My Pet Book

 

We had a pretty relaxing visit at the library this week. Lots of kids and lots of books. Lots of hands rubbing and petting. Lots of little soft voices. Even Electra, the Dogzilla, was lulled into dream land. We heard about Lego adventures and Dora adventures and Fancy Nancy and poison ivy!! Yikes! We read about Kipper and a butterfly. That Kipper is pretty cute, I must say. We saw that crazy Pigeon get upset about a chocolate chip cookie! For Heaven’s sake!!

But the book that caught my ear and had me sit up and take notice was one about a pet book. Yes, a pet book!

My Pet Book
by Bob Staake
published by Random House in 2014
a brand new book!!

It begins ……
Most pets, you know, are cats and dogs.
Go out and take a look.
But there’s a boy in Smartytown
Whose pet is ….. a little book.

Just imagine that! A book as a pet!! How clever is that! Clever of the boy to think of it! And clever of Mr Staake to write about it!! It is a very clever story. It’s full of rhyme and rhythm and shapes and color! I don’t notice the color part so much, but the kids sure did! “Look! All the people are different colors! And they’re squares and circles!”  Much laughter throughout this book.

The boy in the book didn’t want a pet that needed to be fed and walked or one that shed hair and fleas. He wanted an easy care pet so his parents took him shopping at a book store. Oh! There were sooooo many to choose from! He decided on a bright red hardcover, put a leash on it and walked it home. Throughout the book that we were reading you see the boy enjoying HIS book – surrounded by all sorts of folks with their pets doing all the things that his pet didn’t do. My reading kids liked studying these illustrations and making note of all the activity.

Now one of the reasons that the boy thought that a book would be a good pet was because it wouldn’t ever run away. But lo and behold! The Red Book got lost!! What a calamity! Oh, man! All the emotion! Mr Staake is an absolute genius! Who could imagine that a square and a rectangle could produce such emotion! Quite an adventure ensues as the boy and his maid search for the dear lost book. But all comes well in the end.

This is a fabulous little book. Well, it’s actually kind of a big picture book. But fabulous either way. The kids LOVED it! And it brought about a great discussion about pets. Those kids all had quite an assortment of pets, but no one ever thought about a pet book! We have LOTS of books at my house, and I have some very favorites, but I never thought of any of them as a pet. I will now be looking at all those books a little differently, I think.

Jackie at My Little Bookcase, has a great post about playing with books! Check out her list of 10 fun ways to play with books and help kids connect with reading. Awesome!!

Now watch as Mr Staake creates a character on his computer!!

Enjoy your pets, be they dog or book!
And come back again for another look
At a dog with a book in a reading nook!
Your library friend
Rhythm

Koko’s Kitten PPBF

I have a thing for gorillas. I have my very own that kept me safe when I was a wee pup. Gorillas are special creatures that are endangered. That means that they are in danger of becoming extinct. That would be a bad thing for the world.

There is a very famous gorilla named Koko. You may have heard of her. She was born at the San Francisco Zoo in 1971 and in 1972 Ms Francine Patterson, who was working on a graduate school project, became interested in studying the language abilities of animals. She was allowed to use Koko as her subject.

Dr. Patterson taught Koko American Sign Language and claims that Koko can now communicate using over 1000 words and phrases. (Very much like Chaser the dog!) Koko and Dr. Patterson are still together, working and learning and teaching the world about gorillas.

KoKo’s Kitten is a book about Koko and her 1st pet.

It is a non-fiction story written by Dr. Francine Patterson and has photographs by Ronald H. Cohn

It was published in 1985 by Scholastic.

Theme — gorillas, endangered animals, animal communication, pets

There are a lot of words in this book so it is best for older kids – 2nd grade and up. But with some adjustments in storytelling, younger kids like this book a lot. The pictures are everything!

There is a preface that gives some history to Koko’s story and the story itself begins with Koko’s birthday. “Koko knows what birthdays are. When asked what she does on her birthday, Koko answered, ‘Eat, drink, old.”

For this birthday, (the story does not say which birthday) Koko wanted a cat. Dr Patterson decided to get her a toy cat, but the one she chose didn’t come in time for the birthday so Koko received it at Christmas. But Koko did not want a toy cat. She wanted a real cat and was very angry about the toy one.

Some months later, some abandoned kittens were brought in and Koko got to choose which kitten she wanted for a pet. She chose one without a tail and named it All Ball. Koko loved her kitten and was very gentle with it. She treated it like a baby.

You will have to read the book to find out the rest of the story. It is a fascinating one.

To find out more about Koko and gorillas in general visit the Gorilla Foundation. Kids can even communicate with Koko!

And for more Perfect Picture Books and resources visit Susanna Hill’s blog HERE.

Here is a video of Koko with some new kitties –

Learn about gorillas, see what you can do to help gorillas, spread the word. And make a new friend today!

Joy to you!!

Rhythm

This Moose Belongs to Me

We are big Oliver Jeffers fans at this house. His books are so clever and simple and funny. His artwork cracks me up. Today we read This Moose Belongs to Me to some 1st graders. It cracked them up too!

The book was published by Philomel Books in 2012.
It is suitable for K and up.
Themes would be pets and wildlife.

The book begins with “Wilfred owned a moose.”

This is the story of a boy, Wilfred, who thinks that he owns a moose that he names Marcel.

He has a big list of rules for pets and tells us that Marcel obeys some of the rules. Like Rule 4 which is: “Not making too much noise while Wilfred plays his record collection.” (Surprisingly, some of the kids knew what a record collection was!) Some rules he ignored. Like Rule 7: Going whichever way Wilfred wants to go.”  And Rule 7 (subsection b): Maintaining a certain proximity to home.” ( big word alert! – PROXIMITY) Basically, Marcel tended to go wherever there were apples. And that led them to a “terrible discovery …..” A little purple haired lady who thought SHE owned the moose and called him Rodrigo! Wilfred was enraged! And stormed off to home.

But in his haste – (another good word!) he got into a bad fix and was eventually rescued by the moose. Rule 73 for a good pet — “rescuing your owner from Perilous Situations! (more good words!) And then Wilfred admitted that he had never really owned the moose anyway. A good end!

While reading this book with the kids we talked about visualization and plot. Those were the things that they had been studying in class. We also talked about pets versus wildlife. What exactly makes an animal a pet? And why is it not a good idea to try to keep wildlife as pets? We talked about moose and what kind of animal they were and where they live. Mr Jeffers backgrounds for this book were quite special. I have heard that he didn’t actually paint them – they were found artwork from trashbins and books. And he had to find the original artists to be able to use them. Pretty clever!  In class we came up with some of our own rules for a good pet. Things like not going to the bathroom in the house and not jumping on furniture and not running away.

This is a fabulous book. The kids all gave it thumbs up and I give it 4 paws!

Some websites you might want to check out for classroom discussion and activities :

Defenders of Wildlife has lots of information about wildlife conservation.
The Alaska Department of Fish & Game has some information on wildlife viewing and safety.
With The World Wildlife Fund, you can adopt a moose!
And for little ones here’s a really cute moose puppet made from a paper bag!

For Oliver Jeffers fans, I give you a couple of videos:
The 1st one is How to Draw a Moose
The next one is a rather long presentation from OFFSET with Mr Jeffers talking about his art and book making process. Very Good!

Now you might want to jump over to Susanna Hill’s blog for some more great picture books with activitie to go with. It’s Perfect Picture Book Friday!!  Check ’em out!