The Fierce Yellow Pumpkin

The Hallo-Wienerby Dav Pilkey has loads of craft to teach.  It can serve as a great mentor text during this Halloween season.  Themes such as name-calling, bullying, friendship, persistence, loyalty, and kindness are embedded, creating an avenue for class discussion and community building. The illustrations lift the text and provide foreshadowing clues. The book’s humor entices the kids to reread it several times, allowing the message to sink in.  What a fun way to learn!  I highly recommend visiting Dav Pilkey‘s website.  He shares his story of being a hyperactive kid.

Savorings in reading and for writing for The Hallo-Wiener:

• Flexing sentences – “Because of his unusual shape and size, all the other dogs made fun of him.”
• Think bubbles – “All day long at obedience school, Oscar daydreamed about Halloween…”
• Hyphenated words – “Half-a-dog tall and one-and-a-half dogs long“
• Play on words – “Then Oscar showed up, looking quite frank.”
• Suspense – “The dogs stopped dead in their tracks.”