More Parts

BASIC DOCUMENTATION
Book Title: More Parts

Author(s): Tedd Arnold

Illustrator/Photographer/Artist: Tedd Arnold

Publisher: Dial Books for Young Readers

Copyright Date: 2001

Genre: Realistic Fiction (poetry)

Brief Annotation: A rhyming book of idioms from the view of a child. As the boys hears, “ Break your heart” and “Crack me up” he goes to extremes to protect himself until he decides not to leave his room.


Your Rating (1-5) and why: 5
I found this book to be cute and funny. I loved the illustrations and the creative take on the phrases we don’t take literally. This book allows for discussions on other idioms and what they mean literally and figuratively. It also provides opportunities for discussions on other phrases or ideas that children may hear and not understand or take in the wrong way. It would be fun to ask the students to predict the literal and figurative expressions and ask the students to explain/compare/create new ways to protect themselves from the literal meaning.

Readers who will like this book: Kids with wild imaginations; Kids that like stories that rhyme; Kids that like Idioms

Teaching Strategy from Tompkins:
#34 Quilts (pp. 94-96)
Quilts are made by taking ideas; quotes; facts; or other pieces of information from a story and draw pictures or write poems/ ideas on small squares then joining them together into one big project to emphasize the ‘big idea’ or lesson from the unit being studied.
I like the idea of using this with More Parts because it can become a visual representation of the many ways of seeing things. One idea is to identify various idioms and place the actual meaning beside a representation of the literal meaning. Another idea is to create a two sided (or two separate) ‘quilt’ that has the literal meaning on one side and the actual meaning on the other. This would be a good way opportunity to use differentiation by grouping visual and verbal learners to work together or visual, lingual and social students to work together. It would also be a good way to introduce idioms to ELL students.

Question to ask about this book before a read aloud:

Optional, but noted as extra effort:

1. Interest Level (age): 5-7

2. Grade Level Equivalent (grade): 2.5