Author: Lois Lowry was born in Hawaii. She was the second child of three and said this is what she liked. As the middle child she was often left alone and this provided the solitary she wanted to live in her imagination. She was raised in a military family and lived all over the world.She raised four children while living the military life and traveled the world with her naval husband. Her marriage ended at the age of forty and she now enjoys gardening, feeding the birds, entertaining friends and reading.This is a quote from her website that I loved and thought I'd put it here, "
Synopsis: There were four stories in this collection so I'll provide a synopsis for each one.
-Gooney Bird Greene: This one is about a new girl in the second grade class with the odd name of Gooney Bird.The kids are fascinated by her and her storytelling abilities. Throughout the book the reader learns more about Gooney Bird and the other children in the class through storytelling.
- Gooney Bird and the Room Mother: It's the Thanksgiving Pageant and the lead role of Squanto goes to the student who is able to find a room mother for the second grade class. Gooney Bird finds one but refuses to reveal the identity of this room mother until the pageant when she is supposed to provide cupcakes. Will the pageant be a fiasco? Will the room mother even show up?
- Gooney Bird the Fabulous: The class learns about fables and Gooney Bird has an idea for each child to pick an animal, be the animal, and write a fable about that animal. The day before Christmas vacation they will have a parade. Everyone is excited about it except for one little boy, Nicholas. Will Gooney Bird be able to help him before the parade?
- Gooney Bird is so Absurd: The class is having fun learning about poetry. Suddenly, they receive dreadful news and Gooney Bird is going to have to use her creativity and brain warming hat to organize the most important poem ever.
Review: Both of my kids absolutely LOVED these books. My kids are 3 & 5 and when we were finished with the stories they were so upset. Honestly, Gooney Bird annoyed me at first because she sometimes took the role of the teacher and I felt that she needed to back down a bit. After I got used to her personality it didn't bother me quite so much. In one of the stories, a substitute teaches and it's funny seeing the way she reacts to Gooney Bird Green. Overall, it was a very fun story! There is plenty of opportunities for the reader to expand their vocabulary b/c the second graders like to use their dictionaries. My 5 year old is using a lot of words now that he didn't use before.
Rating:***** Five Stars
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