Los Gatos Black on Halloween by Marisa Montes. Illustrated by Yuyi Morales.
This book has become one of my favorites. The illustrations alone make it worth reading. They are beautiful and I notice something new on each page every time I read this book. The rhyme and rhythm of the book is also very nice. It has English and Spanish words. Even though I do not speak Spanish I can infer the meaning of the Spanish words due to the context of the page. The poetic story was fun and a little scary in a light hearted way. The ending was fantastic. What ghosts, mummies, witches and zombies are most terrified of are little kids dressed up in their Halloween costumes trick-or-treating at night. I think kids of all ages would enjoy this book. I would definitely use this book in my class room. However, I would try to be careful. I do not want to scare children or offend anyone's religion. I haven't quite figured out what I would do in order to avoid these problems. I would present the book in a fun way and talk before hand about ghosts and witches not being real. I would use this book around Halloween. By then I would hopefully know my students and possibly their parents well enough to guess whether any of the students or the parents might have a problem with the book.
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2 comments:
First, Christian, thanks for the peaches. Second, a few lines down in your blog, you might correct the spelling of the word Spansih (you've got it as spans). And third, about how to deal with a book like this: I wonder, if everything about Walmart, the neighborhood, school, and sometimes even church points to it being Halloween, because our kids are in that mode, would they be less likely to get spooked by a book like this. It's in the spirit, you know. And both Lukas and Mikah love going to Walmart and Home Depot when the motion dectection ghouls are out. I agree, it is visually very very very appealling.
This was a good book and I too enjoyed the illustrations. I think the author did a great job as not to try to frighten the children. I too might have a problem trying to figure out how to use this book in my class because of parent's reactions. I think a newsletter would be a great way to inform the parents about upcoming reads.
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