Picnic

McCully, E. A. (1984). Picnic. New York: HarperCollins.

Brief Annotation: The mouse family heads off to the country for a picnic, but when they arrive at their destination, one member of the family is missing! They retrace their journey and the littlest member of the family is found, safe and sound.

Genre: Animal Fantasy, Wordless Picturebook

Grade Level: Pre S through K

Readers who will like this: Children who enjoy animals as main characters, children who are developing their storytelling abilities, children who would benefit from a main character who bravely deals with adversity

Response/Rating (1-4): 4, This simple picturebook provides children with a wonderful example of a character who remains strong in spite of separation from her family. The bright colorful illustrations and appealing characters will delight young storytellers as they share in the joy of the little mouse reuniting with her family. The topic “being lost and what actions to take” provides good classroom discussion material.

One question you would ask before a read aloud: What should you do if you are lost or separated from family or caregivers? For example, if you were at the Mall of America?

Reading Strategies Connection: Graphic Organization-Story Mapp (Yopp and Yopp, p. 75). By developing a story map, young children are able to understand the sequence of events as well as improve their critical thinking skills. Following a reading of the story, the teacher can began a class discussion by asking the students about the setting, characters and a problem that occurs. Next, children discuss the events and complications the characters encountered. The last element of the story map “solutions” lets children discuss various ways in which the problem is solved or could have been solved.