As a reader, I found the language of this book to be hard to follow. The characters talked in broken English, which was what made it harder to follow. However, I did enjoy the plot of the story. The children all had to go out to pull their weight in the family so that they might enjoy a meal. They try to help their mother out, only to find they have collected mostly rocks instead of potatoes. Although the language was hard to follow I enjoyed the book overall.
As a teacher, I might use this book as an accompaniment to a social studies lesson. This book shows a family that is struggling financially when the children decide to go harvest potatoes. The farmer could have turned them away, but he says that if they pick up stones they can keep the potatoes they find. This could be linked to a lesson on the Great Depression to relate it to the struggles that families went through at that time.
I thought that this book was a cute children's book that I think a lot of kids would like. It used language that could be read by early readers, but the themes explored in the book were ones that could be used for any age level. I liked how it showed a different side to bullying besides physical and verbal abuse. This shows classmates making fun of Chrysanthemum for her name, something that she can't change, and how they eventually learn that all names should be appreciated.
I would use this in a classroom either in a small reading group or as a read aloud book. I think this would be a good book to help introduce the topic of name calling and making fun of others for things that they cannot control. A good writing lesson could also come from this book. Students could write about their name and what it means to them or write a story about their name. This might also be a good opportunity for them to research the actual meaning of their names and share it with the class. This book could help create a good classroom community.
As a reader I found this book confusing at first, but after reading it a second time it became more clear. The illustrations in this picture book are amazing and really help to tell the story since there aren't as many words. I really enjoyed the message in this book about how persistence can get you where you want to be.
As a teacher I would use this book as a read aloud book. Since it is about an eagle, it could be tied into a social studies lesson. This book would also be a good lesson on persistence. The eagle doesn't learn to fly the first time it tries, it takes a few trys and a lot of persistence for the eagle to fly. This can help teach students that not everything will come easily to them, but if they keep trying they will eventually reach their goals.
As a reader I thought that this was a good book that spreads a good message. Chester's mother tells the animals at school that in order to overcome their bully that they need tobefriend him. She compares the bully to a rough blue stone, and to get it like the other stones soft and smooth, that everyone needed to work together to work away the rough spots. As I said, I really liked the message behind this book and think that it could be useful to a lot of children who are bullied.
As a teacher I would use this book to either start or end a unit on bullying. It puts the serious issue of bullying and puts it into words and an analogy that a child would understand. I would use this book as a read aloud book, and then discuss other strategies besides asking the bully to play ball that might work to get the bully to stop. Students might like this book because it makes solving the bullying problem seem like it could be done easily, which is why it would be important to discuss other strategies and tell them that it might not be as easy as this book lets on.
As a reader I really enjoyed this book. There wasn't much text, but the pictures did a lot of the talking. The book is a silly book that tells you what not to do, like never knit a hat for a moose or take a giraffe to the movies. My favorite illustration was the never take a giraffe to the movies, because the page folds open until you finally see the top of his head. Although this is such a simple book, the idea behind it is really cute and I could see a lot of people enjoying it.
As a teacher I would love using this book. I think that the students would really enjoy being read to and taking time to look at the pictures. One activity that could come out of this is having students think of their own page to add to the book, much like what we did with the book "If..." in class. Students could write their own page and then draw their own pictures to go along with their phrase. I think that this book would be a good book to use as a break from the normal lessons when there is free time available.
As a reader I really enjoyed this book. At first I thought that it might not be very good, but I really thought the message behind it was great. Many books that deal with bullying ignore helping the bully and focus on the target. In the case of this book, the reader sees the tremendous amount of responsibility that is placed on Kevin. This gives some insight into why some bullies behave the way that they do. Once Beany befriended him and he finally found a friend, he began to open up.
As a teacher I would definitely use this book. I would probably use it in a reading group where we could go chapter by chapter and discuss waht is happening. I want students to realize that although bullies may be mean sometimes, they also might have some really hard stuff they are dealing with at home. To better understand how to stop bullying we need to look at what the bullies are going through, and this book gives us a good opportunity for that. This book could spark discussions about other books about bullying and we could look more indepth as to why other bullies might be acting out.
As a reader, I really enjoyed this book. I thought that the illustrations were wonderful and really liked how he would include smaller illustrations on one page, and on about every other page there was a two page spread of what the story was telling. Even though this book is older, I think that a lot of today's children and adults would enjoy it. I also think that one message that could come from this book is that you shouldn't count someone out as being useful even if they might seem to be in the say, they eventually may really help you out. I think that this lesson would come to be really useful for students and adults.
As a teacher I think that I would use this book with a small group. On some pages there is a lot of text, which could help kids fluency if they read it aloud. I would also do this with a small group because it would be easier for each student to take the time to look at the illustrations in depth. Since there are pages of text followed by an illustration of what happened on two full pages, the illustrations really require students to study them carefully. One activity that could be done with this is having students write a one page story and then draw a full page illustration of what is happening in their story.
