Title: Julius: The Baby of the World
Author/Illustrator: Henkes, Kevin
Publisher and Date: Greenwillow Books, 1990
Genre: Picture Book, Animal Fantasy
Age Range: K-2
Summary: In this hilarious book Lilly and her family have just had a new addition to her family, her brother Julius. Julius is affectionately called “the baby of the world” by her parents, but Lilly affectionately refers to him as “disgusting.” Lilly’s parents adore Julius and praise every action that he does, even gurgling and blowing bubbles. Lilly however, sees nothing spectacular about her new baby brother and wishes that he would leave. She does everything she can to upset him; she ignores him, scares him, and tries to confuse him by repeating the alphabet mixed up. One day her family decides to throw a celebration in honor of Julius and cousin Garland makes the mistake of calling Julius “disgusting.” Lilly takes up for her brother and from then on everyone, especially Lilly, consider Julius “the baby of the world.”
Response: This was such a good story! Most kids would relate very well to this story, because most have either had a sibling brought into the family or feared that one day soon there parents would bring one in. Many children, especially younger children, fear that their parents will like their brother or sister better then them or that they will be forgotten altogether. When I was in first grade my mom told me that I was going to have a little sister. I was absolutely mortified. Up until that point I had been the youngest and the most spoiled princess in the family. I just could not comprehend having to share some of my attention with yet another sister! Like, Lilly I pouted and sulked trying to draw attention to myself in any way possible. Finally though I realized just like Lilly that my sister was family and that everyone had a special place in our family. I love how Lilly becomes the protective older big sister in the last few pages of the book. It is so true that we can pick on our siblings, but others cannot. The ending of the book wraps things up perfectly; “JULIUS IS THE BABY OF THE WORLD!” And from then on, he was. In everyone’s opinion. Especially in Lilly’s.” We have to be patient with our family and learn just like Lilly and I did that everyone has a place and no one is more important than anyone else. Lilly’s parents tried to stress this to her earlier in the book when they told her that they wanted Julius to be as clever and as beautiful as her, but she had to believe them in her own time.
Teaching Ideas: This would be a great book to read to any age group. The illustrations and added text would have them cracking up and empathizing with Lilly the whole way through. A good activity to pair with this book would be to have the children write a diary entry about a hard time they have experienced with their family. They can even draw pictures to help them express their emotions.
I would definitely encourage you to read more of Kevin Henkes hysterically funny, yet didactic books!
Author/Illustrator: Henkes, Kevin
Publisher and Date: Greenwillow Books, 1990
Genre: Picture Book, Animal Fantasy
Age Range: K-2
Summary: In this hilarious book Lilly and her family have just had a new addition to her family, her brother Julius. Julius is affectionately called “the baby of the world” by her parents, but Lilly affectionately refers to him as “disgusting.” Lilly’s parents adore Julius and praise every action that he does, even gurgling and blowing bubbles. Lilly however, sees nothing spectacular about her new baby brother and wishes that he would leave. She does everything she can to upset him; she ignores him, scares him, and tries to confuse him by repeating the alphabet mixed up. One day her family decides to throw a celebration in honor of Julius and cousin Garland makes the mistake of calling Julius “disgusting.” Lilly takes up for her brother and from then on everyone, especially Lilly, consider Julius “the baby of the world.”
Response: This was such a good story! Most kids would relate very well to this story, because most have either had a sibling brought into the family or feared that one day soon there parents would bring one in. Many children, especially younger children, fear that their parents will like their brother or sister better then them or that they will be forgotten altogether. When I was in first grade my mom told me that I was going to have a little sister. I was absolutely mortified. Up until that point I had been the youngest and the most spoiled princess in the family. I just could not comprehend having to share some of my attention with yet another sister! Like, Lilly I pouted and sulked trying to draw attention to myself in any way possible. Finally though I realized just like Lilly that my sister was family and that everyone had a special place in our family. I love how Lilly becomes the protective older big sister in the last few pages of the book. It is so true that we can pick on our siblings, but others cannot. The ending of the book wraps things up perfectly; “JULIUS IS THE BABY OF THE WORLD!” And from then on, he was. In everyone’s opinion. Especially in Lilly’s.” We have to be patient with our family and learn just like Lilly and I did that everyone has a place and no one is more important than anyone else. Lilly’s parents tried to stress this to her earlier in the book when they told her that they wanted Julius to be as clever and as beautiful as her, but she had to believe them in her own time.
Teaching Ideas: This would be a great book to read to any age group. The illustrations and added text would have them cracking up and empathizing with Lilly the whole way through. A good activity to pair with this book would be to have the children write a diary entry about a hard time they have experienced with their family. They can even draw pictures to help them express their emotions.
I would definitely encourage you to read more of Kevin Henkes hysterically funny, yet didactic books!
1 comment:
You are on a roll! You have really worked through each text very carefully! I love to see you referencing class discussions, blogs, and the Temple text in these blogs about the books you are reading. Be sure, at some point, to discuss Henkes effective use of white space and the cartoon-like images. I love this teaching suggestion, too!
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