It's been a busy year in THE PIT, I've already shared 10 fun read alouds with the kids, and some are already coming out on top as favorites. Here are three that have been HUGE hits in THE PIT!Dinosaur vs. The Library by Bob Shea: I read Dinosaur vs. Bedtime a couple of years ago and it was so much fun (that means LOUD) that when I saw the dinosaur was taking on the library, I had to read it in THE PIT. It doesn't disappoint and probably my favorite part are the baby chicks that look a lot like tennis balls with legs that follow the dinosaur through the story. When the dinosaur arrives at the library and the text says something about roaring where no one has roared before, there was always at least one of my kids that said, "Except for this library, you roar all the time!" I guess I've earned the title of The Loud Librarian and I wear it proudly. This is the second Bob Shea I've read this year, we also did I'm a Shark to the delight of the Bailey students. I can't wait until February when Bob Shea will visit Dublin for our annual Dublin Literacy Conference. After viewing his video about the Dinosaur books, I'm pretty impressed with his roaring!
I Want My Hat Back by Jon Klassen: I LOVE THIS BOOK! The bear loses his hat and walks through the woods asking various animals if they have seen it. The rabbit is wearing a red pointy hat but denies
everything. In the end the bear solves the mystery and gets his hat back. This creates a new mystery, what happened to the rabbit? We discussed this in THE PIT, does he eat the rabbit? sit on and squash the rabbit? stuff the rabbit back in the hat and put it on his heat? It's up to the reader, but the bear does have a bit of a denial problem just like the rabbit. My favorite reaction to the book came from Franki at A Year of Reading. As she read the book she kept saying that she didn't see what was so funny, when she got to the end, she totally cracked up and was hooked! It was such a sudden change in responses to the book that it made me laugh too!
King Hugo's Huge Ego by Chris Van Dusen: I love a good rhyming story and this is a good rhyming story. King Hugo is a little man with a, well, you probably guessed it, a huge ego. He goes around making people bow down to him and speechifying about how wonderful he is. When he crosses a sorceress, she casts a spell that causes his head to swell every time he brags. By the end he's looking like a Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade balloon.
As with all fairy tales, he finds out the reason for his fat head and changes his way. Just a heads up, this one has a bit of a romantical ending that made me break into a little bit of "Love is a Many Splendored Thing" and caused a good bit of squirming in THE PIT!
