Reviewed by Margo Dill, www.margodill.com, [email protected]
Photo by Mike Baird www.flickr.com
*Picture book, mostly realistic (contemporary)
*First-grade girl as main character
*Rating: Velma Gratch and the Way Cool Butterfly is sure to touch the hearts of everyone who reads it!
Short, short summary: Velma Gratch wants to be remembered like her older sisters, Frieda and Fiona, but she just can’t seem to figure out how. She tries being the slowest runner so her P.E. teacher will see her. She tries being the loudest singer, so her music teacher can hear her. But she just winds up in the principal’s office. During science, Mr. Plexipuss, Velma’s teacher, is teaching Velma’s class about butterflies. Velma loves this especially since Frieda and Fiona did not study butterflies! When she goes on a field trip to the conservatory, Velma is in for a surprise when she meets her favorite type of butterfly, a monarch. One butterfly hitches a ride, and he does not want to get off!
So, what do I do with this book?
1. If you study life cycles of butterflies, then Velma Gratch and the Way Cool Butterfly is a great book to read during this unit. Alan Madison includes many science terms in his text, and Kevin Hawkes has illustrations of different types of caterpillars on the inside front cover and different types of butterflies on the inside back cover. Very cool! You can do an art/science project with this book also. Assign students a type of butterfly to research, draw, and color or paint. Students should find out facts about their butterflies and try to draw and color them as close to real life as possible. Students can present their butterflies to the class, and/or you can hang them on a butterfly bulletin board.
2. Velma Gratch has a problem in this book that several students in your class might have. She doesn’t feel special in her family. She thinks her sisters are better than her, and some of the adults in the book aren’t helping her out with these feelings either! One activity you can do with your students is ask them to draw the members of their family on one side of a sheet of paper. Write one sentence about each family member and tell why they are special. On the other side of the paper, ask students to draw a self-portrait. Then students should write at least THREE reasons why they are special and different from other members of their family. If they have no siblings, students can still do this activity using their parents, pets, and even cousins if they wish.
3. This story is mostly realistic. But part of the story makes it unbelievable which makes the whole story a fantasy then. This isn’t the kind of fantasy with knights, dragons, or wizards, but it also isn’t realistic fiction due to this one event in the book. Ask students what parts of the book could happen and are realistic. Then discuss which part of the book makes this story unbelievable or unable to happen in real life.
If you have read Velma Gratch and the Way Cool Butterfly, then leave us a comment and let us know how you felt or an activity you did with the book! Thanks!
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