Friday, September 18, 2009

Friday Night Book Review - Not a Box!


Sometimes I get to the end of a lesson in the library and I've run out of steam, patience, or stuff to do. When I taught first grade everything was paced differently. It was like marathon running, where as teaching in the library is like sprinting.

This week during a kindergarten lesson (dear god, kindergarten teachers should get paid more than the rest of us) I just gave up. I had about 10 minutes left and was tired of doing what I had planned for them. I grabbed Not a Box by Antoinette Portis and we had a ball with that silly thing. I love books that encourage shouting, like the Pigeon books by Mo Willems. It just cracks me up when little kids get indignant about the antics of line drawn characters.
In the book, a bunny pretends to do fun stuff with a box and the kids get to shout at the book to make guesses about what the bunny is pretending.
This is how it works:
Librarian : Why are you sitting in a box?........... Oh, it's not a box?
Kids: It's a SPACESHIP!!!!

The illustrations are very plain, quite like a cardboard box. It's a fun, easy book. Now I just need to go buy Not a Stick.

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