WUMBERS by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Tom Lichtenheld

I was thrilled to receive a review copy of WUMBERS from Chronicle Books. I am a huge Amy Krouse Rosenthal fan and love the fun that she has with words. The heading of the press release says, "GR8 NEW BOOK IS 1DERFULLY SILLY".  The entire book is told using numbers as parts of words as in the press release heading.  Each page sets the scene and the words and numbers work together to tell the story.  Reading the book feels like solving a riddle and I can see kids having a great time playing with this kind of writing once they read this book.  The author/illustrator team say that the book was inspired by William Steig's C D B! book so it would be fun to pair these. This seems like a great time for a book like this because kids see so much of this kind of word play in their lives with texting, Twitter, etc.

One of my favorite parts of this book are the endpages. There are several talking bubbles with questions for readers using numbers/words to ask the questions. For example, one of my favorites is, "Are you usually prompt or do you 10d 2 be l8 and keep others w8ing?"  Even the dedication, the author bios and the title page include fun with word/number combinations!

I love the whole idea of this book and can't wait to share it with kids. I'll keep it with my word play books but I think it will be a good one to use early in the school year when we are learning about keeping a writer's notebook. Playing with words like this is a fun thing that I think lots of kids might want to try if given the invitation.  It will be fun to see what they come up with!

January Mosaic and A New Photographic Focus

This year, my Project 365 has a new focus.

I'm going to collect photos of numbers and letters (actual and representations). By the end of the year, I'll be able to make my own Alpha-Numeric picture book through the iPhoto store!

Top row:
0 (garden stepping stone)
0 (knot in wood)
0 (classroom sink strainer)
00 (rings around the moon)

Row two:
00 (condensed milk can)
00 (goofy glasses)
1 (hemlock cone)
2 (hemlock cones)

Row three:
3 (oak leaves on the oak that's growing in the geranium on my classroom windowsill -- formerly the geranium on my front porch!)
3 (hemlock cones -- one of my favorite pictures of all time -- love the light and the sky...)
4 (acorn split by squirrels)
4 (number on sign at the deaf school soccer field)

Row four:
5 (sweet gum leaf)
12 (bloggers + 1 big red dog)
A (fence along McConnell walking trails)
Avocado Mismatch (not really part of the ABC/123 project)

Row five:
S (vine along McConnell walking trails)
W (tree trunks along McConnell walking trails)
Winter (not really part of the ABC/123 project; along McConnell walking trails)
Y (rabbit track in the snow along McConnell walking trails)

Numbers and Letters

City Numbers
by Joanne Schwartz
photos by Matt Beam
Groundwood Books, 2011
review copy provided by the publisher

I'll admit, I'm a little surprised to be reviewing this book. Photographs of numbers around you in the city? Big deal. The book starts with 000. Not much of a surprise. Next up is... 1/2 ?? Hmm... Then 1, and... 2nd (second). That's exactly how long it took me to be hooked -- as soon as I wasn't sure what was going to happen on the next page, I was eager to see what number came next and where it was found. (Each two page spread has the photo on the right, and on the left, the number, in digits and words, and the location and media. 2nd is "Printed on paper, pasted on steel. Electrical box." Besides cardinal and ordinal numbers, the book includes decimals, percents, prices, and one iconic number: 007 ("Double-O Seven").

Two things happened when I read this book.

1. I said to myself, "I can do that." And then a half a heart-beat later, I said, "I'm going to do that!!" Here is my theme for my photos in 2012: I am going to look for numbers in my environment in all varieties of  media, location, and form. Suddenly, I feel reinvigorated to continue my personal Project 365 for a fourth (FOURTH!!!) year.

2. I wanted to get this pair's book City Alphabet and see what they did with letters and words in a similar format. I will not limit myself to numbers next year, I will also look for words and letters. Maybe. Maybe I need to be patient and stay focused on one theme at a time...hmm...stay tuned for a decision on that one.

E-Mergency!
by Tom Lichtenheld and Ezra Fields-Meyer
Chronicle Books, 2011
review copy provided by the publisher

Which letter in the alphabet is used with the most frequency?

E!

What happens when E comes down the stairs too fast and breaks her leg?

An E-mergency! E is taken away in the ambulance and A assembles the rest of the alphabet to discuss how they will proceed without the letter E. "Someone is going to have to take the place of E while she gets better. O, you're the obvious option because you're so well-rounded."

This is a VERY punny book. If you don't get that from A's choice of replacement letters, check this out:




I can't wait to share this book with my students. I'll put it under the document camera and we'll study every page for visual and verbal puns. And we'll all laugh when we solve the mystery of why E is not recovering: Who is STILL using Es, even though they've been forbidden so that E can rest and recover??? (oops--so that E can rost and rocovor...)

EDITED TO ADD (in the voices of my students)


This book was really funny!
We enjoyed the book!
The pictures were funny!
The book was really good!
We figured out who was using the letter E!
E never learned her lesson!
The letter O is used for E in this book and that makes the words hard to figure out sometimes.
It's funny that the characters are letters and they sometimes do what their letter says (like...P)!!
The letters sometimes spell funny words like ROAD when they were getting ready to go on a trip or EGGS and OJ when it was breakfast time.
I like how O fills in for E. If that really happened, our names might change!