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Feathers and Fools has a Lexile level of 960L. Peacocks and swans slaughter each other for their differences, but the last eggs left hatch and live in peace with each other, loving one another for their similarities. This book would work well as a read aloud for third and fourth grade or as a shared reading for fifth and sixth grade.

The organization of the book is clear, chronological, and fairly easy to predict. The illustrations support and occasionally extend the meaning of the text. The vocabulary is fairly complex and is sometimes unfamiliar and overly academic. The sentences are primarily simple and compound sentences, with some complex construction. There are multiple levels of meaning that may be difficult to identify or separate; the theme is implicit and subtle and is revealed over the entirety of the text. The book explores themes of varying levels of complexity and abstraction; the experiences portrayed are uncommon to most readers. There are few allusions to other cultural elements.

There are lots of vocabulary words that could be learned in this book such as rambling, pride, dwelt, musing, contemplating, profound, and dismay. Students could discuss and write about why the birds were scared of each other and why the babies weren't. They could also write about how the book relates to the world we live in today.

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Illuminations is intended for grade levels 4-6. The book uses the alphabet to create a collection of terms and history specific to the Middle Ages. This book would work well as a read aloud with fourth grade or a shared reading with fifth and sixth grade.

The organization of this book is clear and easy to understand. The illustrations support and occasionally extend the meaning of the text. The conventionality is explicit, literal, and straightforward. The vocabulary is complex, generally unfamiliar, subject-specific, and overly academic. There are many complex sentences with several subordinate clauses. There is one level of meaning; the theme is obvious and is revealed early in the text. The book explores themes of varying levels of complexity; the experiences portrayed are uncommon to most readers. There are many references and allusions to other texts and cultural elements.

This book would be great to use in a fantasy or renaissance unit. We could read a fantasy book as a class, ask and write down background questions, and then come to this informational book in search for deeper understanding of the context. Because of the book's structure, I could use or skip whatever pages necessary to focus on what the class specifically needs. Students could create their own coat of arms or write which page was their favorite to learn from and why.

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They All Saw a Cat has a Lexile level of AD310L. A cat walks through the world and is shown in all different perspectives and art styles on each page. This book would work well as a shared reading in kindergarten and first grade.

The organization of the book is clear and easy to predict. The illustrations are essential for understanding the meaning of the text. The conventionality is fairly complex; the text is easy to understand, but the art makes it abstract and figurative. The vocabulary is contemporary, familiar, and conversational. The sentences are mainly simple. There are multiple competing levels of meaning that are difficult to identify, separate, and interpret; the theme is implicit, subtle, and ambiguous. The book explores several themes; the experiences portrayed are common to many readers. There are no references or allusions to other texts or cultural elements.

The simplicity and repetition of the text allows for group choral reading in low grades, allowing students to grow their fluency and overall reading skills. The whole group could have pauses to recognize and write down CVC words we notice on an anchor chart. The most complex part about this book is the art, so I could ask questions like "Why does the cat look different on this page?" and "What message do you think the illustrator is trying to get across in this book?" For individual work, students could draw themselves in three different art styles based on how different people see them. This helps teach perspectives.

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by Dolly Parton and Brooke Boynton-Hughes

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Coat of Many Colors has a Lexile level of AD520L. A young girl's mother makes her a colorful coat from donated rags, but the other kids do not see its true value. This book would work well as shared reading in first and second grade.

The organization of the book includes a time shift and is occasionally difficult to predict. The illustrations support and occasionally extend the meaning of the text. The conventionality is fairly complex; it contains abstract and figurative language. The vocabulary is mostly contemporary, familiar, and conversational; it is rarely unfamiliar. The sentences are primarily simple and compound sentences, with some complex constructions. There are multiple levels of meaning clearly distinguished from each other; the them is clear but is conveyed with some subtlety. The book explores themes of varying levels of complexity and abstraction; the experiences portrayed are uncommon to most readers. There are few references and allusions to other texts and cultural elements.

Because this book is made up of the Coat of Many Colors song lyrics, I could sing through the book to grow engagement. We could have conversations as a class about Appalachian culture and read informative texts that give us background to Dolly Parton's upbringing. We would specifically look at the words wanderin' and britches. We could also discuss the many examples of figurative language through turn and talk and group writing.

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Big Al has a Lexile level of AD740L. An ugly, scary fish tries different ways to make himself likeable so that he can make friends. This book would work well as a read aloud for kindergarten through second grade or a shared reading in third grade.

The organization of the book is clear, chronological, and easy to predict. The illustrations support the meaning of the text. The conventionality is explicit, literal, straightforward, and easy to understand. The vocabulary is mostly contemporary, familiar, and conversational; it is rarely unfamiliar. There are many complex sentences with several subordinate phrases and transition words. There are multiple levels of meaning clearly distinguished from each other; the theme is clear but is conveyed with some subtlety. The book explores several themes; the experiences portrayed are common to many readers. There are no references or allusions to other texts or cultural elements.

The main focus with this book is the theme and character development. As the group reads, I could pause to ask questions like "Why is Big Al sad?", "Why are the fish scared of him?", "How did Big Al's teeth go from a flaw to a strength?" and "Why did he have more friends in the end?" Some of these questions could be turn and talks while others could be writing prompts. The vocabulary that could be understood through context clues include disguise, delightful, plowed, darted, bulged, charged, captured, tremendous, dashed, and fierce.

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Where the Wild Things Are has a Lexile level of AD740L. A child is wild and sent to his room, so he sails away to find wild creatures to be wild with. In the end, he misses his mother, so he sails back home to be loved. This book would work well as a read aloud for kindergarten - 2nd grade or as a shared reading for third and fourth grade.

