What I, Sophie Titina Tarantula, chose to describe today is a true story, one that illustrates clearly how the same book has a different effect on different groups of same-aged children. It is the perceptive teacher that notices this, and is able to facilitate the children’s inquiries and wonderings, while keeping to the prescribed academic content.
Recently our librarian friend chose to read a new book titled Moondog to the first grade students. I noticed she wasn’t as thrilled with the book as she usually is, I couldn’t tell if it was the illustrations that she didn’t like, the simplicity of the story, or what ????? that was preventing her from showing her usual exhuberance over a new book. Regardless, the time came, and the first group of first graders came in.
Since she never reads books to me, or to my pal Krista, I had to rely on paying close attention so I could get the storyline. Using simple words, the book describes a dog that lives on the Moon and keeps it clean, dusting the craters and overall making the Moon shine. —I don’t know if the librarian was thinking this, but I immediately thought about The Little Prince , who goes out each morning to take care of his planet. —
One day, a monkey in a space suit lands on the Moon and explains to Moondog that he was sent by the Earth’s scientists to collect a piece of rock and take it back. People on Earth have not taken care of their planet and now need to explore other options. Moondog, afraid that his Moon will be ruined by this, offers to trick the scientists by sending a dog biscuit instead of a piece of the Moon. Back on Earth, after testing the “rock” with a multimillion dollar power blaster and smacking it into millions of pieces, the scientists decide that they will instead take better care of the planet Earth while they have a chance to do so. At that point I realized why she was reading the book: the current theme at the school is “We can take care of planet Earth”.
When the librarian finished the story, instead of taking the usual turn and discussing with the children the message in the book, or other books like it, she mentioned that while she was reading the part about the monkey arriving on the moon, she remembered a photo she had seen about a monkey that was sent to space. The monkey was wearing a little spacesuit in the photo and had a scared look. Immediately the questions and the conversation ensued, why would scientists send monkeys into space, was it really true, how did the monkey know how to get there, and so forth. Time in the library was running short and the children had to go select books and check out. While they did this, the librarian took a quick trip to the computer, searched online and printed a picture of the monkey in a space suit. “Oohs and aaaahs” were this class’ exiting comments as they lined to leave the library and looked at the photo of the real monkey that went to space.
After the next class came in and the book was read, a different conversation ensued. Is it fair to send monkeys into space to test the spaceships? Did the monkey die? Did the monkey come back? The librarian didn’t have the answer to these questions, she just let the children speak to each other and express their curiosity. Once again, the children lined to leave the library and looked at the picture of the monkey in the space suit.
By the time the third first grade class came in, the librarian had a chance to pull out a beautiful biography of Buzz Aldrin Reaching for the Moon and after she read Moondog, talked about the monkey in the space suit, then quickly showed several pages from Buzz Aldrin’s book. This class was not as interested in the discussion, but wanted to go and check out the dinosaur books they had an eye for since the previous week.
The last first grade class to come to the library listened to the story, saw the pages in Buzz Aldrin’s book, saw the picture of the monkey in the space suit and listened attentively to find out that there were 32 monkeys sent by the United States to test the effects of space travel.
How far did these discussions go in the minds of the students? What would they remember later, the book about the dog that cleans the Moon, the scientists that decided to take care of the Earth, or the 32 monkeys in the little space suits that made it possible for the Buzz man to step on the Moon?
This doesn’t have to do much with libraries and books, but we thought you would like to know what a great spider Sophie is. A few years back, she took a trip around the room in the hands of several first graders. After the librarian showed them how to hold Sophie, she took the trip all around the circle of children, and only two boys declined the offer to give her a ride. The trip was quite an experience for all and made for a good conversation about whether it is spiders that hurt people or people that hurt spiders. The last photo shows how the last girl to hold Sophie placed her gently back in an adult’s hands.
