Flora & Ulysses

My first surreptitious night read!  Orson will stay awake and stare at the reading lamp for way too long.  If it's dark, he gets all dozy and sweet so quickly.  It took me a while to figure out that I can read in the dark...if I read on my iPhone.

I have already raved about the amazing selection of ebooks and eaudiobooks available through the Kitchener Public Library, and the slickness of borrowing them using the KPL and Overdrive apps.  So I can go on and rave about Kate DiCamillo's book instead.

Flora & Ulysses won the Newbery Award for 2014.  This honour is given for "the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children" each year.  So kind of a big deal.

In my mind a children's book that can appeal to both kids and adults, speaking to them on two different levels simultaneously, is the ultimate read.  (Kind of like the Pixar movie of the literary world.)

Flora & Ulysses is classic and edgy at the same time.  Classic with its nods to E.B. White (a focus on beautiful vocabulary, with definitions tucked right in to the story) and Roald Dahl (adult villains and outcast, misunderstood child heroes).  Classic because it addresses issues of importance to children: divorce and unconditional parental love.  Classic--and even a bit old-school--because of the absence of up-to-date technology.  (The machines in this story: a fancy vacuum cleaner and a typewriter.  No smartphones here.)  Edgy, because it incorporates poetry and comic strips into the traditional novel form. Quirky, because narration of the story is shared between Flora Belle and a superhero squirrel named Ulysses.

Up to this point, my favourite DiCamillo read was A Tale of Desperaux.  I thought that would be the best read aloud ever for a class of Grade 3 students.  Then it was made into a movie and I figured I would have to wait a few years before considering this book for a class read aloud because students heads would just be full of images from the film rather than their own imaginations.  Now I'm thinking Flora & Ulysses is up there, too.  It could be a great class read-aloud of its own--with a little bit of creative thinking on how to share the comic book pages (document camera? hmm).

Worth a read.  And maybe even a reread.

This crosses #7 off the list: a book with non-human characters.  (Thank you, Ulysses the Squirrel and Mr. Klaus, the cat.)

#bookaday 6: Memoirs of a Goldfish

I've slacked for a few days.  Report cards, and then a weekend mini-cation, and then report cards got in the way.  This #bookaday is actually from yesterday.  I read Memoirs of a Goldfish by Devin Scillian aloud to my Grade 1 class before we began writing our own memoirs on our year together.

My students thought it was HILARIOUS.  (And I have to say, about half the jokes went right over their heads!)  They especially loved the last page ("Ew!  They're dating!").

A solid 4-star book.  A quick google search shows that there are plenty of ideas out there for how to use this one in the classroom!

#bookaday 5: Scaredy Squirrel Goes Camping

I love Mélanie Watt.  So does every Grade One student I know.  I've just updated myself on Scaredy Squirrel's latest adventure, Scaredy Squirrel Goes Camping and now I've got some great ideas for using this text to review many text forms we covered this school year --from maps to charts to labelled diagrams to procedural texts!

Leaving this one out on my dining room table to lesson plan for next week!  FIVE out of FIVE *S*T*A*R*s!

#bookaday 4: Marshall Armstrong is New to Our School

A few books came from amazon today!  In the package was Marshall Armstrong Is New To Our School by David Mackintosh.  Gorgeous artwork and a quirky main character--seems what I look for in a novel is pretty much the same as what I look for in a picture book!

I'll be pulling this one out early next school year to talk about building friendships and finding out that we have things in common with people who may seem very different than us.

#bookaday Day 3: The Princess and the Packet of Frozen Peas

Who doesn't love a good fractured fairy tale?  I just read this one aloud to my husband (my prince) in the kitchen (our favourite place in our palace)!

This takes the Princess and The Pea and gives it a bit of girl power.  Best lines....
"But I'm not a real princess."  
"You'll be an UNREAL princess!"

Four out of five...only 'cause there's room for a little more girl power. ;)