Reader Beware!

One of the best tips I could give anyone looking for a read aloud is to read the book yourself before you read it to your students.  In following my own advice I have found some books that I just couldn't bring myself to read to my students.  They are actually great books, just not right in my opinion.  I did want to share them with you all because you may want to stay away from them or you may want to read them yourself and decide!

The first is The Deadlies: Felix Takes the Stage by Kathryn Lasky.  This book is about a family of brown recluse spiders and how they need to find a new home after Felix causes an accident in the philharmonic hall where they live.  They go on to meet many new spider friends and end up in the perfect place to live.  This book was wonderful and it would be great to have students make a web (pun intended!) of what they learn about spiders while listening to it.  There is so much information and I think students would really enjoy learning about spiders through this fun story.  The reason I chose not to read it is only because of a swear word that appears when a spider is yelling at her husband on page 84.  I could have easily skipped over it and read the book anyway but my students have been really interested in checking out my read aloud books after I've read them.  I just didn't feel comfortable with it.  If you are interested, I would suggest reading the book.  I did enjoy it.

The other book I'd like to warn you about is Nightmare at the Book Fair by Dan Gutman.  It is about a boy who helps out in his school book fair and gets knocked out by a crate of books.  He then has exciting dreams weaving in and out of every genre of stories you can think of: horror, science fiction, humor, mystery, historical fiction, fantasy, etc.  I was so excited while reading this book.  I couldn't wait to read this and discuss all the genres with my students...until I came to the fantasy chapter.  It talked about mead a little, which I could have been ok with, but then the main character meets a transgendered person who turns out to be his mother.  I just felt this was too much for my third graders to hear about.  I was thinking that maybe some middle school children would enjoy reading this book for fun.  If you are a fifth grade teacher, you may want to read it and decide if it could be appropriate for you.  As I said, the genre examples are amazing!

The Witches

I know that I've already blogged about a Roald Dahl book but he has become the favorite author of my classroom this year and we had to read another!  During the month of October, I was looking for a fun Halloween read aloud.  I remembered the book The Witches from my childhood and decided I just had to read it!

This book is quite long and we just finished it last week.  However, it was so interesting and fun that the students did not mind reading a book about witches into November.  It is about a boy whose parents pass away.  He then goes to live with his grandmother and she teaches him all that she knows about witches.  He thinks that she is telling stories until he meets one himself.  He escapes unharmed but when they go on vacation, he does not end up so lucky.  He happens upon a meeting of all of the witches in England and will never be the same!

There are so many skills that would connect to this book.  First, this is a great book to discuss character traits again, like with Beezus and Ramona.  There are clear villains and heroes that would be easy for your students to identify.  In the resources section below there is a link to a list of character traits.  Next, I used this book to discuss problem and solution.  The boy has a tough problem and goes through sequential steps to solve it.  Finally, I used this book for point of view.  This book was written in first person point of view.  It is told from the boy's perspective and we never even find out his name.  I found it strange that my students kept saying "she" or "her" when talking about the character and I realized that they though it was a girl because a female was reading it!  Talking about point of view helped to clear up this confusion.

There are a few warnings about this book before you choose to read it.  First, the boy's parents do die in the book, not before, in a car crash.  If you have a student who has lost his or her parent(s), I would suggest reading the book before you start to see if it would be appropriate.  Also, Roald Dahl does not always use school appropriate language, such as "heck".  I found myself skipping or substituting words that I preferred not to repeat to my students.  Having said that, my students enjoyed this book so much that they were greatly disappointed that there was not a sequel.  Their favorite part was when the Grand High Witch spoke because she has an accent.  They loved hearing me act it out.  I would highly recommend this book for third through fifth grade teachers.

Extra Resources:

Check out the movie The Witches.  You could use it to teach about compare and contrast.  Use a Venn Diagram.

Character Traits List: http://cte.jhu.edu/techacademy/web/2000/kochan/charactertraits.html

The Official Roald Dahl Website: information about his books, his life, games, etc. http://www.roalddahl.com/

Writing Ideas: http://www.roalddahlfans.com/teachers/witc.php

Beezus and Ramona

I cannot tell you how much fun we had reading this book!  Another favorite third grade read aloud is Beezus and Ramona by Beverly Cleary.  I remember reading about Ramona as a child and being so entertained.  Since the movie Ramona and Beezus came out not too long ago, I thought this would be a good time to read the story.  The story is about two sisters, Beezus is the older sister and Ramona is the younger sister.  From the first two pages, you find out that Beezus finds her sister "exasperating"!  The story is split into six stories which include many silly remarks and actions by Ramona.  The message of the story is that it is ok if you don't always like your siblings.

It is quite a long book so we had to split it into 12 sessions, reading half a chapter a day.  Every day I stopped there were groans.  "Can't we read more?" is music to a teacher's ear!  My students could not get enough of Ramona's mischievous actions.  There were many gasps when the students heard what Ramona did and many students happy that Ramona was not their little sister.  Since we've finished, one of my students has also started reading the other Ramona books by Beverly Cleary.

This book would be wonderful to use to emphasize word choice.  There are many words that had even my gifted students asking what they meant.  Right from the beginning when Beezus describes Ramona as exasperating as she rides her tricycle with her mouth organ, there are many new words and terms you could keep on a list.

Another activity would be to talk about Beezus and Ramona's character traits.  Using what the characters say and do, make a list of character traits for each girl.  Make sure to have students defend each trait they name with an example from the story.

Enjoy this book, I know your students will!

Extra Resources:

The World of Beverly Cleary website has information about the author, books, characters and some games!
http://www.beverlycleary.com/

Read It Before You See It: This has many fun activities including a crossword, door hangers, and a quiz: Are you a Beezus or Ramona?  Also lists all the Ramona books written by Beverly Cleary.
http://www.beverlycleary.com/docs/ramonaeventkit.pdf

The Enormous Crocodile

One of the first read alouds I did this year was The Enormous Crocodile by Roald Dahl.  This is a very short, very entertaining book!  It is all about a crocodile going into the village to eat children.  It may seem scary but each of his plans backfires and the students always got away.  I split the book up into two sections, ending after the crocodile tells all of the jungle animals his plans and before he tries his first trick.

We had a wonderful time predicting what would come next in this book.  The crocodile would see a place where he wanted to hide and the students would guess how he would disguise himself.  Also, they would guess how the children would get away every time.  In fact, there were so many guesses and comments to share that it almost took us three sessions to read!

Another activity that would fit nicely is to have your students come up with their own trick for the enormous crocodile.  What else could he disguise himself as to get a child?  Have your students draw a picture of their ideas.

If you're a second grade teacher, you could easily use this book as well.  I would highly recommend this book for the humor and the excitement.  My class gave it two thumbs up!

Extra Resources:

RoaldDahlFans.com has a quiz your students could take after listening:
http://www.roalddahlfans.com/games/quiz.php?quizID=8

Unique Teaching Resources has a great art idea that asks students to review the four clever tricks.  This page has pictures and masters.
http://www.uniqueteachingresources.com/Enormous-Crocodile-Lesson-Plans.html