Rita Golden Gelman
illustrated by Mort Gerberg
This is supposed to be a leveled reader, but it's one of the books we have worn the cover off of with so many readings. A great book about Minnie monkey, who is so committed to her love of spaghetti, she has found a way to incorporate it into everything she does....skiing, biking, and so on! Unfortunately, she takes a good thing too far and gets sick from eating too much spaghetti. Great ending, and one that your little pre-reader will be proud to take over reading someday soon!
images via mortgerbergbooks.com
Enrichment Idea: I just realized my last few books have involved food somehow. I usually write these reviews late at night when the jodos are in bed, and a bowl of spaghetti actually sounds really good right now. I love letting kids do messy, fun things. Make a pile of spaghetti just to play with. Squish it, pile it, talk about what it would feel like to stand on a mountain of spaghetti. This might be a good time to talk about how your body feels when it is full.
If you're careful with hand washing, you could probably make a cold spaghetti dish to accompany dinner.
Another Idea: Watch Freddy's face throughout the story. He is very expressive of his feelings when he's excited, when Minnie says she won't play with him, and in other ways. A good book to identify how what we say makes people feel good/bad.
Don't Buy It!!! Get it free!!! Scholastic and Barilla Pasta have teamed to give you a copy of "More Spaghetti, I Say" when you send in 2 UPCs from Barilla Piccolini pasta packages. Only catch is it has to be the Piccolini pasta--I guess they are mini-versions of adult pasta. The printable coupon available on that link is good for $1 off when you buy 3 boxes. This book is available in Spanish on Buy.com
Want another great book about pasta? Strega Nona by Tomie dePaola is another fantastic must-read book. I couldn't leave it out!!
image via classweb.dctc.mnscu.edu
5 comments:
What is a leveled reader?
The top right hand corner of the book has a number to indicate what "level" of difficulty this book is. Teachers use books like this in guided reading groups to accomodate varying reading abilities in the same classroom. The higher the number, the more difficult the book. I'm more familiar with leveling with letters (A being the lowest).
You can level regular books too (I LOVE it when teachers do that!). Here's a site that has leveled some "regular" books to make it easier for you to find books at your child's reading level. http://home.comcast.net/~ngiansante/ Keep in mind, leveling is subjective. This book list has Harry Potter books at the 5.3 grade (1/3 way through the 5th grade). Other lists might put those books at a higher level.
The number on "More Spaghetti, I Say" is related to the set it came in, so don't just assume it would be the same as another "level 2" book in another leveled reader set.
Your librarian will be able to guide you to "leveled readers" like "More Spaghetti, I Say".
Thanks for the info! This looks like such a cute book- we are going to be saving our UPC's!
I LOVE STREGA NONA!!!! Especially if you have any connection/ties to Italy it's a fun book to read.
These books look great and I love the idea of just letting the kids getting all messy and playing with the spagetti. I know Tori would espeically enjoy that right now! All that squishiness would be delightfull to her!
I love Strega Noga too! Brings back good memories! Loved it growing up!
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