Genre Study of Mentor Texts Project

ED 325 Literacy in Middle Childhood

Genre

Title

Author

Illustrator

Brief Summary

Possible
Teaching Point

The Red
Book

Barbara
Lehman

Barbara
Lehman

This book tells the story of a

magical red book. The book
crosses oceans and continents
to help deliver one girl to a new
place, to meet a friend who she
saw in the pages of the red
book.

Write your own

story-have students
make up the plot;
name the
characters, and
setting of the story.
It will show their
understanding of
story book features,
while also providing
a great writing
sample.

A Ball for
Daisy

Chris
Raschka

Chris
Raschka

The pictures of this book tell

the story of a dog and her
favorite ball. The dog explores
the happiness of having her
ball, the sadness or have it
snatched away, and the
gratefulness for receiving a new
one.

Wordless
Story

Realistic
Fiction
The Hello,
Goodbye
Window

Norton
Juster

Chris
Raschka

The Recess
Queen

Alexis ONeil

Laura
HuliskaBeith

Janell

Janell

This story is about a young girl

and her relationship with her
grandparents. The kitchen
window of her grandparents
house is a special place for the
girl. The book celebrates the
wonders of childhood and takes
children to the familiar place of
a family home.
This story gives a fresh twist
to the issue of bullying. It
gives students a way to think
about conflict resolution. (which
happens without adult
intervention)

Knuffle
Bunny
When Sophie
got really
really angry
Animal
Fiction
Stellaluna

A mother bat and her baby,

Owen

Cannon

Cannon

Kevin Henkes

Kevin Henkes

Marcia
Vaughn

Derek Blanks

Stellaluna are attacked by an

owl and separated. Stellaluna
tries to find ways to survive
until one day she meets with
her mother again.
Owens parents try to get him
to get rid of his blanket with
advice from a nosey neighbor.
When theyre efforts fail they
come up with better solution to
make everyone happy.

Pete the Cat

Harry The
Dirty Dog
This Pigeon
Bear sleeps
for winter
Fly Guy
Historical
Fiction
Up the
Learning
Tree

A young slave boy risks his life

to learn to read and write, with
the help of a teacher from the
North, and begins to realize his
dream.

The
Gardener

Sarah
Stewart

David Small

A girl brings a large amount of

seeds to a big gray city to stay
with her uncle who owns a
bank. Bit by bit she works to
make people smile with the
flowers she grows. The book
depicts the Depression-era
setting.

The
Wretched
Stone

Chris Van
Allsburg

Chris Van
Allsburg

Where The
Wild Things
Are

Maurice
Sendak

Maurice
Sendak

Told from the perspective of

ship captain, whose crew finds
a strange glowing stone that
they become obsessed with.
Eventually the other men turn
into monkeys and leave the
captain to figure out how to
get rid of the trance of the
stone.
The story focuses on a young
boy named Max who is sent to
bed after not eating his dinner.
Maxs room turns into a jungle
environment where he meets,
plays with, and becomes the
king of unusual large creatures.

Fantasy

He eventually returns home

and finds dinner waiting.
Science
Fiction
Space Guys

Martha
Weston

Martha
Weston

A boy sees strange space aliens

in a tree outside his window and
neither his mom nor dad
believes him. Eventually the
aliens enter the house and an
adventure begins.
A small boy imagines a world
where dinosaurs come back and
perform public services.

If the
Dinosaurs
Came Back

Bernard
Most

Bernard
Most

Anansi Goes
Fishing

Eric A
Kimmel

Janet
Stevens

Anansi the spider sees his

friend Turtle catching fish.
Anansi is too lazy to catch his
own fish so he plans to try and
trick Turtle into catching one
for him. Little does he know his
plans will back-fire.
(African)

The Emperor
and the Kite

Jane Yolen

Ed Young

Princess Djeow is all but

ignored by her family and
spends most of her time playing

Folktale
Making inferences:
Even though it doesnt
say, we can infer that
Anansi actually doesnt
know Turtles plan of
having him do all the
work-we also can infer
this because earlier in
the story Anansi said
Turtle was too stupid
to trick him.
Discuss authors
message of the story.
(All people are
significant.)

with her kite. When her

father, the Emperor is
imprisoned, he saves him and
the kingdom by flying her kite
up to the tower to save him.
(Chinese)

Princess Djeow uses a

haiku in the story that
has a big effect on the
fate of the kingdom.
Make a haiku that
relates to the big
message of this story.

