Library Mouse

By: Daniel Kirk

Sam is a mouse that lives in a library. At night he read the children’s books, one night Sam decides to write his own children book about himself, “Squeak! A Mouse's Life”, complete with pictures that he draws himself. After he is done writing his book he slips the book into the shelves. One day a girl finds the book and brings it to the librarian’s attention. Sam is then invited to meet the author day at the library. Sam is too shy to be introduced to the people at the library but he encourages them to write their own books and to be creative.

Publisher: Abrams Books for Young Readers Copyright: 2007

Reading Level: 4th – 6th Lexile: 830L

Suggested Delivery: Read Aloud

Vocabulary: Reference streamed aisles illustrations imagination, brimmed, mysteries, biography, and autobiography

Electronic Resources:

http://danielkirk.com/dankirkbookspread22.html This is the Authors website, this gives information about the author, the book as well as reviews from other sources. http://danielkirk.com/dankirkactivity.html This is the activities section of the author’s web page, this is a great resource to use to get handouts and activities ideas for the book. http://issuu.com/hnabooks/docs/librarymousefinal This is a great resource for teacher about how to teach this book and how to integrate it into different curriculums. This also gives information about the author including interview questions and answers.

Activities to Increase Comprehension:

Before reading: Go over some of the vocabulary that may be challenging to the students. There are references to libraries in this book so having the student be familiar with libraries would be a great way for them to understand the book better. Have the students have a session in the library, understanding where to find books and how they are categorized would be a great activity to do before reading.

During reading: Have the students think about what it takes to write a book as they are listening to the book being read this will help them with the after reading activity.

After reading: Have the students write their own story. This book is all about being creative and coming up with your own ideas and making your own book, what better way to enforce that message than having them do it themselves. The students can also do a scavenger hunt in the library where they have to find different genres of books. This is a good book to begin getting students familiar with genres or enforce their learning of genres.