Book of Many Miracles

Title: Miracle Man

Author: John Hendrix

Genre: Biography and History

Character Traits: Compassion, generosity, courage, obedience, kindness

Why It’s Surprising, Important: Miracles don’t happen often, but Jesus did many of them. He healed people, multiplied food, walked on water, quieted storms, and brought Lazarus back to life after 4 days dead. It ends with the greatest miracle of all, when Jesus also rose from the dead after being crucified.

The drawings were great and there were many surprising pictures hidden within each page. The words were drawn to match the topic, like green grass growing more in each word when Jesus fed the multitudes. 

For ages: 5 and up; young kids would especially like it.

Star Review: Five stars!—we all really liked this book.

Reasons for stars: It was well told, and the pictures were very surprising. He made the letters of the words talk and make pictures of the topic. The book made us think more about miracles. 

Then we acted out the story of Lazarus. Joshua got to be Lazarus and lay on the couch all wrapped up in blanket.

How War Can Change Things

Name of Book: Faithful Elephants

Author:  Yukio Tsuchiya 

Copyright Date: 1970

Genre: History

Ages: 9 and up

Character Traits:
 
Of elephant trainer: Unselfish, compassion, sadness.

Of elephants:Unselfish, sad, loving, obedient, smart, entertaining.

Why It’s Surprising and Important:
 

It’s important because it tells the horrors of war. It’s surprising that even the elephants had to die. It’s a very sad elephant story.

Every year the people in Japan make paper cranes to float down the river to remember about the war--so we made some too. We found good directions online and followed them. Look for this origami crane tutorial.   

5 Stars this time! Reasons for stars: It was sad and affected my emotions. It was very memorable. 

We also found out online that a US bomber was shot down over japan and the two survivors were jailed in this very zoo.

Words Matter

Name of Book: The Right Word

Author: Jen Bryant, illustrated by Melissa Sweet

Copyright: 2014

Genre: Biography of Peter mark Roget, history

Character Traits: Hard Worker, organized, good planner, thinker

Why It’s Surprising: He made lists of everything!

Why Words Matter (our list):

Communicates meaning

Gives Voice

Describes

Explains

Persuades

Misleads, betrays

Names, Classifies

Informs

Builds bridges

Relational

Makes sense of reality

Specifies

Communicates Emotion: sad, funny, kind, weird, cool, nice (Yes, another list!)

For ages: 8 and up

Reasons for stars: The pictures were entertaining. There was an interesting list for everything. Roget made lists and didn’t play video games!