Read different
versions of
Cinderella from
around the world.
Use a Venn Diagram
to compare and
contrast the stories.
Discuss time period
and culture as
reflected by the
illustrations.

Fairy Tale

Tall Tales

Cinderella

Cynthia
Rylant

Mary Blair

Cinderella lives in a large castle

with her stepmother and two
step sisters after both her
mother and father have died.
She is treated as a lowly
servant until one day she
escapes and dances with the
prince at the ball.

The True
Story of the
Three Little
Pigs
Paul Bunyan

Jon Scieszka

Lane Smith

Steven
Kellogg

Steven
Kellogg

This books is a humorous

fractured fairy tale that twists
the point of view on a familiar
story for kids.
This book is about the story of
an extraordinary large
lumberjack whose size and
strength brought him many
fantastic adventures.

Johnny
Appleseed
Fable
The Lion and
The Mouse

Jerry Pinkey

Jerry Pinkey

This story tells the tale of a

mouse that accidently disturbs
a lion when he is sleeping. The
lion decides not to eat the
mouse and later the mouse
repays the lion by saving him
from a poachers net.

Compare/Contrast:
How are the lion and
mouse alike or
different? Are their
situations in this
story alike or
different?
*Compare more
animals that may not
seem like a likely
match and think how
they could be
helpful to one
another*

The Legend
of the
Bluebonnet

Tomie
DePaola

Tomie
DePaola

This is a story of how the

bluebonnet came to be. A
Comanche girl sacrifices a
precious possession in order to
help her people receive rain
during a drought. They receive

Practice retelling: put

the students in groups
to retell the story by
creating their own
version (check for
sequencing, setting,
characters actions
and feelings)

Myth or
Legend

the rain and another special

gift.
When the Kings precious
diamond is stolen, the grief
stricken ruler can no longer
guide the people and the
country falls into chaos. Then,
a clever young boy comes up
with a scheme is bring the
jewel back to the palace.

The Legend
of the
Persian
Carpet

Tomie
DePaola

Claire Ewart

The Life and

Work of
Calude
Monet

Sean
Connolly

Fiona
Osbaldstone

Biography about the life of

Claude Monet. (Simple book
with descriptions of life,
includes pictures)

A Picture
Book of Rosa
Parks

David A.
Adler

Robert
Casilla

A picture book explaining and

depicting the life of Rosa
Parks.

Find words in the

story and form them
into groups by their
digraphs (Sh, Ch, Wh,
Th) Ex: such, whisper,
theif, throne
*Have students match
the words to their
correct digraphs

Biography
Explore and learn
about Immpressionist
artworkand time eradescribe shapes, lights
and shadows, and time
of day in Monets
painting
Wheatstacks
Use this book during a
study of Civil Rights.
Discuss the traits of a
good leader. What
makes a good leader?
What does a good
leader do? To take it a
step further have
students explore a
leader and work to
write or visually create

an autobiography of
that person.

Poetry
My Parents
Think Im
Sleeping

Jack
Prelutsky

Yossi
Abolafia

A books of poems of what it is

like to go to bed and not to
sleep. Sometimes shadows keep
you up. Sometimes youre
hungry. This book explores
those things through poems.

All the
World

Liz Garton
Scanlon

Marla
Firazee

A book with a poem about the

world and its various places,
people, animals, scenery, etc.

Exploring rhyming
words. Find the words
that rhyme, use
highlighting tape to
mark the rimes. Let
children participate by
doing the same.
Encourage students to
find different words
that also rhyme.
Make text to self,
text to text, and text
to world connections.
*Ex: talk to students
about what they do on
a rainy day, if they
have a garden, etc. To
take it further, have
students write about
those experinces and
make a class book out
of them.*