Pearl and Wagner: One Funny Day by Kate McMullan

This story is about a bunny named Pearl and a mouse named Wagner who are friends from school. This particular book focuses on April Fools Day at school and all of the events that happen throughout the funny day. Wagner's day started off horribly after he overslept and is almost late. From there, his classmates and teachers play practical jokes on him that he does not find to be very funny at all. At the end of the story he becomes very sick and has to go to the nurse. When he comes back into the classroom he is covered in green spots and he tells the class he has "bug pox" which he got from being tricked into drinking bug juice. Everyone is very worried until Wagner yells, "April Fools!"

I thought this book was really cute and I loved reading it. It is classified as a level 2 easy-to-read book so it would be great for younger, beginning readers but I think older students would still love a lot of the humore in it as well. This book had male characters in traditionally "female" roles- a librarian and a cafeteria/lunch lady- and I thought that was an interesting piece to this book. However, the teacher is still a female. I really enjoyed this book and I thought the humor was great and children would really love it.

Dear Deer by Gene Barretta

This is a book all about homophones. Aunt Ant is writing a letter to her friend deer (thus the title Dear Deer). She is telling him about her move to the zoo and all of the things that she encounters there. On every page there is a set of homophones. My favorite, for example, was: "That's HIM, the HORSE who is HOARSE from humming a HYMN." Througout the story the homophones are bolded and in all capital letters just like this line so it makes it easy to distinguish them in the text. The pictures in this book were amazing; they were made by some form of using watercolors but to me they look very crisp and bright! I also thought it was neat how most of the pictures were horizontal but there were a couple that were vertical for emphasis. For example; I know the page about a giraffe was vertical to help show it's long neck. I thought it was a fun way to emphasize certain features in a picture and it was a really nice variation from the standard horizontal pages.

The classroom connection is really obvious here, I think. In a language arts setting this would be a great book for teaching and for discussing homophones. I definitely think students would love this book and it would be fun for them to make up their own funny sentences using homophones.

Strider by Beverly Clearly

This book is about a boy who is going to be a freshman in high school. It goes through the typical "awkwardness" of trying to fit in in school. To add to his adjusting, his parents just got a divorce. He has a friend that lives up the road from him and they find an abandoned dog when they are walking along the beach. They decide that they are going to keep him and that because they both found him they will have joint custody over him. Leigh, the main character, can't take full custody of Strider because he and his mom live in a small apartment and the land lady won't allow dogs. He also knows that once school starts he won't have time to take care of the dog because he will have school and his job. He runs everyday with Strider and when he starts school he is asked to join the track team. Strider kind of helped him survive starting high school.

I loved this book! It kept me interested throughout the entire time I was reading it and I felt like I was there with Leigh experiencing everything with him. I think Beverly Clearly does a really fantastic job of describing the scenes and describing the situations the characters are in; when the joint custody doesn't work out as planned Leigh takes Strider to Barry's house and leaves him there to let him keep him I got really into the story and actually got a little emotional reading it. I also really enjoyed that the book took on a different perspective than just a white, middle class male who has two parents living with him and lives in a big beautiful house. Leigh's parents are divorced, he lives with his mom, and he rarely sees his dad until towards the end of the book. His friend, Barry's parents are also divorced and they live in completely different states so it talks about how Barry leaves for months at a time to go see his mom. I think this offers two different points of view on the same subject which is really good for students because, obviously, no one goes through everything in the same way. Also, Leigh and his mom live in a really small apartment and Leigh has to work to help his mom out. Although he doesn't see his mom much they enjoy the little time they do have with each other and Leigh is never ashamed of what he has; he is very proud of his mother. I thought this was great too because it shows that even if your life isn't like the "normal" life that everyone likes to imagine, you can still be very happy and very proud of your life. I would definitely love to have this book in my classroom because it gives the students another view point and allows them to relate in different ways.

