Laughing Out Loud

For students in 2nd to 4th grade, finding a chapter book that contains characters to which they can relate and contain a realistic story within the confines of such a short number of pages might seem like a challenge, but there are three ares to which these readers can turn to experience fresh and engaging true-to-life stories just for them. These stories, though lacking in deep characters and rich settings, create a world where kids can see the humor in the situations that life throws at them.

Sacher creates a compelling character, Marvin Redpost, that has hilarious adventures with frank dialog and real dilemmas that kids face. In “Is He a Girl?” Marvin faces the old-wives tale about kissing your elbow and turning into a girl, every boy’s worst nightmare. How will he face life as a girl and can he ever return to the normal “boy” world that he knows so well? Follow Marvin through this adventure, plus many more as he faces some of the questions that kids come up with.

Lowry creates a real-life boy, Sam, that shows the dilemmas that boys can easily find themselves in. From cutting his hair to flushing the fish down the toilet, life is never dull with a younger brother around! “All About Sam” tells the beginning of Sam’s life story and begins a series that is especially tailored for young boys in need of a character to which they can identify, even if many of the story elements clearly date the book to the 1980’s.

Junie B. Jones is one character that will appeal to all audiences, with her truly laugh-out-loud adventures that beg to be read aloud! With problems like getting into a fight at the school carnival to winning only a fruit cake in the cake walk, Parks shows how kids can and will turn life upside down with real life dialog and scenes between the kids at school and family members at home. Students will relate to the emotions that Junie B. feels as she faces her different adventures.

Lowry, Lois. 1988. ALL ABOUT SAM. New York: Yearling Books.
Parks, Barbara. 1999. JUNIE B. JONES AND THE YUCKY BLUCKY FRUITCAKE. New York: Scholastic.
Sachar, Louis. 1993. MARVIN REDPOST: IS HE A GIRL?. New York: Scholastic.

Sahara Special

Codell, Esme Raji. 2003. Sahara Special. New York: Hyperion Books For Children.

Codell creates a compelling story where a girl must face her fears of success and let the world know that not only can she write, but that she is smart. Facing 5th grade for the second time can be daunting, but when Sahara gets an amazingly different teacher, things start to look up. Will Sahara have what it takes to shine in this class? Written in a way that which today’s students can relate, the characters in Sahara Special are typical inner city kids facing real life problems. The dialog is believable and the use of “street language” instead of properly constructed sentences enhances the mood of the story. Sahara speaks to the children that are indeed struggling in school and offers a ray of hope for not only a chance to feel smart, but for finding a person that believes in the student that they can become. A must read for not only a struggling student, but for teachers, as it shows the power of a teacher that stands up for and believes in her students.

So B. It

Weeks, Sarah. 2004. SO B. IT. New York: Laura Geringer Books. ISBN 9780064410471

Told as reminiscent story of her first thirteen years of life, SO B. IT is a tale of family, friendship, devotion, and growing up as Heidi and a beloved neighbor struggle to raise Heidi’s mentally disabled mother, So B. It. With no knowledge of her past, a newly discovered set of pictures from a Christmas party in her mother’s past, and her mother’s spoken word “soof”, Heidi is compelled to search for the answers to all of her questions about her history. After traveling across the country, will Heidi find the answers for which she is looking and will the answers be worth what she misses back at home? Weeks creates believable characters that the reader will connect with easily and want to know “what happens next?” even after the story ends. The problems facing Heidi become so real that the reader will be moved to tears as the “mystery” is unfolded.

Flush

Hiaasen, Carl. 2005. FLUSH. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

In the novel, FLUSH, Noah and his sister Abbey are determined to prove that the local gambling boat is causing the beach contamination and their father is not crazy. With the help of an unlikely friend and thirty-four bottles of food coloring, will they be able to prove that the “flushing” on the boat is indeed going out to sea? With dialog that speaks the “real language of kids”, students will become involved in the story-line and desire to see how the dilemma unfolds, not noticing the stereotypical characters that Hiaasen uses to portray the “bad” guys. With Noah having more freedom than most kids really have, students, especially boys, will find the excitement and adventure in the mission Noah embarks on to prove that the gambling boat is dumping their waste into the ocean and contaminating the beaches. Even though the story is wrapped up very neatly, with a “happily ever after” tone, students will feel that justice has been served when the “bad” guy loses in the end.

Becoming Naomi Leon

Ryan, Pam Munoz. 2004. BECOMING NAOMI LEON. New York: Scholastic.

