Swimmy By: Leo Lionni

Book Genre: General fiction

Publishing Info: Knopf Books for Young Readers (32 pages)

Awards or honors received: CALDECOTT HONOR BOOK

Summary: Swimmy (The main character) is the only survivor of an encounter between a school of fish and a large tuna fish. He becomes very lonely loosing his family and friends and notices that the sea is full of wonderful creatures, so he swam from marvel to marvel. When he meets a new school of fish of his own kind hiding among the rocks, he is determined to think of a plan so they can safely explore the sea without getting eaten. Swimmy comes up with the perfect plan that enables them all to swim with the giants.

Personal rating and reason for rating: ****Great! The main reason I really liked this story was because it taught the children perseverance, cooperation and the power of working together. This book is also filled with challenging words which would lead to further learning of vocabulary. (Darting, fierce, anemones, invisible and gulp) The author uses water color to complete the pictures. The only set back to this book in my opinion are the illustrations in the story are a little drab, I would have liked to see brighter more vibrant colors.

Reading level: Accelerated Reading level 2.9 (2nd grade 9th month)

Interest level: K-5

Possible uses of the text in integrated units of study:

Reading: Talk about how many words in our language have more than one meaning. (Homophones)For example: A school of fish swam in the sea and I see the children playing on the playground. (sea, see)

Writing: Kindergarten students are so good at using their imagination. I would have my students create (by using illustrations) a new sea creature never discovered before. They would have to incorporate their new creature into an undersea setting. For their writing they would have to tell me what it eats, create its name and tell me what kind of behaviors it might have.

Math Extension: I would bring in materials and ingredients to make a blue jello ocean. I would talk about the recipe and even have a few volunteers to help me mix and pour. Place it in the refrigerator for the recommended time. When complete place 99 red swedish fish in the shape of a fish and place one black jelly bean for the eye to represent swimmy. Counting to 100 is one of our math assessments. Students would count as we added each swedish fish to the “ocean”.

Potential problems or difficulties: I do not see any potential problems.