Tops and Bottoms

Tops and Bottoms by Janet Stevens

Caldecott Honor/Traditional

This book is the story of a lazy bear and a hard-working hare. The bear owns lots of land, but is lazy and never works. The hare has a large family, but not enough food to feed them and no land to grow food on. The tricky hare makes a deal with the bear, saying that if he can use his land to grow food, the hare will give the bear either the tops or the bottoms of the vegetables. When the bear picks the tops, the hare grows food like carrots that have green inedible tops. Then, when the bear picks bottoms, he grows things like broccoli, so the bear again gets the worst part of the vegetables. The bear eventually gets frustrated and decides to grow his own vegetables, and the hare and his family sell the crops, buy the bear's land, and live happily ever after.

This book is great for a read aloud for many reasons. The book opens so that the pages are read from top to bottom rather than left to right (the most left side of the left page is the top of the page, and the most right part of the right page is the bottom). This is a very unique layout, and the book also has very vivid, detailed explanations, making it a good book to talk about illustrations, which is a standard in Common Core (RL.3.7). The book also has a good moral and would be great for talking about working hard in order to reach a goal.

Stevens, J. (1995). Tops and Bottoms. New York, NY: Harcourt Inc.

Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears

Why Mosquitos Buzz in People's Ears by Verna Aardema

Illustrated by Leo and Diane Dilon

Caldecott Award Winner/Multicultural

This book explains why mosquitoes buzz in people's ears, as the title suggests. The animals in the forest participate in a chain of events that starts with the mosquito telling annoying stories to the iguana, and ends with a baby owlet dead. When mamma owl finds out that one of her babies has died, she refuses to wake the sun with her 'hoo-ing' so the animals are left in darkness. The animals have a meeting and discover that the mosquito is to blame for it all. The owl wakes the sun, the mosquito leaves the forest and to this day, whispers in people's ears asking, "Is everyone still mad at me?"

This book is great for introducing folklore that explains some type of natural phenomena. Although it's not mentioned in common core (from what I've seen), I think it would be fun to use this book and have students write their own stories to explain some sort of natural event. Since that topic is seen so often in multicultural literature, it seems worthwhile to explore, and it would be fun to create one!

Aardema, V. (1975). Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears. New York, NY: Dial Press.

Hans my Hedgehog

Hans My Hedgehog retold by Kate Coombs, Illustrated by John Nickle

Traditional

This story is the retelling of a Grimm Brother's fairy tale. The original story is not very popular (at least that I'm aware of), making it an interesting choice for a fairy tale example. The author has a page at the end explaining the differences from the original story to her story, which I find extremely interesting. This could be something used in the classroom to demonstrate author's choices or simply to show how fairy tales change, not only from culture to culture but over time.

Coombs, K. (2012). Hans My Hedgehog. New York, NY: Simon & Schuster.

Seven Blind Mice

Seven Blind Mice by Ed Young

Caldecott Honor/Traditional

This simple picture book tells the tale of 7 blind mice who live near a pond. When an elephant visits their pond, the mice try to figure out what it is, one at a time. Each of the mice only explores one part of the elephant and they all claim that it is something different. for example, the mouse who only feels the tail of the elephant believes it to be a rope. The final mouse explores the whole elephant, discovers what it is, and the moral of the story is "knowing in part may make a fine tale, but wisdom comes from seeing the whole".

This is a traditional story with a moral at the end. This book provides a great opportunities for talking about the morals of stories, and perhaps allowing students to write their own stories with morals. Books such as this one are also great for discussion, since the moral could potentially be understood in different ways by different students. The first standard in the Reading Standards for Literature K-5 involves refering to a text when answering questions or drawing inferences (RL.3/4/5.1). This standard could be implemented in a lesson with a simple read-aloud activity followed by a discussion of the story where students are required to cite details or examples from the story.

Young, E. (1992). Seven Blind Mice. New York, NY: Philomel Books.