The Talking Eggs

Title: The Talking Eggs
Author: Robert D. San Souci
Illustrator: Jerry Pinkney
Publisher and date of Publication: Dial Books for Young Readers, 1989
Genre: Folktale, Traditional Literature, Picture Book
Age Range: K-4th grade
Awards: Caldecott Honor Book, Coretta Scott King Award

Summary: This is a Cinderella version in which Blanche is the sister treated badly and Rose is the spoiled sister. Blanche has to do everything but one day she meets an old lady. She promises the lady that she'll do what she asked and won't make fun of her. Because Blanche followed through, the lady tells her to go out back and pick the eggs that say "take me." She through them over her shoudler like she was asked and they turned into jewels and wonderful dresses. Her jealous sister tries the same thing but doesn't follow orders and ends up with snakes and flying insects.

Response: I didn'r recognize this story when I checked it out from the library but when I started reading it, I realized that I had heard this story before. I think it's wonderful that Blanche got the good stuff and Rose didn't. This would be good to read to children with the moral that if you do that right thing and do what you are asked, you will be rewarded. This story makes you happy that it ended up the way it should because at the beginning, you feel sorry for poor Blanche.

Teaching Ideas: This story has so many ideas to teach with. This could be incoporated in for older children studying the different versions of folktales, mainly Cinderella. At Easter, you may even read this and put "good" and "bad" things in the eggs and give children directions what which eggs to pick to see what they would do. Dress up the "bad" eggs and make the ugly eggs have the "good" things. I would do this before you read the story, so they don't know what you are doing. Children could write what they would have done or a time when they didn't make a good decision.

Little Red Riding Hood: A Newfangled Prairie Tale

Title: Little Red Riding Hood: A Newfangled Prairie Tale
Author and Illustrator: Lisa Campbell Ernst
Publisher and date of Publication: Scholastic Inc., 1995
Genre: Traditional Literature, Picture Book
Age Range: K-2nd Grade

Summary: This story is about the little red riding hood story, just a new, updated version. In this story, Little Red Riding Hood lives on a prairie and decides to take wheat berry muffins and lemonade to her grandma. On the way, she runs into the wolf and tells the wolf where she is going. The wolf beats little red riding hood to grandma's house because the wolf was going to trick grandma and pretend to be grandma so he could get the muffins. When the wolf got to grandma's, she wasn't in the house but there was someone out on a tractor in the field. The wolf went to ask the tractor person where grandma was and it turns out grandma is on the tractor and she beats him up. Grandma and little red riding hood eat the muffins and lemonade and grandma opens a muffin shop with the recipe and hires the wolf to help her. Little red riding hood delievered the muffins that grandma and the wolf made.

Response: I really enjoy reading the revised version of traditional tales. This one is no different. I think this is a cute story for children to hear another side a of a story they are probably familiar with. The illustrations make Little Red Riding Hood look like a boy but with the hood up, you can't tell. I like the way the words are all on one page and have a white background to make it easier to read and the picture is easier to see since there isn't any words in the way. Of course you can make the connection to the traditional Little Red Riding Hood story from this one. The wolf also looks smaller and less scary in this story than the traditional story.

Teaching Ideas: With older children, you could use the venn diagram like we made this week. Younger children could also make up their own story from just the pictures. Also you could read the traditional story and this version, and have children make their own version of the story. I think many children would enjoy this story because it is familiar but has a different twist.

Goldilocks and The Three Bears

Title: Goldilocks and The Three Bears
Retold and Illustrated by: James Marshall
Publisher and date of Publication: Dial Books for Young Readers, 1988
Genre: Traditional Literature, Picture Book
Age Range: K-2nd Grade
Award: Caldecott Honor Book 1989

Summary: This was the traditional story of Goldilocks and the three bears. Goldilocks was sent by her mother to get muffins, but took a shortcut through the woods and ended up at the three bears house. She let herself in because the bears were out for a bike ride. She ate all their porridge, broke baby bear's chair, and fell asleep in baby bear's bed. When the bear's arrive home they find Goldilocks and when she awakes, she runs away in fright.

Response: This is a story that I have heard many times before. I enjoy hearing traditional tales
because they remind me of when I was younger. The illustrations looked older, I guess because the book was published in 1988. Also, the colors in the story looked older and faded. I think young children will love this story, although most have probably already heard the story many times before. I liked the picture of Goldilocks in Baby Bear's bed with all of Baby Bear's stuff. His room
looks like a young boy's room with airplanes and toys. I liked this story but I think I like the new, updated version of the tales better.

Teaching Ideas: I think this book would be good to read to kindergartners. Although most children may have heard this story before, they may enjoy hearing it again. If all the students know the story well, you may cover the words and let them retell the story from the pictures. Also for older students, you could let them create the venn diagram like we created this week.

