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Summary: Ralph Tells A Story is about a little boy who feels pressure in the classroom. Ralph notices that everyone around him is busy writing and he feels incapable. But ultimately, his desire to communicate overpowers his fears. Learning to write is empowering.

Why in this category?: Ralph has a unique, relatable voice that helps students connect with his struggle to find a story. This voice is central to the humor and creativity of the narrative.

Teaching Focus: Encourage students to develop their own voices in writing, whether they are writing about real or fictional experiences, emphasizing personal style and tone.

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Summary: Alex just has to convince his mom to let him have an iguana, so he puts his arguments in writing. He promises that she won't have to feed it or clean its cage or even see it if she doesn't want to. Of course Mom imagines life with a six-foot-long iguana eating them out of house and home.

Why in this category?: The story is told through a child’s persuasive letters, giving the main character a humorous, determined, and somewhat dramatic voice.

Teaching Focus: Teach students how to develop strong, persuasive voices in writing, with characters that are distinct and motivated by clear desires.

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Summary: Arfy is a dog in need of a place to stay, so he emBARKS on a mission to find a forever home by writing letters to everyone who lives on Butternut Street; asking the question, one house, one fire station, one butcher shop at a time, “Can I be your dog?” He truly is one persistent pooch!Jul 2, 2018

Why in this category?: This story is told from the perspective of a dog, and the voice is endearing, playful, and persuasive, capturing the dog’s personality and longing.

Teaching Focus: Encourage students to write from the perspective of an inanimate object or animal, focusing on creating a unique voice that fits the character’s role.

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Summary: While some kids are collecting stamps or rocks, young Jerome loves to collect words. Words like hope, wonder, and torrential. When he hears one he likes, he writes it down and pastes it into one of his many scrapbooks. He soon learns he can string those words together and make poems or songs.

Why in this category?: The narrator in this book has a reflective and poetic voice that explores the power of words and their emotional impact.

Teaching Focus: Students can explore how to develop a reflective or thoughtful voice in writing, especially when writing about abstract concepts like the power of language or personal feelings.

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Summary: Henrietta loves to read. When she clucks buk, buk, buk at the library, the librarian knows exactly what to recommend. Then Henrietta decides to write a book. With the help of her three aunties, she hatches a plot. But when Henrietta publishes her story, the critics say she's laid an egg! Is this the end of Henrietta's career as an author?

Why in this category?: This book shows the importance of plot structure (beginning, middle, end) and the organizational elements of storytelling, where each part of the plot has a distinct role.

Teaching Focus: Help students analyze how the story is structured and then practice writing their own stories using a clear narrative structure.

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Summary: This book is about Pig writing a thank-you letter to his grandma. While he is writing the letter, his friend, Rabbit, comes by to ask him to play catch. Pig tells Rabbit he is writing a thank-you letter to his Grandma. Rabbit begins writing several thank-you letters to people he knows while he waits for Pig.

Why in this category?: This book uses a clear organizational structure for writing letters, and students can use it as a model for writing their own thank-you notes, understanding how to organize their thoughts to show gratitude.

Teaching Focus: Teach students how to structure a letter with appropriate greetings, body content, and closing.

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Summary: Do you know the difference between a fact and an opinion? It can be a hard thing to understand. Some things are facts--like the number of robots in this book. Other things are opinions--like which robot would make the best friend, or which robot dances best. And sometimes to tell the difference between a fact and an opinion, you need to wait to get more information--that's because facts can be proven true or false, and opinions are things you feel and believe--but that you can't prove.

Why in this category?: This book helps students distinguish between facts and opinions, which is essential for organizing information logically in informational writing.

Teaching Focus: Practice organizing facts and opinions clearly in separate sections, helping students structure their writing with clarity.

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Summary: Louis always interrupts! All of his thoughts are very important to him, and when he has something to say, his words rumble and grumble in his tummy, they wiggle and jiggle on his tongue and then they push on his teeth, right before he ERUPTS (or interrupts). His mouth is a volcano! But when others begin to interrupt Louis, he learns how to respectfully wait for his turn to talk.

Why in this category?: The organization of the story helps students understand how to organize thoughts and emotions in a clear sequence.

