Picture Books

And now for a bit of a change:

Miss Alaineus by Debra Frasier

I bought this to use as an emergency read aloud book for when I am substitute teaching. The premise is that the main character gets sick and calls her friend to get the vocabulary words from her. The friend goes through the list in a hurry and the sick girl thinks the last word is "Miss Alaineus". She doesn't get well until the day of the vocabulary bee, where each child has to get up and define a word on the list. Of course, the main character gets "Miss Alaineus" and is mortified to find out that it is "miscellaneous" and not "Miss Alaineus". But she turns her mistake and mortification into triumph at with her mother's help, by dressing up as Miss Alaineus, Queen of all Miscellaneous Things for the vocabulary parade. The idea is good, but for some reason I am really annoyed about the book. Perhaps it is my own realization that, as a read-aloud it would fail. The kids will undoubtedly realize the mistake way too soon and that makes the girl seem stupid, and her mortification over her mistake seems out of hand. Oh! well! I guess I could always re-sell the book.


The Composition by Antonio Skarmeta

Some picture books just aren't designed for young children - and, for that I am actually glad. This book is set in an unspecified South American country that is being run by a military dictatorship. A young boy whose main interest is football (soccer) gradually becomes aware that his parents and other adults are worried about the way their country is being run. When the father of one of his football friends is arrested in full view of the community and taken away, the seriousness of the problem begins to be apparent to the boy. Then, in school, a man dressed in military uniform comes in to announce a contest in which the students will write a composition, the title of which is to be "What My Family Does at Night". It is at this point that, if I were reading this aloud, I would stop to discuss what has happened in the story, the reason for the setting of the composition exercise, and what the boy might do. We are left in suspense about what he actually did until the end. When the actual composition is read, it is revealed that the boy wrote that his parents play chess all evening. The father then says that perhaps they should go buy a chess set. This is a much better read-aloud book - at least for me. Substance and thoughtfulness.


Counting on Frank by Rod Clement

I have actually used this book as a read-aloud, with great effect. The idea is that this quite weird looking boy uses his dog Frank and other unlikely things to measure the dimensions of various commonplace objects. For example, it would take 24 Franks to fill up his bedroom. The illustrations are great and the kids really enjoyed the absurdities. It is a thoroughly enjoyable read-aloud and could even be extended into a great math lesson - How many of the class pet would it take to fill up the room? How many elephants could fit in the gym? If the all the kids rode on apatosauri, how long would the parade be? What fun! I will carry this book with me when I sub for middle through upper elementary kids, in case I should have a day when there aren't complete sub plans.