October Book of the Month
The literary world was saddened this September to learn that Colleen Salley, author of the Epossumondas books, had passed away. In honor of Ms. Salley and her wonderful contribution to children’s literature, this month we will be featuring Epossumondas as our Book of the Month. We hope you will sign your class up to hear Epossumondas and complete the accompanying organization activity. Plan to sign up for a 45-minute block of time so your students will have plenty of time to hear the story, complete the activity, and check out books.
About the book:
“Who’s Epossumondas? Why, he’s his mama’s and his auntie’s sweet little patootie, that’s who. He’s also the silliest, most lovable, most muddleheaded possum south of the Mason Dixon line!
“Better choose your words wisely when he’s around, ’cause otherwise you never know WHAT you’ll get. Epossumondas just might bring you a fist full of crumbs — or a soaking wet puppy — or a scruffy wad of bread — oh, you just wouldn’t believe it!
“Renowned storyteller Colleen Salley and Caldecott Honor illustrator Janet Stevens team up for this outrageous twist on the Southern story of the noodlehead who takes everything WAY too literally. (Or is that just Epossumondas just pulling his mama’s leg?)”
Organization activity: Help poor Epossumondas!
Let’s rewrite the story and help Epossumondas do everything RIGHT this time!
On the Promethean board, we will write down each item that auntie gave Epossumondas:
• A piece of rich gold cake
• Freshly churned butter
• A sweet little puppy
• A freshly baked loaf of bread
We will also record each of mama’s directions to Epossumondas:
• The way to carry cake is to put the cake on your head, put a hat on your head, and come along home.
• The way to carry butter is to wrap it up in some leaves and carry it down to the brook, and you cool it in the water … and then you take it up carefully in your hands and come along home.
• The way to carry a puppy is to put the puppy on the ground, tie a piece of string around the puppy dog’s neck, and take the piece of string and come along home.
This time, we will put the story in the right order by putting the directions BEFORE the items so that Epossumondas doesn’t make so many mistakes and all the goodies get home safely!
