More OTTER Award Reading

I am getting very excited about the OTTER Award for Washington State.  I hope that we can put together a great list that is both worthy of reading and kid-friendly.

Here are a few more titles that I read this week with the transitional chapter book reader in mind.



Haggis and Tank are a couple of dog buddies up for adventure.  They use their imaginations to create a pirate adventure that is a lot of fun.  The author works in a few homophones, like tale and tail, to create humor.  I thought the jokes were clever, but I worry that my students will not grasp the meaning.  Yet, at the end, the author includes questions for the reader about the homophones and explains what they are - nice teaching resource.



Mo Willems and Tony DiTerlizzi, two greats in children's literature, get together to tell the story of the unusual friendship that develops between Flea, a professional flanuer, and Diva, a professional homebody. Flea wanders the streets of Paris in search of whatever is around the corner, and Diva is afraid to even look around the corner, but when Flea happens by Diva's courtyard, they learn to appreciate each other and become friends.



Have you ever wondered where all those cryptids live, and why we never see them?  In this book we find out that they work very hard to stay hidden from humans.  We would ruin their way of life and make a spectacle of them, so Blizz (the yeti) and the other Bigfeet are working hard to stop George Vanquist from getting proof that they exist.

My students have been checking out these books like crazy.  If you want to read them, please visit your library or shop at your local bookstore.

OTTER Award Reading

Here are a few of the transitional chapter books that I have been reading for possible nominees for the 2017 OTTER Award.



The Hound Hotel is a dog grooming and day care center, and Alfie is the kid who gets to live there.  When Molly shows up, she really needs a grooming for her owners' wedding, but she is not going anywhere near a bath, a brush, or even a hose if she has anything to do with it. It becomes Alfie's job to get her clean or he will have to be the flower girl!  A romping story with just enough characters and fun to keep kids interested and reading.



Archie wakes up at midnight thinking that he is finally going to ride along the streets of his town with his father in his old broken-down taxi, a kind of "Take Your Kid to Work" night.  He is eight years, eight months, and eight days old, which is the day that he can finally ride along with his dad.  Archie has no idea what adventures he is going to have, including worm holes, aliens, talking cats, spy rings and an invitation to fight crime! The action doesn't stop in this fun ride along into space.  With a easy to follow story line and interesting characters, I think that students will want to follow Archie in to space on another adventure when they are done.



Meet Mo and Jo, two silly cave boys who just can't seem to figure out what is making some horrible smell in their cave.  Together they try to solve their problems through two to three word sentences, spoken like real cave people, while a narrator uses easy sentences to tell the reader about the action in the story.  The book is very easy to read, almost too easy for the OTTER Award, but would be perfect for those students wanting an introduction to the chapter book or graphic novel format.

Happy Reading!!