Read-Aloud: Enemy Pie

One of my favorite parts of the day is Read-Aloud.  I love reading books aloud, using voices, building excitement, and sharing the language of literature.  I especially love when I get to read one of those books that draws kids in, has them holding their breath, giggling, and whispering along; books like Caps for Sale, Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, and Strega Nona.  When I taught pre-K, these were the books I would read again and again just for fun.  I was a little nervous when I started teaching first grade that these books would no longer hold the same appeal, but fortunately books like these never really seem to get old.

This week, I read one of these great books, Enemy Pie, as part of our Voices Literature & Character Education Curriculum (by Zaner-Bloser).  Enemy Pie, by Derek Munson, is a Reading Rainbow book, as so many classic books are.  The story is about a boy whose father offers to bake "enemy pie" to help get rid of the boy's newest enemy.  Unfortunately, enemy pie only works if you spend the whole day with your enemy first.  The kiddos love hypothesizing, along with the boy in the story, about what horrible ingredients must be in enemy pie. At the end of the story, the boy, his father, and the boy's enemy sit down to eat enemy pie, only to discover that it tastes amazing and doesn't cause any weird side-effects. The little boy, along with my curious kiddos, wonder why the pie hasn't worked but simply conclude that it must be because the new kid has become a friend.  I love walking away from the carpet hearing the kiddos continue to whisper about what must really be in enemy pie.  Oh, how they can be cute!