Dirty Beasts

Author: Roald Dahl 

Illustrator: Quentin Blake

Genre: Poetry

Grade level: K-4

This book is a collection of poems about unsuspecting animals. Each one is a story about an animal. It is very fun and kid friendly. The poems are all rhyming poems and they each tell a different story. It gets children's imaginations going and is really amusing entertainment. 

This book can be used during a poetry unit. It can also be used just for entertainment and learning purposes. It is very fun and exciting and really can help pique the interests of young readers to poetry.

The illustrations are watercolor fantasy pictures. They help the poems come to life and give the book an extra something special to make poetry less formal and more appropriate for children.

A Child's Garden of Verses 

Author: Robert Louis Stevenson 

Illustrator: Tasha Tudor 

Genre: Poetry

Grade level: K-5

This book is a collection of poetry for children. It is about darkness and solitude. The poem's are put into a kid friendly manor to teach them about the realities of life and sadness. Some poems are rhyming poems and some are not. This poems are written in the perspective of children and really relate to children and the innocence of what it's like to be a child

I could use this in the classroom during a poetry unit. I can also use this to help children relate to poems. A lot of the time poems can be hard to understand and pretty un-relatable to a small child. These poems can be used to relate to them on a personable level.

The illustrations are very beautiful. They are whimsical like and really add a lot to the poems. They capture the essence of how great it is to be a child. 

Where the Sidewalk Ends

Author/Cover Art: Shel Silverstein

Genre: Poetry

Grade level: K-6

This book is a collection of poems by Shel Silverstein. The rhyming patterns are different in each poem and therefore not predictable. They all have a very humorous tone to them and are all about different things so they do not need to be read in specific order. All the poems give very descriptive details and really helps the reader imagine what is going on in addition to some art sketches. There are many poems in the book that refer to holidays and family relationships along with friendships as well. 

This book will be used during a poetry unit in class. It is very entertaining and can give children entertaining ideas to write their own poems. It also teaches some morals in life and can be used to teach morals to students as well. 

The illustrations are very amusing. They are sketches in black and white and are very detailed. They are super animated and help add an extra something special to these great poems. 

Roller Girl

Author/Illustrator: Victoria Jamieson 

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Grade Level: K-4

Award: Newbery Award 

This book is about a little girl and her best friend. Her mother takes her to the roller derby one time and thats when she decides that she wants to be a roller derby girl someday. She signs up for summer camp thinking that her friend will also sign up since they are best friends and do everything together. Instead her friend Nicole signs up for dance camp and she starts to make different friends. Astrid makes new friends and eventually learns how to skate and ends up growing so much this summer she thought was going to be horrible. 

This book is a good book to teach a lesson about change. It can help students identify with change in their lives and being okay with growth. It also teaches us that we all have different interests and that doesn't mean we can't be friends with those who don't share the same interests as us.

This is a graphic novel. It looks like a comic book style. It is very colorful and very fun. The text is in speech bubbles and the font is very comic book like. 

Millions of Cats

Author/Illustrator: Wanda Ga'g

Genre: Fantasy

Grade level: K-2

Awards: Newbery Medal 

There once was a very old couple that lived in a nice clean home. The old man wanted a fluffy little cat. The old man said he will get her a cat. He set out to look for one. He came to a hill and saw cats everywhere. He chose the prettiest cat and started to leave but then he saw another one and liked that one as well. He took all the ones he kept seeing and thought it was more beautiful than the last. He brought so many cats back home with him. Each cat took a sip of water and the whole pond was gone. They were hungry as well and each cat ate a mouthful of grass and nothing was left. The old woman saw all the cats coming and she was shocked because she only wanted 1 cat. They let the cats decide which one to keep. Each cat started to fight because they all thought they were prettier than the last. They all ran away and they found a little poor kitten scared and skinny. They kept the kitten that was not the prettiest but they loved it and thought she was the most beautiful one after all. 

This book is a great story. It can be used to teach may valuable lessons to children. In it they talk about big numbers so this could be used in a math lesson referring to big numbers. It can also be used to teach children to be humble as well as how only basing things off of the way people look is not good as well. 

The illustrations are very interesting. The cover is orange, black and yellow, which are pretty odd colors together. The inside pictures are in ink and in black and white. It is a really cool feel to the book making it seem almost vintage. 

The Missing Tooth

Author: Joanna Cole

Illustrator: Marylin Hafner

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Grade level: K-3

Arlo and Robby were the best of friends! They both had the same things like bikes, peanut butter ice cream and much more. They even have a tooth missing in the same spot. They wore the same thing to school one day even. They match all over even their teeth match. Robby said he had a wiggly tooth and Arlo wanted to be the same so he pretended that his was loose too even though it wasn't. They made a deal that whoever's tooth comes out first owes the other one 10 cents. Robby's tooth finally came out and Arlo was sad because they are not the same. Arlo was jealous of Robby and was mean to Robby. Robby went home and Arlo was lonely. One of Robby's card fell out of his deck and Arlo saw it and wanted to keep it. He figured it would make Robby sad if he took it. He gave back the card to Robby and they said sorry and Robby gave back his 10 cents but Arlo let him keep it and they went to go play. Arlo's mouth bumped on the bar and he lost a tooth in a different place than Robby's. They were still best friends anyway. 

This is a good story to teach children about differences. It is okay to be different than others. We can still befriend them. It also teaches that if there is an argument, there is always forgiveness and communication skills that can get them through it. It also has a beautiful message of doing the right thing. 

The illustrations in this book are colorful realistic looking drawings. They fill the entire page up with warm and cool colors with the writing in the white space of the illustrations. 

Enemy Pie

Author: Derek Munson

Illustrator: Tara Calahan King 

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Grade level: K-3

It should have been a perfect summer for this little boy until a boy named Jeremy Ross moved into the neighborhood. He was a bully and would laugh at him. His dad said he knew a way to get rid of enemies. He pulled out a recipe book off the kitchen shelf and said "Enemy Pie." Enemy pie was a secret recipe and I thought of all the gross things you'd put in enemy pie. They were all gross things and his dad said that he didn't need any of those ingredients. He was confused when he smelt something really good and said that enemy pie shouldn't smell this good. Dad said that if it smelt bad the enemy wouldn't eat it and it looked good enough to eat. The little boy thought all these horrible things would happen when you eat enemy pie. Dad told him that he needed to be nice to him all day. They rode bikes for a while and threw water balloons. He was kind of having fun with his enemy. He couldn't tell his dad because he worked so hard on the enemy pie. He let him win a game just to be nice. Enemies aren't allowed in the treehouse but Jeremy was being a bad enemy and being nice. He tore the enemy list off the wall. He was thinking that he should just not give the enemy pie to Jeremy.  He told Jeremy not to eat the pie and he felt relieved that he had saved his life. His dad was eating half of the pie. They became friends. 

This book is good to talk about how to not judge someone. We can teach children how sometimes first impressions are not what that person is all about. We must always give someone a chance to prove and be themselves before we judge their character. 

The illustrations in this book are very fun. They are warm colors and showcase all the different emotions of the characters. They take up the whole page and are very cartoonish.