Along The Underground

Henry’s Freedom Box

Written by: Ellen Levine

Illustrated by: Kadir Nelson

Published by Scholastic 2007

40 Pages

Historical Fiction

Henry’s Freedom Box was read to me by one of my professors in class one day. I really enjoyed the story and loved how the illustrations showed so much depth. Henry was born into slavery. The master his family worked for became ill and Henry thought he might free them. Instead he gave Henry to his son and he was separated from the rest of his family. Henry was a hard worker and did everything his master told him to do. He met a girl one day and fell in love. They were soon married and had a family. Then one day his worst fear happened, his family was sold. Now all Henry could think about was being a free man with hopes of one day seeing his family again. Does Henry ever become free? Make sure to grab a copy of Henry’s Freedom Box to see if Henry became a free man.

The illustrations in Henry’s Freedom Box were created with pencil, watercolors, and oils. Nelson added so much texture to each page in the story you can almost imagine how things felt. The illustrator did an amazing job on the facial expressions on the characters. You can see the desperation and fear in their eyes. If you were to flip through this book without reading the words you could use the illustrations to figure out what might be happening and how the characters are feeling.

This book is appropriate for ages 4-8. The grade level this book is suited for is preschool to third grade. I believe that it could also be used till about fourth grade. After reading henry’s Freedom Box you could talk about character traits have the students write down all of the characters traits of Henry. The students could also try to build a replica of the box Henry was in using cardstock paper. A great vocabulary activity for the students to learn important words from the text would be a Bingo came. The Bingo board has vocabulary words on them and the teacher calls out the definition for the students to mark the correct word.

Sea Animals

Sea Animals

Written by: Francine Galko

Illustrations: Pictures were taken by multiple photographers

Published by Reed Educational & Professional Publishing 2003

32 Pages

Informational Book

When choosing this informational book I wanted to choose something that I enjoyed so that I as well could learn more about it.  I chose the book Sea Animals because I love going to the beach and I think the animals in the ocean are beautiful. Sea Animals talk about the how the ocean is habitat to many different types of animals. The ocean is so large; animals live different parts of it. Some animals like at the top of the water while others live under rocks at the bottom of the ocean. Animals are not the only living things living in the ocean. There are many different types of plants that live in the ocean as well. While reading Sea Animals, by every picture there is a scale of how big the animal of plant is compared to something such as a person or a ball.

Much like most informational books this was has real pictures taken by professional photographers. When giving true facts about something real pictures are the best for the audience to be able to picture how the author is describing something. The pictures are very bright and they are very eye catching. These illustrations help tell the story because the readers are able to gain information from the pictures as well.

The good thing about informational books is that they are great for many age levels.

The age range for this book is ages 6-8 and the grade level is first grade and up. The students could use this book to do a research project on sea animals. The students could also do a survey on their favorite ocean animal and make a graph out of the data.  A good writing activity the students could do is write about an underwater adventure they would like to take. 

Invent Something of Your Own!

Invent something of your own!

Timeless Thomas

Written & Illustrated by Gene Barretta

Published by Scholastic 2012

                                                         36 Pages

                                                Biography

            “Never judge a book by its cover.” The quote is so true but sometimes as readers it is so much easier to pick a book if the cover looks interesting.  The cover of Timeless Thomas definitely caught my attention. Not only is there a cute old man on the cover but also pictures of other things that give the readers a hint of what the story may be about. Timeless Thomas is a story about Thomas Edison’s life. He was a great inventor that had multiple successful inventions. He began as a young boy inventing things and soon had his own laboratory to work in. Even though you may not realize it we still use many of his inventions today. This book goes through all of his inventions and even shows you what we use today that he invented. The story takes you through time all the way from 1859 to 1918.

            The illustrations in Timeless Thomas are very eye catching. Barretta uses very vibrant colors on every page. To me this was very interesting because of the time period Edison’s life took place. The pictures are painted with watercolors on Arches cold press paper. His paintings in the story are very detailed much like many of Thomas Edison’s inventions. Another aspect of the paintings that caught my eye was the faces on the characters. They show so much thought and it makes you wonder what they are actually thinking or what they would be thinking if they could tell you.

            This book would be great for student in first through fifth grade. The book Timeless Thomas could be used many different ways in a classroom. It would be really good to teach about timelines and have the students make a timeline of Thomas Edison’s inventions. There is a timeline in the back of the book they could use for a reference. The students could also do a writing prompt and write about which invention they use the most that Edison discovered. A science project or activity would also be good to do after reading this book.  You could have the students make electricity by simply having them rub a balloon on their hair.

Have a look at this Book Trailer I made for Where The Wild Things Are!

What's That Falling From the Sky?!

Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs

Written by Judi Barrett

Illustrated by Ron Barrett

Published by Scholastic 1978

32 Pages

Modern Fantasty

            Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is one of my favorite books, so of course I wanted to share it with everyone. One of the main reasons I love this book is because of the amazing details in the illustrations. I could sit and look at the illustrations for hours. I also love the imagination that was put into the story. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is introduced with two young children being told a bedtime story by their grandfather. He tells them about a little town called Chewandswallow. Everything is normal in this small town except one thing. The town does not have any food stores. That is because they don’t really need any because they get their food from a different source. Their weather is a little different as well. It rains three times a day in the town of Chewandswallow. Could the weather possibly be related to the food situation?

            The illustrations in Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs are flawless. There is so much depth to each picture. Each picture has a white boarder surrounding them. I believe that the border helps them pop out even more than they already do. Ron Barrett draws his pictures in black and uses watercolor painting to add color to them. His pictures have so much texture to them you can imagine the look and feel if the things in them were real. Although the text is very descriptive about what is going on in the story the illustrations add so much character to the story. The pictures are so descriptive; they could tell the story alone if there were no words.

            The age level this story is appropriate for it ages four to eight. This story is good for readers in pre-k through third grade. There are tons of fun activities that you could do to incorporate with this story. A fun writing activity you could do is choose a page(s) and have the kids write dialogue in conversation bubbles for the characters. You could teach begin by teaching the students about dialogue and how to use it correctly. A science lesson you could teach using this boat is about things that float or sink and why. At the end of the story the people leave the city by rafts made of bread. Have the students choose different objects that could be used as rafts and see if they will sink or float in water. Another thing you could do with this book is have the students the students separate foods into graphs to determine what foods are healthy or unhealthy. Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is a New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Book of the year.