday not to play with fire and not to let a stranger in. Exit Mom. Enter children playing with fire and letting in the tricky and oh-so-nasty Heckedy Peg. Heckedy Peg changes the children into “dinner”, loads them into her cart and takes the “food” to her hut. It’s up to the returning mother to discover her children (Thank goodness for nosy blackbirds,) and heroically save the day. Let’s see: We have fire; transmutation (hey); kidnapping; strangers; faux dismemberment; drowning and egg pudding. What more could a child desire in a book? Okay, maybe not the egg pudding. The pictures by Don Wood are impeccably done-could we expect less? Oh, back to that Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday thing-interestingly, that’s how most of the students visiting the library ask for the book: “Where’s that Tuesday Sunday book?” You gotta love it.

Heckedy Peg
Written by Audrey Wood
Illustrated by Don Wood
Accelerated Reader RL 3.2

The Teddy Bear-David McPhail

Letha — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 00:50:31 +0000

Unfortunately, I just read a pretty negative review about David McPhail’s, The Teddy Bear. The person was concerned with the depiction of a homeless person as a character in the story. A small boy loses his constant companion-a teddy bear-at a restaurant and the teddy bear is discovered in the trash by a homeless man after it was accidentally thrown out. The man, then, makes the bear his constant companion. Through time, the boy finds other toys to take the place of the beloved bear, but one day in the park the boy finds his old teddy bear on a park bench. The homeless man returns to his bench and cries when he finds his new friend gone. As the boy and his parents are leaving the park, the boy notices the anguish of the homeless man as the man cries, “My bear! My bear! Where is my bear?” The boy then turns from the exit and unselfishly gives his teddy bear back to the man. The unhappy reviewer thought the book gave some permission for kids to befriend homeless people and that this could be a dangerous folly. I thought the book showed us a boy who had the sensitivity to know what true unselfishness is. Perhaps, if the boy had been alone… As it was I can almost hear the boy’s parents saying, “That was the nicest thing I’ve ever seen anyone do. I’m proud of you, son.” After reading this books to students, we do discuss the boy and the homeless person. The response from the children is pretty much about how nice the boy is. (Exactly.)

The Teddy Bear
Written and Illustrated by David McPhail
Accelerated Reader RL 3.4

Knuffle Bunny-Mo Willems

Letha — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 00:47:45 +0000

Ah, if parents could only speak “Aggle flaggle klabble.” Think of the hits and misses of child rearing that could be avoided. I think back on those years. “Okay, I’ve changed you, fed you, burped you, walked you, rocked you, sang to you, patted you, checked you front to back and asked you (fruitless as it’s always proved to be). Why are you still crying?” “Aggle flaggle klabble.” (Sigh.) So now we come to the premise of Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems. Trixie accompanies her linguistically-challenged father to the laundromat bringing with her her most-important Knuffle Bunny. On the way home, Trixie realizes that Knuffle Bunny has been left behind. “Aggle flaggle klabble!”, Trixie informs her father. Dad just doesn’t get it, despite Trixie’s increasingly urgent pleas, until Mom innocently asks after the missing bunny. Back to the laundromat. The pictures in this books are a combination of realistic depictions and drawings and are good. The “Duh” look on Trixie’s face after Mom’s inquiring after Knuffle Bunny is classic. Mo Willems just knows. Another good one.

Knuffle Bunny
Written and Illustrated by Mo Willems
Accelerated Reader RL 1.6

Snow-Uri Shulevitz

Letha — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 16:10:35 +0000

Some kids don’t know Snow. They haven’t seen it, or smelled it, or built a snowman, but they sure know the excitement of anticipation. Snow. What a book! From a gray sky comes that first snowflake-dismissed as nothing by adults who have forgotten. Then two snowflakes. Then, a world turning white with fantasy and Snow. Joy. Kids everywhere know that one. Uri Shulevitz has given us a gift of childhood-Snow. Or is it Christmas? Or a trip to Disneyland? Or a birthday? Or getting a puppy? Okay, I’ll stop.

