Schema: Ghosts, New Orleans, beignets

 The story is set in New Orleans and is about a family who opens a restaurant that is haunted.  Fred, the ghost is a little timid and all of his attempts to scare people off only make the place more interesting to them.  The main character, Marie, a child of the new owner, figures out a way to make him stay and be happy. They make a messy room for him where he feels at home, and they make a dessert, Powdered Ghosts Puffs, in his honor. The illustrations support the text and will be enjoyed by children especially on Halloween.

Cause and Effect: Because Fred couldn’t have a messy place to stay, the effect was that he was planning to leave.

Because Fred made the food fly around, the effect was that the people in the restaurant liked the atmosphere even more.

Drawing Conclusions: How did Marie draw the conclusion that Fred would stay if they made him his own space?

Text-to-Self Connections: Each Saint holiday from December 6th through January 6th is included. 

Text-to-Text Connections: Strega Nona’s Christmas

Big Anthony is once again the star of the show as he gobbles up the goats special turnips. 

Author’s Purpose: to share the culture of Italy and the special Saint’s days.

Drawing Conclusions: What do you conclude is the reason that Big Anthony gave his special meal to the goat?

The story is set in Calabria at Christmas time. The community celebrates the Feast of Sn Nicola, Feast of Santa Lucia, and several other special days. The food and customs of each day are detailed with the characters actions. The Eve of Epifania was extra special because they believed that animals may be able to speak that night. They wanted to feed them well. Big Anthony ate the goat’s special food so the goat eats Big Anthony’s blanket. Strega Nona gives a special blessing to the people of a dream of food which Big Anthony can not enjoy because he is cold and not sleeping well. On The Feast of Epifania Big Anthony finds the bean in the King’s Cake and gets to be king. Strega Nona will make him anything he desires. He requests the turnips that were for the goat that he had eaten so he can give them to the goat. Children whose culture celebrates the saint days will especially enjoy the story.

Text-to-text: Chicken Little

Drawing Conclusions: What text evidence is given that leads the chickens to the conclusions they draw?

his size: they conclude he’s an elephant

a squirrel: he eats nuts

an umbrella: his wings shelter them from the rain

the world is a refrigerator: it’s cold north wind

a sweater: they are warm under his wing

a hippopotamus: his size

Text-to-Self Connections: getting new shoes messed up

Cause and Effect: Because Delly needed the shoes, the effect is that her dad found a way to buy them.

Because the girls scuffed her shoes, the effect is Delly found a way to paint them to be beautiful.

Because Delly’s shoes were the most beautiful and matched her box, the effect was that the bid kept going up on her box.

Drawing Conclusions: What conclusion to you come to about the kind of family that is Delly’s family?

Point of View: Delly tells the story from her point of view.

Delly, the oldest of five, does not have any shoes that are fit to wear so she goes to school barefoot. One of the more wealthy girls makes fun of her for not having shoes. The teacher assigns a project of decorating a shoe box with a box supper inside and auctioning it off to raise money for art supplies at the school’s fall festival.  After her father buys her some shoes, and the girls at school purposefully scuff them up, Delly makes them beautiful again by decorating them with paint her mother has made from the natural resources in nature. The story ends with pumpkin carving and a happy barefoot walk home to feel the sand squish in their toes for the last time until the next spring.  

Schema: honey bees, making butter by shaking a jar, flour

Text-to-self Connections: baking with an adult, knowing the cow as the animal from which humans drink their milk

This is a very sweet picture book about a mama mouse and her baby girl as they go on an adventure to find the ingredients to find something “sweet and new to nibble” and made with “a little bit of love” which turns out to be a huckleberry pie. Baby mouse does not know what Mama is gathering the ingredients to make so as each ingredient is found, students could try to predict what it will be. After reading, students could practice sequencing the places that Mama went to in order to find what she needed. The illustrations support the text and are excellent.

Drawing Conclusions: What do you conclude that the ingredients will be used for?

