On Tuesday I ran my third Book Bunch class at the local elementary school. My first- through-third graders are very good at recognizing my themes, so I had to be extra sneaky this week. Here are the picture books we read in the order that we read them; can you guess our theme?
LEONARDO THE TERRIBLE MONSTER
EDWINA, THE DINOSAUR WHO DIDN’T KNOW SHE WAS EXTINCT
KNUFFLE BUNNY
At this point themes were being shouted wildly. Monsters? Crying? Tuna salad? Happy endings? All very good guesses, but none of them were our theme. And then one smart little cookie raised her hand and said, “I saw a pigeon in that book. And that is weird, because the pigeon is from another book I know.”
Aha! The perfect clue. And the perfect segue to our next book …
DON’T LET THE PIGEON DRIVE THE BUS.
The kids went crazy, some with joy at seeing a pigeon book, the rest with excitement at having figured out that our theme was …
MO WILLEMS!
When order was restored, I mentioned that there was (Gasp!) a new Mo Willems pigeon book coming soon. And that the new book’s name was being kept very secret because Mr. Willem’s had been running a contest in which kids were encouraged to guess the last word in the new title. For the record, I also mentioned that the contest was over, that the winner was to be announced in mere weeks, and that Mr. Willem’s was surely inundated with entrants and would not under any circumstances accept their late entries and post them on his website. But the Book Bunchers were not to be denied.
And so we chose names and designed jackets for the new pigeon book. Since it is too late to send our ideas to Mr. Willems, I’ve promised to post the creations here. Bear with me, okay?
The Pigeon Wants a Harley
Illustration by Ben, Grade 3
