Post #2

FIVE Little MONKEYS jumping on the bed
By: Eileen Christelow

         Five Little Monkeys jumping on the bed, to me, is a counting book as well as a pattern book. The author counts down from 5 monkeys to 1 monkey. She also uses patterns in her book  to emphasize phonological features. Most children will know this story, which will help them learn to read because they may know the words already. If I was a teacher, I would sing the book, and have the children sing along with me. Since the children probably already know this song, I would have each child have each child have the book in front of them, so while they are saying the words, they see what the words look like.
         Five Little Monkeys jumping on the bed is a song that most children know. It is about 5 children monkeys who are going to bed. The mom monkey puts the five children monkeys to bed, but then they start jumping on the bed. As every page goes on, another monkey falls off the bed and bumps his head. The mom monkey then has to call the doctor and the doctor says, "No more monkeys jumping on the bed!". Finally, all of the monkeys fall off the bed and get hurt. They finally all go to bed and the mom monkey then gets to go to bed. When she goes to bed, she jumps on it as well. Therefore, the children get a funny ending.
        This picture book has good readability. It has a high concentration of Dolch words, or sight words. Some of these words are it, was, so, a, little, put, on, their, five, said, good, to, then, the, one, off, and, four, etc. There are Dolch words on every page of this story, and more than two on each page. The 3R's are also included in this book. There is rhyme throughout the whole book. There is rhythm throughout the book, which is why it is a song. There is also repetition; the story always says "No more monkeys jumping on the bed!" The story also has good picture to text matching. Every picture on every page shows what the monkey are doing. Therefore, if the child does not know this story, they can figure the words out by the pictures. This story also offers something to both the reader and promote interactive discussions. Readers may have a connection with this song, and possibly if they have children. Students may love to jump on the bed and a lesson can be learned in this story. Students can also sing, and read, along.
         I think this book is an excellent picture book. I also think it is an excellent book. It will help children learn to read because they know the words already. Therefore, they will begin to recognize the words and understand them.

Post #1

One Fine Day  by Nonny Hogrogian

Title: One Fine Day
Author: Nonny Hogrogian
Publisher: Aladdin Paperbacks
Copyright 1971

         One Fine Day is a gold medal Caldecott prize winner. I think this book, as well as this author, deserves this gold medal. The pictures are all painted. I can see the strokes of paint in each picture. I like how Hogrogian used paint brushes and made the brush strokes stick out instead of perfectly outlined pictures. It makes it look old and coincides with the setting of the story. The colors Hogrogian used also helps coincide with the setting. The colors aren't very bright, they seem dulled down and they flow into each other. This is an excellent book for children. There are many different literary exercises to use with this story. Every child loves a story with an animal as the main character, especially when the animal can talk, to people and other animals. They like fiction stories and they like knowing that they are reading a fiction story.
         The story is about a fox who is thirsty. The fox sees a woman gathering wood for her fire. The fox steals some milk from her while she is not looking. The woman catches the fox and cuts off his tail. The fox begs her to sew his tail back on so his friends don't make fun of him, but she asks for something in return--some more milk. The fox then goes on a spree asking for milk from the cow for the woman, grass from the field for the cow, water from the stream for the field, a jug from the maiden for the stream, a bead from the peddler for the maiden, an egg from the hen for the peddler, and a grain from the miller for the hen. The miller was a nice man and gave the fox the grain. The fox then went in reverse, giving everyone their wishes, to get his in return.
         One exercise that I would use with the children would be sequencing. Hogrogian uses sequencing very well in this story. The students can see it as the story goes on, as well as the story is finishing--the sequence is in reverse. The children can also repeat the words after hearing them a few time. Every action the fox partakes in is repeated on every page. They start to memorize the things that the fox does, and in the right order. I think that is an important strategy used by an author.
         One thing that caught my attention was on the third page. When the old woman caught the fox she cut off his tail. That shocked me when I first read it. I don't know how children would take that. It may shock them too, but in a way that it may scare them. I don't know if that is a good action to portray to children. Another thing I was sceptical about was the ending. The whole time I was reading the book, I thought the ending was going to involve the fox realizing his friends won't laugh at him, even if he has no tail. I thought a good moral would be, "It doesn't matter what you look like, your friends love you for you", or something along those lines. I guess the moral of the story could be, "Don't take things that aren't yours", or "What you give, you will recieve in return", but I was a little dissapointed.