Saturday, December 22, 2012

A Flower in the Snow

Title: A Flower in the Snow 
Author: Tracey Corderoy  
Illustrator: Sophie Allsopp 
Publisher: Sourcebooks Jabberwocky 
Publication Date: December 1st, 2012 
Genre/Format: Fiction/Picture Book 
GoodReads Summary: Luna and her polar bear friend (Bear) discover a beautiful gold flower growing in the snow. But when the flower fades, Bear goes on a search around the world for another to bring to Luna. It's only when he returns home that the true strength of their friendship is revealed.

A beautifully illustrated picture book that celebrates the joys of friendship, A FLOWER IN THE SNOW has the look and feel of an instant classic.
What I Think: I really enjoyed the sweet illustrations and this loving story of friendship. It's especially important to share this message with kiddos this time of year. Luna and Bear are great friends but when they are apart, they realize truly how much they mean to each other. It seems like it's easy to overlook the friends we cherish when our lives get busy. I often find myself stopping to be thankful for everyone and everything in my life and to stop and appreciate everything I have and to be okay with what I don't have.
      This book really made me think about a few things other than the message of friendship. First, I was so curious about a flower growing in the snow...or being able to plant a flower and have it bloom in an arctic place where it's sooooo snowy. I had to search the Internets for this because it really had me confused. I think the flower that grow in this book is either a crocus or an arctic poppy. I loved seeing all the images of bright yellow flowers blooming in the snow when I did my search. Yellow is my new favorite color and it looks so hopeful and sweet in the snow. I also had to look up if bees could live in snowy places. I'm still trying to learn more about this but I did learn that there are arctic bees that would live in far north and snowy places. Finally, I was thinking about the science of planting and growing flowers in general. Maybe my brain was being a little bit hesitant to go along with the whimsicalness of of this story, but I really wanted to clarify if any of these things were truly possible because if you had asked me before, I would have probably said no to all of them. I love that this book made me think in a different way. I haven't read this with kids yet and I would be curious to hear if they would question the possibility of flowers in the snow or not. It would make a great discussion and also a follow up link to doing some research or non-fiction reading to find answer any questions that arose.
Read Together: Grades Pre-K - 2  
Read Alone: Grades K - 2 
Read With: Over and Under the Snow by Kate Messner, Bear Has a Story to Tell by Phillip C. Stead, A Story for Bear by Dennis Hesely 
Snatch of Text:  
"Then, one crisp and twinkly night,
a snowflake kissed his nose.

How good it felt - so cold and light!"
Reading Strategies to Practice: Making Predictions, Asking Questions 
Writing Strategies to Practice: Personal Narrative, Descriptive  
Writing Prompts: Write about a time in your life when you missed someone or something. 
Topics Covered: Friendship, Values, Growth, Adventure, Appreciation, Love, Integration - Science, Multicultural
I *heart* It:

 

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