Sequencing: What order did the mother mouse get her supplies? First: honey, second: flour, third: berries; fourth: milk

Text-to-Text Connections: books where a mother and a child do something together

The goose man is Konrad Lorenz, an Austrian born doctor who devoted his life to the study of ethology, an animal behavior involving instinct. This focus of this book is on the his work about geese and how they communicate with different types of honks and how they imprint on the first living creature they see.  Konrad learned how to imitate the goose honks to communicate with them. He had several pets throughout his life, and he won the Nobel Peace Price in 1973. The lively illustrations and amount of text on the page makes this book a very interesting read aloud that students will enjoy.

Author’s purpose: to share information about a famous scientist

Cause and Effect: Because Konrad was the first creature the baby goose saw, the effect is that the goose imprinted on him.

Drawing Conclusions: What conclusions does Konrad draw from observing the geese?

Mental Image: Several remarks are made in the book about the mess the animals made in the house.  Can you make a mental image of what a mess a monkey or a goose inside the house would make?

In this story Buddy notices a strange lizard with a blue tongue under some shelves in the library, and since he doesn’t know what it is, he calls it the “library monster.”  The key to the furnace room at the school is missing, and a light fixture in the school office is on the blink. Buddy is a reading therapy dog, and one of the kids he knows, Maya,  seems upset and  Buddy can tell this  by her smell. With lots of watching, running to see, and talking with a dog who lives near the school, Buddy figures out by listening to Maya read to him that the lizard, a skink,  is what he found in the library, and later learns Maya has been hiding it at school because her mother won’t let her keep it at home. She also took the reptile man’s box of mice, and at one point in the story they were loose in the school. Buddy wishes his people would listen to him, but they never do. If they did, they would know why he was running around and who left the note explaining about the lizard, mice, furnace room mystery.

Cause and Effect: Because Buddy could smell something strange, the effect is that he sought out the skink that was loose in the school.

Drawing Conclusions: Buddy draws some conclusions based on what he knows and makes lists of them during the story.

Inference: A key is missing, and then later we see Maya with a key. We can infer that she has the furnace room key that has been missing.  We can also infer that she is hiding something in this room.

Point of View: The story is told from Buddy’s POV.

Large colorful illustrations feature an African American preschool aged boy and his mother. Matthew’s mother has a great ears and knows him well. He infers that she may be a super hero and that she may have x-ray vision because she tells him to stop jumping on the bed even when he is upstairs and she is downstairs. He decides to test her and hides in the closet, but while he is hiding a neighbor falls out of her window, and his mom suddenly changes into a Wonder Woman type outfit and flies up and saves her.

Inference: Matthew infers that his mom has superhero characteristics

Drawing Conclusions: What conclusions can the reader draw by looking at clues from the illustrations that lead the reader to conclude that Matthew’s mother is a superhero?

Text-to-text: The Boy Who Cried Wolf

Heavy paper for the pages, simple illustrations, and straightforward text combine to create a book young children, especially boys, will enjoy. Tim tells the truth about the unbelievable things that happen in his house and yard, but his parents do not believe him. He then lies and says it was him that did the things, but also gets punished, by having to rake leaves, even though he is innocent. Finally he thinks to write a letter and invite the culprits to his home for a party. His parents make all of them rake, then they have a party. It would be fun to compare with The Boy Who Cried Wolf. Young children will be entertained and enlightened by young Tim.

Compare and Contrast: The Boy Who Cried Wolf

Drawing Conclusions: The parents draw the conclusion that the boy is being dishonest.

Point of View: The story is told from Tim’s POV.

Text-to-text connections: Detective LaRue books by Teague, and Help Me, Mr. Mutt! by Stevens

Emma, owned by George, and Hankie, owned by Loretta, are worried about what is happening to their owners, each thinking the other’s owner may be trying to kidnap their own owner, when in fact, they are dating.  To solve the problem they write to an advise column, Ask Queenie.  The setting for writing e-mails is at the public library. The art incorporates picture book and graphic formats with many frames of dialogue along with full page art.

Point of View:  The story is told from George’s dog, Emma’s POV.

Drawing Conclusions: George and Emma both conclude that their owners need help.  Find text evidence that supports their conclusions.

Synthesis:  Share situations that are like Emma’s such as when a parent begins dating, getting a new brother or sister, when a new pet is added to the home and how the other pets react

Predicting: Predict what Loretta will do after she gets the dogs out of the dumpster…bath time!