QUESTION: One Book One School suggstions?

[Joan Axthelm]

Hi all -

Another Elementary question - so glad you are here!

My school is brainstorming a good book for a school-wide reading project, K-5. We are looking for a book to read at all K-5 grade levels, so it needs to be appropriate for the whole age range. In the past, the book was a chapter book that had a lot of pictures to help make it more accessible to the wide age range, but interesting to the 4th and 5th graders. I suggested some picture books, but they were deemed too short.

The idea is to have one chapter read at school, one at home, and so forth. At school, themes and ideas from the book are capitalized on. For example, the school ordered Chinese food for lunch when reading Alvin Ho, which was a big hit.

Any great ideas?  The teachers I have talked with loved the irreverence and humor of Alvin Ho, but Andy Griffith's The Day my Butt Went Psycho seemed a bit over the top for them. 

Many thanks!

[Mindi Maneck]

Hi, Joan.

Our school has done The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo and last year had a successful One School, One Book with The World According to Humphrey by Betty Birney (that was my first year. It was quite fun; I made this video with our student support specialist to get our students interested in the book). This year we're considering Kenny and the Dragon by Tony DiTerlizzi and The Castle in the Attic by Elizabeth Winthrop. 

Just a few thoughts!

Cheers,

Mindi

[Joan Axthelm]

What a great video! I love that idea for instilling interest in the book. And your suggestions are great. I remember Castle in the Attic from when I was a kid and I can imagine the carboard  castles in the playground!

What kinds of things, besides the great video, has your school done to make connections with the books you read for One School, One Book?

Thanks for the suggestions,

Joan

[Joan Axthelm]

Mindi -

I have to admit that I was skeptical about The World According to Humphrey, but after reading it am I so sold! What a heart warming book! I love how Humphrey looks into so many lives without judgement and with such love. What a model for all of us.

Thanks for the suggestion,

Joan

[Mindi Maneck]

You're welcome, Joan. I'm glad you liked it! I thought it was such a sweet book, too. There are more (which my students love; I haven't read them because, well, it's just too much!).

I'm sorry it's taken a while to respond. Some of the other activities that we did:

-to promote interest in the book without giving it away, we stuck little word bubbles that said "Squeak!" all around the school in odd spots

-we had a rally to kick off the book, and showed the video and had the puppet Humphrey at a table (it was me, under the table) talk to our student support specialist about the book (Humphrey just nodded and got excited about things)

- different classrooms did different activities. Some wrote postcards from the teacher and tied it into a geography lesson of sorts. I think a first grade classroom made a hamster run out of recycled materials.

- we invited some seniors from a local senior living facility to read to the students during recess (it was winter). Students and senior friends really loved this!

I hope those ideas help. I don't know how applicable they are to your school population, but maybe they'll spark some ideas. Good luck!

Cheers,

Mindi