Cat Ellington's new book, Reviews by Cat Ellington: The Complete Anthology, Vol. 1, is a funny and entertaining read! Haha!!!!! I thoroughly enjoyed her insightful and sage reviews of a bunch of crazy characters who oftentimes find themselves in dangerous situations, sometimes by their own making.

And speaking of the unforgettable people depicted in many of the top rated books reviewed in her first volume, Cat Ellington's sharp humor also reveals itself as she nudges her reader towards the plot in which the characters are chasing after desires that prove to be elusive, if not worthless. Excellent read! So sit back and enjoy the ride with the one and only Cat Ellington.

Feet and Puppies, Thieves and Guppies, written by Brian P. Cleary, is a great book that helps children with understanding plural nouns. This book is not necessarily a story book, but the characters in the book do grab students attention and the word play does as well. This book is mainly used to help students with plural nouns, but it would be a great book to read during shared reading and then do a lesson and activities with plural nouns after. This book can be used for first through third grade. You can do graphic organizer activities, anchor charts, interactive worksheets, and even incorporate technology with this book. This would be a great book to use in the classroom or even at home. 

Because of Winn-Dixie, by Katie DeCamillo, is about a young girl, named Opal, who moves to Florida with her father, who is also a preacher.Opal goes to Winn-Dixie one day and finds a dog in the parking lot, she immediately falls in love and names him "Winn-Dixie" and takes him home. Winn-Dixie helps Opal make friends with many local people including the librarian, a local blind woman, and an ex-con. Opal spends her summer with her new friends, Winn-Dixie, and learning things about her mother from her father. The story is about Opal growing up and learning the importance of friendship and letting go of the past. I absolutely LOVE this book, this a great book to have your class read together throughout a few weeks, or take home to read on their own. After the whole class finishes to book a great lesson to have them complete is writing an essay on the importance of letting go of the past, and accepting the future and great things that can come from meetings of circumstance. This is a great book for grades third though fourth, and can be a great way to incorporate writing and language art's. This is a great book to get older children to fall in love with reading, and to get their imaginations flowing. 

I love this book, because it gives so many examples of synonyms to different words. I think that this book would be a wonderful book to read to a second grade classroom that us learning about synonyms. It teaches students that an object can have multiple words that mean the same thing. An activity that you could use along with this book could be to have students come up with other synonyms that they could think of for objects within the classroom.