The Healthy Wolf

The Healthy Wolf

Written by David Bedford

Illustrated by Mandy Stanley

David Bedford, 2002

28 pages

Picture Book

            With the growing concern about the health of America’s children, I felt that this book would be of great use in the elementary classroom.  In The Healthy Wolf by David Bedford, Wilfred the wolf loves eating unhealthy junk food, and one thing he wants to eat more than anything is CHILDREN!  However, all the junk food and lack of exercise has put him in bad shape, so he cannot even catch a child!  The Brownbread family, who are all very fit and healthy, finds Wilfred, and they decide to help him be healthier.  Will Wilfred change his unhealthy habits, and will he ever catch a child?  Read The Healthy Wolf to find out!

            Mandy Stanley’s illustrations were very enjoyable to look at while reading this book.  I found that she uses a pencil on watercolor paper to draw some of her other artwork, and then she scans them into the computer and colors them using Adobe Photoshop software.  Therefore, I assume that she illustrated this book in the same way.  She employs a cartoon artistic style, and she uses many bright colors to draw the reader’s attention to the page.  Each page has a picture on it, and some of the pictures are doublespreads. 

            This book could be used in a variety of ways in classrooms ranging from kindergarten to second grade.  Obviously, this book could be used to teach a health lesson.  The teacher could use this book to teach the students how to live a healthy lifestyle and the consequences of living an unhealthy lifestyle like Wilfred.  This book could also be used to teach a compare and contrast lesson.  The teacher could ask the students to compare Wilfred’s eating and exercise habits to those of the Brownbread family.  The students could also use their higher-order thinking skills by creating an alternate ending to the story then drawing a picture to illustrate it.  In conclusion, The Healthy Wolf by David Bedford could be used to enhance different lessons in many ways.

The Language of Birds

The Language of Birds

Written by Rafe Martin

Illustrated by Susan Gaber

Rafe Martin, 2000

32 pages

Traditional Literature

            The Language of Birds was a story I was not familiar with until I found this book.  It is a Russian fairy tale about two brothers named Vasilii and Ivan.  Their father gave them each ten gold coins and sent them out into the world to see what they could gain with them in a week.  Vasilii went to a fair and spent all of his money on his own selfish pleasures.  Ivan instead went to the forest, and while he was there, he rescued a baby bird that had fallen from its nest.  To thank him, the mother bird taught Ivan the language of birds so he could always understand them.  When Vasilii and Ivan returned to their father a week later, Vasilii lied and told his father that he spent all of his money entertaining the sons of merchants and would later become wealthy as a result.  Their father believed Vasilii’s lie, and he was very proud of him.  When it was Ivan’s turn, he returned all of the money to his father and told him that he learned the language of the birds.  This angered their father, and he asked him what the birds had told him.  Ivan replied that the birds had told him that he would one day be a prince and that his brother and father would both serve him one day.  This further angered their father, and he did not believe him.  Will learning the language of birds profit Ivan?  Will the bird’s prophecy come true?  The only way to find out is to read the book!

            Susan Gaber did a beautiful job illustrating this book.  I could not find the exact medium that she used in these illustrations, but I did find that she uses watercolors, acrylics, or colored pencils in all of her work.  These illustrations are very fitting for this story based on the setting and content of it.  All of the colors are kind of dull, which is also fitting for the setting and content of the story.  Gaber included a great amount of detail in each picture; I notice something new every time I look at one!  Single page and doublespread illustrations are interspersed throughout the book providing a variety of page layouts.

            I really enjoyed this story, and I believe it would be a great addition to any classroom ranging from third to sixth grade.  This book could be used in a compare and contrast lesson; the class could compare and contrast the similarities and differences between Vasilii and Ivan.  It could also be used as a character education lesson teaching students that it is better to be honest and wise like Ivan than selfish and clever like Vasilli.  Additionally, this book could be used when the class is talking about old sayings like saying someone “understands the language of the birds.”  They could use this book to really understand that it means that someone is very wise using Ivan in the story as an example.   Overall, I really enjoyed reading The Language of Birds, and I believe any teacher would be glad to add it to her collection.