katieritoch's reviews
509 reviews

Dear Baobab is a sweet story about a boy named Maiko who lives with his aunt and uncle but moved from his village in Africa. Maiko has a hard time fitting in and misses his baobab tree back home. Maiko soon finds identity in a tree outside his window that is the same age as he is. The tree is in the foundation of his house but his uncle Peter makes it work until the tree is too big. Eventually, Maiko finds his place in America. This book is a more realistic side of immigration and would be great for teaching about immigration and how sometimes immigrants miss their home and their home cultures.


Assignment #5

The Keeping Quilt is about a girl telling the story of her great grandmother. She tells the story of how her grandmother comes to America from Russia and how she misses home so much, her mother makes her a quilt out of her relatives things to remind her of home. The quilt ends up becoming a keepsake in their family and is used for weddings and babies for generations to come. This story is a great introduction to immigration and different cultures in primary classrooms. I would use this story to start a unit on immigration and different cultures in a younger classroom.

Assignment #5

The Name Jar is about a little girl named Unhei who moves to America from Korea. In America, Unhei feels that she doesn’t fit in so she tries to choose an American name. In the end, Unhei chooses her name again and Joey, her new friend chooses a Korean name for himself. This book is great for teaching about immigration and culture. I didn’t necessarily like how the teachers and other children encourage Unhei to choose a new name until the end. I would use this book with caution in my classroom.


Assignment #5

The Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle is about a ladybug who is grumpy and moves from place to place offering to fight other animals. Each time the ladybug says the animal is not big enough and moves on until they come back to the original leaf and share the aphids with the other ladybug. This book is great for teaching children time as each page starts with naming the time and has a picture of the sun at that specific time of the day. This book would also be a good book to use to teach kindness in the classroom and how we should be kind to others. The illustrations as per usual with Eric Carle books are fantastic.

Please, Open This Book is a cute story told from the point of view of the book characters. The characters urge the reader to not close the book as they are still repairing from the last time a reader shut the book. The book has good illustrations and is a funny book. This book would be great for early and intermediate readers and would be great for a class read aloud. This book is very simple and doesn’t a storyline so unfortunately doesn’t have many uses for the classroom.

Little Red Riding Hood by Jerry Pinkney is the traditional rendition of the classic fairytale. The illustrations are very nice and help to set the scene well. This book would be a great one to use when teaching about fairytales since it’s one all kids know. Although, this book isn’t as creative as some of the other Red Riding Hood stories.

Assignment #2

This book is one of the most adorable books I’ve ever read. The book had nice illustrations and would be great for showing pictures or teaching poetry. The Littlest Things Give the Loveliest Hugs goes through a series of small animals and how they give the best hugs. It would be a nice book for small children. The book is a little personal for teaching, I think but would be great for reading/giving to kids you are related to or friends’ kids.

Assignment #1