Booktalk

Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons

Created and illustrated by James Dean

Story by Eric Litwin

Published by Harper Collins on May 1, 2012

40 pages

Fictional picture book

·       This story is about a cat named Pete. Pete is wearing his favorite shirt and throughout the day, buttons start popping off his shirt. Despite his favorite shirt messing up, he continues to go about his day happy. Pete encourages everyone to keep on singing, instead of crying about things you can’t control.

·       The illustrations are very bright and colorful; they depict watercolor paintings that my kids personally love. They include counting numbers and large onomatopoeias throughout which grab attention.

·       This book could be used for kindergarten math; it has basic subtraction from 4 to 1. A teacher could easily buy a yellow button up shirt similar and Velcro four large, laminated buttons onto the shirt which you could “pop” off as the story goes.

·       This lesson can be adapted for English language learners in multiple ways:

o   Have the book in the other language but read it aloud in English, this way, they are hearing it but correlating what’s being said with what they are reading. Or have the book in English to read aloud but give that student the book in their primary language to follow along.

o   Learn some of the basic words in the student’s language. Example, when Pete counts in the book, use uno instead of one and so on.

Learning with Nonfiction Books

Learning with Nonfiction Books

Bloom

Written and illustrated by: Julia Seal

Published by: Sunbird Books on March 8th, 2022

Recommended for children ages 4-7

32 Pages

Bloom is a cute picture book about a jellyfish named Luna. Luna travels the ocean and always returns to the reef to tell her friends about her adventure. Luna starts to notice her friends are gone and things around her home are changing. Luna talks with the other jellyfish, and they decide that together they need to deliver a message about keeping the ocean clean. 

The illustrations in this book are so bright and colorful. Throughout the book, there are realistic, yet cartoon like drawings of sea creatures. The jellyfish bloom was done beautifully, it is my personal favorite illustration in the book.

Sci-Fi and Kids

The Kid Who Came from Space

Written by: Ross Welford

Published by: Harper Collins on January 1, 2020

416 Pages 

Recommended for 4th grade and up.

The Kid Who Came from Space is a very cute and heartwarming chapter book for children. Written by Ross Welford, who has written a great collection of award winning, Sci-Fi books for children. This book particularly tugged on my heartstrings, it is about twins Ethan and Tammy that have a sibling rivalry. At twelve years old, Tammy goes missing. Ethan and his best friend find out that she was kidnapped by aliens, they learn this by their new best friend Hellyan, who is also an alien. Now the three are on an adventure to another universe, that Ethan and Iggy didn't even know existed, to save Tammy. 

There are no illustrations in this book, but the cover is very cute and correlates with the story. It even depicts the characters pet chicken silhouette, which I think is very cute to add.

Fantasy Books for Young Children

Fantasy Books for Young Children

The Girl and the Dinosaur

Written by: Hollie Hughes

Illustrated by: Sarah Massini

Published by: Bloomsbury Children's Book on January 2020

Modern Fantasy

Preschool-First Grade

32 Pages

The Girl and the Dinosaur is a story about a young girl named Marianne and her Dinosaur, Boney. Marianne lives in a small town by the sea, she doesn't have many friends but she doesn't mind because she spends her time digging for dinosaur bones. One day, she finally has all the bones together and when she goes to bed that night, she makes a wish for her dinosaur to come to life. 

The pictures in the book are very colorful and cartoon like. The illustrator uses very beautiful water colors to bring the images to life. Although it is a childrens book, the dinosaurs are life like to be cartoons. The scales and bones look very realistic, especially with the good shading to show the different times of day over the scales.

   

Teaching History Through Literature

 Teaching History Through Literature

A Long Walk to Water

Written by: Linda Sue Park
Published by: Clarion Books on October 4th, 2011
Historical Fiction for ages 10-12

128 pages

A Long Walk to Water is a story based on true events told in two different points of view. Two eleven years olds face unimaginable obstacles during their lives while simply trying to survive. The story is told from a boy's point of view, on the search for safety and family and also from a girl's point of view 23 years later in the same part of Africa, while doing a task as simple as fetching water.

This story is not illustrated but does have a beautiful cover which depicts a realistic African sunset with bright and vibrant colors. You can see what appears to be a small young girl carrying water on her head.

Realistic Fiction for Elementary Readers

 

Realistic Fiction for Elementary Readers

Wish

Written by: Barbara O'Connor
Published by: Square Fish
Copywrite: August 29, 2017
256 pages
Realistic Fiction for grades 4-6

"Wish" is a children's chapter book that tells the story of a preteen, Charlie. She is struggling with a very real and complicated family dynamic that leaves her feeling alone and wishing for normalcy. Charlie moves to North Carolina to live with her aunt and uncle where she finds family and wholesomeness where and when she least expects it.

This is a chapter book, so there are not any illustrations. I can say that the cover is bright and depicts a perfect sunset scenery. There is good use of bright colors. The cover is very realistic which goes great with the genre of the book.

Traditional Literature for Children

Traditional Literature for Children

There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Frog!

Written by: Lucille Colandro

Illustrated by: Jared Lee

Published May 2014 by Cartwheel Books

32 Pages

Genre: Folktale

Pre-K to second grade
 

"There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Frog!" is a cute twist to the traditional folktale, "There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Fly." The story starts with an old lady eating a frog and then going through a ridiculous list of other untraditional meals that are centered around the Spring season, which could be incorporated into a lesson plan about Spring. There are a lot of repeating phrases throughout the story, which helps keep children engaged and assists in the ease of them following along. This is a fun and light story for children with very funny cartoon illustrations. 

Introducing Poetry to Children

Introducing Poetry to Children

Daniel Finds a Poem

Written and Illustrated By: Micha Archer

Published February 2016 by Nancy Paulsen Books

Genre: Poetry 

32 Pages

Pre-K to third grade

"Daniel Finds a Poem," is a cute book that is great for introducing poetry to children. A young boy, Daniel, is interested in learning about poetry so he starts asking his animal friends what poetry is. All of Daniels friends give him a different perspective on what poetry is to them. By the end of the book Daniel is able to discover his own poem by looking and listening to the things around him that he finds enjoyment in. 

This book has very bright and beautiful illustrations. The artwork throughout the book depicts rich sceneries similar to Eric Carle's artwork.