The Arrival by Shaun Tan

This book is both a wordless book and a graphic novel. I thought this was interesting because it really put an emphasis on GRAPHIC novel. I looked through the book several times and I still don't feel that I fully understand what was going on but I also think that some of it is open to interpretation. The book was about a man who left his family and went to another country (or at least a place that he did not speak the same language). From there I started to get confused because there were "creatures" that were not real and they seemed to be pets of people living in this new place. When I saw them I found myself wanting words to explain to me what they were. Once he is in this new place there are all kinds of new things around him; animals, vehicles, buildings, that you wouldn't normally see in the real world. I took these to be his disorientation to the new place. When someone travels to a new country they are not familiar with the customs and could feel like some things are completely "out of this world" that they have never seen before. After realizing this I really liked the book because it kind of gave a glimpse of what it would be like to immigrate to a new country and not know how or what was going to happen and trying to adapt to the new environment.

I didn't understand a lot of this book and I definitely got a little frustrated when I looked through it the first couple of times and couldn't figure out what exactly was going on. However, after I realized that I could interpret things in different ways I really enjoyed going through it and trying to decide what certain characters or objects meant to me in regards to the story. The pictures in the story are gorgeous, the seem very life-like to me and I really enjoyed them. They are in black and white so it gives a different feel to the book than if it had been in color. If this book was in a classroom I could see it in an upper grade just as far as understanding. However, if it were used in a younger setting I could see the children really enjoying looking through the pictures and creating their own stories to go along with them; without any words it is completely open to interpretation and I think they would really love that.

Oops by Arthur Geisert

This is another wordless book and it took me a couple times through to figure out what was going on. For this book the reader really has to concentrate on the pictures, I kind of felt like I was going through a "Where is Waldo" book and looking for things that were out of place in the picture. It all starts with a glass of spilled milk at the breakfast table and how that trickles down through a hole in the floor, through the pipes, onto a paint tray that hits a saw, and so on until the whole house comes down.

I thought this book was really fun to read and look through just because it was a challenge to find what was happening in the picture and how that was going to affect on the next picture. I had to read through the book at least three times before I noticed the glass of spilled milk on the second page that started the entire process. It really helped me get focused and when I went to another wordless book I noticed I was looking over every detail in a picture before I went on. This book puts a fun twist on the saying "Don't cry over spilled milk."

The Other Side by Istvan Banyai

This is a wordless book and it is a book about perspectives. Throughout the book you see a picture and then when you turn the page you see the otherside. By the end of the book you are back where you started but you are in a different position or different perspective. It reminded me of the wordless book "Flotsam" except that all of the pictures don't connect to one another.

I really liked this book because it made me pay attention to detail and I was constantly wondering what was going to happen next. I could definitely see using this in a classroom for multiple lessons; it would help show perspectives and the idea that there are two sides to every story. I also think this is a good beginning to read book because it makes the reader start asking, "what is going to happen next," which is a very important part of reading.

Babymouse: The Musical by Jennifer L. Holm and Mattew Holm

This is a graphic novel, from a series, about a young mouse named Babymouse and her experience at school and in particular, her experience with the school musical. Babymouse really enjoys musicals so the book is set up similar to a musical; each chapter is an Act and around the middle of the book there is an "intermission" page. There were a lot of references to popular musicals throughout the story and it was when Babymouse was imagining situations happening to her. For example; she was thinking about her math homework and talking to her friends about math as if she were in a scene from "Grease." She really loves musicals so when her school has auditions for the school musical she wants to try out but she's not very graceful. Eventually, she decides to try out and she gets the understudy for the lead role. On the opening night she gets to go on in the middle because the main character gets a hairball (Felicia Furrypaws-a cat). Babymouse is really nervous but does a great job until the very end of the play when she goes the wrong direction and falls off the stage and causes everything to collapse.

This is a really cute series that I think children would really enjoy. I definitely think it is relatable and it is really funny; I was laughing out loud reading some it. I enjoyed that there were comparisons to other musicals throughout the story because I thought it really brought a lot to it and made it even more fun to read. I also really liked the characters; her "enemy" is a cat and one of her friends that she meets is a hedgehog. It really comes at children in a different way than if the characters were all just humans and I think it makes it more fun to read.