The Sweetest Fig

Title- The Sweetest Fig
Author/Retold- Chris Van Allsburg
Illustrator- Chris Van Allsburg
Genre- Blue Bonnet Book
Grade level- kinder-3rd grade

The story begins with Monsieur Bibot and he was a dentist. He was a very fussy man and he was very mean to his dog Marcel. One morning an old lady came with a tooth ache with no appointment. Bibot begrudgingly took out the messed up tooth because he wanted to make some extra money. When it was time to pay, the lady pulled out two figs and said that they were figs that would make Bibots dreams come true. He didn’t believe her and shoved the lady out the office without giving her the pain medicine for her tooth. When he went home, he ate one fig as a snack before bed. When he woke up the next day, he took Marcel on a walk and he forced Marcel to walk down the stairs, he didn’t want his fur on his nice blue suit. When he went outside, they were looking at him funny and he thought they were admiring his suit, but it was because he was in his underwear. He dreamed about it last night. To see if the rest of his dream was true and he looked at the Eiffel Tower and he saw it was drooping like it was in his dream and he rain home with Marcel. Bibot started practice hypnotism so he would dream of being the richest person in the world. The night he was going to eat the fig, Marcel ate it instead. Bibot was so mad at him and said in the morning he was going to be severely punished. When Marcel woke up the next morning, he saw he was under the bed and a man was telling him it was time for him to get for his walk.

This is a great fantasy story. Chris Van Allsburg’s illustrations really help to paint the picture of this fantasy story. This is a great story to teach students about kindness. This story is also great for students who are working on imagery in their writing. I would read this story in front of my class and we would discuss the imagery used in the text.  


 

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