Family Picture Book Read-Aloud Afternoon: A Nine-Book Pile!

Rat law states that the "cheese belongs to you" . . . unless another rat wants it who is bigger, quicker, stronger, etc. Things escalate very quickly to authoritarian rule, coups, and anarchy.

It reminded me of this CNN article I read:

Consider an exercise practiced in one of Chicago’s most effective violence intervention programs, Becoming a Man (BAM). Teens are paired up; one is given a rubber ball, and the other is given 30 seconds to get the ball out of his partner’s fist. Inevitably, the two teens end up on the ground, wrestling and fighting to get – or keep – the ball.

After the teens switch roles and the same struggle occurs, the BAM counselor asks why no one just asked their partner for the ball. They usually look surprised and say something along the lines of, “The other guy would have thought I’m a wuss.” The counselor asks the partner if that’s true. The usual answer: “No, I would have given it to him. It’s just a stupid ball.” ( )

Great book to show sharing. The bigger and scarier mouse would take the cheese and so on, but in the end it's best if they all shared the cheese. ( )

January 8, 2014

No duh. All the cheese is mine, and mine alone to grate and share. My mother-in-law gives me a sack of cheeses for Christmas every year. Of course, the Spouse actually has a nickname including the word cheese. And both the Offspring are quite keen.



So, yeah, you had me at "cheese." I like the way the text builds, I like the illustration very much. And I really liked the words "rat law" together. Natasha, eleven, was amused as well.



[spoiler]For those who haven't read the back cover copy of the book, it would be fun to pair as a read-aloud with Millions of Cats. Just saying.

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January 8, 2015

Those who forget the past are doomed to re-read it on the same date next year. Not that I'm complaining, I liked it even more this time.

Library copy ( )

The complicated etiquette of rats and cheese. ( )

If you're teaching a grammar lesson on comparative and superlative adjectives, your intro book has to be Deacon's CHEESE BELONGS TO YOU! It's not every day that you can inject humor into grammar (unless you're using Lynne Truss's books), but this will do just that. Under rat law, the cheese belongs to you unless a big rat comes along. Then if a bigger rat comes along, the cheese belongs to her (like the feminist twist that Deacon uses the female pronoun for the bigger rat). And so it goes with scary, scarier, scariest and quick, quicker, quickest rat. The illustrations definitely enhance the humor. ( )