Last week I had some classroom visits at a private Jewish school in the town where I work. They requested some Passover stories, so I scoured through our county system’s titles and eventually found a few for read-alouds. I was disappointed to find a shortage of exciting titles for the K-3 set. I’m by no means an expert on books for Jewish holidays, so there may be great titles out there that I just didn’t find in my library system. Some of the books would work for older kids, but they weren’t that well suited for story time. Too long, kind of dull, or very serious content matter like death and the Holocaust. There were some gems, though. In the end, I only read two of the Passover books I brought with me due to timing issues (I filled in short gaps with silly poems from Shel Silverstein and Jack Prelutsky).
Tag: storytime
This is a classic for story time. I know there are a great many books out there that are newer, more colorful, and more popular these days. But I come back to this one a lot. The illustrations are right up my alley, simple but very expressive. And more than any other book, this one gave me the most practice with my animal voices. When I did my elementary student teaching at PS 75 in Manhattan, this was a mainstay in the read aloud rotation. And Dee and Lisa, I must say that now when I do the book myself, my “SNORT!” is pretty darn good.