Writing our Book Reviews

We have begun our first Writing project of the school year, book reviews!  

We began about two weeks ago by reading several book reviews written by students our age.  We found a great website, spaghettibookclub.org, that lists hundreds of children's books with all the reviews written by kids.  After reading many of these, we made a list of all the things we noticed that the book reviews had in common.  This list became part of our book review criteria.  We needed to include each of these when writing our own book reviews.

Now it was time to practice.  Mrs. Deyoe wrote two book reviews in front of the students, on two different books.  We then were ready to try it together.  

We read the book "Stellaluna" then wrote a book review as a shared writing.  We took some time to revise it and even came back to make sure we were happy with our work during another writing period.  Our next review was for the book "Library Lion".  We followed the same procedure as for Stellaluna.  

We were now ready to try on our own.

Today was our second writing period writing our own book reviews.  Each student chose their own book on which to write their review and they've been going great!

Here are our two shared writing reviews!  Enjoy!

Stellaluna Review

"Stellaluna" is a good story.  An owl tried to get Stellaluna, and she lost her mother.  Stellaluna fell down into the forest because she couldn't fly yet.  She fell into a bird's nest.  She thought she was a bird and started acting like one.  You'll have to read to find out the rest.

We liked this book because it made us feel good and care about every animal.  We liked the part when Stellaluna found her mom.  We like the illustrations because they were amazing and realistic.  This story taught us a lesson-we are all different.

If you like bats, you will like this story.  We recommend this book to students in grades 1, 2, and 3.

Library Lion Review

You should never break the rules in a library, even if you're a lion.  "Library Lion" is a fun story to read.  "Library Lion" is about a lion who came into a library.  He went past the circulation desk into the stacks of books.  Then Mr. McBee went to tell his boss, Miss Merriweather, about the lion.  The lion roared because he wanted to story lady to keep reading.  Read the book to find out the rest.

We like this book because the pictures look fun and interesting and they look really realistic.  We liked this book because it made us feel happy because the lion was allowed to be in the library after all.  

If you like lions or even if you don't like lions, you'll still probably want to read this book.  We recommend this book to younger children so parents and other family members can read it to them.