Rapunzel by: Paul O. Zelinsky (Traditional or Folk Literature)

A man and a wife were expecting a baby when the wife began craving Rapunzel growing in a garden next door.  The husband snuck in the garden on a nightly basis to get the Rapunzel and was soon caught by the witch.  The witch demanded the couple to give her their baby in exchange for the Rapunzel and kept the girl locked up alone in a high tower.  She would climb up Rapunzel's long hair to get into the tower and discovered that the prince had been there when Rapunzel became pregnant with twins.  The witch was so angry she cut Rapunzel's hair off and blinded the prince by pushing him off the high tower.  Rapunzel heard the prince's voice a year later and healed his blindness with her tears after she found him.  The prince and his new family returned to his kingdom.

I would use this book in the classroom in order to demonstrate to the students that authors are real people and can sometimes be both the author and illustrator.  I would discuss how the author studied art from the Renaissance period before doing the illustrations for this book.  I would also ask the students to read the author's note at the very end of the book which goes over several different versions and how the story of Rapunzel has been retold over time.  I would ask students to draw comparisons and detect differences between Zelinsky's Rapunzel and the other stories that he brings up in A Note About "Rapunzel."  Students would also get a chance to get onto the computer and make comparisons between the artwork in the story and the artwork created by famous artists.  The students would also have the opportunity to write a letter to Paul O. Zelinsky and either ask him questions about his version of Rapunzel or tell him specific things they like about the text or illustrations. 

AR Book Finder Book Level 4.6

Fantastic Mr. Fox by: Roald Dahl (Modern Fantasy and Science Fiction)

There were three mean farmers, Boggis, Bunce, and Bean.  They got tired of their chickens, ducks, geese, and turkeys being taken during the night by Mr. Fox and decide to wait outside his hole to shoot him when he comes out.  They begin to dig with shovels and as Mr. Fox digs deeper and deeper, the farmers decide to dig with mechanical shovels and tractors.  Mr. Fox and his children dig all the way to Boggis’s chicken house to escape the men with guns and steal his chickens while Boggis is waiting outside the hole for Mr. Fox.  Mr. Fox elicits the help of Badger to dig to Bunce’s Storehouse of ducks, geese, ham, and bacon.  The crew digs to Bean’s cellar to steal cider for the feast and go back to eat with the foxes, badgers, moles, rabbits, and weasels.  Mr. Fox invites all of the families to live with him and promises to feed them from that point on.

I would ask students to make a chart to show things that the fox does that are fantastic on one side and things that the fox does that are not fantastic on the other side.  I would ask students to compare them and determine for themselves whether they believe the fox is fantastic or not and why.  I  would ask them to write an extension to the story in their journals and write about what they think will happen next in the story.  After all of the students have had a chance to create new endings to the story, I would have them share their ideas with the class so that the class can see all of the different directions the story can go.  I would show them the movie that is based on the book and ask them to write down the similarities and differences between the movie and the book while the movie is playing.  

AR Book Finder Book Level 4.1
Fantastic Mr. Fox Trailer

The Dragons of Wayward Crescent by: Chris d’Lacey (Modern Fantasy and Science Fiction)

Lucy’s mom, Liz, creates clay dragons that can sometimes transform into real, miniature dragons by adding special snow onto their nose as they are created.  Liz created a live dragon named Gauge who likes to measure time.  He keeps track of the time to make sure Lucy goes to bed on time and brushes her teeth for a full two minutes.  The town council plans to destroy the library clock to add a digital clock since the old clock it is so old and does not work very well.  Liz protests the town council’s idea with posters and a peaceful sit in at the library.  Lucy brings Gauge to the clock because she wants him to fix it with his powers.  Lucy does not want to protest and if Gauge can fix the clock, she will not have to join in on the protest.  At the library, Councilman Trustable and his assistant, Mr. Higson, work to try to break the clock until they are scared away by the ghost of Sir Rufus Trenchcombe, the town’s old clockmaker.  Gauge fixes the clock’s machinery so it can work again but the sequencing of the chimes is still wrong, so the councilman still plans to take the clock down.  Tourists come to the clock tower to see the ghost and since it becomes a tourist attraction, the town can no longer take it down.

