Teach Mentor Texts: A Boy Called Bat Blog Tour and Giveaway

I'm thrilled to be a stop on the blog tour for A Boy Called Bat by Elana K. Arnold! You can read my review of A Boy Called Bat where I share a snatch of text and my thoughts on how you might use A Boy Called Bat as a mentor text. You can also find an Educator's Resource here that gives more information and shares ideas for you can use with students.

Today, as part of the blog tour, I'd like to reiterate that Bat completely stole my heart. As I think about him now, I smile because he's such a complete character to me and I can imagine him even after having read the book over a month ago. I connected with Bat and how he feels about his skunk kit Thor in the story. Reading Bat's story helped me reflect on how special it is to have a pet in my life.

At the beginning of last school year, a friend shared a picture of a sweet little adorable puppy who was adoptable from one of our local rescue shelters. I fell in love immediately. Luckily, I had been trying to convince my husband we needed a dog for the last ten years or so. I mean, I would show him pictures of puppies and every time I wrote a persuasive essay with students, I would write mine all about why we really needed a dog. Finally, our youngest son was five and in kindergarten and this sweet little pup was in my Facebook feed and my husband didn't really have much of a choice, he had to say it was okay for me to go and meet her.

So I did. One Thursday night in November, I went and met our sweet little pup. She was so little and so cute. I fell in love right away and then the rest of the family came to meet her. After that it all went really fast! We told them we wanted to take her home, we signed lots of papers, and then we went to pick her up that weekend. Suddenly, we were a family with a little puppy in the backseat and we were taking her home.

It's not easy taking care of a puppy! We had a lot to learn and she had a lot to learn. It wasn't easy but we got her into puppy classes right away and we took her to puppy play time so she could socialize and then we started taking her to the dog park too.

Now Perdi is about 1 1/2 and she still needs a lot of attention but we have fun playing with her, practicing her tricks, and going on long walks.

You know those bumper stickers that ask, "Who saved who?" We adopted Perdi but she has brought so much love into our lives and I can't imagine her not being part of our family. I'm especially happy that my kids get to grow up with a dog.

I kind of think Bat and his love of his little skunk kit Thor helped him out as much as he helped to take care of Thor.

I hope readers either get to live through Bat's story and know what it's like to take care of a pet and/or that they get to have a pet of their own connect with Bat's experience. Either way, readers will enjoy reading about Bat and his love for Thor.

Do you have a special pet in your life?

I'd love to hear about him or her!

Also, be sure to enter the giveaway courtesy of Walden Pond Press!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Also, be sure to visit all the other blogs on the tour!

March 1 Read, Write Reflect

March 2 A Foodie Bibliophile in Wanderlust - Beth Shaum

March 3 Bluestocking Thinking

March 6 The Official Tumblr of Walden Media

March 7 For Those About to Mock

March 8 Maria’s Melange

March 9 Novel Novice