Cats Night Out

Title : Cats' Night Out (Paula Wiseman Books)
Author: Caroline Stutson
Illustrator: J. Klassen
Publication Date: 2010  
Genre/Format: Poetry/Picture Book  
Summary: Crazy, cool cats dance a Saturday night away in this groovy book written in rhyme.  
What I Think: I love this rhythmic story.  It's not listed as poetry, but it reads like poetry to me.  The cats are so cool in the illustrations, it makes me want to snap my fingers in applause.  This would be a perfect read for a poetry slam.  I recently read about a Poetry Popcorn Reading, how fun does that sound?  My hubby is a P.E. teacher and this would even be fun to talk about different kinds of dances before doing a dance unit!  AND, math teachers - every page adds two more funky cats so kids can practice counting by two!  
Read Together: K - 8  
Read Alone: 4 - 8  
Read With: Other poetry books  
Snatch of Text: "Two cats samba, dressed in white, on the rooftop Saturday night.  Four cats boogie, rock to blues, in poodle skirts and saddle shoes.  In the city, windows light.  How many cats will dance tonight?"  
Reading Strategies to Practice: Activating Background Knowledge, Predicting  
Writing Strategies to Practice: Rhyme, Rhythm, Word Choice, $100 Words
Writing Prompts: Write a story where more characters are added to the story by twos, by threes, by fives!  Write a poem about what you like to do - use the thesaurus to look up $100 words for your poem.   
Topics Covered: Dance, Math 
Translated to Spanish: No