The Pigeon Wants a Puppy! By Mo Willems
Picture book: grades PreK-2
5 stars
The Pigeon wants a lot of things, including a puppy. He really wants a puppy. Finally a puppy shows up and he comes to the realization that puppies are really big and have sharp teeth and decides that he doesn’t really want a puppy anymore. The pigeon wants a walrus instead.
I loved this book so much that I had to buy it. The Pigeon has a simple yet hilarious personality. The story starts before the book actually starts. On the first page you see a list of “Things I Want 1. Drive a bus 2. Eat a hot dog…” The pictures are as simple as the text. There is a solid, light background color and the pigeon doing its thing, freaking out over a puppy. This book is fantastic and I would suggest it to everyone.
This book is clearly for the lower grades. It would be good for students in a way to start recognizing common greetings. For example, the first couple of pages say, “Oh, hello. How are you? I’m fine. Thanks for asking.” These obviously want us to reply and it is good for children to become knowledgeable of different ways to greet people. Also, you could use this book as a intro to writing in their writer’s notebooks. The students could write about what they want and why they want it.
I like your idea about using this book as an intro to writing in their writer's notebook, as although I haven't read this story yet, the idea of wanting something so badly that they freak out over it is very common for kids in the primary grades. From the cover I can see that this book is hilarious, I'm going to have to check this out from library! Also, I think the way that the pigeon comes to the realization that he doesn't want a puppy after actually seeing one in real life teaches a valuable lesson for kids.
ReplyDelete