Linky Party - Day 2

Today's assignment is to pick my favorite picture book based on illustrations.  Like most teachers, I'm a bibliophile and should probably find a 12 step program to help me with my addiction to purchasing picture books.  Being asked to pick my favorite is like asking me to pick my favorite niece/nephew impossible!  However, I'm going to share one of my favorite read alouds because I love how many teaching points I can pull out of it and the illustrations are darling, to boot.  The book I'm choosing for today's assignment is:

http://books.google.com/books?id=G1b5FKJY6ZcC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0

When I taught first grade I used this book for predicting, inferring, character traits, character development, story elements and I linked it up with science for our life science unit.  The illustrations are darling.  It wasn't uncommon to find two or three kiddos sprawled out on the floor of the classroom analyzing the illustrations for details they missed.  Having multiple copies for the bookshelf was a must.

This summer my book shopping/reading time has been spent on transitional chapter books.  However, I've also been sorting through my picture book library looking for mentor texts for reading workshop and writing workshop.  Thanks, Jodi, for giving this assignment.  I'm sure there are still some teaching points yet to be found in this book.  I just made note on my "to do" list to pull Too Many Pumpkins and put it in my October crate.