Title: Tickle Monster

Author: Josie Bissett

Illustrator: Kevan J. Atteberry

Reading Level: Ages 4-8

Hardcover: 36 pages

Publisher: Compendium; 1ST edition (August 15, 2008)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 1932319670

       The best sound in the world is the glorious sound of my children laughing. Children love playfulness. They love silliness and they LOVE being tickled! Laughing together creates a bond like no other. To me, there is no greater gift than the gift of shared laughter and memories. I thank each and every one of you for giving your child the magical gift of laughter and connection through this book." - Josie Bissett. 


     Tickle Monster is a great book to read as a read-aloud or as a one on one reading book. I found this book to be filled with multi-model text, words were written in BIG letters and little letters, bold letters, and even sentence were found in the middle of the page and not in the "normal" spot. Tickle Monster is about a lovable monster who has big hands that love to tickle anyone who crosses his path. He has just flow in the from the plant of Tickle, where he is on a mission to bring laughter to planted earth. Tickle Monster walks along a path and by using rhyming words tickles his friends in many different places on the body. "Get ready for laughter, cuz here I come to tickle and tackle your...little tum-tum!" (Bissett). This book is a great way to introduce rhyming words, and also it is full of words that would be great to add to any word wall. Some of the words that I would want to teach before reading this book to my class are; flee, zaniest, Venus, Mars, Texas, Pisa, tizzy, frizzy, dizzy, and many more. Its a great book to get children giggling with delight. After reading through the book the first time I wanted to see if there was any way I could get myself and my students to be asking questions while reading the book. One thing I found is great about a book that is using many different rhyming words is that you have questions set up for you. I found that you can ask questions about what part of the body do you think Tickle Monster is going to tickle next, and have the children use the words to try to find what part of the body rhymes with the words on the last page. 
      
      Using a book like Tickle Monster you can teach many different types of lessons. A few I thought of where to talk about the different parts of the body that Tickle Monster tickles. Use that as a way to talk and show the children what each of those body parts is used for and why we have them. I also thought it would be a great idea to use the song Head and Shoulders to reinforce the many different parts of our bodies. Another lesson I thought of would be to talk about all the animals Tickle Monster talks to. It would be a great week long lesson to focus on the different types of animals in the world and create a week long lesson talking about animals from all over the world. Using this book would be a great way to not only include one but many different elements of literacy. I found the illustrations in the book to be fun, playful and exciting. They are full of color and you can feel the movement of each picture when you look at it. Tickle Monster is a great book that I will be using in my own classroom to promote literacy and teach many different lessons from one great book! 



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