Tuesday, March 1, 2011

Miss Malarkey Leaves No Reader Behind by Judy Finchler and Kevin O’Malley (Realistic/Historical Fiction)

     
            Miss Malarkey is a teacher who thinks reading is the finest thing a person can do. Each year Miss Malarkey promises her students that she will find them each a book they will love by the end of the school year. But something is different and special about this school year; this year the school is joining the “Everybody Reads in America” program. By participating in this program the school is supposed to read 1,000 books by June 12th.  The school Principal Wiggins tells the students if they can read that many books then he will dye his hair purple and sleep on the roof of the school. The only problem is a group of Miss Malarkey’s students don’t enjoy reading. By December Miss Malarkey has passed out many book lists in hopes of grabbing her students’ interest but she hasn’t won many people over. Throughout the spring semester Miss Malarkey continues to give the students a new book with a different genre; but still not much luck. By the time June comes all but one of her students has started to enjoy reading. On June 10th, the school has an assembly because they are just one book away from their goal. With only two days remaining can Miss Malarkey find a book for her last student to read so the school reaches their goal? 

            After reading this book to the class, I would have them work in small groups to create a list of books they enjoy reading as students. (This list would give the title, author and a short description of the book.) Once the students have had time to make their list we would come together as a class and compile/organize our list based on genre. After we have done this I would hang the lists throughout the room so the students can always use them as a reference if they want to read a good book. Therefore, my students will never have the problem like Miss Malarkeys’ students had. 

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