Charlie Cook's Favorite Book by Julia Donaldson

Charlie Cook has a favorite book about a pirate, who also has a favorite book about Goldilocks who also has a favorite book about. . .

Motivation

A fantastic book to get children interested in reading. Each page takes the reader into a new book through the character from the previous book. Each character loves to read! The author easily weaves various genres and different types of characters through the story as Charlie goes on an adventure in reading. Lesson Idea: Put together a group of books that will motivate your students to read. Include this book. Put the group of books in a special place in the classroom library. Highlight the section as "Great Reads" and encourage students to read a book from the group when he needs additional motivation for reading.

Louise, The Adventures of a Chicken by Kate DiCamillo

Louise is a chicken on a farm who longs for adventure. Louise leaves the farm and encounters various obstacles as she heads out on her adventures. Written as a series of short stories, we find out if Louise will return to the henhouse or live a life of adventure. Organization Kate DiCamillo takes a series of adventures and weaves them together to tell this story. Each adventure is its own chapter, but each work together to tell a complete story. Lesson Idea: Students love writing and reading adventure stories, especially boys. Read aloud this book to your students and then ask them to create a series of adventures a main character can go through. Put the series of adventures together into one story. This is a great way to teach students how to write beginnings and endings too, as each chapter ends, but still leads the reader into a new chapter.

Dogku by Andrew Clements

A book written in haiku form! Dogku tells the story of an abandoned dog and the family he enounters. Each page is written as a haiku, but weaves together to tell a story. Will the family keep the dog?

Organization

An ingenious way to organize a story, each page is a separate hiaku that pushes the story forward until we find out if the family keeps the dog or not. Lesson Idea: Read this aloud to students and discuss the idea of haiku as an organizational writing tool for story telling. Have students practice writing haikus and then ask them to write a story in haiku form.

A Day on the Prairie by Third Grade Students of Kildeer Countryside Elementary School

A book written and illustrated by a group of third-grade students. Dedicated to the thesaurus, the students inform us of the plants, flowers, insects, birds, and other animals that live on the prairie in a poetic tone.

Word Choice

Perfect to use for a lesson on word choice! The authors hand-picked words to accurately and poetically describe life on the prairie. A wonderful model to use to show students how word choice enhances the description of a topic and how they can be authors, too. Lesson Idea: Read aloud this text to students and have them pick out the descriptive words or phrases that they like. Create a list of adjectives to use as a resource in the classroom. Encourage students to use different descriptive words when they are writing.

Night in the Country by Cynthia Rylant

What are the sounds you hear on a dark, quiet country night? The nightime world awakens as the people in the country sleep. Listen carefully, you might miss something. Sensory Details This book uses sensory details to make you feel like you are actually in the country. Lesson Idea: Read aloud the text and model for students how to find the various sensory details the author uses to make the story "come to life." Create a chart (large enough for everyone to see) with various senses (hearing, seeing, smelling, etc.) and boxes to note the text. As you read aloud the text, stop when you come to details that make you use your senses. Write in the box for the correct sense the text that made you use that sense. Students can use the chart as a resource for their own writing.