Bink and Gollie

Title: Bink and Gollie     
Author: Kate DiCamillo and Alson McGhee   
Illustrator: Tony Fucile  
Publisher: Candlewick Press
Publication Date: 2010
Genre/Format: Realistic Fiction/Graphic Novel-Picture Book   
Summary: Three stories about true friends, Bink and Gollie!  These girls are so different but such good friends! 
What I Think: I think I'm Bink...although I have some Gollie in me, too!  I love these characters.  I think readers will be able to find some aspect of themselves in these girlies.  I've been working on making connections with my 3rd grader and we've used this book to make text-to-self, text-to-text, and text-to-world connections.  There is an overall theme of friendship in this book that we'll talk about after we're done.  Books that kids can relate to and that are just so true to life are just awesome.
    I love the illustrations in this book, they are mostly black and white with some colored illustrations.  I would call this book something of a graphic picture book novel because so much of the story is driven by the illustrations and there is mostly just dialogue in the book but at the same time the text reflects a picture book style.  What is interesting to me is that I found lots of great vocabulary in this book compared how little text is in the book.  It's a great sample of $100 words and the difference they make, especially when it comes to creating characters.     
Read Together: 1 - 5  
Read Alone: 3 - 6 
Read With: Charlotte's Web by E.B. White; Keena Ford and the Second-Grade Mix-Up and others by Melissa Thomson; Mitchell Is Moving by Marjorie Weinman Sharmat; Where I Live by Eileen Spinelli; One by Kathryn Otoshi
Snatch of Text: "'It's a sock bonanza!' said Bink.
'Indeed it is,' said Gollie.  'An extremely bright sock bonanza.'
'I'll take this pair,' said Bink.
'Bink,' said Gollie, 'the brightness of those socks pains me.  I beg you not to purchase them.'
'I can't wait to put them on,' said Bink."  p. 12-13
Reading Strategies to Practice: Activating Background Knowledge, Making Connections, Making Predictions, Making Inferences
Writing Strategies to Practice: Personal Narrative, Characterization 
Writing Prompts: Write about your favorite memory of your best friend.  What about qualities you think are important in a friend.   
Topics Covered: Friendship, Adventure, Imagination, Being Yourself 
Translated to Spanish: No