Skip to main content

One book, Every Day, One Year

I have been horrible about posting to my book blog, and as a result, I'm going to start a project. Beginning today (October 12th) I am going to post one book blog every day! That's right, 365 days of bibliophile goodness! I'm lucky that I work at an elementary school and that my librarian loves me - plenty of access to short but beautiful books.



You should know by now that I enjoy books with a sense of humor, and today I picked up a cute little twist on a well known classic called "The Wolf Who Cried Boy". Written by Bob Hartman with illustrations by Tim Raglin, its a cute little retelling of (of course) The Boy who Cried Wolf.



First off, I was drawn by the cover art, which looks like a cross stitched sampler. However, I'm not 100% sure why its a cross stitched sampler, since that theme doesn't even appear in the details of the illustrations within, but oh well.



The story follows a young boy wolf who HATES what his mom makes for dinner every night. Lamburgers, sloppy does, chocolate moose - they all pale in comparison to his favorite meal - BOY! His father, completely fed up with the little wolf's ungrateful attitude lets him know that boys are in low supply, since they seem to have wised up and avoid the woods where the wolves could easily pick them up on their way home for supper. But - if the young wolf actually SEES a boy and lets mom or dad wolf know, they will be more than happy to go and catch him.



Here's where the story takes a familar turn - the mischievous little wolf decides to see what will happen if he lies and tells his family he sees a boy in the woods. Of course, mom and dad wolf come running - and not only is the little wolf delighted to fool them, but dinner is ruined and he gets to eat junk food for supper instead! He tries it again, and it works again! But then, father hears the little wolf bragging about his tricks, and decides to ignore him the next day.



Sure enough, the wolf really does see a boy on the following day. Actually, he sees a whole BUNCH of Boy Scouts. He cries "BOY!" but no one listens. From then on, he eats his supper without complaint, and that's why boys lived happily ever after.



Its cute, its short. It has charming illustrations - right down to the wolf hair bun on the top of mama wolf's head. I could see this working at home for a fun bedtime story (especially for boys) or in the classroom as a way to teach theme and variation, or as part of a writing prompt (retell a fairy tale your own way!).



You can check it out here:

At Borders:

http://www.borders.com/online/store/TitleDetail?sku=0399235787



At Amazon.com

http://www.amazon.com/Wolf-Who-Cried-Boy/dp/0142401595/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255369667&sr=8-1

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

El Deafo

Summary:  When 4 year old Cece gets meningitis, her parents are scared. But she recovers and everything seems like it is going to be just fine, until they discover that Cece has suffered permanent hearing loss. Told through a graphic novel, Cece Bell's somewhat autobiographical story stars a world of bunnies where Cece navigates her first grade year while dealing with her deafness, wearing a hearing aid and making friends. She copes by creating an alter ego for herself, "El Deafo", the hearing aid wearing superhero. In the end, Cece gains confidence and learns to be more assertive with other people who just don't understand how their interactions with her can have an effect. Strengths: This graphic novel is geared towards a younger set of readers than most of the books I will be reviewing this fall in this blog, but it still has some value and strengths for the young adult reader. The theme of dealing with being different will resonate with young adult readers,...
Post a Comment
Read more

Bloom's Taxonomy for a Digital Age

Bloom's Taxonomy. One of the things we are constantly hearing in our school is the push for increased rigor in our classroom, as a result of the STAAR tests and others like it becoming more rigorous. We are told to push for higher order thinking and questioning from our students. One of the tools we use to look at how we can increase rigor is Bloom's Taxonomy. But some things about Bloom's don't translate exactly when we are talking about the digital age and the classroom or library. For example, remembering is the lowest piece of the triangle for Bloom's, but remembering looks different when you have instant access to a powerful computer that can use essentially limitless online resources to find answers. I've mentioned to my husband just how much more this and future generations will know about the world around them simply because they no longer have to remember everything they're interested in knowing. If I pass a historical marker for a place I haven...
7 comments
Read more

The Clark-Kozma Debate in the 21st Century

In the 1980s and 1990s, as educational technology was first becoming a budding field, Richard Clark published an analysis of data where he determined that the media that delivers instruction is no more than a delivery tool. He used an analogy of a truck carrying the information to the learner. He concluded that the media chosen has no effect on the learning taking place - that the instruction in the only thing that influences the learning.  In 1994, Kozma responded and prompted the current debate. Kozma states that some media have specific characteristics that do effect learning as more than a vehicle. While there is little research to support Kozma's claim, he suggests that the way the media helps shape the learning does have impact and that evaluating this impact requires more than raw data as the media and the way we use it has become more complex and nuanced. Clark has stood by his original conclusions and has even subsequently released articles further supporting his stanc...
2 comments
Read more