Stories from the Library: March 5-9

Right before Spring Break we started reading Sid Fleischman's The Whipping Boy in the 4th Grade class. When I was home in California, my dad, an avid obituary reader, asked if I was familiar with anyone named Sid Fleischman? As it turns out, the author of The Whipping Boy passed away two days after we started reading his Newbery-winning book and one day after his 90th birthday.

We're just getting to know some of Fleischman's clever and quirky characters. Prince Brat, Jemmy, Hold-Your-Nose-Billy and Cutwater have already made us laugh and are getting more interesting as the plot thickens. According to his obituary in the New York Times, Fleischman first began writing stories for children after a challenge from his own children. By the end of his life, he was a Newbery Award winner, National Book Award finalist and a beloved author who willed be missed in the literary world. 

Preschool: Preschoolers giggled through Stanley's Wild Ride by Linda Bailey this week. When Stanley  the dog digs his way out of his oh-so-boring backyard, he rounds up all the other dogs in his neighborhood for one night of glorious freedom. The wild ride really starts when the dogs find a collection of wheeled "things" and start rolling down the big hill in the middle of town.


Junior Kindergarten: Junior Kindergartners listened to Steven Kellogg's Can I Keep Him? Arnold is a little boy with a big imagination who dreams up a series of interesting pets. When he asks his mother, Can I keep him? the answer is always the same-- until Arnold stops imagining and comes by with the neighbor boy in hand.


Kindergarten: We continued our Kindergarten Continent Race with a stop in Australia this past week. Students listened to Big Rain Coming by Katrina Germein, a simple story about waiting patiently for rain in the middle of the hot Australian outback. Kindergartners enjoyed the bold and colorful Aboriginal-style illustrations and loved how the story is structured around the days of the week.


1st Grade: Every once in a while when I pull out our read-aloud for the week, I'm met with a chorus of "We already read that!" 1st Graders were not shy in letting me know they had already heard Lily and the Purple Plastic Purse, so I grabbed the nearest 1st Grade-friendly read from the shelf. Pirate Girl by Cornelia Funke turned out to be a perfectly fun read-aloud, complete with clever pirate-speak and a twist at the end. I don't think I've ever seen our 1st Graders so well-behaved and engrossed in a story!


2nd Grade: 2nd Graders missed library this week because of a field trip.




3rd Grade: 3rd Graders actually came to library twice this week to make up missing the previous Friday. We started a unit on William Steig stories and enjoyed The Amazing Bone and Sylvester and the Magic Pebble this week. Steig not only delights children with stories of magical objects and fantastic circumstances, but he also does not underestimate their vocabulary by peppering his pages with colorful words like "revile,"duped" and "bewildered."


4th Grade: See opening post.


5th Grade: We said farewell to The Little Prince this week with a few closing comments and a fun class quiz. Remember, "Anything essential is invisible to the eyes," says the fox.