It's Monday, What Are You Reading, April 22, 2013

It's Monday! What are you reading? A weekly themed meme connecting many bloggers around the world and originally conceived by Sheila at Book Journeys. I first learned about it at Teach Mentor Texts hosted by Jen and Kellee. Its a terrific way to post a few of the books that you have recently read and put together a list of what you are planning on reading this week.

An avalanche of great books this week! I had a gift card burning a hole in my pocket so I decided to cash some of it in. What joy to bump into a elementary librarian buddy shopping too. We preceded to comb the shelves and compare notes on what we thought would make for great library read alouds. We both opted to buy this fun little treasure:

Open Very Carefully-A book with bite
Created by Nicola O'Byrne with words by Nick Bromley
February 2013 ages 3+

Take a look inside the book-I am sure you will love it too.

Nosy Crow's description:

What would you do if you were settling down for a quiet bedtime story and you realised that a crocodile had fallen out of one story and into yours and was – not to put too fine a point on it – furious? Would you slam that book shut, cram it in the bookshelf for evermore or would you be brave enough to peek?

This crocodile has ended up in totally the wrong book, so he proceeds to eat his way out in this fantastic debut picture book of a very grumpy croc as he tries to escape a storybook that is all wrong for him but is great fun for the reader!

I decided to test run it with my two favorite book critics-J-a 28 month year old, die hard book lover and his cousin-L-who expects me to read mountains of books to him, which I happily do. They both loved guessing whose big green tail interrupted the story of "The Ugly Duckling" and laughed uncontrollably as I tried to read the sentences that were missing all the letters O and S. I must admit I delivered an Oscar worthy performance. They helped me rock the book side to side until the crocodile fell asleep and were shocked to see someone had used a red crayon to draw a tutu on the crocodile. (I am a bit concerned about copy-cat artworks suddenly appearing in our other books). It amazes me how L and J can talk my ears off with their thoughts and opinions on books. They both give Open Very Carefully a Hip Hip Horray!

Open Very Carefully is a terrific example of a good interactive read aloud for the preschool and kindergarten set and possibly first graders. In particular, it would be interesting to have first graders created a similar story with interactive action. 

Source: books.simonandschuster.net via Julee on Pinterest

Oh No, Little Dragon

Created and Illustrated by Jim Averbeck

Agers: 2-6

Simon and Schuster

Click here to view inside the book.

Publisher description: 

With a PHOOSH and a Grrrrrr and a CANNONBAAAALLLLLL! Little Dragon tears through his day (and the house). But even when he gets a little too rambunctious, there’s no OH NO! that Mama’s kiss can’t fix.

I will be pairing Oh No, Little Dragon up with Dragons Love Tacos as part of a Dragons leading up to Mother's Day lesson. I have an amazing dragon puppet and a three dimensional pop up dragon that will help me introduce both books. 

Looking for Alaska by John Green
My World Book Night 2013 Give a Way

description from John Green's website:

Miles Halter is fascinated by famous last words–and tired of his safe life at home. He leaves for boarding school to seek what the dying poet Francois Rabelais called the “Great Perhaps.” Much awaits Miles at Culver Creek, including Alaska Young. Clever, funny, screwed-up, and dead sexy, Alaska will pull Miles into her labyrinth and catapult him into the Great Perhaps.

I will have a World Book Night Post up tomorrow with lots of great resources to share. 

My re-reads this week (by popular demand of L and J)

The Three Ninja Pigs by Corey Rosen Schwartz

We LOVE this book both at home and at school and never get tired of reading it. I mean we read it a LOT-and act it out too. LOVE IT!

I only have three miles to drive to work each day, so it takes me a long time to finish audio books in the car. I am still listening to the children's classic The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett.

As usual, I still have a sack of books that we read this week but no time to list them all. Happy reading!