Stories from the Library: November 30-December 4

The Scholastic Book Fair is in full swing this week! Our first day was this past Friday the 4th and the students are so excited to see our Library turned into a Scholastic "store" for a few days. Some of the children were jumping up and down when they saw the Scholastic delivery truck driving toward the school last week!
Because of the Book Fair, only a few classes were able to have regular library times this past week:

Preschool: When one of the twins loses a red mitten in Florence Slobodkin's Too Many Mittens, the whole town sends red mittens their way. As you can imagine, their home is soon overflowing with lost red mittens! First published in 1958, this delightful story is still fun more than 50 years later. 
Junior Kindergarten: Junior Kindergarteners enjoyed The Dream Jar by Lindan Lee Johnson. New to our library, this charming book tells the story of a little girl who learns how to transform bad dreams into "dreamy dreams" with the help of her big sister and a seemingly magical jar of good thoughts.
1st Grade: 1st Graders laughed at all the silly animals in Jan Brett's The Mitten: A Ukranian Folktale. Jan Brett is beloved by students for her colorful, detailed illustrations and fun stories. In The Mitten, a bevy of forest animals find shelter from the snow in Nicky's lost mitten-- that is, until the bear sneezes! 
4th Grade: We finished up our unit on Chris Van Allsburg with the holiday classic The Polar Express. In our closing comments about Van Allsburg we decided that "dreamlike," "mysterious," and "muted" were appropriate words to describe his stories and illustrations. One student astutely noted that as an author, Van Allsburg does not like to tell his readers what to think about a certain character or situation. Rather, he gives us clues that will lead each reader to infer his or her own conclusion. This mysterious quality draws me--and the students-- into Van Allsburg's dreamlike worlds.
5th Grade: After watching a commercial highlighting books in the Scholastic Book Fair, 5th Graders listened to part of a Beverly Cleary Christmas story: "Ramona, The Sheep Suit, and the Three Wise Persons" from A Newberry Christmas, a book of Christmas short stories from fourteen Newberry Award-winning authors.