Teaching Focus: Students can write about their own feelings and experiences in a structured format (e.g., beginning with a feeling, showing progression, and ending with resolution).

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Summary: Little Louie's story keeps getting messed up, and he's not happy about it! What's the point of telling his tale if he can't tell it perfectly? But when he stops and takes a deep breath, he realizes that everything is actually just fine, and his story is a good one--imperfections and all.

Why in this category?: This book focuses on the idea that mistakes can be part of a creative process and can lead to unique outcomes. It encourages students to approach their ideas from different angles.

Teaching Focus: Help students understand how to turn creative challenges or mistakes into interesting ideas and stories, focusing on originality and resilience in writing.

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Summary: The Best Story is about a young enters a contest at the library, trying to win for having the best story. The problem is, she keeps getting conflicting information on what makes ‘the best story’ from her family. As she tries to add all these elements to her story, she discovers that the best story is the one that is your own.

Why in this category?: This story emphasizes the value of coming up with great ideas and exploring the creative process of making an idea into a full story.

Teaching Focus: Encourage students to brainstorm ideas and develop them into more complex and complete stories, focusing on the development of ideas and originality.

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Summary: It's vacation time, so Emily has to write to her teacher to help when she discovers a blue whale living in her pond. Mr. Blueberry answers that she must be mistaken, because whales live in the ocean, not in ponds. Throughout the summer, Emily and Mr. Blueberry exchange letters, until Emily has a happy surprise to share with her teacher. In the process, Emily learns a lot about whales. And Mr. Blueberry leans even more about imagination, faith, and love.

Why in this category?: This story highlights the idea of curiosity and questions about the world, making it a great resource for teaching students how to generate ideas for their own letters or inquiries.

Teaching Focus: Encourage students to write letters asking questions or presenting ideas for exploration, using curiosity as the driving force for their writing.

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Summary: Farmer Brown has unusual cows.  The cows found an old type writer, practiced typing, and typed him a request for electric blankets.  Farmer Brown refused and got really angry.  The next day the cows refused to give Farmer Brown milk.  Farmer Brown was angry.  The day after that the chickens were also requesting electric blankets.  Farmer Brown refused and the next day there was no milk and no eggs for Farmer Brown.  Farmer Brown was irate and sent an ultimatum to the cows through Duck.  He demanded milk and eggs.  The cows agreed to a compromise, they would surrender the typewriter for the electric blankets.  The blankets were left outside the barn door, but Duck hijacked the typewriter and the ducks requested a diving board for the pond.

Why in this category?: The cows’ use of typewriters and their demands create a humorous and original set of ideas that can inspire students to write about unusual or imaginative scenarios.

Teaching Focus: Help students come up with original ideas for stories or arguments, encouraging them to think creatively about what could happen in unusual or funny situations.

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Summary: Duncan just wants to color but he opens his crayon box to find only written letters from unhappy crayons.  The crayons were so unhappy that they quit!  He reads each of the notes.  The notes are full of humor but they also express a deep dissatisfaction with their relationships with the other crayons and the crayon users.  Duncan just wants the crayons to be happy and find their usefulness to be fulfilling.  Duncan comes up with the perfect idea to help all the crayons feel better and meet his desire to color.  The author ends with Duncan coloring a perfect picture.  It is one that uses every color in new and creative ways.

Why in this category?: The book combines colorful illustrations with letters from each crayon. The text and illustrations work together to show the crayons' emotions, and this relationship is important for teaching multimodal communication.

Teaching Focus: Students can write letters from different perspectives and then enhance their writing by adding illustrations or diagrams to help convey the character’s feelings.

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Summary: Little Red Writing’s teacher (Mrs. 2 at pencil school) tells the students they will be writing a story. While she gives the basic elements of a story, Little Red sets off to write her story. She encounters a variety of situations that might try to deter her from sticking to the plot – including an adjective forest but also has other problems arise such as a run-on sentence with the help of conjunction glue and all capitals and large punctuation with adverbs.

Why in this category?: The illustrations and text together help tell the story in a dynamic, engaging way, and the layout complements the playful tone of the narrative.

