Book Review: Rocky and Bullwinkle Graphic Novel

Graphic novels are very popular in my class, and from my experience, many upper grade students.  I was so excited when I had the opportunity to preview this new graphic novel all about one of my favorite childhood cartoons, Rocky and Bullwinkle.  I found myself reading all of Bullwinkle's parts in that deep voice and Rocky's in that high pitched squirrel voice.  How fun would it be to get your students hooked to this book by showing a teaser snippet of one of the cartoons?  You can find episodes on YouTube that could be shown.  Always remember to view before you show anything to your students! You never know what's really in a video that might look innocent.




This book is comprised of several shorter stories, each as an "episode" of Rocky and Bullwinkle.  They aren't necessarily stories of the show episodes, but the characters are the same with a similar plot line as the cartoons.  The pictures are well illustrated and in vivid colors.  There is a good mix of text with pictures and illustration only pages to tell the story.

Give this Graphic Novel a try and you just might snag some of your reluctant readers.  The text in this story is not too difficult, I'd place the text readability itself around a 3rd grade level, but that's totally just my guess.  I think my 5th graders are going to love this book!

Rocky & Bullwinkle will be available on October 7, 2014.  You can pre-order a copy now by clicking any of the cover or title links in this post.  If your'e reading this after the release date, go grab your copy now!

What are some of your students' favorite graphic novels? 

Note: I was provided an e-book copy of the book in this review by the publisher in exchange for my review.  The opinions expressed in this post are my own.  Links in this post refer to my amazon affiliate and I receive a small compensation for purchases made through these links.  Your purchase helps me support my classroom and this blog. 

Reading in the Wild Summer Book Study Chapter 2

I am loving this book by Donalyn Miller.  The more I read, the more I love it.  Chapter 2 is focused on getting students to select reading material.  One of the main focuses of this chapter is on teacher read alouds.  

I LOVE reading aloud to my students and I'm always amazed at how much they pay attention while I read.  Students love it too.  It seems a few years ago there was quite the controversy as to whether time should be "wasted" in the classroom on read alouds.  I think many teachers knew the value of it and found ways to make it happen.  

I was never asked to drop read aloud, but was asked to make in "meaningful" by incorporating think alouds and comprehension discussions during the read aloud.  I think, however, that sometimes we just need to read for fun.  Students aren't going to learn the pleasure of reading themselves if they never have the opportunity to just read for pleasure.  For this reason, the sole purpose of my read aloud time is enjoyment. We do some light discussion generally, but it's not required and not the sole purpose of our reading.

Here's a list of the books I read to my class last year: (Links will take you to the books on Amazon.)

The Hundred Dresses

I start most years out with this one to establish a tone of community with my class. 

The Witches

Whole class, everyone had a copy.  I used this one a little differently than other read alouds, it's my model for responding in our reading journals and intro lessons to comprehension strategies.

Flora & Ulysses: The Illuminated Adventures

I was able to attend a presentation by Kate DiCamillo in September 2014 where she talked about her new book.  So fun to hear all the background behind the story.  My students laughed through this book. 

Wonder

New to me this year, and wonderful!

Out of My Mind

New to me this year, recommended by a teammate, fabulous!

Because of Mr. Terupt

Again, new to me, recommended by Jen of Runde's Room, my students loved it.  There's a sequel that I opted not to read to my students nor have in my classroom library because of the nature of some of the situations.  The sequel might be best for Jr. High aged students. 

Next year I'm planning to start out with:

 The Hundred Dresses 

and then 

Maniac Magee, 

which will be the whole class shared reading like I did with The Witches.

Then we'll do a brand new book, The Fourteenth Goldfish, which comes out in August.

I was so blessed to receive an advanced copy of this book to read.  I stayed up all night last Tuesday to read it. I highly suggest it to any 3-6 student or class.  I'm joining the Global Read Aloud, which you can learn more about here.

What are your favorite read aloud books?

Crazy About Basketball - Book Review

I'm so excited to start bringing you book reviews!  I LOVE books, especially children and young adult books.  I don't read many adult fiction books.  Most of the "adult" books I read are education professional development books.  I'm super excited about this first book Crazy About Basketball!  It's a poetry book all about basketball.  It's the perfect poetry book to grab some of those readers in your class that are sports fans.  This may sound a little gender bias, I don't mean it to be, but I was surprised that the author is a woman.  That might surprise your students as well and capture some of the girls in your class that enjoy sports.

The book contains 36 poems all about basketball.  My favorite is titled "From the Ball's Point of View" and is very funny.  The poems also tell about the history of basketball, the love of the game, comparisons to other sports, techniques of the game, audience, preparation, and play.

I'm definitely adding this book to my poetry shelf for students and I'll be using some of the poems during my poetry reading and writing unit.  It's a super poetry resource.

And....I discovered the author has several more poetry and picture books!! Click on the covers to be taken to the book's amazon page.

Do you have a favorite sports poem or compilation of poems?

Note: I was provided an e-book copy of the book in this review by the publisher in exchange for my review.  The opinions expressed in this post are my own.  Links in this post refer to my amazon affiliate and I receive a small compensation for purchases made through these links.  Your purchase helps me keep Dilly Dabbles blog going and supports my classroom.