Modern Fantasy and Science Fiction

My Green Thumb by: Maxine Effenson Chuck [fantasy]


In "My Green Thumb" a little boy, Isador, is telling the story about how he became a farmer. One day he was is in the garden with his father and it begins to rain.  Later, he notices that his thumb as turned green.  From then on everytime he touched a plant it grew insanely large.  He eventually learns how to control his power.  After advice from his grandfather he enters a pumpkin into the county fair and wins.  This book would be for students on a lower reading level.  This book would be good for helping student make connections.  This would also be a good book for a guided reading session because it is short but has some challenging words and ideas. This book would also be good for doing a running record on a student who has come from another school and as a teacher you are trying to determine what reading level they are on.

Double Trouble in Walla Walla by: Andrew Clements [fantasy]

In this book a little girl comes to school and she has a question about her homework.  When she opens her mouth to answer the question she says silly phrases.  Her teacher warns her to stop talking in such a silly manner.  Since she can't control what she is saying she continued and her teacher and her went to the principals office.  When her teacher tried to explain to the principal the teacher was talking to silly too. This spread to the teacher, principal, and then the school nurse.  Together they tried to figure out the solution.  They decided to say as many silly things as they could to see if it would fix it.  Sure enough after after pages of jibber jabber the four were cured and their day went on as planned.  This book is good for the class climate.  This book is also good for ELL students who are learning how to read English because it gives them the opportunity to pronouce letter combination in this language.

Saving Sweetness by: Diane Stanley

This book is about a little girl who lives in an orphange.  The foster mother was a horrible lady.  A little girl, the smallest one, left from the orphange and she decided to run into the desert.  The sheriff went into the desert to find her.  The sheriff kept getting himself into trouble and Sweetness kept bailing him out.  Before he would get the opportunity to take her back into town she would run away again.  Sweetness swore to never return to the orphange.  With the help of Sweetness the sheriff caught an outlaw this time Sweetness made the Sheriff promise to adopt her and all three of them went into town.  The sheriff ended up adpoting the entire orphange.  The outlaw married to foster and she was just as mean to him as she was to the children.  The children can write in a journal other ending to the story.  I think this is a good book to stop frequently during readings and have the students predict what will happen next.