Teaching Focus: Students can create multimodal stories where the text and illustrations work together to tell a story, with each part reinforcing the other.

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When Little Llama is trying to get to sleep, he decides he’s thirsty.  Mama Llama says that she’ll bring him some water soon, but the phone rings.  Little Llama lets himself get really scared and upset.  Mama Llama comes up to calm him down and reminds him she is always near and loves him a lot.

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Lots of alliteration and playful sounds. Good for drawing attention to initial sounds, sound patterns

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By Doreen Cronin and Betsy Lewis

This playful book is filled with animal sounds, alliteration, and rhymes. It encourages students to listen closely to the beginning sounds of words and notice sound patterns. It’s great for practicing phoneme recognition in a fun context.

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Spoonerisms and sound-swapping (“letters swapped”) help with awareness of phoneme manipulation

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By Shel Silverstein

Through humorous “spoonerisms” (swapping sounds and letters), this book helps students notice how sounds can be manipulated. It builds awareness of phonemes by showing how changing just one sound can create new, silly words.

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Uses rhyme and rhythm, helpful for hearing rhymes and comparing sounds.

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By Kes Gray & Jim Field

The text is packed with rhyming word pairs and repetition. Students gain practice hearing rhymes and distinguishing similar sounds while engaging with a funny storyline.

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Introduces technical and scientific terms. Supports breaking down complex vocabulary using context.

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by Margriet Ruurs
The text introduces academic and technical vocabulary related to science and engineering. It supports students in breaking down complex terms and applying them in meaningful ways..

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Rich in descriptive and figurative language. Helps students analyze Tier 2 vocabulary and imagery.

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By Jane Yolen

This story provides rich descriptive and figurative language. It encourages students to analyze Tier 2 vocabulary and understand how word choice shapes imagery and meaning.

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Uses expressive words to convey emotion. Shows how vocabulary shapes tone and meaning.

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The text uses powerful emotional vocabulary that helps readers connect to the character’s struggles and triumphs. It supports vocabulary development by showing how words convey tone and feeling.

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This story encourages students to infer character emotions, identify themes of friendship and loss, and summarize key plot events. Its simple yet engaging chapters make it perfect for practicing reading fluency.

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A fractured fairy tale that helps students analyze point of view and compare perspectives. Students can evaluate the narrator’s reliability while practicing expressive reading.

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This historical fiction novel challenges students to interpret themes of resilience and social change. Rich vocabulary and complex plots support reading comprehension and encourage discussion about character decisions.

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With rich vocabulary and descriptive sentences, this story promotes oral discussion and expressive language. Students can practice retelling, describing settings, and discussing feelings and experiences.

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Supports oral language through relatable dialogue and classroom discussions about empathy and gratitude. Students can express opinions, make predictions, and participate in partner reading activities.

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This humorous and engaging story about a boy who invents a new word encourages students to discuss creativity, language, and problem-solving. It’s perfect for read-alouds, debates, and partner or small-group discussions, helping students practice expressive oral language and reasoning skills.

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This story about a young girl navigating her identity in a new school encourages discussion about culture, identity, and language. Teachers can use repeated readings, sentence frames, and discussion prompts to help ELs practice vocabulary and oral expression.

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This picture book follows a young girl and her grandmother on a walk through the city, blending English and Spanish. It supports ELs by introducing bilingual vocabulary, cultural context, and descriptive language. Teachers can use it for discussion, storytelling, and sentence-building activities to strengthen both comprehension and oral language skills.

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A story about finding courage to speak up and connect with others, ideal for ELs to practice expressive language. Teachers can use this for sentence stems, storytelling, and partner conversations to enhance vocabulary and social language skills.

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Short, predictable sentences and engaging illustrations make this series accessible for students with dyslexia or reading difficulties. It encourages independent reading and fluency while keeping students motivated.

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Repetitive text and rhythmic language support fluency and decoding skills. Students can participate in choral reading and track patterns to reinforce reading confidence and comprehension.

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Highly repetitive and predictable dialogue paired with expressive illustrations supports struggling readers. Ideal for practicing reading aloud, phrasing, and comprehension through humor and dialogue.