Adventure

In the book, The Whipping Boy, by Sid Fleischman, Prince Brat decides to run away from the castle. He made his whipping boy, Jemmy, run away with him. As they are going through a foggy forest, the two boys get kidnapped by Hold-Your-Nose-Billy and Cutwater. Prince Brat and Jemmy do not get along at the beginning, but throughout the story, they begin to work together to get out of their sticky situation. As they began to work together they formed a friendship that could not be broken.

I think this book would be a really good way to show students that they can form friendships with someone who is the complete opposite of them. I think it is important for students to see that things will not always be easy with friendships, but they need to work together when they find themselves in hard situations. There are some difficult words in this book, so I think that I would really focus on some of the vocabulary. I would have my students write the words in their journals, use the word in a sentence, and include a drawing with the sentence.

Hatchet, by Gary Paulsen was a great book to read! In this book, Brian is flying on a little cargo plane to visit his father in Canada. During the flight, the pilot suffers from a heart attack and Brian is forced to fly the plane until it runs out of fuel. Once the plane crashes, Brian has to take care of himself in the forest until he is found. Brian faces many challenges including finding food and shelter, and keeping safe from the wild animals. After being stranded for a very long time, Brian finds himself to be a changed person.

I think this book has an endless amount of activities that could be used with it. One thing that I would definitely do is have my students write a survival guide using the tasks that Brian had to do in the book. The students would have to include illustrations in their survival guide. Students could also make little models of the shelter that Brian built in the book. I think it would be a lot of fun to have the students write in a journal from Brian's perspective about the things he had to do while he was stranded.

Questions to Consider:

●      When, if ever, is an adventure book too "real life" for your students? How will you determine the appropriateness for your students?

●      What other adventure books have you read? What about true adventure stories?