Keely's Children's Literature Collection

Little House on the Prairie is a story by Laura Ingalls Wilder about when families began settling on the prairie. In particular, the story centers around the Ingall family as they move from their home in the woods to the empty prairie. Back then, families moved to settle the west were Indians live and begin building homes and eventually towns.  While this story does reflect a historical time period, it is a fictional story because none of the events that occurred in the story to the Ingall family did not occur. While the language is slightly advanced for 2nd graders and even 3rd graders, it does expose these students to more advanced language and can boost their language skill by seeing the language modeled  correctly for them.  The first time I experienced this book was actually this spring and I fell in love with it. However, I will admit that I did not read the entire book. The teacher I was interning with was reading the book to her students and I would sometimes ...

Cinderella Penguin by Janet Perlman is twisted version of the Disney Cinderella. While it follows the same story line as the normal Cinderella, a young girl who must be a maid for her step mother and step sisters that has a fairy godmother. Once the fairy godmother has made Cinderella into a beautiful ball ready girl she meets a prince that falls in love with her, searches for her by the shoe she left, and marries her. However, in Cinderella Penguin , the story is about a penguin rather than a girl.  Perlman does a great job illustrating and writing this book. While the language does have extremely simple language, it is simple enough that young readers have little to no difficulty reading this story. The use of slightly more advanced language, allows the students to broaden their language barriers. While the illustrations are very colorful and straight forward, they add a great visuals to the story which allows the students to see the story progress as they read. Other books w...

I am Abraham Lincoln by Brad Meltzer is a child friendly biography of the life of Abraham Lincoln from his youth into his presidency.  However, Meltzer does not touch on Lincoln's assassination because it is a bit graphic for children; even touching on the Gettysburg Address.  Meltzer uses words that children see and use on a daily basis, thus it is easy for the students to read and understand. This illustrator helped portray Lincoln as a child so that he was easier for the students to relate too. The illustrator also used bright colors and clean lines to clearly distinguish each of the illustrations.   This book is a great way to introduce preseidents to studnets, not to mention the several other books that Meltzer wrote that give biographies on other historical events and people. Thanks to the illustrations and the simple language, it is easy to teach students about history based on these books.  Other books by Meltzer include: I am Rosa Parks  I am A...

   In this version of Goldilocks, the author sticks very close to the storyline of the original story and contains words that are easily read. In the beginning, we are introduced to a family of bears who are about to set down to a nice breakfast when they realize that their porridge is too hot to eat so they take a walk. While on their walk, a young girl manages to make her way into the home of the bears and make herself comfortable. Goldilocks eats the baby bear’s porridge, breaks his chair, and falls asleep in his bed. When the bears arrive back and find that someone has been in their house they make their way to the bedroom and find Goldilocks still asleep. But when Goldilocks awakens to see the bears, she gets frightened and runs away never to be seen by the bears again.      Galdone does a great job at  using color, sketch, and outline style to make the images really jump off the page. He tries his best to stick mostly to basic colors throughout ...

A Million Fish...More or Less by Patricia C. McKissack is about a young African American boy who is fishing along the Bayou Clapateaux. The young boy, Hugh, hears stories about how strange the bayou can be from Papa Daddy and Elder Abbajon. After Papa Daddy Elder Abbajon leave, Hugh catches a miilion fish, however the gators come along and he gives away half of his fish. Then again, as he is walking home he gets stopped by raccoons who cut his fish in half again. Once back in his neighborhood, Hugh gets duped again by a cat who only leaves him with three fish of the million he started out with.   It is always said that the bayou is a strange place and throughout this story Hugh finds out just how strange it can be. This book also opens the door for students to begin exploring the Creole culture which believes in strange happenings, especially in the bayou.    The language that McKissack uses in this book is relatively easy for all readers to read fluently while being ...

   Just Plain Fancy by Patricia Polacco is a story about a young Amish girl as she learns a new part about her religion/ culture. It is Naomi's job to care for the family's chickens and one day she comes across a rather fancy egg in the yard. Hoping it will hatch, Naomi places the egg under Henny. Once the egg hatches, Naomi and Ruth find a fancy baby bird which they name Fancy. Later that night, the two sisters here a story about a woman in their community who was too Fancy so she was shunned from the church and kicked out of the Amish community; Ruth and Naomi begin to fear that Fancy will be shunned so they lock him in the chicken coop so the elders do not see him. However, Fancy escapes and before Naomi can catch him, her secret is out. While she pleads that the animal not be shunned for being too fancy, an elder explains to her that Fancy is a peacock, one of God's most beautiful creation and that he would not be shunned.    This children's book opens the mi...