Orange Pear Apple Bear

Title: Orange Pear Apple Bear

Author: Emily Gravett

Illustrator: Emily Gravett

Publisher: Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers: http://kids.simonandschuster.com/

Publication Date: 2006

Genre: Animals

Audience: Grades PreK-2

Awards: A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year, an ALA Notable Children's Book, a Bulletin Blue Ribbon Book, a Kirkus Reviews Best Children's Book of the Year, a Publishers Weekly Best Book of the Year, one of New York Public Library's 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing.

Overview: This book uses only five words: 'orange', 'pear', 'apple', 'bear', and finally on the last page 'there'. It simply uses the four main words in every combination thinkable, with great illustrations to accompany each page. Finally, the bear eats all of the fruit and walks away! This book is great for young readers because there is a rhyming component. It is also very simple because it does not use complete sentences, just rearranges the words differently to make different meaning.

Activity: A good activity for this book would be to use phrases from the story and have students draw what the phrase means. The book is a little bit tricky because a comma separating two words will completely change it's meaning. For example: "orange bear" and "orange, bear". The first phrase talks about a bear that is the color orange, while the second phrase talks about a bear and an orange. To emphasize the affect that a comma can have on meaning, various phrases could be written on the board while the students have to draw what they think that specific phrase is talking about.

Reviewer's Name: Allison Parsons