This class has been such a gift to me this semester.
Okay I am very sorry, but I did not like this book at all and I do not know why! Or maybe that's not even it. I liked the book, I just don't know what to say about it. It was a likable, silly story, but that was it. There was not a lot of substance to it really- which is funny because it is about a skeleton haha! I really think that students would like this book as a read aloud because on every page it says "hic hic hic" and I could see students wanting to read along with that. This book would be very good to use in a series around the Halloween season. The ending would also be very amusing to students. "Then ghost got smart. Hic, hic, hic. Found a mirror. Hic, hic, hic. Held it up. Hic, hic, hic. Skeleton screamed! The hiccups left. They jumped away. Hurray!"
I really do not know where to start with this book. It is probably important to point out that I read So Far From the Bamboo Grove first so I am partial to it. That does not mean that I did not like this book. For sure it was just as heart wrenching at times as the other book in this paired text set, but it had just as much hope mixed in. One thing about this book that was not as strong for me was that it was not a true story, though it could have easily been the story of any child in Korea at the time. One thing that I really did like about this book though, was that it did not end when Japan surrendered. It goes on to talk about how the Russians came into Korea next. It is almost as if the nightmare just kept going for this family. What I liked about that though is, I had no idea that that happened. I am a little ashamed to admit that I learned about a major world history event in a fictional children's novel, but it is true none the less. This is why these kind of text sets are such a good idea in the classroom! You learn about history in a way that you never really thought you could. Plus, this would be far more interesting for students than simply reading about all this in a textbook. Even the best textbooks cant rival the novel for the human spirit and the connection the reader needs to feel something for the topic in question. This is why these kinds of text sets are such a good idea. I would absolutely use this kind of thing in my classroom.
This book made me realize that I would really like to know more about Marie Antoinette. She is such a famous historical character, but I feel like everything that I know about her is hearsay. Like that whole, "let them eat cake" thing, totally false, but that is what people know about her. Perhaps I will have to look into some more literature on her. At any rate, I liked this book for several reasons. The first being that it is told from the point of view of her puppy- and I love puppies ( a shocking revelation I know.) The other reason is because of the historical content. It is about history and a famous historical character, but it is told in a way that is easy to relate to. As I have said before, animals are such a good way to relate things to children. In this case, we see the life of Marie Antoinette through the eyes of her beloved pet Pug, who the author named Sebastian. Interestingly, Marie was only aloud to bring a few personal possessions with her into her new life in France, and her Pug was one of them. I feel like this fact would make this figure relatable to students because many students will have dogs and many more will have some kind of pet. The other thing that is kind of nice here is that because it is from the puppy's point of view, it is pretty simple even though very complicated things were going on in actuality. One thing that I did not like about this book was that it was actually pretty sad. Fitting I guess because her life wasn't exactly happy, but I was sad for Sebastian. In the story as Marie became more of a queen she quit having time for her puppy so he became lonely. Silly? Maybe. My boyfriend laughed at me when he looked over at me reading this book and found me very distraught. Still though, to me, every dog anywhere could by my Louie so I relate to them maybe a little more than I should. Anyway, the ending is happy, because Marie's daughter finds Sebastian and adopts him as her own and he is happy and loved again. At the very end of the book, the author has an actual short biography of Marie Antoinette, who was actually called Antonia or Antoinette by her family. I liked this because some of the facts from the book were not quite true. For example, her marriage was not happy at all, and in the story it seems like it was pretty okay.
First of all, I just want to say that these tiny little images make me sad :-( This one however makes me particularly sad because now you cant see the detail that I can on the cover art. The first thing that I noticed while reading this book were the illustrations and I don't necessarily mean that in a good way. They were awesome as far as details go, but at the same time, the kids look downright creepy! What it is I think is that they look like little adults with these big, round, shiny faces. I dunno. They were a little bit distracting for me while I was reading actually. That having been said though, I do appreciate Matt Novak's obvious attention for details in the illustrations. Some of the scenes he probably could have gotten away with not quite as much, but he went for it anyway. I really like that in the illustrations of all the children everywhere having one giant pillow fight, no two children look the same and they all have different pajamas on.
I honestly can't believe that it has taken me this long to talk about his book! It was one of my absolute favorites when I was younger. Did I see the movie though, you say? Absolutely not. Why? Because they totally ruined it! i could tell just from the trailer that only a few things were kept the same from the original telling, which is highly disappointing because it was fine just on its own. When I was little I always thought about how cool it would be to live in a place where food rained from the sky. Then when I got a little bit older, but not quite old enough to outgrow the book, I realized that if it truly rained food it would not be suitable to eat because of all the nasty things in the atmosphere. Another fanciful idea struck down by knowledge and science for that matter. I still enjoyed the book though. I think that the illustrations were one of the best parts. It is funny because what I enjoyed so much about those illustrations is still what I hold as the gold standard for a good illustration today, and that is attention to detail. Each illustration in this book was done with a careful eye, and nothing was left out. Not to be too general here, but my other favorite part of this book was the story. Not only is it amusing, but there are lessons to be learned. This is the story of a town where the weather does not consist of rain and snow, but of hot dogs and hamburgers and other foods. Life was good in the obviously fictional town of Chewandswallow until there is the hurricane equivalent of food dumped on the city. The residents are forced to flee for their lives, lest they be squished by a giant pancake or run over by an enormous rolling doughnut. What lesson can be learned from this silly story? There are two actually. The first is this: too much of a good thing is a bad thing. The townspeople had been glad to get their food for free from the sky, but when the weather spins out of control they are forced to leave, ergo too much=bad. The other lesson comes from a part of the book that I did not mention. The story begins by a grandfather telling his grandchildren this story of the town Chewandswallow. This celebrates not only the entertainment value of books and the importance of reading and sharing them together, but it also highlights the tradition of the oral story.
I chose this book because I thought that it was going to be cute and I was right. This was a very cute book! It was another that after I read it once I thought it was just for entertainment's sake, but after thinking about it I discovered that there was more value to it than that. The story starts with a large mouse family who likes to watch TV. The problem is that they can never agree on what it is that they should watch. The dad mouse wants to watch action, mama wants to watch a comedy and so on. It goes through all the different genres of TV show that you could possibly want to watch. Than one day, the TV is broken and the mouse family is a little lost at first. Then they start to entertain themselves in other ways. I liked this because, even though I do enjoy turning on the tube at the end of a long day, I feel like there is too much emphasis on it these day, especially with our youth. This book could be used for a bunch of different things. It could be a topic starter to get to know students. You could have them talk about what kind of TV they like to watch and then maybe they could get into groups and put together a skit that would show what their genre was. This would be good for planning and writing skills, as well as using imaginations to come up with props and everything. this book could also be used as the jumping off point to talk about what we could do with our time besides watch TV. Two of my favorite things about this book though? One, the mouse family was all together when they were deciding how to spend their time and two, they decide to read a book. One thing though about the book that was interesting to me. We know from the beginning of the book that the dad mouse likes action/adventure, and what kind of story finally gets read at the end of the book? An action/adventure story is read by the dad. I don't know what this means really but it felt significant to me that the dad is the only one whose genre was addressed.
