Blog Entry #10 Stalling

Stalling

Written by Alan Katz
Illustrated by Elwood H. Smith
Margaret K. McElderry Books
2010

30 pages

Realistic Fiction

      I chose this book because of the rhyme scheme in the verses. In this book, a little boy Dan is avoiding going to sleep by doing any and everything around the house and also imagining that he is doing crazy things around the world. He checks his height on the wall to see if he’s grown, eats a snack, draws, and everything else he can think of. He pretends he tames crocodiles, rides camels in the desert, and even hunts dinosaurs. After Dan has finally warn himself out, he finds that his parents went to bed a long time ago so he decides he will stall some more.

      The illustrations in this book are a mixture of cartoon-like characters and multimedia background objects. The randomness and mixture of illustrations demonstrates the scattered mix-match of Dan’s mind. The organization of the words and illustrations on the page are just as random as Dan’s choices in activities before going to bed.

      This book is also a great book for teaching rhyming words. Every page rhymes. This is also a great jumping off point for a writing activity. Several prompts may include “If you could do anything Dan did while stalling for bed, what would you choose and why” or “What do you do before bed to keep from going to sleep?”Teachers could also have students write 3-5 more activities for Dan to do before going to bed, and their verses have to rhyme. I think this book is most appropriate for ages 1^st -3^rd due to the vocabulary. Overall, I think this is a great selection for the classroom because children would love it, especially boys.

To read about getting Alan Katz to visit your school click on his name.