June 30, 2013

This has been a busy weekend at the Pettis home.  Today my oldest son, Xavier turned 10.  He was so excited to now be in the double digits.  It was nice for us to be able to spend time as a family and read.  Over the last week, I have really gotten into picture books that could be used as read-alouds as well as working on books in my to read pile.  I was also very happy because more people are checking out my complete listing of books on goodreads.com.  Sometimes I don't post everything I read on this blog and my goodreads account has close to 500 books that I have read in the last three years.  I am going to post some of my favorites from the last week.

The Ant and the Elephant by Bill Peet
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

I read this to the boys this morning.  They got the message about the importance of helping others.  This story was written over forty years ago and language that the author uses to describe the characters was fantastic.  I would use it as a read-aloud especially if teachers were looking for ways to discuss word meanings.


The Matchbox Diary by Paul Fleischman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

I was at the Springvale Library this week looking for read-aloud stories.  The librarian, Sheila Dube, recommended this book to me.  I am so glad that she did because it was fantastic.  The illustrations and the relationship between the great-grand daughter and the great grandfather were very realistic in my opinion.  I could see re-reading this story many times just for the pure enjoyment.


A Dog's Life by Caroline Sherman
My rating: 3 of 5 stars

Very cute story that I would recommend for the preschool/kindergarten age group.  If I were a teacher in that age group, I could see using this story when introducing a unit about dogs.


I hope everyone is having a great summer and reading as much as they can.  More of my book  recommendations next week.

Diana Pettis