I would use this book in the classroom to help students explore the difference between fantasy and realistic fiction.  At the end of each chapter, I would ask students to write down notes in their chart.  One side of the chart would say “Realistic” and the other side would say “Fantasy” with a line down the middle of the two.  The students would be instructed to write down things that could actually happen on the realistic side and to write down things that are obviously only contained within a fantasy book on the fantasy side.  For example, the protest against taking down the library’s clock would be something they could write on the realistic side, while clay dragons coming to life would be something they could write on the fantasy side.  Since the book contains both realistic and fantastical elements, the students would be able to determine the difference between the two and find out how much of the book contains scenarios that could actually happen to them in their own lives. 

AR Book Finder Book Level 4.5

Tough, Toothy Baby Sharks by: Sandra Markle (Nonfiction)

Baby sharks are called pups and their skeletons are made of cartilage instead of bone.  The fertilization in reproduction occurs inside the female shark’s body, which is different from other fish.  A shark’s scales are called denticles and they routinely shed and replace them.  Shark pups use their tails to move schools of fish and herring closer together so that it is easier to catch and eat them.  Sometimes the shark pups eat their smaller siblings inside the female mother shark, so only the biggest and strongest pups survive.  Sharks can give birth to a small number of two pups at a time or can sometimes give birth to forty pups or more.  The shark pups look for food in deeper waters at night so they will not be caught and eaten by larger sharks.  

I would use this book in the classroom by teaching the students how to create the best graphic organizer for this particular nonfiction book.  We would explore the different methods of creating a graphic organizer to help us gather and organize our information for nonfiction texts.  I would ask the students to determine whether the book is a description, sequence, comparison, cause and effect, or problem solution nonfiction book.  I would show them each of the styles of graphic organizers and ask them to choose the appropriate one to use for keeping notes of important facts.  The students would learn the difference between the various types of nonfiction texts and would be able to determine which graphic organizer would fit best for any nonfiction text. 

AR Book Finder Book Level 5.8

The Dragon of Doom by: Bruce Coville (Modern Fantasy and Science Fiction)

Edward and his mother live in a cottage in Pigbone where Edward likes to escape to an abandoned cottage to be alone.  Edward meets a magician named Moongobble who moved into the abandoned cottage to practice his magic.  Moongobble asks Edward to be his helper in return for a silver penny every day.  Things were going great until news came that Fazwad, the head of the Society of Magicians, was coming to inspect Moongobble’s magic.  Moongobble fails his inspection and has to get past the Dragon of Doom to fetch the Golden Acorns of Alcoona.  The characters elicit the help of the Rusty Knight and end up making friends with the Dragon of Doom, whose name is Fireball.  Moongobble passes the first of his three Mighty Tasks and can join the Society of Magicians once he passes all three.

I would use this book in the classroom by asking the students to create a dramatization.  I would bring a flip video camera into class and have the students reenact the story using the dialogue within the text and creating their own movements to correlate with the text.  For older grades, I could split the students into groups and have each group reenact the entire story to compare the different interpretations.  For younger grades, I could split the book into smaller sections and have each group reenact one section of the book.  The students could either videotape themselves and then present the video to the class, or I could videotape the students and they could take turns going to the front of the room to be in the video.  The students would need to analyze the text in a deeper way in order to figure out how to create their video.

