Never Disturb The Angry Troll

The Three Billy Goats Fluff

Written by Rachel Mortimer

Illustrated by Liz Pichon

Originally published in Great Britain by Hodder Children’s Books 2010

Also published by Scholastic

32 pages

Fractured Fairy Tale

While talking to a friend one day about different genres of literature she pointed me towards this particular book for a fractured fairytale. I instantly fell in love with it just by looking at the cover. You can tell that this book is full of surprises and I love a good book that keeps me wondering what will happen next. The Three Billy Goats Fluff is about three little goats that are fluffy, but you’ll never guess what their coat is used for and how it gets so fluffy. Close to where the billy goats graze there is an angry troll that can’t seem to get any sleep. He gets very angry at the little goats but momma goat always has a plan. Momma goat knows how it feels when you don’t get any sleep so she comes up with an idea to sooth the troll. She makes the troll a gift and leaves it for him by his house. The troll is overly joyed at the gift she gives and he uses it right away to catch up on some sleep. Now that the troll is happy the little goats can freely run around happy and free. 

The illustrations in this story are sure to catch any child’s eye. They are very colorful and intriguing.  It looks like Liz Pichon uses different types of painting in her illustrations. She adds texture to her pictures and it makes the animals in the story really come to life. The way Pichon uses lines shows action and movement from the characters that you could notice even without reading the words to the story.

The story, The Three Billy Goats Fluff is a great story for young readers. The interest level would suit pre-k through first grade but the book is on a third grade reading level. This story is sure to keep their attention simply because of the suspense and the interesting illustrations. You could use this story to explore descriptive words. There are many descriptive words such as fluffy, lush, etc. You could have the students find objects around the classroom or at home that could be described using those words. Another activity you could do with book could correlate with rhyming. When teaching students about rhyming you could point out the rhyming words used in the story and have them think of other words that could rhyme with them as well. In the story momma goat wrote a letter to the troll. You could teach the students about friendly letters and how to write them. The students could then write their own friendly letter to one of the characters in the story.

He Who Brought The Sunset To The Earth

The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush

Retold and Illustrated by Tomie dePaola

Published by G.P Putnam’s Son New York

1998

36 Pages

                                                Traditional Literature

Through many of Tomie dePaola’s books, you will be able to find a life lesson, much like the one you find in The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush. When choosing this book, I knew that there would be a purpose to reading the story but was not quite sure what that was at the time. This story is about a young boy called Little Gopher who does not fit in with the other boys his age. He had a gift that none of the other boys had and it would become very important one day. He often felt sad that he was unlike the others until one day he was shown how special his gift really was. The boy had a vision that would help him become special among his people.

Tomie dePaola uses different types of mediums to create his illustrations in his book. He starts with a dark line to outline the pictures and then fills in the lines with color using liquid transparent acrylic paint. He does this so that he can build the “skins” of color. He has two other steps he goes through when illustrating his books. You can tell in his illustrations how much time he takes on each one of them to make them perfect. The colors dePaola uses on the pages help you as the reader tell how the character in the story is feeling. His paintings also depict the time period and the culture so well that they could enlighten someone who does not know much about either.

This particular story is geared more towards pre k through second grade students.

There are multiple lessons you could incorporate with the reading of this story. With younger students you could have them do an art activity and paint rocks like the little boy in the story did. You could also use the story as a history lesson and look up petroglyphs to teach them how cultures communicate. They could make their own painting of different petroglyphs to make a story of their own. The Legend of the Indian Paint Brush could be used for a lesson on ones character. This story teaches you that you don’t always have to be like everyone else around you. Sometimes being different can be a great thing and it being yourself makes you into the person you will become.

Silver Seeds Full of Imagination

                                                  Silver Seeds

Written by Paul Paolilli & Dan Brewer

Illustrated by Steve Johnson & Lou Fancher

Publishing by The Penguin Group, 2001

30 pages

Poetry

Searching through many poetry books I was drawn to this particular one.  The illustrations automatically grabbed my attention. When I read this poetry book it makes me think of a great bedtime story that every child should have read to them.  Silver Seeds, is a book full of great acrostic poems that describe different aspects of nature. The way Paolilli and Brewer describe things in these poems goes beyond what the mind could imagine. The words are so descriptive and deep they connect you with what the poem is really about. Don’t miss out by leaving this book sit on the shelf; take a peak inside and let it help grow your imagination.

In Silver Seeds the illustrators Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher use painting as their medium.  Painting is such an art and these two are masters at it. They work together as a team on all of their paintings. There is a softness to there illustrations that is so calming, and the colors portray each poem and the pictures perfectly. The illustrations in this book are created to portray the words in the poem. Just how the poems are so descriptive so are the paintings. With no doubt, when one of the poems in the story is read what you would picture in your mind is exactly how the illustrations look.

Silver Seeds, is really a book for all ages but if I had to choose an age category to share this book with I would share it with adolescents and early childhood. The poems in this book would be great for students to use their imagination and draw a picture of what they thought the poem would look like. Reading these poems to a younger audience and asking them to write about the poem would probably be difficult for them but young children are great at drawing what they want to express. You could easily use these poems when teaching about nature and seasons during a science lesson. You could also teach a lesson on figurative language with these poems. There are tons of metaphors used in the poems along with personification.  Take a look at this link for a great lesson idea to go along with figurative language and the book Silver Seeds.

http://suzyred.com/Silver-Seeds.html