Popcorn by Frank Asch is a story about a bear cub named Sam who throws a Halloween party while his parents are out for the night. Sam invites all of his friends who end up all bringing popcorn for the other guests to snack on. The cubs decide to pop ALL of the popcorn at once and are in for a shock. Kids will think that the way the cubs decided to clean up their mess is hilarious. Popcorn is a great book for prediction activities as well a rewriting parts of the story. Teacher could encourage their students to predict/infer using information from previous information what each guest after the first on would bring as well as Sam’s special gift at the end of the book. Students could also rewrite what food is brought by each guest and how the cubs should clean up their mess. It would also be fun to have students follow a task analysis and learn how to make and serve popcorn and then eat it while listening to a video version of the text being read. The Accelerated reader reading level is 2.3.

David Goes to School, written by David Shannon,is a great book! David does what he wants in school. The teacher is constantly getting on to him. Eventually she gets fed up with his behavior and makes him stay after school and clean all of the desks. Will that change David’s behavior in school? I can use this book in my classroom to discuss school rules and teach the students about making predictions!  I can have the students come up with rules for our classroom!

5 stars

Lexile BR210L

Gangs! Gangs and more gangs! How many YA books have I read which are about gang violence now? Too many.

So it's interesting why I find this book to be nonetheless noteworthy. The characters are quite unique in my opinion and have very realistic backgrounds, there seem to be more ethnic minorities as far as I can tell (is the main character literally the only white person? it seems that way) and it relaly did paint a good picture of the London riots.

I really enjoyed this book and didn't think I would to begin with. Yes, it's about gangs. I might have mentioned that already.

Little Pea (yes, that's his name!) really grew on me. Half the time you think he's a back-stabbing traitorous little swine who constantly double-crosses the people who try to help him, because he sees himself as a lost case...well, you know what happens. If you've read the book that is.

I also found it intriguing how the main character was very into filmography and camera work - in that she films everything, she takes down everything on camera. Including some of the more violent aspects of the riot which could get her into trouble.

There are no "perfect" families in this book. Practically every character has a broken family. The only character who has a good family suffers as a result. No one gets out unscarred, and not everyone gets out alive.

I did enjoy this but I could tell what was going to happen to Tokes eventually. I'm glad we got this kind of ending, too. It's a bit open-ended, it's a little sad, but I'm happy about reading this book.

 

Sipping Ice Tea  under a dragon tree While Watching Banshee and All I can Foresee  is Number Three! Guys it's Winding Down! Book 3 will Soon be Revealed!!! #countdown #book #fun #tea #dragon #youngadult #anticipation #yes #words #number #three #pink #writer  #author #Monroe #poetry #predict #read #series #exciting #banshee #comingsoon #life #follow #conversation #booklikes #booknerd #power #chiclit #badass

A photo posted by Monroe Ariel (@monroearieltk) on Oct 6, 2015 at 8:08am PDT

~ Frederik Pohl