AR Book Finder Book Level 3.3

Sea Surprise by: Leo Landry (Modern Fantasy and Science Fiction)

Kate the mermaid and Dave the shark are swimming in the ocean and decide to visit their friend, Eel.  Eel is sick in bed and has lost his electric charge.  Eel promises he will share his plankton pie if Kate and Dave help him get his zap back, and they happily agree.  Dave and Kate go to a shipwreck to look for their fish friend, Puff.  The three of them think of ways to fix Eel and decide to throw him a surprise party.  When Eel realizes how long his friends have been gone, he goes out searching for them and hides at the shipwreck when he thinks a shark is coming to eat him.  Dave, Kate, and Puff gather up all of their friends and shout “Surprise!” in hopes of jolting Eel’s zap back into him.  Unfortunately it doesn’t work, and when Dave takes a bite of the plankton pie, he bites the mast and gets stuck.  While his friends help pull him off, lightning strikes the mast and Eel has his zap returned back to him.

I would work with the students to develop their oral and written communication skills through discussions and journal entries in their notebooks.  We would talk about the vocabulary within the book and recognizing words using prefixes and suffixes or the root of the word.  The students would respond to the text through comprehending it and analyzing the characters actions.  The students would also make connections between their own life and the text and find out if modern fantasy and science fiction can have realistic elements within them.  The students would jot down notes as they are reading about what they predict will happen at certain points in the story and will need to share one of their predictions aloud with the class.  The students would use a thesaurus to replace certain given words within the text with words that would not change the meaning of the sentence or story if they took the place of the old word. 

AR Book Finder Book Level 3.2

The Aztec Empire by: Sunita Apte (Multicultural and International Literature)

The Aztecs were a group of hunters and gatherers who settled in Mexico around five lakes.  Their empire became powerful in time and they built roads over water called causeways.  Cacao seeds were so important to the Aztecs that they used them for making drinks and as money.  The Aztecs had many gods and a supreme ruler known as a tlatoani.  Aztecs farmed and used glyph symbols for writing and enjoyed playing board games.  The Spanish explorer, Cortes, invaded the Aztec empire in hopes of overthrowing the leader.  He took control of the empire and the empire became a Spanish colony ruled by Spanish government.  The Aztec culture was wiped out, but some of the ancient Aztec sites are still around.  

I would use this book in my class by including it in a book pass for the students.  I would bring in many different books that have information about the Aztec culture and have students quickly look through them long enough to write a few notes on their book pass.  The students would not have enough time to read the entire book during the book pass but would be able to determine which books they would like to research more in depth.  I would use the nonfiction books as a way to guide the students’ comprehension and help them learn how to navigate nonfiction text.  I would ask each of the students to gather three important facts about the Aztec Empire from their selected text and to share with the entire class.  I would also ask students to write down questions they think of while reading and help them navigate the internet.

AR Book Finder Book Level 5.7

The Green Book by: Jill Paton Walsh (Modern Fantasy and Science Fiction)

The narrator of the story, Pattie, is a young girl whose family has traveled from Earth to a new planet.  They are with many other families and have been chosen to start new lives in a setting that they have no information about.  The families are anxious in the four year journey from Earth to the new planet and become discouraged when they cannot cut down trees or grow food in the same ways.  Everybody is constantly worried about the wheat harvest and whether it will turn out well enough to provide food.  The characters discover candy coming from the trees and enormous birds that are intelligent enough to join in on games but cannot communicate with the humans.  Pattie and her siblings are the first ones to test out the new wheat and make a miraculous discovery…

I would use this book in the classroom to integrate multiple subject areas.  After reading the story, the students can use their language arts and writing skills to respond to the text.  The students would be asked to be creative in coming up with a planet that they would like to travel to with their families and describe it in detail.  They would need to describe the trip from Earth to the new planet and describe the ways in which they obtain food and other necessary resources.  The students could use their imaginations to create a similar plot line based on discovering new life and attempting to find or grow food on the new planet.  I could also ask the students to all get out a blank piece of paper and provide them with one minute to write the beginning of the story before they have to pass their paper to the next person.  They continue on the new story with the introduction their classmate has written until I announce that it is time to switch again.  The stories would turn out to be much more creative that way and it is a fun way to practice writing skills while responding and relating to the text.

AR Book Finder Book Level 5.5