Zara's Blog

  Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse by Kevin Henkes  Contemporary Realistic Fiction  Grades: Pre-K - Kinder, 1st & 2nd Awards: American Booksellers Book of the Year Award, California Great Reads Award, ALA Notable Children’s Book Summary:  In this book, Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse, Lilly the mouse loves going to school. Her favorite part of school is her teacher because he is very smart and greets the students with “howdy”. Lilly loves drawing and writing stories and she decides she wants to become a teacher. One day, Lilly gets a new flashy purse and shiny quarters that she wants to share with the class but her teacher says no. This makes Lilly angry and she writes a very mean note and hides it in her teacher's bag. She claims she no longer wants to be a teacher. Lilly’s teacher returns the stuff that he confiscated from her and leaves her a note that says she will have a better day tomorrow. This makes Lilly feel bad so she tells her parents what happened and wr...

  Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress by Christine Bladacchino & illustrated by Isabelle Malenfant  Contemporary Realistic Fiction Grades: Pre-K - Kinder, 1st & 2nd Awards: Stonewall Honor recipient, CBC Bookie Award for Best Picture Book Summary: Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress is a book about a boy named Morris who loves going to school and his favorite part is the dress-up center. Morris likes the swish and crinkle of the dress, but the boys and girls make fun of him. Morris’s classmates exclude him from playing with them because he’s wearing the dress. Morris pretends to be sick so he can skip school and avoid the mean kids. After a day of reading and puzzles, Morris had a dream about elephants and he woke up and painted his dream. When Morris went back to school, he wore the dress because he liked it and he created his own spaceship because the boys still wouldn't let him play. Later, the boys saw his painting and decided to explore space with ...

  My Dad by Anthony Browne  Contemporary Realistic Fiction Grades: Pre-K- Kinder, 1st Awards: None Summary: My Dad is told from the perspective of a young boy. The young boy exalts his dad saying his dad is fearless, can walk tightropes, wrestle giants, and win races. He goes on to compare his dad to animals saying he can eat like a horse and is as strong as a gorilla. The young boy describes his father’s physical features as soft as a teddy bear. Furthermore, the son says his father is talented at football and making him laugh. The story concludes by saying that the son and father love each other.   Evaluation:  My Dad by Anthony Brown is an example of realistic fiction because it portrays a story with actual people; however, these people act like animals. Young children can connect to this story because it discusses a boy and his father who love each other. Children would enjoy reading this story because it isn’t preachy but it does talk about loving one another...

  From There to Here by Laurel Croza & illustrated by Matt James Contemporary Realistic Fiction Grades: Pre-K - 2nd Awards: Cooperative Children's Book Centre Choices, CBC Radio / The Next Chapter, Summer Reading List for Kids Summary: From There to Here is a book about a little girl who moves with her family. She compares the old town with her new city and expresses the many differences. The illustrations are elaborate and the young girl does not seem thrilled about leaving Saskatoon or traveling by train. The young girl describes the changes in the new city including her father not coming home for lunch anymore, the lack of birch trees, the streetlights that now replace the stars from her old town, and her brother finding new friends. All these things deter the young girl from this new city until one day another young girl named Anne, who is the same age, knocks on the door and invites her bike riding. The young girl is happy to have a new friend and decides that the new cit...

  Mama’s Nightingale by Edwidge Danticat & illustrated by Leslie Staub Contemporary Realistic Fiction Grades: Pre-K-Kinder, 1st & 2nd Awards: None Summary: Mama’s Nightingale is a story about a family who is separated because immigration services detained the mother at a correctional facility. The father spends his time writing letters to the jail, congress, and newspapers to spread the story about what’s happening to his wife. No one responds. The young girl, Saya, nicknamed Wosiyol after nightingales in Haiti, receives stories from her mother which she reads each night. Weekly, Saya and her father visit her mother, but Saya screams when she has to leave, so the guard says that Saya shouldn’t return. Eventually, Saya decided to write a story of her own and a reporter released it through the media. This story draws so much attention that people write letters to jail and finally, Saya’s mother gets to come home while waiting for papers. The book ends with Wosiyol’s mom telli...