Goldilocks Returns

Title: Goldilocks Returns
Author and Illustrator: Lisa Campbell Ernst
Publisher and date of Publication: Scholastic Inc., 2000
Genre: Traditional Literature, Picture Book
Age Range: K-2nd Grade

Summary: This is a revised version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Goldilocks is older and now wears her hair up and changed her name to Goldi so people won't recognize her from the three bears incident. Her gulty heart overtakes her and she decides to go see the bears and make things right. She gets there and they are gone. She added locks to the door, throws out their porridge and replaced it with breakfast bears and celery juice, and fixes baby bear back from the rocking horse they had made it into. When the bears arrive home, Goldi tells the furious bears all about what she had done and leaves. They decide to go for another walk and see another young, curious girl walking toward their house.

Response: I really enjoyed reading this version of the tale. The traditional story has been told so many times and so this was a new way of hearing the story. I think children would love hearing this story because this is a story they are familiar with but have never heard this version. I really liked the pictures in this book because they were brighter and more modern than the traditional tale I read. The tool and key store she opened at the beginning of the book was cute. I really think that children would think that it was funny that Goldi was trying to help but the bears didn't see it that way.

Teaching Ideas: I think this book would be go to do the venn diagram like we did this week to compare and contrast the stories. Also. if the children were older they could write their own side of the tale. This book would also teach children that you should try to make things right, no matter how long ago it was. Children could tell about a time that they made things right or should have made things right.

Swamp Angel

Title: Swamp Angel
Author: Anne Isaacs
Illustrator: Paul O. Zelinsky
Publisher and date of Publication: Puffin Books, 2000
Genre: Traditional Literature, Picture Book
Age Range: 1st grade-3rd grade
Award: 1995 Caldecott Honor Book

Summary: This tall tale was about Angelica Longrider, a giant. She was taller than her mother when she was born, which isn't possible. There is also this giant bear that eats everything in their town, named Thundering Tarnation. There is a competition to see who can kill this bear first and Angelica signs up. She finds the bear and they wrestle and wrestle until they finally fall asleep. Their snores are so loud it makes trees in the forest fall. Angelica made a tree fall, and when it fell it hit the bear and killed them. Angelica was praised from the whole town.

Response: I think this story is a good tall tale that I had never heard before. It's a cute story but of course it's a tale because when Angelica was born, she was taller than her mother (which isn't humanly possible!). Also, no one would be wrestling around with a bear and fall asleep with it. By the end of the story, I kind of grow fond of the bear and I was sad when the tree fell on its head and killed it. I like the idea of the wonder woman that becomes swamp angel because she pulled a wagon out of the swamp that got stuck when she was only twelve. I think this book would help children, because in the upper elementary grades girls hit a growth spurt and pass the boys. This could help them become more comfortable with being taller and give them support that they can do anything.

Teaching Ideas: I would like to read this in like 4th or 5th grade because girls outgrow the boys and it would help the girls to become more comfortable with themselves. For younger children, I would let them describe what they think it would be like to be as big as Angelica was. We could make a mini town and see what it would be like to be a giant.

Lon Po Po

Title: Lon Po Po

Author and Illustrator: Ed Young

Publisher and date of Publication: Penguin Putnam Books, 1996

Genre: Traditional Literature, Picture Book

Age Range: 2nd grade-5th grade

Awards: 1990 Randolph Caldecott Medal for Most Distinguished Picture Book

Summary: This is the Chinese version of Little Red Riding Hood. It's the story of 3 sisters that stay home alone while their mother goes to visit their grandmother, or Po Po. The bad wolf tries to act like their grandmother and got in the house but then one of the sisters realizes that it's not really their grandmother but a bad wolf. They finally get the wolf out of the house by telling the wolf about gingko nuts that are "so good," that grow at the top of the tree. They convince the wolf to climb up the tree to get the nuts and they would help "her." But then they keep lifting her up and dropping her and finally, on the third try, when she hit the ground the wolf died. The mother returns from visiting the grandmother and the children told their mother about what had happened.

Response: I have never read anything like Lon Po Po before but I enjoyed reading a different story from a traditional tale. Everyone has read or hear Little Red Riding Hood before but I'm sure not a lot of people have read a Chinese version of it. The illustrations remind me of China for some reason. The children look Chinese and the way the pictures are drawn, it just looks Chinese. I really enjoyed reading another version of a classic tale. I never realized how many different versions of fairy tales there is. The wolf on the front doesn't look like a traditional little red riding hood wolf but more like a wild wolf. When I first seen this book we were reading, It didn't look very interesting to me because it looked like a "wild animal" story, which I don't enjoy very much. But as I realized that it was just another version of a fairy tale, I really enjoyed it.

Teaching Ideas: I would really like to use this book in my classroom, as a first grade teacher, but I'm not sure how. Children this age really enjoy reading fairy tales and I think that children would enjoy hearing another version. Older children could compare and contrast the two versions. Children could also rewrite their version of another classic fairytale. Younger children would just enjoy hearing the story.