Readers > Every Family Reads 2009 > Futher Reading
Further Reading
Create a family reading ritual
Children enjoy a bedtime book or the newspaper comics in the morning.
Selected books by Jon Scieszka
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A transmission received from outer space in a combination of different Earth languages tells of an alien schoolboy's fantastic excuse for being late to school again.
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A variation of the cumulative nursery rhyme, this time beginning when Jack writes a book.
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Cowboy and Octopus maintain their friendship despite different opinions about things like beans and knock-knock jokes.
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After the frog turns into a prince, he and the Princess do not live happily ever after and the Prince decides to look for a witch to help him remedy the situation.
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How did Jon Scieszka get so funny? He grew up as one of six brothers with Catholic school, lots of comic books, babysitting misadventures, and jokes told at family dinner.
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When the teacher tells her class that they can think of almost everything as a math problem, one student acquires a math anxiety which becomes a real curse.
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When the teacher tells his class that they can hear the poetry of science in everything, a student begins hearing nothing but science verses that sound very much like some well-known poems.
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While looking for his friend Art, a boy wanders through the Museum of Modern Art and is amazed by what he discovers there.
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Contemporary fables with tongue-in-cheek morals address such topics as homework, curfews, and television commercials.
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Madcap revisions of familiar fairy tales.
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A magic book transports three friends backward and forward through time.
Fractured Fairy Tales
What if a prince falls asleep for a hundred years instead of a princess? What if the three billy goats gruff lived in the city? What if Little Red Riding Hood met an alligator instead of a wolf? When an author changes the point of view, a main character, the setting, or part of the plot, he or she has created a fractured fairy tale. Usually a fractured fairy tale is funny but sometimes it just has you look at a story in a new way. What if the wolf really did just have a bad cold and didn’t mean to blow down the pigs’ houses? Is he really big and bad?
- Alley
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As his plans are spoiled over and over again, the wolf keeps trying to find his dinner, in this retelling of five well-known stories and fables.
- Artell
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In this Cajun version of "Little Red Riding Hood," the big bad gator is no match for a sharp young duck and her quick-thinking cat.
- Catling
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A boy acquires a magical gift that turns everything his lips touch into chocolate.
- Hartman
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Little Wolf is tired of eating lamburgers and sloppy does, but when he tricks his parents into thinking there is a boy in the woods, they could all miss a chance for a real feast.
- Kaye
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At her christening, a princess is given the gift of "ordinariness" by a fairy, and the consequences of that eventually take her to a nearby palace where, as the fourteenth assistant kitchen maid, she meets the prince for her.
- Kimmel
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A troop of hungry soldiers comes to a town where all the food has been hidden and they charm the townspeople into helping make a soup from water and a cactus thorn.
- Levine
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A collection of six fairy tale adaptation, including Princess Sonora and the Long Sleep, The Fairy’s Mistake, and Cinderellis and the Glass Hill.
- Levine
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Based on the story of Cinderella, Ella struggles against the childhood curse that forces her to obey any order given to her.
- Roberts
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Thomas, who is called Little Red, discovers a wolf in disguise at his grandmother's house and ingeniously uses ginger ale to save the day.
- Rocco
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A crafty old wolf finds a peaceful way to satisfy his hunger in this alternate version of "The Boy Who Cried Wolf."
- Sturges
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The duck, the dog, and the cat refuse to help the Little Red Hen make a pizza but do get to participate when the time comes to eat it.
- Yolen
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When beautiful Princess Miserella, Plain Jane, and a fairy fall under a sleeping spell, a prince undoes the spell in a surprising way.
Pigs
- Artell
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A big bad gator comes after the three pig brothers in the Louisiana bayou.
- DiCamillo
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After Mercy the pig snuggles to sleep with the Watsons, all three awaken with the bed teetering on the edge of a big hole in the floor.
- Hall
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Forty-two riddles about pigs, including "What did the piggy's fairy godmother do? She grunted him three wishes" and "How do sty-lish sows wear their hair? In pig-tails."
- Kasza
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When a young pig knocks on a fox's door, the fox thinks dinner has arrived, but the pig has other plans.
- King-Smith
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A piglet destined for eventual butchering arrives at the farmyard, is adopted by an old sheep dog, and discovers a special secret to success.
- King-Smith
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A quick-witted swineherd and a pig named Lollipop are royally rewarded after they reform a spoiled princess.
- Lowell
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A southwestern adaptation of "The Three Little Pigs."
- Moser
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A humorous retelling of the classic story recounts the fatal episodes in the lives of two foolish pigs and how the third pig managed to avoid the same fate.
- Rubin
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This version of the traditional tale depicts three musical pigs who try to win Wolfie over with their vocals and toe-tapping tunes.
- Rylant
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Poppleton the pig makes a friend, reads a library book about adventure, and helps a sick friend get better.
- Santore
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When a sow and her piglets are exiled from the farm, they find an unexpected friend in the wolf-filled forest.
- Steig
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On her way home from school, Pearl finds an unusual bone that has unexpected powers.
- White
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Wilbur, the pig, is desolate when he discovers that he is destined to be the farmer's Christmas dinner until his spider friend, Charlotte, decides to help him.
- Wiesner
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The three pigs escape the wolf by going into another world where they meet the cat and the fiddle, the cow that jumped over the moon, and a dragon.
Wolves
- Avi
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A dog is torn between the domestic world of his human family and the wild world of a wolf that is trying to recruit dogs to replenish the dwindling wolf pack.
- Bauer
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The smallest wolf cub in the litter seeks to prove himself to his father and the rest of the pack and to earn a new name.
- Bidner
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Discover how dogs and wolves descended from the ancient wolf, but have evolved into very different animals, and examine the similarities and differences between the two animals.
- Gaiman
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Lucy is sure there are wolves living in the walls of her house, although others in her family disagree, and when the wolves come out, the adventure begins.
- George
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While running away from home, a thirteen-year-old Eskimo girl becomes lost and is befriended by a wolf pack.
- Gravett
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When a young rabbit checks out a library book about wolves, he learns much more about their behavior than he wanted to know.
- Markle
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Text and color photographs show how gray wolf cubs are born and grow up in the wild.
- Matsuoka
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With so many stories describing wolves as hungry, angry, and vicious animals, Wolf decides to write his own story about a kindhearted wolf who follows tracks in the snow to find a friend, in the hopes that it will change their bad reputation.
- Patent
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When wolves were eliminated from Yellowstone National Park the natural system was out of balance. Follow the return of the wolves to the park and the restoration of the natural balance.
- Rueda
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In this adaptation of the traditional French and Latin American song, animals play in the forest while a scary wolf slowly dresses and becomes hungrier and hungrier.