The organization of the book is occasionally difficult to predict. The illustrations support and extend the meaning of the text. The conventionality is fairly complex; it contains abstract ideas. The vocabulary is mostly contemporary, familiar, and conversational; it is rarely unfamiliar. The sentence structures are primarily simple and compound sentences, with some complex constructions. There are multiple levels of meaning that may be difficult to identify or separate; the theme is implicit and subtle and is revealed over the entirety of the text. The book explores several themes; the experiences portrayed are common to many readers. There are no references or allusions to other texts or cultural elements.

The book gives good opportunities to practice context clues for the words mischief, gnashed, tamed, and rumpus. This could be done through pausing throughout whole group and asking "I wonder what this word means?" Because the story is abstract, I could ask the students for a turn a talk if they think Max actually sailed away for over a year. Students could write about what they think the theme is in the book.

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The Honeybee has a Lexile level AD480L. The book follows the process of bees creating honey. This book would work well as read aloud for first grade or a shared reading for second grade.

The organization of the book is chronological and somewhat easy to predict. The illustrations support and extend the meaning of the text. The conventions are largely explicit and easy to understand with some occasions for more complex meaning. The vocabulary is exceedingly complex; the language is generally subject-specific and overly academic. The sentences are primarily simple and compound, with some complex constructions. There is one level of meaning; the theme is obvious and revealed early in the text. The book explores themes of varying levels of complexity; the experiences portrayed are uncommon to most readers. There are no references or allusions to other texts or cultural elements.

This book would work well in a rhyming unit. There are plenty of anticipatory page turns throughout the book, so students could practice predicting during whole group by pausing before the next page to guess what comes next. There are events and terminology specific to bees that are not completely understood just by reading this book, so the class could write questions they have on an anchor chart and search for the answers in an informative text about bees. The back of the book suggests telling congress to protect bees, so the class could do a shared writing to write a letter to local government to tell them why they should protect bees using reasons they learned from the book.

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The Couch Potato has a Lexile level of AD550L. The narrator enjoys staying comfortable on their couch all the time, but when the power goes out, they discover they actually enjoy going outside. This book would work well as a read aloud for first grade or a shared reading for second grade.

The organization of the book is clear, chronological, and easy to predict. The illustrations are essential for understanding the meaning of the text. The language is largely explicit and easy to understand with some occasions for more complex meaning. The vocabulary is fairly complex and is sometimes unfamiliar and subject-specific with advanced technology terms. There are many complex sentences with several subordinate phrases. There is one level of meaning; the theme is obvious and revealed fairly early in the text. The book explores several experiences; the life experiences portrayed are common to many readers. There are some references and allusions to other texts and cultural elements.

There are lots of adjectives students could learn from this book such as spectacular, vivid, realistic, massive, amusing, and entertaining. During whole group reading, we could pause whenever we notice an adjective and have a student add it to the anchor chart. We could then discuss the meaning in turn and talks. We could do the same thing with onomatopoeias, as the book uses phrases like whoosh, bam, pew, whump, scritch, and bloop. Students could write descriptive sentences using the adjectives and draw a picture with each sentence to display what those adjectives mean.

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The Bad Seed has a Lexile level of AD390L. The narrator is a bad seed because of a traumatic experience that separates him from his family, but he decides to try to be a good seed in the end. This book would work well as a shared reading for first grade.

The organization of the book shifts through time and has a subplot. The illustrations are essential for understanding the meaning of the text in certain areas. The conventionality is explicit, literal, straightforward, and easy to understand. The vocabulary is contemporary, familiar, and conversational. The sentences are primarily simple and compound, with a few complex constructions. There are multiple levels of meaning that could possibly be slightly difficult to identify; the theme is clear but is conveyed with some subtlety and is revealed over the entirety of the text. The book explores themes of varying levels of complexity; the life experiences portrayed are uncommon to many readers. There are few allusions to other cultural elements.

This book would be good to use to discuss the literary element of flashbacks. This could prompt students to write a flashback from their own life to help understand why they are who they are now. During shared reading, we could pause for students to practice using context clues in turn and talks for the words mumble, humble, unremarkable, drooped, drifted, and wad. Students could make an anchor chart in small groups to label these words with their definitions. Students could also write about why people do bad things.

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The Cool Bean has a Lexile level of AD530L. The narrator is trying different ways to be as cool as the cool beans, but what really makes him cool in the end is his kindness. This book would work well as a read aloud for first grade or a shared reading for second grade.

The book's organization is clear and fairly easy to predict. The illustrations support and occasionally extend the meaning of the text. Although a lot of the book is largely explicit and easy to understand, there are several occasions that it is fairly complex: the text contains some ironic and figurative language. The vocabulary is mostly contemporary, familiar, and conversational; it is rarely unfamiliar or overly academic. There are many complex sentences with several subordinate clauses and transition words. There is one level of meaning; the theme is fairly clear but is somewhat conveyed with subtlety. The book explores several different experiences; the life experiences portrayed are common to many readers. There are a few references to other texts and cultural elements, but they are not essential to the story.

During whole group reading, there are several spots to stop and talk about abstract and figurative language. I would ask questions for whole group sharing and turn and talks such as "What does text mean by 'We were a mixed bag'?", "What is the narrator saying about himself when he says 'There were the cool beans...and the beans like me'?", "What does 'The days all blended together' actually mean?", and so on. We could also find all of the transition words and phrases used such as "But then," "Later," "That afternoon," "And then," "After that," etc. and write them on an anchor chart. For individual work, students could write a sentence or two about something they think is cool and draw a picture aligned with what they wrote.