Let's Talk Books: The 12 Days of Kindergarten...and Winter...and Springtime...

Hello!  I'm guessing most of you are moseying over from Mrs. Jump's linky that I'm feeling so lucky to be a part of.  Welcome!  Let's talk books, shall we?

Sometimes we love a book for the story, and sometimes we love it for the illustrations, and okay, most of the time we love it for both.

The series of 12 Days books written by Deborah Lee Rose is very well written.  She follows the format of the song "The 12 Days of Christmas" using the themes of Kindergarten, Springtime, and Winter in a way that's oh-so-cute.

But the illustrations.

Oh the illustrations!

At first they might not seem all that special.  But then you look, and look, and look and you just can't stop looking because Carey Armstrong-Ellis has just packed each page full of details that are a story in themselves.

See the this little girl?  She's always drawing or doing something with horses.  What does that tell us about her?  Let's make an inference!

And this little boy is always making a mess and that little girl always seems to have her stuffed, um, something, nearby.

And then there's this little boy

and yes, to the delight of Kindergarteners everywhere, he is picking his nose on each and every page of all three books.  :)

While making inferences is a logical use for this story, I use The Twelve Days of Winter as a Writer's Workshop mini-lesson book.  Do you see where I'm going with this?

For some reason I find right around January some of my author/illustrators become stinky illustrators and a lot of the writing gets a tiny bit boring.  Now, every January, I whip out The Twelve Days of Winter and we laugh at and point out all of the wonderful, glorious details that Carey Armstrong-Ellis added.  And then we talk about how we can illustrate (and write) like she does.

If you've never read these books, I hope that you'll look into them.  They're so much fun!

And speaking of fun, I'm working on a fun, new project that I'm hoping to unveil next week.  Want 3 clues?

1. It has to do with books.
2. It's very punny.
3. I'm using a TON of red paper to create it.

Any guesses?  Come back next week and see if you're right!
Amanda

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