The Levitical Readings and Reactions

Title- My Little Island Author/Retold- Frané Lessac Illustrated by N/A Genre- Contemporary Realistic Fiction  Grade level- kindergarten - 3rd Grade The story begins with Lucca and the main character of the story land on an island in the Caribbean. The pair immediately see the colorful houses, boats, and plants. They got to Lucca’s aunts house and eat authentic Caribbean food. They then start to play in the fields with all the animals. The next day they go to market and see all the food for sale. The next day they go to the seashore and see the colorful fish and sellers of fish. They then go to Lucca’s old school, the volcano on the island, and they fished in a river. The next day they celebrated Lucca’s cousins wedding and they had a carnival through the streets of the town. They were about to leave, but they don’t say goodbye to their friends. They said “We’ll come back. soon!”  This is a great story to introduce student to them to island nation of the Caribbean. I would have...

  Title- Music, Music for Everyone  Author/Retold- Vera B. Williams Illustrated by N/A Genre- Contemporary Realistic Fiction  Grade level- kindergarten - 3rd Grade The story begins with a big pink chair in a living room. A girl nicknamed “pussycat” would practice the accordion and her mom and grandma would love to listen on the chair everyday. Her grandma is now sick and her whole family takes care of her grandma. Her grandma loved her friends and they would all come over to play music for her. The music reminded her grandma of music from her village. After they played for her grandmother, all her friends squeezed in to the big chair. They said everything is different without her grandma. Even the big money jar on the shelf seemed different without her. They had to empty the jar to take care of her grandmas medical bills.”Pussy Cat” took out her accordion and began to play once her friends left. She remembered how her mother used to play the accordion in front of crowds a...

  Title- City Scenes Author/Retold- Bill Martin Jr. and Michael Sampson Illustrated by Floyd Cooper Genre- Contemporary Realistic Fiction  Grade level- preschool-1st grade A boy lives in a city. He sees people running, taxis passing, and fire trucks running. He sees police men glancing and children dancing. The boy loves his city.  I think this would be a great book to introduce children about parts of a city like who are the police and who are the fire fighters. This book also helps with linguistics and sounding out specific letter and words because of onomatopoeia. This book can help students to visualize what their city is like and what the love about their city. 

  Title- Hattie and the Wild Waves Author/Retold- Barbra Cooney  Illustrated by Barbara Cooney Genre- Contemporary Realistic Fiction  Grade level- 4-5th grade The story begins with Hattie at her red brick house. She is a child of immigrants from Germany. Her brother ,Vollie, and sister, Pfiffi, has dreams of being rich and being a beautiful bride. Hattie wanted to be a painter, but her father laughed and said girls don’t paint houses. Hattie didn’t want to paint houses though. Her mother’s father was an amazing painter and their most prized painting was his, called Cleopatras Barge. Hattie saw it and wanted to draw it and she did. Her mother wanted Hattie to learn how to play piano or sew. Her hands were to small for piano and she was bad at sewing. Every summer they would go to the beach hose, and Hattie loved the sounds of the waves and the sight of the sea. As her whole world changed around her to being more and more expensive and extravagant, she grew to love it more ...

Title- The Magic Friend-Maker Author/Retold- Gladys Baker Bond Illustrated by Stina Nagel  Genre- Contemporary Realistic Fiction  Grade level- 1st - 3rd Grade The story begins with Beth playing with her toys alone. One day, Jean, another girl came along. Beth and Jean both introduced themselves and Jean explained they just moved in. Beth saw something in Jean’s hand and Jean told her it was a rock. Jean told Beth to touch it. They took the rock upstairs and put in a pot of water to admire the colors of the rock. The rock looked new and shiny in the water, but when they took it out, it looked old. Beth asked if it was a magic rock, but jean said no. Beth didn’t think so because a rock turned a random girl into her best friend. After that they played for days and days doing a lot of fun things. Jean came over one day and said her family was moving away today. Jean came to give her the rock. They said their goodbyes and Jean thought where will I find another friend? The very next...