Science Fiction/Fantasy

Author: Jane Yolen
Title: Commander Toad and the Voyage Home
Publisher: G.P. Putnam’s Sons
Date: 1998

Age Level: Elementary (3-4)

Summary:
Commander Toad leads the lean green space machine “Star Warts” to find new worlds, but runs into trouble when he sets course for home.
Strengths:
· This book is good for readers who are need help getting hooked on reading. It is fun and exciting, but fairly simple to read.
· This book is very expressive – it incorporates sounds such as “Aaaaa-ooooo-ga” to really emphasize the story.
· The pictures in this book complement the story well, making it easier for beginning readers to follow the story, while not actually being a picture book.
· This book has some rhyming, which can be helpful to students’ phonemic awareness development.

Concerns:
· This book is relatively easy to read, but has some difficult vocabulary, and a lot of hyphenated words, such as swamp-side, and high-rise, which may confuse students.
· Some of the references in this book, such as the name of the ship being “Star Warts”, will likely go right over students’ heads.

Classroom use/Other comments:
· This book could be used individually by students to practice reading.
· This book could also be turned into a reader’s theatre, to practice fluency, because of its large number of characters and spoken lines.

Author: Mary Pope Osborne
Title: Dinosaurs Before Dark
Publisher: Random House
Date: 1992

Age Level: Elementary (3-4)

Summary:
Eight year old Jack and his younger sister Annie find a magic tree house, which whisks them back to an ancient time zone where they see live dinosaurs.

Strengths:
· This book is exciting, but easy to read.
· The text in this book is very simple, and thus good for beginning readers.
· This book has some good facts about dinosaurs, which are incorporated into the text and students will inherently pick up on.
· This book is the first of many like it, and is a good start to a series which many young students can enjoy. Beginning readers will feel excited to be able to read a series, but the books will be on their level.

Concerns:
· The language in this book is not particularly imaginative. For example, when teaching students how to write, the teacher generally tries to get them to use synonyms for the word "said" rather than just stating "said Annie" all the time. In this book, however, "said" is used quite often.

Classroom use/Other comments:
· This book could be read aloud to students, or could be kept in the classroom library for students to read on their own. This book could be used in a unit on dinosaurs.



Author: Mo Willems
Title: There is a Bird on your Head
Publisher: Hyperion Books for Children
Date: 2007

Age Level: Primary (K-2)

Summary:
This book is about a pair of friends, an elephant and a pig, who must figure out how to deal with the fact that birds have built a nest on the elephant’s head.

Strengths:
· This book demonstrates the basic principle of reading spoken sentences, written in text bubbles, similar to comic strips.
· This book is very simple, which makes it easy for beginning readers to read on their own.
· This book is funny, and the pictures complement the story well.
· This book teaches students basic manners, such as asking for something if you want it to happen.

Concerns:
· The students should be reminded that elephants and pigs cannot actually speak, and that this story is not something that could actually happen.
· This book is not a traditional format, and thus may be difficult for beginning readers to read on their own.

Classroom use/Other comments:
· This book could be read alone by students, or could be out loud by the teacher. It could also be used for choral reading, where the whole class reads aloud with the teacher, because it is short, but expressive.



Author: Pam Conrad
Title: The Tub Grandfather
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
Date: 1993

Age Level: Primary (K-2)

Summary:
When the Tub Child discovers his missing grandfather asleep under the radiator, the whole Tub family rallies to wake him up.
Strengths:
· This book is fun and imaginative, and one of my personal favorites.
· This story relates something that all relates to most children, taking a bath, and playing with toys.
· The illustrations show movement, but with just small changes in the tub people. This really captures that they are toys and cannot move much, but also still conveys that the toy has moved, or is looking a certain direction.

Concerns:
· I wonder if this book would give students a false hope that their toys may be alive as well.
· I wonder if this may cause students to contemplate where their grandfather/grandmother may be, if they have passed away. I wonder if students may take this to mean that their grandfather as well may be lying somewhere asleep under a radiator.

Classroom use/Other comments:
· I would use this book to read aloud to the class, and perhaps have the students act it out.
· This book could encourage student creativity and imagination, and students could write a story like this on their own.


Author: Lois Lowry
Title: The Giver
Publisher: Laurel Leaf Books
Date: 1993

Age Level: Upper (5-6)

Summary:
This book is about a society in which everything is strictly regulated and everyone is raised to be exactly the same as everyone else.

Strengths:
· This book could really give students an appreciation for the freedoms that they have. Because it shows a society with such tight rules and no room to speak out for yourself, it will make students realize that what they have is a blessing.
· This book seems very realistic, and thus pulls the reader in, really wanting to know what will happen next.
· The terms in this book are very appropriate. For instance, the town that they live in is called “Sameness”, and in that town, everyone is supposed to be exactly the same.

Concerns:
· This book may raise a lot of questions with students, about different types of societies. It may be hard for them to separate this fictional society from those that actually appear in America.
· This book shows a lot of pain and struggles that Jonas, the main character, must go through, as well as some insubordination to authority figures.

Classroom use/Other comments:
· This book could be used to teach students about different lifestyles. It also has a very abrupt ending, and could be used to foster students’ imagination, by asking them to write an alternate ending, or to add an extra chapter to the book.