The Giant Hug
Written by Sandra Horning
Sandra Horning, 2005
36 pages
Picture Book
This book’s sweet title, The
Giant Hug, led me to pick it up. In
the story, Owen wants to give Granny Lewis a GIANT hug for her birthday. There is only one problem – Owen lives in
Pennsylvania, and Granny Lewis lives in California! He decides to send her a hug through the
mail, but he can’t put a real hug in an envelope and send it! So how will Granny Lewis receive her giant
birthday hug? Read The Giant Hug
by Sandra Horning to find out, and see if anyone else’s day gets brightened
along the way!
Valeri Gorbachev’s pen-and-ink and
watercolor illustrations are very fitting for this story. They are very light-hearted and upbeat, just
like the text. He put a great amount of
detail into these illustrations, and the expressions on the characters’ faces
are very heartwarming. Some of the illustrations
are doublespreads while others are simply on one page, giving variety to the pictures
in the book. Gorbachev’s illustrations
gave me the warm-and-fuzzies, and I feel that students would enjoy them as
well.
This book would be a great addition
to any kindergarten, first grade, or second grade classroom. Kindergarten teachers could use this book to
start teaching students their address.
The students could mail a hug to someone (the link for how to make a hug
is posted below) and write their address on the envelope in the return address
corner. If they cannot yet write their
address, they can dictate it to the teacher, and the teacher could write it for
them. They could also write the other
address if they are capable of doing so, but the teacher or their parents could
do it if necessary. This book could also
be used to teach a character education lesson showing that one kind act (like
Owen’s hug) can positively affect others; everyone that was involved in getting
the hug to Granny Lewis benefitted from it.
This book could also be used to teach students about the postal system,
such as how many people are involved in sending mail and the different ways it
is transported. These are just a few
ways that this heartwarming story can be used in a classroom!
How
to make a hug: http://www.grandviewlibrary.info/uploads/2/2/7/1/22710236/giant-hug-in-the-mail.pdf
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