My Friend Rabbit

My Friend Rabbit

By: Eric Rohmann

My Friend Rabbit is an amazing beginner reader book. It doesn’t have many words and the pictures are phenomenal. Rohmann has an amazing ability to tell the story with his pictures. Half of the book doesn’t even have words in it. He will begin a phrase with words and then let the reader finish it off in his head by looking at the pictures. This book talks about a friendship that can’t be ruined no matter what crazy things that someone does. This is a great message to send out to kids because they want to know that their friendships are things that are going to last.

The story has two main characters: Rabbit and Mouse. It begins with Rabbit helping Mouse fly in his airplane. But misfortune strikes and Rabbit gets the plane stuck in the tree. Mouse was warning the readers about such things happening when Rabbit is around. “My friend Rabbit means well. But whatever he does, wherever he goes, trouble follows.” Mouse says this right at the beginning of the book. It is something that the author wants the reader to think about as the book goes on. So when Mouse and Rabbit look at the plane in the tree, Rabbit gets a brilliant idea and begins to collect animals from all over the place. He brings an elephant, a rhinoceros, a hippopotamus, an antelope, an alligator, a bear, some ducks, and a squirrel. Rabbit then proceeds to stack these animals on top of one another until the plane is almost in reach. Then just as mouse gets to the plane, the entire stack of animals falls over. Then Mouse saves his friend from the angry mob of animals and they fly away… at least until Rabbit covers Mouse’s eyes and they get stuck right back in the tree. And Rabbit gets another idea... But the author never reveals what it is.

I believe that this book connects to the chapter because it is a picture book. It may be the book that teachers would choose for their students to read, but the students that love to look at pictures would love this book. The student has to pick his own book to read if the teacher or parent wants him to become a literate reader. Not just someone who can read, but someone who likes to read. On page 49 of the book, the author talks about his son who wanted to learn about Thomas Jefferson. The father helped him find books and then encouraged him to continue reading by listening to what his son had learned. This is a good example of how I think My Friend Rabbit fits into the chapter. With the Thomas Jefferson case, the student picked a book that was out of his skill level, but because he wanted to read it, he did. With My Friend Rabbit, a student might pick it because of the pictures, but then fall in love with the story and then read other things by that same author. It is just about letting the student pick his own reading material.

CRR 1 Weslandia

Weslandia

By: Paul Fleischman

Weslandia is about a boy that doesn’t fit in with his peers. He is constantly being made fun of for trying to be different. He doesn’t like pizza, soda, or sports. So he isn’t the average kid. After school each day, his mother asks him what he learned. So everyday he told her. The three days that are mentioned here in the book are Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. On Wednesday he learned about how seeds are carried in the wind. On Thursday he learned about how each civilization has a staple food crop. On Friday he told his mom that his teacher said that he should find a good summer project. That is when the light bulb in Wesley’s head turned on. He decided that he would grow his own staple crop and from that start his own civilization.

That very next day Wesley goes outside and tills an area for his staple crop to grow. That night, the wind planted Wesley’s garden. His crop begins to grow. And soon it is taller than he is! And Wesley can’t find the name of this plant anywhere. The plant produces an amazing fruit. Wesley says that it tastes like peaches, strawberries, pumpkin pie, and many other unnamable flavors. He then discovered that he could make hats from the roots and clothing from the soft inner fibers of the plants. The oil from the plant worked as sun tan lotion and bug repellent. This is the part of the book when the kids that used to pick on Wesley want to play in his garden and be a part of this adventure that he is having.

Throughout the rest of the book, Wesley invents sports to play, he makes a hammock to sleep in, and he creates a new counting system which was based upon the number eight. He makes a sundial in the middle of the garden based on his new counting system. At the end, he creates a whole alphabet and records the history of Weslandia in his new language. When Wesley returns to school, the picture shows him walking on the sidewalk wearing his clothes that he made with a bunch of other children following him wearing the same kinds of clothes. This shows that Wesley made friends by involving them in what he liked to do, not conforming to the other children. As the book says, “he had no shortage of friends.”

I believe that this book connects to the chapter because of the way Wesley creates his own culture. Wesley creates his own “civilization” and soon develops a culture to go along with it. The clothes, sports, alphabet, language, and numerical system created a unique experience when the other children entered into Weslandia. In the beginning of the book, Wesley didn’t fit into the pizza, soda, and professional football loving culture that all of the other children were a part of. So when he gets his idea to create his own civilization, the other students want to come and join in and become a part of his culture.

I believe that children would be able to connect with this book because most children have experienced bullying at one point in time. Wesley was bullied and made fun of at the beginning of the book because he did not fit in with his peers. I think that kids can connect with that on some level. As the Child’s Voice section of the book says on page 27:

My favorite Patricia Polacco book is Thank you Mr. Falker because Mr. Falker helped Patricia with reading and writing and Mrs. Altland my teacher helped me with things I have trouble with. Patricia was a good artist in school and I ove art and I draw a lot. I think the message in this book is it doesn’t matter if you are different you always can do something good.

This student responded to the book on a personal level because she could see the characters point of view. I think that students would respond similarly to Weslandia. Even though not every kid wants to go and create their own civilization, many want to have a club house or an escape where the possibilities are endless. And Paul Fleischman gave children that kind of place with this book.