Hesse, Karen. (2008). Spuds. Watson, W. (illus.) New York, New York: Scholastic Press.
Brief Annotation: Three children decide to glean potatoes from a neighbor's field at night to help supplement their mother's meager salary. They return only to find their bags mostly full of potato-sized rocks, and their mother angry at them for stealing. When they return the bags to the farmer, he thanks them for taking the rocks from his field, and lets them keep the potatoes they did find. They return home for a potato feast.
Genre: Historical fiction picture book
Grade Level: K-3
Readers who will like this: Readers who like reading about family, readers who like a story with a happy ending, readers interested in children in other historical periods.
Response/Rating (1-4): 4. The drawings are warm and loving, as is the story. I think that the story could elicit interesting discussions topics about poverty, family and kindness.
One question you would ask before a read aloud: Is it OK to take something that someone isn't going to use, if you feel you really need it?
Reading Strategies Connection: I would use a "feelings chart" (Yopp & Yopp, p. 87-89) to help students track the emotions of the characters through this book. First, the teacher helps the students make a list of the important plot events in a column on the left side of a large sheet of paper (or board). Across the top of the paper, the teacher would put the major character's names (the children, Ma, Mr. Kennedy). Then the teacher asks the students to fill in the chart, finding single words to describe how those characters feel at different points in the plot. This book has an interesting emotional arc to it that this activity will help the students to trace, as well as working on their emotional adjective vocabularies.
Brief Annotation: Three children decide to glean potatoes from a neighbor's field at night to help supplement their mother's meager salary. They return only to find their bags mostly full of potato-sized rocks, and their mother angry at them for stealing. When they return the bags to the farmer, he thanks them for taking the rocks from his field, and lets them keep the potatoes they did find. They return home for a potato feast.
Genre: Historical fiction picture book
Grade Level: K-3
Readers who will like this: Readers who like reading about family, readers who like a story with a happy ending, readers interested in children in other historical periods.
Response/Rating (1-4): 4. The drawings are warm and loving, as is the story. I think that the story could elicit interesting discussions topics about poverty, family and kindness.
One question you would ask before a read aloud: Is it OK to take something that someone isn't going to use, if you feel you really need it?
Reading Strategies Connection: I would use a "feelings chart" (Yopp & Yopp, p. 87-89) to help students track the emotions of the characters through this book. First, the teacher helps the students make a list of the important plot events in a column on the left side of a large sheet of paper (or board). Across the top of the paper, the teacher would put the major character's names (the children, Ma, Mr. Kennedy). Then the teacher asks the students to fill in the chart, finding single words to describe how those characters feel at different points in the plot. This book has an interesting emotional arc to it that this activity will help the students to trace, as well as working on their emotional adjective vocabularies.
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