BECOMING NAOMI LEON tells of Naomi Leon Outlaw’s struggle to create an identity while caring for her younger brother, Owen, and coping with the reappearance of a mother that abandoned her and Owen seven years prior. Trying to keep Naomi and Owen from being returned to their mother, Gram takes the kids to find their long-lost father in Mexico through a journey of hope, love, and truth. This story will captivate the readers as Ryan does an excellent job of realistically and compassionately confronting issues that many children face today: abandonment by a parent, need for social status at school, and remaining loyal to your family, while showing how kids will pull inside or turn to other activities such list making or soap carving to face the problems life throws at them. With fresh and “real” dialog between the students at school and the family members, students will connect to Naomi as she struggles to “fit in” with the other kids at school and try to please a mother that really does not care about her and Owen. The “happily ever after” ending may lack in realism, but the reader will approve of the ending as a sign of hope in a difficult situation.

Exploding Gravy: Poems to Make You Laugh

Kennedy, X.J. 2002. EXPLODING GRAVY: POEMS TO MAKE YOU LAUGH. Ill. by Joy Allen. New York: Little, Brown, and Company.

With EXPLODING GRAVY containing over eighty poems divided into eight categories such as “Peculiar Characters”, “Far-Out Families”, and “Witches, Ghosts, Dragons & Monsters”, there is something inside this collection for everyone. Kennedy’s humor is rich and right on target for students in grades 3-6 and will cause them to laugh out loud as they clamor to share the poems with anyone that will listen. With many of the stanzas having a common end rhyme and a rhythm of the words that flows easily in a read aloud, this would make a great start to any school day. Allen’s simple black and white sketches add emphasis to the poems without taking away from the words being read or spoken. The sketches are also full of humor, which couples nicely with the intent of the collection.

Neighborhood Mother Goose

Crews, Nina. 2004. THE NEIGHBORHOOD MOTHER GOOSE. Greenwillow Books.

THE NEIGHBORHOOD MOTHER GOOSE contains a collection of forty-one traditional “Mother Goose” rhymes. An alphabetical index to the rhyme’s titles is located at the front of the book to assist the reader in locating specific rhymes more easily. Crews uses colored photographs to illustrate the various rhymes, which will help the younger children to understand words and phrases with which they might not be familiar. An example of this can be found in the rhymes: “Ride a Cockhorse” contains a photograph of a boy and a woman riding on horses in a merry-go-round, a term and item that many would recognize before the terms cockhorse and “A was An apple pie” shows each of the action terms listed from A to Z (ex. longed for, took it, or upset it) performed by various children using a pie as a prop. Crews does a great job of incorporating people from many different ethnicities and cultures to appeal to a larger, more diverse audience, causing a feeling of pride as their culture is represented in the book. Children will be mesmerized by the pictures and the flow of the rhymes begs to be chanted or sung aloud. However, by using photographs of actual people, the illustrations will quickly become dated as fashion and times change.

Pio Peep! Traditional Spanish Nursery Rhymes

Ada, Alma Flor and F. Isabel Campoy, adapted by Alice Schertle. 2003. PIO PEEP! TRADITIONAL SPANISH NURSERY RHYMES. Ill. by Vivi Escriva. Harper Collins.

PIO PEEP! Starts by giving brief background information on Spanish oral folklore and how the selections for this anthology were made. The introduction, found in both Spanish and English, explains to parents the benefits of reading poetry and why the English recreations might have slight variations from the original Spanish poems. With poems written in the original Spanish language and accompanied by the English recreations, this poetry collection would benefit the beginning English Language Learner that has an interest in poems. Bright, simplistic illustrations capture the attention of even the youngest children as the poems are read aloud. With the poems coming from the Spanish heritage, Escriva does an excellent job of illustrating the characters so that they accurately and respectfully represent the Hispanic culture, allowing a sense of pride to develop for the Hispanic readers and listeners as the poems are shared with various cultural groups. The poems have a sing-song rhythm that lends itself well to reading aloud with young children.

Here's A Little Poem: A Very First Book of Poetry

Yolen, Jane and Andrew Fusek Peters. 2007. HERE’S A LITTLE POEM: A VERY FIRST BOOK OF POETRY. Ill. by Polly Dunbar. Massachusetts: Candlewick Press.

The sixty-poems in the collection HERE’S A LITTLE POEM center around topics that are familiar to pre-school and primary grade children and are divided into the four categories: Me, Myself and I, Who Lives in My House?, I Go Outside, and Time for Bed. Yolen and Peters find many remarkable poems that cross the cultural divide and show that all children feel the same emotions and have many life experiences in common, such as: having a birthday party, playing at the beach, eating food they do not like, and looking at the stars. With bright and simplistic illustrations that depict the fun and joy in childhood, children will laugh out-loud with the pictures and the text as they listen to the poems. The poems have a rhythmic flow to the lines that beg to be chanted as they are read aloud. With end rhymes generally falling in the second and fourth lines of each stanza, children will enjoy guessing and calling out the ending word for each fourth line in poems such as The NO-NO Bird saying, “I’m the no-no bird, that’s right, that’s me. I live up in the Tantrum Tree.”