Act it Out

Kevin Henkes Kitten's First Full Moon is a sweet tale of a little kitten who is convinced that the full moon is actually a huge bowl of milk.  The illustrations are simple black and white sketches with thick outlining. What is great about the illustrations is that they filled with details but not cluttered.  I easily tell what the kitten is thinking and feeling without even looking at the words.

One of the hidden gems of this book is that it has a repeating line.  Picture books are meant to be read aloud and repeating lines are a great way to involve kids who cannot yet read.  I read this to Eva and she quickly picked up on the pattern and could "read" that repeating line along with me each time.  But she got even more involved than that.  When I read aloud I try to ask a couple of questions here and there to help the children relate to the book (in fancy reading specialist speech we call this 'encouraging text to self connections').

I asked Eva if she thought the moon looked like a bowl of milk.  Immediately she spat out, "No."  But then as she continued talking this is what came out, "it looks like you poured milk into a really big glass, or like a bowl...oohhh."  Eva then let herself really connect with the book and she tried to lick the milk out of the moon. She acted out every move the kitten made and just delighted in the story.  In spite of this the pictures were still, "too black and white."  Oh well, you can't win everything.

Delighting in story...that's kids stuff.