Flora and Ulysses by Kate DiCamillo is about Flora who is a 10-year-old natural born cynic who lives by the phrase “Do not hope, observe”. Floras parents are divorced.  Her mother writes romance novels so she is always busy and her father visits only on weekends.  Flora greatly believes in superheroes and The Illuminated Adventures of the Amazing Incandesto is her favorite comic book.  This includes other comics at the back of each issue such as Terrible Things Can Happen to You, The Criminal Element and more. Whenever something tragic is occurring she refers to these skills throughout the story. She learns a lot from her comics.

One day she looks out her window and something unusual was happening; her neighbor was running with an out of control vacuum and before you know it she vacuums up a squirrel. Flora runs outside pulls the squirrel out and gives it CPR, the squirrel comes back to life and Flora names it Ulysses which was the name of the vacuum that almost took it. Flora then decides she’s going to keep the squirrel and slowly learns that it has superpowers and believes that it is because she got powered by the vacuum. Flora makes friends who help her protect the squirrel from the evil. She makes decisions to what the comics have taught her. The squirrel bring adventure for Flora and changes her life.

I can relate to this story because it reminds me of my childhood. I would sometimes recall lessons that I have learnt and make decisions accordingly. I think this is the whole point why we learn lessons, but I like the idea of how she gets them from comics. In the real world people think we can’t learn from comics or other related things as Flora’s mother believes she’s wasting her time but it is interesting to see how children take in with different perspectives.

I chose this book because it was animal related and I love animals. I think children will love reading this book or be read too because of the idea of having a pet squirrel with superpowers. I feel children are naturally more interested in books which have animal/pet characters.  Something I liked and different about this novel is the rephrasing, some common ones are “Holy Bagumba “, “Do not hope, observe” etc.  It is a fun read and I couldn’t guess on what’s going to happen next so I wanted to keep reading.

The series book I chose is King and Kayla the Case of the Missing Dog Treat. I like how this book is organized as solving a mystery. I believe children would like this book because of the character King (the dog) and also because of the concept itself of solving a mystery, this creates an excitement for children. I really like how King has his own voice and he tries very hard to make Kayla understand what he is thinking but she never does. The book was fun to read and the mystery is simple enough that children could figure it out with a little help, this is also something that I like because if there was a mystery in which children could not guess right it wouldn’t be as fun. The artwork in the book is simple and directly related to the situation, there is also a lot of expressions on king’s face showing what he thinks, this may also help children take in the dog’s perspective. The characters of the book are King the Dog, Kayla the owner, Jillian who is Kayla’s friend and Thor who is Jillian’s puppy for who the dog treats were made. Overall it is a great book for children and this series has three other books which are all mysteries and I will definitely keep in my collection to share with my children.An activity that I would do with my children is that I will create a mystery game having them think like detectives by observing the difference in the classroom with the time of three days and every day they record their findings.

From the Millers textbook Reading in the Wild, I love how she made reading included in many ways. Such as having friends who are readers, reading online in different ways and simply carrying a book with you wherever you go. I agree with her idea of not having children read continuously. The idea of breaking the time in intervals is great. It can help change a person’s reading habits by keeping the interest in reading instead of being bored of it and thinking of it as a task to complete. Reading continuously may also be too much to take in all the information or follow with the story. I will use the technique in my classroom by having other activities in between so that reading time could be split, it would be interesting to see how their excitement for reading is still obtainable.

I believe we all have grown up with fairytales and remember their morals throughout our lives. Growing up I have had moments in my life where I had to make decisions which were complicated and somewhere in my thought laid morals of right and wrong doings which would take me into conclusion. These fairytales certainly teach us and help us, I encourage them because they help create imagination in children and most are designed with morals.

In the Austria/Italy version of Little Red Riding Hood (Little Red Hat) they have taken things with darker content as regard to the way the writer has used body parts such as the grandma’s intestines for little red riding hood to open the door, her teeth to eat as rice, jaws as meat and blood as wine. I feel this version gives the reader a more frightening and cautious awareness that things can get really serious to where she is eaten up. In the other version “The Story of Grandmother” she gets saved by the wolf by realizing something isn’t right. In “Little Red Cap” her grandmother helps her. These many version of Little red riding hood are presented in various ways which suggest that there can be different consequences to a situation.

This fairytale teaches children many things such as to be careful when walking alone, to be alert to the persons behavior next to you, don’t talk/listen to strangers, follow your parent’s instructions.  Fairytales not only teach children lessons but also stimulate imagination and creativity. Therefore, I believe this trend should always continue.