Zoom! Boom! Bully by Jon Scieszka

Summary from the publisher:

Every time the trucks try to build something, Big Rig comes along, and - ZOOM! BOOM! - knocks it down!  What can they do to stop such a big bully?







In my quest to find new books to add to this blog everyday, I have a variety of types of books that I am looking for.  I keep my eye out for books I can recommend to my colleagues to use as a read aloud.  I look for books to use with my students in an intervention setting.  I even look for books that I might just like to read myself.  But recently, I have taken to looking for books that my oldest son can read.  He has recently really become quite the emergent reader.  He has had an interest in letters from a young age (he used to run to the fridge and come back with the magnetic letters and say "This is Mama's letter," while holding up the letter M.)  Recently, he has started asking how to spell everything and has even surprised us with reading whole books to us that he's never seen before.
Needless to say, I was glad to see this book come home in the library bag on a recent trip there with my husband.  I have this book in my classroom and could use it for interventions as well.  The repeated lines, large font and detailed illustrations would help any emergent or struggling reader have success.  Scholastic does give this a guided reading level of K, so truly emergent readers would need a lot of help.  There are some difficult vocabulary words that they would need a lot of help with (decorates, birthday, crates).  But there is a good theme in this story which is rare to see in a story as simple as this.
Jon Scieszka is known for his books that are geared towards males (not to mention, he is a Michigan born author- I always like to have a few authors in my classroom that I feature that come from Michigan).  He has written many books, most of which have a humorous side or are on a topic which relate to males.  He even has a site, www.guysread.com, which is designed to help motivate boys to become lifelong readers and learners.  I can certainly see many more of his stories crossing the doorway of my home in the years. to come.