The Three Little Pigs

Title: The Three Little Pigs

Author: James Marshall

Genre: Traditional Literature/Fracture Literature

Summary: This is the original story of the three little pigs. They each make their house out of something different and the scary wolf tries to knock it down. He blows the first two houses down but can’t blow the third one down because it was sturdy.

Characters: the three little pigs, the wolf

Plot: The wolf tries to blow the house down to all of the pigs

Theme: repetition

Z is for Zeus: A Greek Mythology Alphabet

Title: Z is for Zeus: A Greek Mythology Alphabet

Author: Helen L. Wilber

Genre: Alphabet

Summary: This book goes through the alphabet and teaches children about different characteristics of Greek mythology.

Characters: N/A

Plot: N/A

Theme: N/A

Opinion: This book was engaging and definitely caught my attention while reading it. I think it is a good way to introduce history into the alphabet for children to learn.

When Jessie Came Across The Sea

Title: When Jessie Came Across the Sea

Author: Amy Hest

Genre: Historical Fiction

Summary: Jessie and her grandmother lived in a small house in a poor village, which had a slanting roof, two chairs, two narrow beds and a table with fine lace cloth. They were warmed by a potbellied stove in the winter and warm soup. Jessie had one skinny cow, named Miss Minnie, and a patch of garden. When Jessie was a baby, her parents died, but she kept her mother’s wedding band in a tiny silver box with tiny lace lining. Every so often, she tried it on. In the morning, Jessie would go with the village boys to lessons with the rabbi because her grandmother insisted. After supper, she would read out loud. Jessie tried to teach her grandmother how to read and write, but she refused, so she taught Jessie how to sew lace. One evening, the rabbi called the people of the village to the synagogue to tell them that his brother, Mordecai had died, but before he died, he had given the rabbi a ticket to America. The rabbi was trying to give it to someone else but he didn’t want to leave the village. The next morning, rabbi went to Jessie’s house and told her that she would go to America. Jessie was scared because she was going to be so far away from her grandmother, but rabbi told her that she would be working with his brother’s widow in a dress shop in New York City. Her name is Kay. Jessie was scared but she knew she needed to go. Jessie’s ship left, and all she could do was think about her grandmother being alone. Jessie was too ill to eat and too ill to even sleep. On the fourth morning, everyone was finally dry. Jessie began to sew to just pass time. She sewed a little girls’ dress and then an old woman’s tattered coat. Jessie met a boy, named Lou, on the boat. They walked and talked together and they shared black bread. On a fall day, they passed the Statue of Liberty. Jessie wished she could share these moments with her grandmother. The ship docked at Ellis Island and Jessie had to wait on line for inspections. Then, she heard someone call out “Jessie! You may call me Cousin Kay.” Jessie forgot to say goodbye to Lou, but she went to Cousin Kay’s house, which was on the Lower East Side. She immediately sent a letter to her grandmother telling her all about it. In the house, Jessie sat on the yellow chair by the window because she could see the streets and there was good lighting. One afternoon, for fun, Jessie pinned a lace bodice to a plain white dress and Cousin Kay’s cousin, Miss Emily Levy came in and she wanted a dress just like it for her wedding. Before they knew it, brides were filling up the parlor! Cousin Kay then told Jessie that she needed to go to school to learn English, so she did. Jessie wrote another letter to her grandmother. Jessie learned more and more English and continued to sew as three years had passed. Now, Jessie was sixteen. While she was walking in the park, she saw a boy-it was Lou! Each Sunday after that, they would meet in the park on the bench. Jessie was so happy, so she wrote grandmother a note about Lou. One evening, Jessie met Lou’s parents, his brother and his three sisters. His sisters cried when Jessie left, and Lou asked her to marry him on the stairs outside of his house. “Soon.” Jessie said. Each time Jessie sewed, Cousin Kay gave her three coins, and she saved all three of them. She brought them all to a man who sold tickets to America and asked for a ticket for her grandmother. She sent it to her and her grandmother wrote her a letter back saying she was coming and that rabbi would watch Miss Minnie. When her grandmother arrived, she brought Jessie’s mother’s wedding band to her for there was going to be a wedding.

Characters: Jessie, her grandmother, rabbi, Cousin Kay, Lou, Miss Minni, Miss Emily Levy

Plot: Jessie had to go to America in place of the rabbi but she didn’t want to leave her grandmother so she needed to save up her money to bring her grandmother to her in New York City

Theme: war, poverty, determination

Setting: small village, New York City

Opinion: I thought this book was good. It showed the hardships that even young children had to go through in times of war. It was a happy ending and it definitely kept you on your feet, wondering what was going to happen next with Jessie and her grandmother.

When I Was Young in the Mountains

Title: When I Was Young in the Mountains

Author: Cynthia Rylant

Genre: Realistic Fiction

Summary: A little girl explains her story of when she was young in the mountains. She said that her grandfather would come home in the evening covered in black dust from the coal mine, but his lips were clean so he kissed the top of her head. Her grandmother spread the table with corn bread, pinto beans and friend okra. In the middle of the night, she walked through the grass with her grandmother to the “johnny-house”, but held her hand. She promised her grandmother that she would never eat more than one serving of okra again. In the mountains, she walked across the cow pasture and through the woods, carrying towels, and even though they sometimes saw snakes in the swimming hole, they jumped in anyway. It was dark and muddy. On the way home, they would stop for a mound of white butter at Mr. Crawford’s. Mr. and Mrs. Crawford looked alike and they always smelled of sweet milk. The girl would pump water from the well at the bottom of the hill with her brother and heat it to fill the tub for their baths. After the bath, they stood in front of an old black stove, shivering, while grandmother heated cocoa. They went to church in the schoolhouse on Sunday’s and sometimes walked through the cow pasture with the congregation for baptisms in the dark swimming hole. Her cousin, Peter, was laid back in the water and her grandmother cried. They listened to frogs sing at dusk and woke up to cowbells outside of the windows. Sometimes, a black snake came and grandmother would threaten it with a hoe.  If it didn’t leave, she would kill it. One time, four of them draped a snack across their necks for a picture. It was dead. She used to sit on the porch swings as her grandfather sharpened her pencils with his pocketknife. Grandmother sometimes braided her hair and shelled beans. The dogs would lie around them and watch the starts sparkle in the sky. She never wanted to go to the oceans, when she was young in the mountains, and she didn’t like the desert either. The mountains were always enough.

Characters: girl, her brother, her grandmother, her grandfather, dogs, Mr. and Mrs. Crawford

Plot: N/A

Theme: the mountains were always enough; she never wanted to go anywhere else

Setting: moutains

Opinion: I didn’t really understand the point of this story, other than telling the reading that the girl in the story loved the mountains. I didn’t notice any theme of the book, other than the fact that she didn’t want to go out of the mountains.

When I Was Little

Title: When I was little

Author: Jamie Lee Curtis

Genre: Contemporary Realistic Fiction

Summary: This book was about a little girl who talks about everything he did and thought about when he was little. It discusses a four year olds memoir. She tells the reader how she couldn’t do many things when she was little, but now that she’s older, she can do many other things.

Characters: little girl

Plot: N/A

Theme: growing up

Opinion: I thought this book was very cute and definitely catchy. It can be engaging for a teacher to asked students how they have changed since they were a certain age. It would help a teacher see how much his/her students have grown in the past years.