YOU and ME and HOME SWEET HOME

"YOU and Me and HOME SWEET HOME"

BY: George Ella Lyon and Stephanie

Reading Level: Ages 4-8

Grade level: Kindergarten-third

Hardcover: 48 pages

Publisher: Atheneum/Richard Jackson Books (09-20-2009)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 9780689875892

         After reading through "You and Me and Home Sweet Home" I believe it is a great story! It is based on a Mother and Daughter who feel they have over stayed their welcome at their aunts house, but they have no where to go. Their church community feels for the mother and daughter and come together to help build a home for them. During the time the little girl wants to help as much as possible because she wants to help build her own home! The story ends with you feeling happy for the family and amazed at how much a community can do if they put their hands together for a great cause. It is a great way to talk to your class about how to lend a hand to those who do not have much. Its always a great way to talk about what a family looks like and what a home is. I think it would be great to have each child bring in a picture of their home and share it with the class along with a picture of their family. So that we can have a class discussion on families and homes.

I know this text is one I would read to my class because the story is full of rich vocabulary and many life lesson we all need to learn and most of the time re-learn. One lesson that stuck out most to me was that every person is created equal. Everyone one needs a place to call home and as a community we can come together to create this. I believe we need to stop focusing so much on ourselves and lend a hand to those in need. A great way to get involved would be Habitat for Humanity, again this could be a great way to get a class involved in something much bigger than ourselves. 

The text and the illustrations make you feel like you belong in the community, they make you want pick up a hammer and help build the home. The pictures themselves take you through the story and make you feel like you are right there building this home. I would want to talk with my children about how we can look at the pictures and tell the story with out even reading the words. The pictures show us that everyone is equal and that everyone belongs no matter your age, race, or gender. 

There are many literacy elements found in this story but three of them I want to point out are allegory, onomatopoeia, and hyperbole.  The Allegory in the story that can help us better understand something is that no matter who you are we all deserve to have a place we call home. The story takes you through the process of what it would be like to not have a home and then what it feels like to have a place called home. The next element would be onomatopoeia which can be found through out the story, mainly at the parts where the little girl is pounding the nails into the wood. The sounds being heard a writing like this "bam Bam BAM" giving you a cue that you are meant to read the words with a growing loudness of your voice. The last element is Hyperbole, this is found when the little girl tells her mother she wants to skip school to build the house and her mothers responds is over the top saying "You must of hit you head with the hammer". Meaning that there was no way the mother was going to let her daughter miss school, another great lesson!!

Using this story you could create lots of great lessons. One lesson I would want to use this story for it to teach the class how everyone has a different home. Some people live with other families, in their own home, apartments, town homes, and many more. I also would want to talk about how many different types of families there are as well. I would ask the children to bring in pictures of their home and family to share with the class. It would be a great lesson to get to know each other one a new level along with opening our eyes and minds to new things!