Part of being a reading teacher, for me, is reading the literature that my students are reading or that might serve as a good read-aloud or mentor text for writer's workshop. Since break came early with a snow storm, I got to my local library to check out some books, as well as extra time to read.
One of the books I checked out was by the great Kate DiCamillo, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. For those who don't know, Edward is a china bunny who through mishaps loses one owner only to move on to another, at least eventually. Through his journey Edward grows to appreciate life and others, most importantly, he learns to love.
As an adult reader, I only needed a few hours to eat this book up, which I did through the course of an evening. The book is magical, plan on not being able to put it down.
As a teacher, I love this as a read aloud to talk about character development along with a reading character study unit. The possibilities for discussion are rich. I especially like the possibility of extending this into the writer's workshop as a mentor text to be studied or even as a touchstone text to be studied again and again. I think the book could be easily used for a fiction unit with first and second graders or for third through eighth graders for any narrative writing, fiction or personal narrative, perhaps even personal essay and certainly memoir. In fact, most high schoolers would probably find this an accessible mentor text to use in a writing workshop.
Any age, but especially elementary school aged learners, would benefit from "reading" The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane as readers in a read aloud before revisiting it as writers. This book would be especially easy to make into a chapter summary and illustration extension. Many teachers do this for accountability with third through 6th graders. But, I've also seen primary teachers write the summary in a sentence or two as stated by a learner on a piece of large white construction paper. Then the learner gets to draw the illustration of their summary at a later time. Ideally, the teacher will validate the student's comments and only make minor changes with the student's permission, while creating a high quality example. Then as the summary and illustrations get put up on the wall with the learner's name, you have a nice hall display.
I would especially like to use The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane the next time I teach writing about a time when you or your character changed, whis is a grades 3-5 Lucy Calkins' Units of Study generation (or brainstorm) strategy. Other lessons include ways to show emotion rather then tell the emotion. Lucy Calkins' 3-5 Units of Study recommend many other mentor texts, including 'Because of Winn-Dixie' also by Kate DiCamillo, but I think 'Edward Tulane' should be added to the list for 1st-8th!
This is a book I'll have to buy because it's such a useful teaching tool. Another bonus is that even the paperback version has beautiful color illustrations done by Bagram Ibatoulline.
