elementary school | Daddy Mojo

Game of Pets Book 1, hello to your favorite elementary school book series

Children’s books are not automatically guaranteed a sequel. Granted, many, if not all of them, aspire to have a lengthy run, but there are some stories and books that just peter out on the literary vine. This is not something that Game of Pets: The Boy Who Knew Too Much, by Aaron Blabey, has to worry about. Elementary school-age children know Blabey from his work on The Bad Guys. That book series was one of the few that our youngest child would pick up, and has since been made into movies that probably do the same thing to kids in that demographic. Game of Pets is effortless to read. It’s a world-building start to a funny, science-fiction world that ages eight and up will want to explore.

Game of Pets Book 1 removes any barriers elementary school kids have towards reading in this go-to series from the creator of The Bad Guys

All hail pets of doom, and a great elementary-aged book

Sleepless is fiction that elementary kids want to, and are able to, read

“OK, I’ll read Sleepless; it’s from the author that wrote book our class read”, said our 14-year old. This was the process for us assigning, or him choosing the next book he’d read. Sleepless is by Gordon Korman, an author whose name is synonymous with big kid books in elementary school. I didn’t question the youth as to which Kormon book his class read. Go to any elementary school library, and if it’s a chapter book without illustrations, there’s a good chance he wrote it. He’s the kidlit version of James Patterson, and Sleepless is the first book that I’ve read from Gordon Korman.

What’s surprising about Sleepless is how utterly readable it is. Elementary-aged readers won’t think twice about the chapters because the vocabulary is 100% in their wheelhouse.

I see why this author is the skeleton Key

The Second Life of Snap is an elementary school reader’s dystopian best friend

Say this about The Second Life of Snap: it knows its target. Older readers might look at its cover and draw parallels to The Iron Giant. They could alter their opinion after looking at the back cover and see that our heroine is accompanied by three other kids. The three of them are seated on some nondescript rubble of a not-too-distant society, while Zuzu is on Snap’s shoulders. The subtitle to the book is, A girl, A robot, A race for the future, so readers will know that it’s dystopian to an extent.

The Second Life of Snap is a contained story with enough mystery, adventure, science-fiction and heart to equally hook in boy or girl elementary school readers.

Ages 8-12 come hither and read

Calculating Chimpanzees is smarter-than-average STEM book that rewards readers

The educator wonk in me loves books that aren’t scared to display their intelligence. The realist in me knows something that’s too smart will scare off some readers. The second book in the Extraordinary Animals series is Calculating Chimpanzees, Brainy Bees, and Other Animals with Mind-Blowing Mathematical Abilities. That’s a mouthful of a title and it has the intellect to back up. Not that a reference, non-fiction book aimed at elementary school readers has a beef with anybody, other than ignorance.

Calculating Chimpanzees, Brainy Bees, and other Animals with Mind-Blowing Mathematical Abilities is STEM for kids that’s accessible, with more of a scientific, narrative flow than some its over-the-top brethren.

This book (and the animals listed therein) are smarter than some of my students

Lost in a Book is a third wall-smashing great illustrated book, literally

Lost in a Book is easy to love. It’s easy to love being lost in a book. I have taught many students who have told me, with a glimmer of pride, they’ve never been lost in a book. Sometimes they’ll shake up that statement by saying that they don’t read books. Personally I love it when they say that because I’ll immediately say, “ignorance is nothing to be proud of” or something off the cuff that will make the class laugh and put the bully down a peg. It’s a different scene when you’re in elementary school because that is a time when your reading can shine. Ideally, it’s the time when you’ll learn to love to read, and Lost in a Book is the sort of vehicle that will accommodate that.

Lost is a Book is easy to love. It’s wordplay that revels in cartoonish delight and breaks the wall between young readers and the book.

Read it and love it

Dinosaurs Can Be Small: A Kid’s Illustrated Book

If you were paying attention, we learned (or were reminded) that birds are descendants of dinosaurs. Dinosaurs Can Be Small is an illustrated book that dinosaur kids need. Those hard dinosaur kids, like the younger brother in Mitchell Vs. The Machines, that kid. If your child or students salivate at the thought of reading or having read to them, descriptions of giant lizards who died out so that the smallest of their brethren could survive, this is for you. This illustrated book sets up the smaller, lesser-known versions by introducing their more well-known, larger versions first. The result is a very curious dinosaur book that will entice dino-kids who think they know it all because they saw Jurassic Park for the dinosaur facts, and not the fact that they run amuck.

You can’t escape the pull of bird’s relatives….can you?

The Worst Wizard: Awkward Magic, a truth mirror for some reluctant readers

Elementary school students don’t know what a trope is. They might quickly lose interest in a story that’s played out or too familiar, but they can’t say that they weren’t interested in it due to the tired use of its trope. The Worst Wizard: Awkward Magic is reluctant reader food that flies in the face of the plot devices that are trying to drag it down. Wizards and those who don’t realize that they are yet can be an overplayed device in children’s literature. However, kids also want to read about wizards and the underdogs who might become them. You can see how the window of opportunity in capturing young readers in these books can be challenging.

Aye, ye be a reluctant reader mate?

I’ll Take Care of You, is poetry that kids can get onboard with

Poetry is a tough nut for elementary school readers to crack. Some might find it too boring, too slow or are unable to grasp the plot of it. If there’s not a traditional story arc to the poem, then it’s even more challenging. It can be vague, esoteric, pointless and excuse to simply kick or bother the person next to you when it’s read aloud. Believe me when I say this because I read poetry to elementary school ages on a weekly basis and it’s not because I’m a glutton for having students kicked who otherwise want to be left alone. I’ll Take Care of You is a great poetry book for elementary school students. It’s easy to see how this is an illustrated poetry book that those ages will dig in spring, but here’s why it’s good anytime of the year and how to present poetry to elementary ages.

I’ll Take Care of You, oversized-landscape presentation of its nature watercolors is soft-sell poetry that works for elementary ages.

Fear not the poetry books for the elementary ages…if ye present them in a fun manner