M is for Mischief

Title: M IS FOR MISCHIEF: An A to Z of Naughty Children     
Author: Linda Ashman  
Illustrator: Nancy Carpenter  
Publisher: Dutton Children's Book
Publication Date: 2008   
Genre/Format: Fiction/Picture Book (This book says it's a story in rhyme...but I kind of look at it as more of a poetry book because each letter page can stand alone.)   
Summary: An A to Z book with a naughty twist.  Each letter stands for a certain miscreant and each letter page tells that certain miscreant's story!    
What I Think:  I'll never forget when a friend posted a picture of her 4-year-old son scrubbing crayon off the wall on Facebook.  I thought it was such a classic picture.  I took the opportunity to tell my 3-year-old Peanut just how naughty that was!  I showed him the picture of his friend and how he was paying for his mistake by having to clean up the mess he made.   For days, Peanut would comment on how it was naughty to draw on the walls.  This book is like a whole alphabet worth of non-examples for kids!  I can't wait to read it with my students because of the alliteration, the rhymes, the vocabulary, the character traits, and the lessons!
     I've realized lately that it's difficult for my students to identify character traits when reading.  I love that the characters in this book are all labelled with a characteristic of their naughtiness.  My plan is to read these little by little, focusing on the character traits and then to discuss what character trait would represent the opposite of that character trait.  The idea is to generate a list of character traits students can think about when reading.
     I love a book like this that can be used as a mentor text for so very many different things depending on what you want to work on.  I went to the library to look for alphabet books after attending a Heggerty phonemic awareness training.  When I spotted this book, I knew it had great potential because of the naughtiness...it's kind of like having to slow down to see a car wreck, you just can't help it.  With all the alliteration it will definitely be great to encourage students to listen to the beginning sounds in this book, but there are so many other ways to use this text.
Read Together: 2 - 12
Read Alone: 4 - 12  
Read With: Where The Sidewalk Ends - The Poems And Drawings Of Shel Silverstein and other poetry collections by Shel Silverstein; The Handmade Alphabet by Laura Rankin; other alphabet books    
Snatch of Text:

"Rude Ruby

Ruby, at the roller rink, is raising quite a racket.

Rams right into Rita, then she rips Roberta's jacket.

Leaves a trail of raisins, calls Renee a rat.

Ridicules the music, steals Rebecca's hat.

The skaters find her rudeness too repulsive to ignore.

They spin her round and round so fast, she rolls right out the door."

Reading Strategies to Practice: Activating Background Knowledge, Making Connections, Identifying Story Elements - Characters, Making Inferences   
Writing Strategies to Practice: Characterization, Rhyme, Alliteration, $100 words 
Writing Prompts: Choose your favorite naughty character and write a poem using alliteration about his or her opposite goody-two-shoes character.      
Topics Covered: Behavior, Friendship, Character Traits   
Translated to Spanish: No