Fantasy in Children's Literature

Thank you for stopping by She Reads Books today. I am so thrilled you decided to stop by! One of my favorite quotes is written by Mason Cooley. It reads as follows: "Reading gives us someplace to go when we have to stay where we are." I love the message that it sends to people and I love how it is so relatable to so many people, including myself! Today I will be sharing with you five fantasy children's books and I will also be sharing how I would use them in my future classroom. I hope you enjoy my picks!

 

Book #1: Click, Clack, Moo Cows That Type by Doreen Cronin

 

Book Review: Click, Clack, Moo Cows That Type is an exciting, funny, simple, and relatively short read for young children. This children’s book is a humorous, entertaining book about a farmer that is having problems with his cows and chickens. The animals begin typing letters to the farmer demanding certain things and the farmer does not like this at all. At the end of the book, the animals and the farmer come to an agreement based off of a few things. This book makes it easy for children to want to continue reading or listening to it through its continuous use of silly words and the catch phrase, “Click, clack, moo. Click, clack, moo. Clickety, clack, moo.” I recommend this book to any teacher and parent to read to their students and children because it is entertaining, humorous, and it keeps the children engaged and listening to the story.

         

Lesson Idea: In my future classroom, I would love to use this book as a read-aloud. One lesson idea I have for this book is to use it to teach cause and effect. This book has a variety of events that have occurred that would be great to use to teach this concept. Another lesson idea I have for this book is to use it to teach plot, characters, setting, and prediction. A writing activity I would like to have with this book is to have the students pretend that they are the ducks in the story and their writing activity would be to come up with what they think the ducks will write about or what they think the ducks will demand from Farmer Brown next.

Below I have attached the author's website, Twitter, and a link to a read-aloud of the story in case you wanted to check out the author or the story itself!


Website: https://doreencronin.com/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/doreencronin1
Read-Aloud: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MC3zlXfi98Y

Book #2: Good Job, Bear! by Carrie Weston

Book Review: Good Job, Bear is a simple but medium read for young children in and outside of the classroom. The illustrations in the book make the story come to life while it examines a class camping trip in which the teacher and the students are different size animals. The main character, Boris, is a very large bear compared to his smaller teacher and classmates, and he has to overcome some obstacles in this story. By the end of the story, Boris learned that he is important to others and he is a very valuable bear to his teacher and classmates. I recommend this book to any teacher or parent to read to their students or children because it teaches them that when they work together as a team, they can accomplish anything and be successful. It also teaches children that even though they all look different, they are each important and they can each contribute and express their thoughts inside and outside of the classroom. 

Lesson Idea: I would use this story in my classroom to teach children to be comfortable with who they are and that they are each important. One lesson idea I have for this book is a writing activity using correct grammar and sentence structure. In at least a paragraph, I would ask the students to write about how they are important to our classroom and to other aspects in the world. I also think this story would be great to use to teach and reinforce reading comprehension skills. A lesson idea I have would be to type and print a worksheet discussing and analyzing the plot and characters that the students would complete.     

Below I have attached the author's Twitter and a link to a read-aloud of the story in case you wanted to check out the author or the story itself!

Twitter: https://twitter.com/drcarrieweston?lang=en&lang=en
Read-Aloud: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uhj0IIxv-hY  

Book #3: How to Catch the Tooth Fairy by Adam Wallace 

Book Review: How to Catch the Tooth Fairy is an exciting, simple and relatively short read for young children. This children’s book is an entertaining book about children strategizing and implementing ways to catch the tooth fairy. The main character, the Tooth Fairy, tells through her point of view, with simple rhyming words, how she avoids all of the traps the children have set. Wallace ends the story with the tooth fairy escaping all of the traps, but he also ends with a question to his readers, “Can you catch the Tooth Fairy?” The illustrations in the book are what make the book so interesting because they are so vibrant and colorful, and they help keep children engaged while they are reading. I recommend this book to any teacher or parent to read to their students and children because it teaches them to use their imagination and think outside of the box, but it is also a book that children can relate to (they lose their teeth all the time). It also teaches them to pick out simple rhyming words in a sentence or two while they are reading.

Lesson Idea: In my future classroom, I would love to use this book as a read-aloud. One lesson idea I have for this book is to use it to teach locating rhyming words in sentences. To go along with it, I would have my future students categorize the rhyming words and see if they can think of new rhyming words that would fit into the categories. Another lesson idea I have for this book is a writing assignment. The writing assignment would consist of the students writing in a paragraph or two how they would catch the tooth fairy using chronological order and sequencing. I would be interested to read/listen to how my future students would plan to catch the tooth fairy.   

Below I have attached the author's website, Twitter, and a link to a read-aloud of the story in case you wanted to check out the author or the story itself!

Website: https://www.adam-wallace-books.com/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/wallysbooks

Read-Aloud: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-obFVuDSYjY 

Book #4: Pete the Cat Go, Pete, Go!  by James Dean

Book Review: Pete the Cat Go, Pete, Go is an exciting, simple and relatively short read for young children. It is based off of the book The Tortoise and the Hare. This children’s book is an entertaining book about Turtle wanting to race someone with his new car. Of course, Pete the Cat is up for the challenge. When Pete the Cat crosses the finish line, he reminds his readers that it is not about how you finish, it is about what experiences you created while trying to complete an activity, goal in life, or race in this case. Pete also reminds his readers that by completing a task carefully and slowly, instead of quickly, the outcome can be more rewarding and ultimately more successful. I recommend this book to any teacher and parent to read to their students and children because it teaches them to have fun but to also slow down and complete things carefully. 

Lesson Idea: In my future classroom, I would love to use this book as a read-aloud. One lesson idea I have for this book is to teach theme and morals with it. I would also like to do a compare and contrast activity with this book to the book The Tortoise and the Hare. For example, compare and contrast the characters, theme, and plot. 

Below I have attached the author's website and a link to a read-aloud of the story in case you wanted to check out the author or the story itself!

Website: http://www.petethecatbooks.com/meet-the-author-illustrator/

Read-Aloud: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRuNnYa7pos 

Book #5: Splat the Cat and the Duck with No Quack by Rob Scotton

Book Review: Splat the Cat and the Duck with No Quack is a cute, simple and relatively short read for young children. The story is about Splat, a cat, helping Duck overcome his problem. Splat has to guess how to help Duck because Duck does not quack, he is just there. Splat asks his friends and teacher for their help and in the end, they solved the problem together, as a team. I recommend this book to any teacher and parent to read to their students and children because it is entertaining, simple, and it keeps the children engaged and listening to the story while they try to figure out how to help Duck. This book also teaches children that when they work in teams cooperatively with other people, they receive different outlooks on the same problem and issue and they are able to come up with a solution as a group that they may have not been able to think of independently. 

     

Lesson Idea: In my future classroom, I would love to use this book as a read-aloud. One lesson idea I have for this book is to use it to teach sounds in words. For example, while I was reading the story, I noticed that the dialogue in the story had many words that ended in -ack. I would incorporate activities for the students to do to practice the sound. For example, I would have laminated pieces of papers with words ending in -ack on it and the students would use clothespins on the words ending in -ack. It would show that they could distinguish the -ack endings from other endings. 

Below I have attached the author's website, Twitter, and a link to a read-aloud of the story in case you wanted to check out the author or the story itself!

Website: http://www.robscotton.com/www.robscotton.com/RobScotton.com.html

Twitter: https://twitter.com/robscotton?lang=en

Read-Aloud: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Jirer33zg0 

I hope that you enjoyed my book reviews and lesson ideas. I hope you consider adding all five books to your classroom library if you have not already!

Happy Reading,

Ashley