*Picture book, contemporary fantasy for first through fifth graders
*Young boy as main character
*Rating: Wake the Dead by Monica A. Harris is definitely a witty and entertaining picture book–but for a little older audience than most picture books.
Short, short summary:
Henry is VERY loud; and his entire family is telling him if he’s not careful, he’ll wake the dead. Well, guess what? That’s exactly what happens. Some rather cute skeletons come out of their graves and try to find the source of the noise that woke them out of their sleep. Along the way, a beautician tells one skeleton, “Oh, honey, you look like death warmed over.” At the library, the librarian tells another corpse, “I expect dead silence in here.” When they finally find Henry, he “could guess by their deadpan expressions that they had a bone to pick with him.” He does his best to try and convince this crew to go back to their graves, but they are now wide-awake! So with some witty puns and funny illustrations, Monica A. Harris and Susan Estelle Kwas help Henry solve his problem and get the dead where they need to be! (I realize this is the middle of April, but you should bookmark this book for October!!!)So, what do I do with this book?
1. The reason why Wake the Dead is so perfect for older students is because they’ve probably heard many of these puns and expressions before in their lives. And so, they can take one of the puns from the book, create their own sentence with it, and then draw an illustration to go with it. Younger students might have a harder time with this book and/or activity. Although, they will still enjoy the cute illustrations. You could have them draw a picture of their favorite part of the book and write sentences explaining why they like that part.
2. A writing journal prompt to go with Wake the Dead: In the book, Henry throws a sleep over for the dead folks. He plans many fun activities. If you could plan this sleep over with Henry, what would you do? What are some of your favorite activities to do at sleep overs?
3. A fun October activity would be to show students the two-page spread of the skeletons dressed up in their Halloween costumes and let them choose the winner of the costume contest. Henry chooses George Washington because the winner was a “dead-ringer” for him. Which one would your students choose and why? You could display your results on a bar graph to find the winner.
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