Green

Last week, Mary Lee wrote a post sharing the book Green by Laura Vaccaro Seeger that immediately caught my attention.  In Mary Lee's title she gave a gush alert warning.  That was a huge clue Mary Lee was really taken by this book and her review supported the gush alert completely.  Here's my story and thinking about Green by Laura Vaccaro Seeger.

Green is my favorite color!  After reading Mary Lee's post, I really wanted to see this book and found it while shopping this past Saturday at The Book Loft.  I think I actually gave a little squeal and my heart started racing.  I read the book, fell in love with the book and then cringed at paying full price.  So, thanks to my smartphone I checked out the price at the dangerous amazon.com website and found the book a bit cheaper and ordered it right then.  Last night the book was waiting for me when I finally got home at 7:15pm.  

I love various shades of colors and can't wait to share this book with  my students.  It is a perfect addition to my collection of art books and a mentor text for using various shades within our own work.  I've always enjoyed using various shades and vocabulary words to describe the shades for any color.  There is more to life than a box of eight Crayola crayons!  This book is the perfect mentor for showing children various shades of green and the vocabulary used to describe green in a multitude of ways.  

B and I read this book at bedtime last night and she wasn't at all interested in reading a book about the color green, she is in third grade and had a chapter book on her agenda.  I let her read her chapter book for a bit and then we read my book.  She was so enthralled with the illustrations and the cut outs.  She kept flipping the pages and figuring out how one cut out fit in with the page before or after.  She was analyzing and discovering simultaneously.  

When looking at the individual pages, my favorite is wacky green.  It's a perfect example of seeing the world with new eyes and allowing for something different to be considered.  It's encouraging routine things to be unpredictable.  It fosters creativity and all of these ideas are essential for our students succeed.