Snow
Written and Illustrated by Uri Shulevitz
Accelerated Reader RL 1.6

Snow at Amazon

Small-Clara Vulliamy

Letha — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 15:33:22 +0000

Tom is spending the night at Granny’s and is careful to bring everything he needs. “…and, of course, I’ll need Small.” Small is that indispensible friend/toy (in this case a mouse) from which no kid can be separated. We see Small in and out of the suitcase as much packing and repacking is done by Tom. Tom arrives at Granny’s and after visiting, playing with some special Grandmother-provided toys, and a dinner of his favorites, he goes to bed. “Small isn’t there.” Tom tries to go to sleep as he thinks about Small, lonely at home. Cut back to Small. After climbing through a window, Small goes through some rather frightening experiences to get to Tom at Granny’s. After Tom and Small are happily reunited, you can sense Tom tolerating Granny’s, “You must have dropped him when you first came in.” The young students, who, by the way “really, really” know the truth of Small’s scary adventure, greatly enjoy this book and like Tom, tolerate Granny’s grownups-just-don’t-get-it explanation.

Small
Written and Illusttrated by Clara Vulliamy
Accelerated Reader RL 2.4

Piggie Pie!-Margie Palatini

Letha — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 17:54:27 +0000

(Warning: When reading this book to children beware of an abundance of alliterative “p” words. Hand out tissues.) Gritch awakes one morning with a tremendous craving for Piggie Pie! Lacking the most important ingredients-8 plump piggies-she jumps on her broom and flies off to Old MacDonald’s to rectify the situation. Noticing her arrival overhead at the farm, the piggies read the writing on the wall, er, in the sky and decide subterfuge to be the best protection against Gritch’s hungry needs. Disguised as various farm animals, the piggies undergo some rather intense witchy interrogations. Even a conspicuouly lumpy looking “Old MacDonald” is no help. “No piggies.” (Thankfully, Gritch isn’t the most observant witch in the covey.) “Now what was she going to eat?” Enter a huffing and puffing wolf. “Wolf’s the name.” Both the wolf and the witch leave the farm with, respectively, visions of a Gritch hamburger and a Wolf sandwich dancing in their heads. And in the heads of the piggies? …a neener neener here. And a neener neener there. Here a neener…

Piggie Pie!
Written by Margie Palatini
Illustrated by Howard Fine
Accelerated Reader RL 2.5

King Bidgood’s in the Bathtub-Audrey Wood

Letha — Sat, 01 Sep 2007 20:52:55 +0000

King Bidgood’s in the Bathtub, and he won’t get out!” exclaims a harried page to the king’s nose-in-the-air court. Several attempts follow to extract the king from his watery repose and, my, how the mighty slip-up. (I could have said “fail”, but sometimes a little bathroom humor has an uncontrollable urge to leak out.) Unfortuately, these courtly efforts only succeed in tormenting everyone but the King who is enjoying it all immensely. And so, “Who knows what to do? Who knows what to do?” Thanks to the clever page who out-logics them all, we have lift-off, or lift-out, well, success. “Glub. Glub. Glub.” Don Wood, illustrator extraordinaire, has painted some wonderfully detailed and humorous pictures-so good, in fact, I could almost hear the Queen lamenting, “And to think I could have married Richard.” during the, um, two in a tub luncheon.

King Bidgood’s in the Bathtub
Written by Audrey Wood
Illustrated by Don Wood
Accelerated Reader RL 1.7

Bertie Was a Watchdog-Rick Walton

Letha — Wed, 29 Aug 2007 12:55:41 +0000

A horrible robber+a watchdog named only for his watch-size stature=a problem. Enter the I-may-be-small-but-I’m-a-darn-sight-more-clever-than-you dog (Bertie) and the Horrible Robber with a “Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha” response. The chase is on. Literally. Will Bertie be able to stop the robbery? Will the robber be able to stop laughing at Bertie? How will Bertie’s challenge “Bet I can bite harder than you.” pan out? Bertie Was a Watchdog by Rick Walton is a great read-aloud. You can dust off your weensy voice, your loud gruff voice and finally be able to amaze all with your secretly practiced siren voice. The illustrations are colorful and bold and just right for the younger crowd. I really hesitate concluding things with saying something trite like size doesn’t matter; it’s brains that count. I mean, look at our duly-elected officials. Scheesh. But I digress. To sum it all up: Bertie Was a Watchdog=a very enjoyable book.

Bertie Was a Watchdog
Written by Rick Walton
Illustrated by Arthur Robins
Accelerated Reader RL 2.1