Picture book of the week: Miss Nelson is Missing

I chose Harry Allard as the Author of the Month for January.  January can be a month of blahs, and Harry Allard's books are humorous, made even more so because of his collaboration with illustrator James Marshall.  Harry Allard is one of those multi-age authors; I have read Miss Nelson is Missing to first graders and to fifth graders and both ages enjoyed it.

Miss Nelson is a sweet and loving elementary school teacher.  She is also a bit on the easygoing side.  Her class, the worst in the school, takes advantage of her sweet nature and is horrible.  They are even horrible during story hour, and this is the last straw for poor Miss Nelson.  She does not come to school the next day, and in her place is the wretched Miss Swamp.  Miss Swamp is ugly and yells and gives tons of homework and doesn't even believe in story time.  Not surprisingly, the class shapes up for Miss Swamp and begins to miss Miss Nelson, and appreciates her so much when she returns, they never act horribly again.

Are Miss Swamp and Miss Nelson the same person?  Will your students figure it out?  Maybe.  What if you came to school dressed like Miss Swamp?  Sounds like a great Halloween idea to me!

Picture Book of the Week: The Three Snow Bears

Jan Brett is our Author/Illustrator of the month in December.  Not only do I love her illustrations and the way that she supports schools and libraries, but I also want to highlight some authors who are not old white men.  Since her birthday is in December, she seemed like a perfect fit.

We recently got one of her new titles, The Three Snow Bears.  This is a retelling of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, with some differences, of course.  It takes place in northern Canada,  Goldilocks is an Inuit, and the bears are polar bears.  I have been doing a great lesson with first grade, comparing and contrasting this to Jan Brett's version of Goldilocks.  This would be a great story to support a lesson discussing arctic life.

Author of the Month

In the Elmer library, we highlight an author every month.  The author of the month for November is Lois Ehlert.  She has written many books, and we own twelve.  I love the way she uses collage in her illustrations.  Her fall titles include Leaf Man, Boo to You!, Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf, and Nuts to You!