The Day Jimmy's Boa Ate The Wash

Title: The Day Jimmy’s Boa Ate The Wash
Author: Trinka Hakes Noble
Publisher: Dial Books for Young Readers
Date of Publication: 1980
Illustrator: Steven Kellogg
Genre Designation: Children’s Fiction
Readability Lexile: K-2 (ages 5-8)

Summary:
When a young girl starts telling her mom about her class field trip to the farm, she says it was boring until the cow started crying.  The reader soon learns that there was nothing boring at all about the field trip that day.  The chaos that ensued that day ranged from falling haystacks, pigs on the bus, kids throwing corn at each other, Jimmy’s boa constrictor running loose, hens and chickens squawking everywhere.  Which all ended with a pig coming home and boa constrictor staying at the farm.

Evaluation:
I remember loving this story when I was younger, which is I picked it out at the library.  However, when I finished reading it I found myself questioning whether it was really a good book.  Of course it is still a fun book, but a good story I don’t think so.  I looked through the story multiple times and could not find the use of any literary elements.  What troubles me most about the story is that there is no consequence for behavior within the story.  The students act all sorts of bonkers and then not only do they bring the pig home but we end the story with them going to play and the mother smiling and waving.  I am not sure if the author was trying to teach us anything with this story or if she was simply trying to give us a good laugh.  The author also only gave one character a name and that was Jimmy, all the other characters were nameless and acted as a group rather than individuals. However, on an entire different note this book does offer a slight look into a farm and the animals that live there.  This book could be used as an opening into a farm unit.  It could cause excitement, as well as discussion about the importance of keeping the animals separate, feeding them, visitors etc.  All in all, this story is not one that I would use within my classroom unless I had a very specific purpose for it.  It would be up to the reader to make a purposeful meaning out of the story by recognizing that our actions both good and bad do have consequences.  Or finding a link between the story and an upcoming unit that will be taught.

Illustrations:
I was not overly impressed with the illustrations.  While they offered a lot of details for students to look at, there were some things that concerned me.  There was not a lot of cultural diversity represented in the illustrations.  There were two African American students and the rest were all Caucasian characters.  At times the illustrations seemed a bit overwhelming due to the amount of chaos that was trying to be conveyed through the illustrations.

Mini-Lesson:
This mini-lesson would focus on action and choices.  After reading the story as a class, we would have a class discussion about good choices that were made in the story and bad choices made in the story.  Once our list is made we would then see what we could do differently so that the bad choices could be good choices next time.