Germs Make Me Sick!

Book Title: Germs Make Me Sick!

Author(s): Melvin Berger

Illustrator/Photographer/Artist: Marylin Hafner

Publisher: HarperCollinsPublishers

Copyright Date: 1995

Genre: Non-fiction

Brief Annotation: The book talks to the kids as it explains that, sometimes, you go to bed feeling fine and then wake up feeling sick! This is because germs are around us everywhere we go. Without creating a new generation of hypochondriacs, this book does a great job of explaining what germs are, the most common spots to find them, how we catch them, and how we can try to stay away from them!

Your Rating (1-5) and why: 4--This is as good a book as I have found for explaining the concept of 'germs' to kids in my classroom. The book has great watercolor illustrations and frequently changes topic within the story so that there's always something new to look at and talk about as it pertains to our germs and our bodies. It's a little bit long, but can be used when talking about all aspects of health with young kids--from candy and cavities to covering our sneezes.

Readers who will like this book: In my experience, readers who will like this book are those who like to 'police' others in the classroom about using kleenex and covering their coughs. Other students who have had colds, coughs, and runny noses will hear things that have happened to them in this story

Teaching Strategy from Tompkins or Yopp & Yopp (you'll link a strategy to at least 10 of your 40 books) : Venn Diagrams (Tompkins, p. 129): Venn diagrams and T-Chartsare great to use with books that compare and contrast things. I would use a T-Chart for a class brainstorm post-reading to list things that Keep Us Healthy and things that Don't Keep Us Healthy.

Question to ask about this book before a read aloud: Before I read this book I ask who has had a runny nose or the 'sniffles and sneezes' before. Then I use a spray bottle to squirt some water into the air like I had sneezed--the kids watch it soak a piece of paper a friend holds in front of me. Then I 'sneeze' with the spray bottle again but hold a kleenex in front of the 'sneeze' and watch how much less water hits the paper. This could be done before or after reading the book.